I have started my 100 gallon central sump system that may end up running as many as three tanks when it is all said and done. My main tank will stay seperate from the others but the cost of duplicating equipment is just to much to have three seperate systems both in equipment costs and energy consumption. Starting your tank with tap water was a very hottly depated topic several years ago and against several members recomendations I started my system with plain tap water. I had to drain the tank once to fix a leak so it was a good thing that I didn't waist 90 gallons of RO/DI water in my opinion. I hooked up the auto top off today so all water added after this point will be filtered, after six weeks I don't think much of the original water will be left anyway. I had to lower the lights to within about 10 inches of the top of the tank witch gives a maximum PAR of about 600 at the center of the right 400 watt 10,000K metal halide measured at the substrate level. The PAR values range widely over the are where I will be propagating down to about 175 on the far Left. (The PAR values are all in micromoles/s/m^2) It will be very interesting to see how different corals react as they are acclimated to different light levels. It was also worth noting that the two halides that are over the tank are being lite by a single magnetic ballast and you can visually see how different the light output is for each witch also reflects in a difference in PAR values for each. I think that this will end up being a good thing for my propagation efforts because of the wide range of light levels that the two light levels produce. Since it is cold I will be taking the chiller off of my other tank and hooking it up in the center space under the sump. Hopefully it will not warm up to much in the next month before the system has cycled and I can get everything moved over. Float Switches
