Don't laugh... All I have is a tank... and a dream (nightmare?)

Remember that canisters are designed with the primary purpose of pulling particles from the water column.

Let us not forget that all those beautiful little flowery shaped polyps are for what?

Beuller, beuller? anyone?

Pulling plankton from the water column, for the most part----cool huh.
but if we remove those granted "agreeably unpleasent" particles for asthetic purposes, well it may not kill em but it sure could starve them, causing all kinds of symtoms.

contrlolling nutrients is better than adding them and then trying to fish them back out again.


Food for thought.
 
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T5's are fairly cool, quite light weight, last 12-15 months, come in an amazing variety of flavors/colors and are relatively easy on the wallet.

deep sigh.
 
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Most beautiful picture/tank (color and growth wise) I have ever seen was a tank in an issue of Coral Magazine-->
Dec 2006 Vol, 3 Num. 6.

It is a 220 sps and it has a huge turnover rate (40+x), T5's only, skimmer and deep sand bed. That's it.
 
Kentanner... I'm really leaning towards a sump... can you give me a ballpark estimate... how much more would I spend doing a sump/fuge system vs. what I would need to be in operation for my tank without (I'm thinking a remora skimmer??? and some powerheads?... I dunno.)

Jeepers... so you think I could actually do the hard corals if I put them high? This is of course, a longer range goal. I really just haven't really thought about fish (but I was advised to consider them now). I just wanted to take some notes. I'm more interested in starting with the corals. It looks like the xenia spread quickly. Since your 75 is close to my 63, (and on a cheap-moderate budget) what skimmers (hang on back and for a sump) would be realistic? How much turnover do you have?

Great information senatormoe31. Thank you. T5's are what I was searching for (a lot of great people helping that decision... thanks everyone!) Of course, when I finally made a decision, a great (actually screaming deal) price in a (1 month old) CF hood gave me a new direction with lighting. Unless I find a super deal that is somewhat similar to the new hood, I start with these. I just have to start on my rock right now. I'm sure I could sell this for practically what I got it for if there's another deal around. That was a question... carbon or no carbon... but I think your advice is great to do it off/on. A deep sand bed? I've heard positives and negatives.
 
My 75 does not have a sump. I run a #3 and two #2 Koriala power heads. I bought a Turboflotor multi skimmer so I could upgrade, which I am doing now. Also, the turboflotor multi can be used in sump or hang on back. Right now I am running it as a hang on back but once I finish my upgrade it will be in the sump. A friend of mine ran the same model i have on her 220 until she had a very high bioload, then she got a bigger skimmer. I also have a canister filter that I run carbon through all the time. I don't remember how much flow I have but I know it is a lot ha-ha.

If you are interested in building a sump I just built one for the 120 I am setting up. I bought a 40 breeder on sale for 60 bucks, you can find one cheaper used if you look long enough. All the glass ran me 24 bucks, that is cut and sanded. All that was left is the pump and plumbing stuff. I bought a used tank so I did not have to buy all the extras except for the return pump. I am running a mag-drive 12 for my return. You can click on my little red house to see what my sump looks like. The bad thing about DIY is that it does not look as pretty as something you would buy. However it cost me about 1/4 as much as buying one that is pre-assembled.

The depth of water is what stops most of the light. That is why when you have a 20 gallon tank you don't need as much water as a 300 gallon tank. So, if you have coral up high the light will not have to travel through the tough water as far. The shorter the distance the stronger the light. I am not saying you will want power compacts but you won't need a 250 watt MH or 6 tubes of T5s if you are going to have them 4 inches from the top of the water. My two biggest expenses were my lights and my skimmer. If I had to do it over again, they would still be my biggest expense :)
 
It depends on the size of your stand, I havent made a tank out of acrylic/ or glass but if something goes wrong you need to start over. Here is the question of money or time. You can buy a pre-built tank, *more money* ( I use a 29g. for my sump, and a 10g for my fuge) or you might be able to build your own sump and have it fit like a glove in your stand and get more gal. out of it. but this takes *more time*

I like a sump cause all your stuff can be hidden in there rather than in your tank. (heaters, skimmers, reactors. etc.)
If you didnt have a sump than you would need to have a hang on the back skimmer, ( I would use a hang on the back fuge), power filter/canister.
The thing is that with the more thing that are hanging on the back the harder it is to get to it for mantience and your tank will have to be farther from the wall.
 
I'm a little confused... you can have a refugium/skimmer that hangs off of the back? Are they both part of one, or two separates things?

I like the idea of an interchangable skimmer. I might have to look to the future. Are hang on the back skimmers loud?

Went to your thread. Nice woodworking! Would you do anything differently? Won't your refugium be blown to bits with the flow or are you going to fill it with a lot of rock? The refugium needs lighting right?
 
Kentanner is right about the issues of having lots of things hang off the back. The refugium is often separate from the skimmer. I have seen some refugiums with a skimmer built into it but the quality of the skimmer is very poor. The hang on back refugiums are good in that the pods will not die by the pressure of the return pumps, an issue you have with a refugium under the tank. I had read an article at school talking about how many pods survive the pressure of pumps. The article showed that up to 90% of the pods were killed by the pressure. I didn't believe this prior to the article. If you think about it, you can squish a pod very easy with the pressure of your finger, now just imagine the pressure in a pump pushing 900-1200 gallons of water an hour. Having your refugium above the tank you don't have this problem as gravity will do the work for you.

The noise of the simmer is VERY low. I hear the fans on my lights way more than the skimmer. Keep searching threads on here and you will find a steal of a deal on one. Someone is always having to move, so they are always selling majority if not all the pieces to their tank.

I am not going to have sand in my refugium because of the high flow. I want macro algae and rocks. The high flow will be good for the macro algae I want because it will make the algae spin and get light on all sides for growth. The point of my refugium is to reduce algae in the display tank. That is why I made my bubble box the way I did. I want the high flow to turn and move the algae so I don't have to place a power head in there to do it. Yes, I will have a light above my refugium to make the macro algae grow.
 
I havent started it yet, hopefully will begin it next week. There was a thread on the DIY section that I got my inspiration from, but I am just using some DIY venturis and old powerheads laying around.
 
Thanks! Tell me if this is a sound idea. I'm pretty much sold on building a sump/fuge. I was thinking I could build one from a 20 Long or 29 tank. How much physical space should be planned for the skimmer section?

Here's an even CRAZIER idea... will this work?
If it were a 29, could I go right next to the intake, the skimmer, chiller/heater, then return pump section and THEN (here's the crazy part) the fuge part with a wall just a few inches high allowing for water exchange. Here's my crazy thinking... I was also going to make a small QT area (complete separate filtration), and I was going to put lighting over it. I was thinking of planning lighting to cover both the fuge & QT. Although the flow wouldn't go through the fuge before it returned, a low wall would have to exchange a good deal of water AND it would be unaffected by pressure.
 
Fogive me... still learning... How much flow should go through the sump in a reef system? For instance in the 63 aiming for 20x turnover the aim is 1260gph. Would that be too much? What about 2700gph?

Or (as advised 20x flow) was the advice for total flow factoring in, lets say, powerheads? If this is the case, what flow rate should go through the sump?
 
you want ( what i would use) is 20 X turn over in the tank, (powerheads CL) and you want 10-15 turn over rate in the sump. so you would want to have 630-945 gph going through your sump I would maby go 700gph, but that does seem a little high, but than again.
 
I good rule of thumb that I heard at a chicago conference was that 3x the tank volume per hour at a min. for flow through the sump. more if ness.
 
I see... things are making a little more sense now. Just to re-iterate:

Following Kentanner's advice: as far as the sump pump goes, I'll be searching for 600 to 1000gph range category (give or take) and I'll start looking for a 700+gph powerhead to aim for the 20x (or more) rate for the 63gal tank.

Following senatormoe31's advice: I should be searching for at least a 189gph (3x) at a minimum (at least its a general target... I read ya), and therefore a 1000gph powerhead in the tank to be close (smidgen under)to the 20x rate.

Putting both of your inputs together... I should look for ABOUT a 400gph sump pump (I'll look for 500 because of the pumping agains gravity factor) and I'll look for around a 900gph powerhead which will be around the 20x (1260gph) target. Are these pretty sound?

Thank you for your help by the way! Any other great advice?
 
heres a tip, you wouldnt want a 900 or 1000 gph powerhead cause the poor fish will be blown against the side of the tank. you would want to have more than one pointed in all different directions to add up to 900 or 1000 gph.
 
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