Advice on a 300 dd starfire build

[CRAZYFIZH]

I am getting ready to do a 300 ddhear is my thoughts

300 gallon dd
eather two 2' drains or four 1'drains
hammerhead pump for main filtration
cl system whith ocean motion
dart pump for cl syatem
90 gallon sump
40 gallom fuge
2 400 wt mh 20k bulbs
auto top off and auto water change
100 gallon a day rodi system
2 220 coral life skimmers
12xtwist uv


any thoughts on changing anything
still waiting on tank and stand

[PJtree23]

either two 2' drains or four 1'drains



What do you mean by this?

[jdpiii3]

Think he ment two 2" inch drains or 4 1"inch drains.

look at this chart
http://flexpvc.com/WaterFlowBasedOnPipeSize.shtml

A 1" drain will have a flow of 960 gph x 4 = 3840 gph and a 2" drain will have a flow of 3300gph x2 = 6600gph

[Hal]

You need to decide:

1. euro or conventional bracing for the tank. If euro, are you going to drill it for the closed loop return?
2. center, corner or end overflow location
3. any backing for the tank (blue or black?)

Personally I'd go with 4x 1.5 inch holes for a tank that size. A 2 inch drain is pretty darn big. I just paid for a 260g tank from Miracles in Glass and they recommended the 1.5 inch holes. They were considering 1 inch holes too, just to give you perspective. Remember, the drain should really only handle the waterflow that is required by your skimmer and any reactors; it's not meant for circulation in large tanks. The noise would be unbearable if you're putting 6000gph through your overflow.

Use 2 holes for drains and 1 for a return, then use the fourth for a dry conduit for the wiring for your lighting or as a spare drain/return. Look up the "Herbie" overflow for a perfectly silent drain that uses 2drains and 1 return.

If it were me I'd skip the UV, but definitely add a carbon and GFO reactor. I'd also add a kalkwasser reactor hooked up to my auto-topoff. Are you going to dose vodka or use carbon-pellets?

[CRAZYFIZH]

Jpdiii3
that is what i was trying to decie
thanks for the chart

[CRAZYFIZH]

Hal
just thinking of not having the same problem in the three hundred that i had in my 500.i have a total of 3.5' of total drain and i am pushing the drains to the limit with the pump i have. Was leaning tored using the drain holes.
Was going to use carbon and gfo but have not decided on what to dose with

[cougaran]

I'm guessing you are talking about a marineland 300gal deep dimensions tank..It comes with the 4x1" drain holes or return. Anyway Drilling them factory would cost more, any aftermarket drilling would void the warranty. I'm guessing your initial question for the flow experts is if you were to use all 4x1" as drains, would you be able to use a "y" pipe into a 2" pipe and what kind of flow would you be looking at... And if not I'm kinda curious myself as to which would be better for a protein skimmer as I will be setting one of these tanks up soon and have like zero experience with skimmers.

[CRAZYFIZH]

Yes marineladn 300 gall deep dimension
would like the factory to drill the overflows for 2' drains and drill the closed loop for warranty.tring to make up my mind if i want 4x1' drains or 2x2'drains.plain on running a hammerhead (5800 gph) for main filtration and a dart (3600) for the closed loop think ing about using my coralife skimmers for now and then going to look into reef dynamics simmer.

[cougaran]

I seem to remember when I bought mine that anything beyond the normal production build was so expensive making it too cost prohibitive to have them drill it. Also note on that tank you have to buy their stand for the tank warranty.

[CRAZYFIZH]

cougaran
if you do not mind me asking how much did you pay for yours

[gveng]

tank warranties are worthless.

[cougaran]

cougaran
if you do not mind me asking how much did you pay for yours

TOO much... It was a while back now but I was over 3K with it, I had managed to hit a sale with it..

[cougaran]

tank warranties are worthless.

not quite, Reputable dealers you at least have some course of action. I dont recall what the exact warranty on the tank was, but If you buy a tank and setup soon after with their stand, if anything happens they owe you a new tank...

[prop-frags]

Perfecto/Marineland is not in the business of making custom tanks. Yes, they will do it, but it is expensive and the warranty is only for 6 months. We just went thru a warranty issue with them a couple of months ago on our replacement 300dd tank.