That's for filtration and refugium, or both.Check out the InTank products. In my 3rd chamber I have their Media Basket and Fuge Basket (the latter has chaeto and a light that comes on opposite the lights in the main tank). Some skimmers will only fit there, too.
Yikes, thats like $100, not including the bags of chemipure and etc..
Do you know of an alternative
Just build them out of egg crate!
Nitrates have
My tank is really new so this may or may not mean anything. I'm using floss (changed out as soon as it's grungy), purigen, Chemi-pure Elite, and extra GFO as well as chaeto in the back and in a soap dish in the DT. Oh, and a small skimmer (AquaticLife 115). I have 2 nassarius snails for the shallow sand bed and 8 assorted other snails. Other than an initial diatom bloom that the snails handled magnificently, I have yet to see the dreaded new tank algae bloom. I have green coralline, but no green algae yet and crystal clear water (changing 20% weekly and I buy my water from a great coral store so it's always the same). We'll see how it goes.
It's only been a couple of weeks but I had virtually no cycle and added the CUC (snails) after a few days and then a YWG, pistol shrimp, and sally lightfoot crab the weekend before last. Also have a bunch of very happy feather dusters and added the first coral frags on Saturday. So far all good, while I am probably losing 2 of the 3 xenia frags (they were unceremoniously ripped by hand from an outdoor tank, sat in a deli cup for 2 hours and were then superglued to rocks - rough day!) the third xenia seems to have taken it in stride and the GSP frag I bought the same day was open in the morning and seems happy, as well as the red monti cap and green birds nest frags.
I have an AquaticLife 115 in chamber 1 and while it seems to have its ups and downs, it is producing a watery skimmate, with lots of buildup in the neck and outside of the cone. The ATO seems to help a lot with not having to adjust it as much as when I was topping off manually.
I'm on the fence about keeping it though - it feels like anything that comes through the intake is going to hit the skimmer pump first which probably isn't good, and I think I would get better water flow if it wasn't there (the flow diverter that comes with InTank's media basket helps a lot though). Ideally it would go in chamber 2 after the media basket/floss but then I'd have to give up the fuge. Not sure at this point whether I'm getting enough benefit from the skimmer or not. My water's really clear though, so for now I'm not doing anything.
Edit: Whoops, I see I started writing something about nitrates... They've been hovering around 5-10ppm. Need to retest, and for phosphate too which was .14 when I started the tank.
They are nothing but a detritus trap and over time will cause you a lot of problems!
I think you can remove the tab between 1/2 even without a media basket, but you should get the bioballs out of there. Even the Biocube instructions say not to use them for reefs.
As for the tab, it's really easy to remove. I used a serrated steak knife to cut straight down next to the wall and then snapped it out. Watch InTank's video about the media basket, etc - they show you how to do it. I've also removed all of the false floors in chambers 1 & 2. When I took them out there was a TON of dried detritus down there from the first owner.
I think you can remove the tab between 1/2 even without a media basket, but you should get the bioballs out of there. Even the Biocube instructions say not to use them for reefs.
As for the tab, it's really easy to remove. I used a serrated steak knife to cut straight down next to the wall and then snapped it out. Watch InTank's video about the media basket, etc - they show you how to do it. I've also removed all of the false floors in chambers 1 & 2. When I took them out there was a TON of dried detritus down there from the first owner.
Awesome, thanks for all the help. Media basket ordered.I'm just using the cheap bagged stuff and changing it out every couple of days. When it runs out I'll pick up polyester quilt batting at the fabric store - it comes in sheets and I've seen it mentioned as working better (you can cut it to size, less loose fibers). Funny because I used to have tons of the stuff for quilting, but now I gotta go buy it.
