20 Gal Tall at 6 Months
- Thread starter moonyguy
- Start date
All most. Goby has moved so much sand that a lot of rocks have moved since I first put them in. She is always busy looking for something or the other. Lucky me...she started eating both dry pellets and frozen food...so she doesnt have to depend on the sand for all her needs.
SFMMcoasters
New member
What is the red on the back wall?
clowninaround74
New member
where did you get the lighting and its 24" right? im thinking about upgrading my 24g AP to T-5 but cant find a 20" in fixture so i might have to go with a 24"
Thanks a lot Sarah. The key to sucess has been to keep it as simple as possible. I had very little money to start with so 80% of the rock...almost 20lbs is dead rock. I got 4-5lbs of live rock and seeded it. It took me a long time to see any life or coraline on the dead rock....so people trying to use lots of dead rock need to be a little patient. Apart from water changes every 2 weeks and dosing kalkwassar for top off (Mrs Wages Pickling Lime) there is nothing I do except watch my tank for hours every day. I feed a lot and initially I had some nitrate problems. Then I got rid of every type of media pads in my sump and tank and the problem went away!
Herostar: My sump is a regular 10 gal tank that I had as a FW before I made the 20 gal SW. I have included a couple of old shots below of my setup. In the first image you can see the whole sump. On the right I have the overflow from the tank coming in (black tube). I am using a nylon sock around the tube to get rid of any bubbles. That section is 5 inchs across. On the back side of the same section I have the skimmer pump and return. I am using a Coralife Superskimmer 65 as HOB (you can see it better in the next picture). The baffles you see between this section and the refugium are about 1 inch apart from each other. Between these baffles I have a coarse filter material to trap any more air bubbles, phosphate absorption pads and activated carbon. This cuts into the amount of water that flows through the baffles. I have since removed the coarse filter material as it had become a nitrate factory...at least removing it solved the problem.
The refugium itself if about 7 inches across. I am using a 25 w fluoracent 6500K blub in a hood that came with 1.6 gal hex from walmart (~$20 for whole hex tank). The return section is about 5 inches across and has a Mag 7 (its a little overkill). I have a ball valve to control the flow. In the same section you see a white plastic float switch. This is an autotop off system I got off the internet for about 40$. It has two switches so if one fails the other is supposed to act as backup. The white flexible tube you see coming into the refugium to the right is from the topoff pump. Every 15 days I mix about 10 gals of Kalkwater and store it in a transparent dustbin that lasts me 2 weeks.
Thats the basic setup. If I was doing this over again I would do a few things differently. First I would have the skimmer inside the sump. This helps to prevent flooding in case the skimmer goes crazy. In my case the space between the sump and the display was very less so my skimmer did not fit in. Next I would have got a smaller pump than a Mag 9 and added a SQWD between my pump and tank return. The key I learned is to balance the overflow and return. In my case I could use the ball valve on the return pump or lower/raise the overflow box inside the tank to control how much water needs to be taken out. The last thing are the baffles. I used acrylic baffles that were precut and sold at Lowes for like $2.50 and they fit exact for a 10 gal without any cutting. But they were a little too thin so your walls will bend a little when you have a lot of water. I would go for thicker baffles.
al aziz85: I frist used Kent Marine Kalkwasser powder but it was a little too expensive for my student salary. Now I used Mrs Wages Pickleing Lime. It costs me $2.50 for a large jar and I am still using the one I got 3 months ago. I mix once every 15 days about 10 gallons. I add about 1 tsp per gallon for RO/DI water. I found this ratio by testing how much calcium intake was there in my tank and how much kalk was needed to maintain a certain a level. I simply use the Kalk water to top off. So the top off pump adds it whenever the sump level goes down...about 15 times a day in small doses.
Hope that helps
Vishnu
The refugium itself if about 7 inches across. I am using a 25 w fluoracent 6500K blub in a hood that came with 1.6 gal hex from walmart (~$20 for whole hex tank). The return section is about 5 inches across and has a Mag 7 (its a little overkill). I have a ball valve to control the flow. In the same section you see a white plastic float switch. This is an autotop off system I got off the internet for about 40$. It has two switches so if one fails the other is supposed to act as backup. The white flexible tube you see coming into the refugium to the right is from the topoff pump. Every 15 days I mix about 10 gals of Kalkwater and store it in a transparent dustbin that lasts me 2 weeks.
Thats the basic setup. If I was doing this over again I would do a few things differently. First I would have the skimmer inside the sump. This helps to prevent flooding in case the skimmer goes crazy. In my case the space between the sump and the display was very less so my skimmer did not fit in. Next I would have got a smaller pump than a Mag 9 and added a SQWD between my pump and tank return. The key I learned is to balance the overflow and return. In my case I could use the ball valve on the return pump or lower/raise the overflow box inside the tank to control how much water needs to be taken out. The last thing are the baffles. I used acrylic baffles that were precut and sold at Lowes for like $2.50 and they fit exact for a 10 gal without any cutting. But they were a little too thin so your walls will bend a little when you have a lot of water. I would go for thicker baffles.
al aziz85: I frist used Kent Marine Kalkwasser powder but it was a little too expensive for my student salary. Now I used Mrs Wages Pickleing Lime. It costs me $2.50 for a large jar and I am still using the one I got 3 months ago. I mix once every 15 days about 10 gallons. I add about 1 tsp per gallon for RO/DI water. I found this ratio by testing how much calcium intake was there in my tank and how much kalk was needed to maintain a certain a level. I simply use the Kalk water to top off. So the top off pump adds it whenever the sump level goes down...about 15 times a day in small doses.
Hope that helps
Vishnu
