150 Tall - Opinions Experiences

[kirkwood]

Looking for feedback from those of you that have had 150's or seen them in action. Pros, cons, or a full on SWOT analysis. Thanks.


My story -
I am considering various upgrade options with the one fixture being my existing 48 x 24 footprint.. Basically leaves me with a 60, 80, 120, and 150. I had a 120 so I know what that is all about, and I currently have a 60. I have seen Renoeb's 80 rimless, which is very nice, but I'm not going to do all the work just to add 6"s. In some arenas adding 6"s would be a big deal - just not for my tank. LOL

I initially thought the only upgrade option was to get a new 120 but then I started thinking about going as big as possible which took me to the 150. I like the idea of all that viewing area from the couch and the extra water volume and swimming space for more fish, plus extra room at the top for coral growth. What I don't like when thinking about the 150 is how far I have to reach in to clean the bottom of the glass or place things at the bottom of the tank. I'm tall with long arms and never had an issue handling my 120. The second thing I don't like is how difficult it would be to handle the wiring behind the tank. This was always my biggest annoyance with the 120 when it came to lights and cleaning power heads.

 

[jp30338]

I just put up my 150 tall a few days ago and I love it! There is just soo much room to do some awesome rockwork and you can stack it up high if you like as well. It also gives the fish a lot more room to swim around, as I have my rockwork in a island style, this way there is plenty of areas all around for the livestock to hang out and allows plenty of height for them as well.

The only downside is if you lose a frag down in a place that is tough to reach, you might as well forget about it since it is difficult to reach the bottom of the tank.

I had a small 2 head of frogspawn that fell in the rockwork smack in the middle of the tank, and well it just has to stay down there...

The only other tank size I would go for is a 180g and up if you can, otherwise the small footprint of a 150 tall is great! Just have a small ladder or fold out stool thing to stand on.

 

[jp30338]

Some pics of mine

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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[outdrsyguy1]

how many inches tall is the 150? I have a 110 tall and i'm wondering how it compares height wise

 

[jp30338]

its 30 inches, I think the same height as a 110.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

my 110 is 29" tall, i have about 1/2 - 1" of sand and i'm 6'3" tall. If i cram the rim into my armpit I can get my finger tips just barely to the sand to pick up things (sometimes I wonder about my deodorant getting in the tank lol). The 24"+ grabbers really come in handy but if it's not a straight shot, forget it, it's gone. That's the only thing I don't like. Love the height visually, might need to up your lights a little due to increased depth but it's not too bad. Gives you room to put your powerheads up top if you want to run a gyre flow pattern without blasting things.
I'll post a pic of mine so you can see, i run a clockwise and counter/clockwise gyre for flow which switches every few minutes. I'll try to take a pic each direction so you can see.

In summary love the height, sucks when you can't reach stuff, but it's only happened once or twice in 2 years. The height is much more visibly impressive though.

 

[demifelix]

I have a 150 for 5 years and I hate it just because my arm is short and can't reach anything at the bottom. If my arm is just a couple inches longer then this tank is great. I also don't like the 18" depth either. Not much room for rock work. Lastly, unless you do mostly lps, you will have some difficulty adjusting light and corals. I think only MH 250W can penetrate all the way to the bottom at around 150 PAR, 400 PAR around the middle, and 700 PAR at the surface. I would trade for anything with more depth and less height in a heartbeat.

 

[jp30338]

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Here's my 250w halides about 5 inches off the surface


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[outdrsyguy1]

Pics of my 110 tall as best as my iPhone can do.

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[tonymission]

I like shallow tanks so take this with a grain of salt obviously.

Tall tanks are probably great for a mixed reef because you're going to have huge variation in par in the tank. You'll have to utilize the upper region which can lead to the good ol "wall of rock" old school scaping to find par suitable for your sticks. Going to leave a lot of room below that you'll have to fill with everything else.

Or you adjust your lights to give par to the middle of the tank and you end up not really using the top half of the tank anyway. When my old tank was scaped this way I can tell you most of the fish are more around the rock work and aren't usually utilizing the top half.

I know you like sticks (still have yours, thanks!!) and think shallow is better if you're going to be SPS dominant. More usable par from top to bottom. Length and front to back depth is where I would try to go bigger if I were you. I'm working on a 60x30x20 build myself.

 

[skyking]

I'm a tall guy also and still have difficulty reaching the bottom of my tank. But, thats what the grabbers are for. Just be careful not to let anything fall behind the rock work or its a bear to get out. The viewing area is awesome. After all, thats why we keep tanks right? And, the fish love to be able to swim up and down the entire water column. As far as depth is concerned, its nice not having a tank stick so far out into the room so the 150 tall is perfect for smaller spaces.

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