??? has anyone setup a hex tank??? any advice is appreciated

[envy]

Has anyone setup a 33 gallon hex tank or hex tank in general as a reef tank? If so what lighting would you recommend to make sure it reaches the bottom and type of flow for water movement. Plan is to have softies with maybe a couple of fish. Thank you in advance for the advice.

[MadReefer]

how tall will the water level be from bottom of sandbed to top of water? that plays the roll on what/ how powerfull of lighting you will need.

rule of thumb from Thaan at Tidalgardens:


Low Light translates to about 30-50 PAR

Medium Light is between 50-150 PAR

High Light is anything over 150 PAR

[Kristy]

Hey envy, we have a hex tank although it's a 20g, but they definitely have some unique lighting and flow factors. I believe the footprint of the 33g hex is just a little bigger all the way around but similar height.

We initially lit this tank for a long time with a clip-on 150w MH and that did pretty well but it's a much sleeker look now with a UFO LED fixture suspended above it. That fixture was made for this size/shape of tank. I am sure it could handle the 33g beautifully too, although if you are only looking to grow softies, it might be more light than you are looking for.

Flow is the tricky thing about this tank. We have a couple of different things going on. We don't have any sump or fuge on this tank, so we have a 100g capacity canister filter on it with a nice vertical spray bar for its return. We also have a little HOB filter that adds a bit of agitation and flow. But I still worried about it getting enough oxygenation, so what worked best is to point our little powerhead diagonally up through the water to agitate the surface. This combination helps a lot.

The tank is super easy and low maintenance for us. We keep saying we are going to tear it down and just have two tanks, but can't seem to part with this sweet little easy tank and its cute little colorful inhabitants who would be lost in our bigger tanks.

[allan]

And, Kristy, you've had that tank up for years, right?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kristy]

Yeah, we set up a 10g hex on New Year's Day 2007 (it was Mike's New Year's resolution to try saltwater and we had the little hex in the garage from FW days). Then a year later we upgraded it, moving over a the rock and adding a bit, to the 20g hex and it's been going strong ever since! We actually reworked it about a month ago, pulled out a thousand stupid Kenya trees and I'm loving that tank again, apart from the cyano bloom after stirring up the tank so bad and removing some bio-filtration, etc. in the process.

And in case more specifics were wanted on the light fixture: UFO 60w LED by Evolution. Bought it from Reefkoi.

[Gseclipse02]

one of my customers has a 85g? hex Louis from elegant reef switched out the optics on an AI sol for me and the corals seem to be doing great everything adjusted just fine

[reefreak]

I had an 85 gallon hex I lit it with t5's grew softies in it my dad broke it down in like 2010

[ramsey]

I think hex tanks are neat. You don't see them as reefs very often. I think kristy is spot on saying that flow would be an issue you'd have to think about. I wonder if you could get a nice gyre going in it if your scape was in the middle? That would be sick! Also, we'll need pictures! Good luck!

[envy]

@kristy can you post up a picture of the hex tank thank you

[Kristy]

Sure I will try to snap some pics tonight.