110 build ?s

Im setting up a 110g reef tank its gonna be LPS and Soft coral dominate atm and was wondering what would be the best lighting to get without leds. i currently have a 250w HQI metal halide but i wanna upgrade the light?

Should i go bare bottom or DSB?

What equipment is a must to have other than a skimmer heater and wavemakers powerheads etc?

I was lookin at garfs ideas on tank setups and also was wondering if those really work or not

 

Welcome to 3reef. A T5HO fixture would be a good option for your lighting. Please post your tank dimensions so I can understand better which type of fixture you would need.

The sand bottom is your choice and should be based on your intended amount of time for maintenance. The DSB will need to be stirred by poking a tube into the sand, putting your thumb on the top of the tube, lifting up the tube so the base is just above sand level and then releasing your thumb to let the sand fall back in place. This prevents you tank from being poisoned it the sand bed gets disturbed well down the line. You would need to do 1/4 of the sand bed weekly.

You would need no other equipment.

The GARF ideas are used by them and most of the folk who subscribe to their forums. They are just another method of maintaining a tank out of the many that are available and effective.

 

Basically i want a kinda low maintenance reef i use to have one a few years ago and it did great but not this large. Also would the T5HO reach the bottom of the tank with the same intensity as the first few inches

 

No but then no light will.

What are the dimensions of the tank? Is it a 110tall?

 

its 48" long 18"wide 31" tall basically want to know if i decided to put lps on the bottom or some softys they would grow well

 

A high quality 4 bulb T5HO unit will take care of you. Look at ATI or Tek fixtures or get a retrofit kit from those manufacturers or Hellolights.com. I can vouch for the effectiveness of the hellolights kits.