Fuge question

[Reefdiver77]

I sat up a hob fuge last month. I have rubble and placed cheato in there over the weekend. The pump hooked up to the fuge, bringing water into the fuge is a maxijet 1200. I noticed the water level in the fuge was at the very top yesterday and noticed it beginning to overflow. I took the fuge off yesterday and cleaned it good. The rubble and cheato are no restricting the return flow. Nick had me try pulling the return elbow out as far as possible, which did not help. I finally had to turn the pump off. I think possibly the pump is bringing water in faster than it is being returned to the tank. I have a maxijet 800. Would this make any difference? Is there any way to "throttle" the flow down in the 1200, without overheating it? TIA.

 

[scarson61]

Vicki, I have the largest CPR HOB fuge that uses a Maxi-Jet 400 to pump water into it and the flow seems about right.

 

[Gerad]

ya that 1200 is forsing way to much in their. you whant the fuge to run SLOWWWWW. ,ore contact time with the water going through it. if you retard the flow to the 1200 it will get hot and not last just order a small 400 they are cheap

 

[Reefdiver77]

Thanks guys. Guess I will need to get a new pump. I thought that must be the problem!!

 

[neuroslicer]

Your choice of pump should reflect the return flow rate of the fuge. The flow rate of water over the chaeto doesn't matter. Whether water is flowing quickly or slowly over the chaeto, the chaeto is still drawing nitrates and phosphates out of the water at the same rate. I'm not sure using small pieces of rubble will be of any help... a large piece of live rock has lots of internal crevices for anaerobic (nitrate hungry) bacteria to live, but if you break up that large piece into small rubble, much of the oxygen deprived surface area now becomes exposed to water flow and oxygen. The small rubble might even start to act like bioballs and start producing nitrates instead of converting nitrates to nitrogen gas. I'd pull out the rubble and grow a bigger wad of chaeto! Anyone else want to chime in on this?

 

[Reefdiver77]

I double checked the pump on the fuge at the suggestion of my son and it is a rio 600 and not the maxijet 1200. I guess I might need to go down to a 400 or even a 200. Thanks Neuroslicer. I just used the rubble like I did in my previous fuge along with the cheato. This is not a large fuge and it would be hard to get a whole piece of LR in the chamber. Would some live sand also be helpful? I am hoping to not only keep the nitrates down, but to keep the pod population up.

 

[scarson61]

I use my fuge mainly to grow pods and I keep sand on the bottom and Chaeto in it as well. The Chaeto makes for a good breeding grround for pods as well as pull nutrients out. I got this bottle of AquaPods to try when I went to MACNA and this stuff is cool. It has a small colony of Copepods (egg to adult) and you pour this stuff in your refugium. About a week later I had hundreds of copepods swimming like little rockets in my tank. with the Amphipods that were already there it gave me a little more diversity to my microfauna and my 6 line wrasse loves em. I think a bottle runs somewhere between $20 to $25 dollars but well worth it.

 

[aharvey]

How makes this wonderful elixir of copepods?

 

[scarson61]

premium aquatics has them for sale right now for $17.50 and they are called Aquapods

 

[Reefdiver77]

Problem solved. I visited Kermit's yesterday and got a maxiflow 400 and it keeps the water level "just right" on my fuge. Thanks to everyone for their help!!