I just set up a 75 gal and I want to make certain I have enough filtration so in case I end up with a heavy bio-load. I have about 25 pds of live rock and pobably about 30 pds or so of base rock. I have a crushed coral bottom but its just enough to cover the bottom, not even an inch worth. I have a prism skimmer and a marineland rated for about a 30 gal that I run chemi-pure in. What does eveyone think of this? Enough or not? I don't know if should get a bigger skimmer, or get a canister filter or just leave it alone b/c anymore equip would be a waste of money? My parameters right now are fine but I only have 3 small fish inthe tank with mushrooms.
do i have enough filtration?
- Thread starter r0bin
- Start date
kau_cinta_ku
New member
if your wanting a big bioload i would up your LR to 100lbs or so and get a bigger skimmer. i would remove the crushed coral now and replace with sand or you can have prob. later on with nitrates
bjonesjr1
Premium Member
I have a 2"-3" sand bed and I never have to vacuum my sand bed, everything that may land up in the sand, from un eaten food to waste, gets eaten either by my turbo snails, sand sifting snails. blue legged hermit crabs, peppermint shrimp, they do a great job keeping my sand bed nice and clean...
TekCat
New member
I totally agree with kau_cinta_ku. 1 pound of LR per gallon is bare minimum for adequate bio-filtration. I'd shoot for 1.5 lbs per gallon (total=112.5 lbs). You don't have to get LR, base rock will do just fine (unless you can't wait for coralline to cover them).
Definatelly get better skimmer, rated to 150 gallons. In future you might want to add sump/fuge, so your total volume will increase and you wont need to buy yet another skimmer.
Get rid of crushed coral bed. It will trap detrius and you'll be constantly battling undesirable algae growth. As previously stated fine aragonite is the way to go.
Canister filter is a nice thing to have in case you need to polish water or remove various toxins, PO4, etc...
Good luck
Definatelly get better skimmer, rated to 150 gallons. In future you might want to add sump/fuge, so your total volume will increase and you wont need to buy yet another skimmer.
Get rid of crushed coral bed. It will trap detrius and you'll be constantly battling undesirable algae growth. As previously stated fine aragonite is the way to go.
Canister filter is a nice thing to have in case you need to polish water or remove various toxins, PO4, etc...
Good luck
rustybucket145
New member
I'm with them on the crushed coral. You are just setting yourself up for major dissapointment and extra work. If aragonite is to pricey for you some people are using the Old Castle Play Sand available at home depot. You might want to do some research on it.
kau_cinta_ku
New member
wash it off real well and dup it in around the rocks. you will get a cloud for a few days but the bacteria will make it heavy soit will dissapear
Alaskan Reefer
New member
You need more filtration. Since you're sumpless a bunch more LR or a Deltec MCE600 is what I'd do. Feed sparingly for now, keep up on the water changes. You can modify the Prizm by adding a wooden airstone with pump to the reaction chamber -- that helped mine quite a bit years ago.
