Filtration

[undeadmoto]

I am in the build phase of a 75g drilled sps dom tank. I am looking at having primoreefacrylics.com build me a sump to fit the stand. My question is can I go all natural filtraion. I would have an eshopps s-300 skimmer good for 150g heavy load or 250g light load. Then a refugium chaeto/LR/DSB and then possibly some chemipure blue. Would this be enough to keep the tank clean for sps or would I be limited and have to buy a reactor?

 

[Bpb]

Literally every single tank is different and your source rock will have a huge impact on inorganic nutrient content (waste) for the first couple years. Your plan is a fine start, it may or may not be enough. It's never a bad idea to have a couple media reactors on standby anyway. I don't run carbon or gfo, but I like to have plenty on hand in case I do need to

 

[toothman]

not a big fan of over sized skimmers or dsb even in sump or refuge. Rather a loaded question do you plan to carbon dose, if not gfo is a good idea. Fauna marin makes some great products, for me works better than zeovit which I have used in the past. If I were to set up a new tank I would have great turnover in closed loop, moderate skimming, shallow sand bed and dose fauna marin ultra min s and fauna marin organics, and bacteria and add K chloride to my 3 part dosing.

Picture of my tank re set up for 6 months. You can see good encrusting of the spathulata and the red planet was already divided into 3 small colonies from a 1 inch frag.



PICUTRE OF OLD SET UP USING SIMILAR METHOD, PRIOR TO HAVING A FLATWORM DISASTER.

 

[undeadmoto]

Can I ask why an oversized skimmer would not be better then gfo or others

 

[toothman]

Skimmer is not specifically geared toward removing phosphate. Carbon dosing and gfo are. Acros from my experience really need much more food that most think. Over skimming can remove too many nutrients and aminos. A oversized skimmer is fine if you have a ton of fish, dsb or some type of heavy bioload. I have my bubble king deluxe 300 sitting on a shelf in the basement not in use I felt it was oversized for my 500 gallon system, it is rated for 3 to 7 hundred gallons.

 

[undeadmoto]

so if i was to do a DSB in DT and in refuge plus have say 10 fish in the 75 then over sized would be good but if i go minimal sand bed and only 7 fish or less then i should go with like a psk 150 ment for up to 100g 75 heavy load.

 

[toothman]

I had a dsb in a 55 gallon refuge attached to my main system. In general I had higher nitrate than I wanted and nutrients in general. I decided to keep the 55 running but detach it from my main system, keeping the dsb and chaeto intact. After a couple of months of isolation I decided to test the dsb refuge for nutrients. The result surprised me, they were the same as to months ago with out any feeding or fish in the tank. With this result I made me think really hard if a dsb really does anything. Another point dsb's generally fail after about 2 yrs and add more back than take out. I like chaeto, but be careful to add potassium, chaeto will deplete it quickly.

you would best set up a tank for long term stability with no dsb, very little substrate, and some chaeto in the sump. Carbon dosing is also very effective at keeping parameters in check. More is not always better, I do like a lot of live rock and recommend you also fill your voids in sump with live rock. Really the more you have the better. People say chaeto dies with carbon dosing but with a strong light it does live and grow slow. It is good place for pods to multiply.

Think more about carbon dosing compared to chaeto, gfo, refuge. http://static.faunamarin.de/manuals/ZEO-Light-lite_EN.pdf