Thanks for the nice comments to. It took me a while to do it all. Little bit every day and it gets done. This is my 3rd tank. Each one gets better than the last, well you hope it does anyway. I tryed to make this one as foolproof as I could.
I use a 5 gallon bucket for my top off instead of running a direct line from my r/o unit for safety reasons. If my float gets stuck open, only 5 gallons can get dumped in. I havent had it happen but I dont think it would be to big of a catastrophy only being 5 gallons. Ive read posts where their auto top off stuck and flooded thier tank with fresh unsalted water thus lowering the salinity WAY low.Like the zoo
Even crash the tank. So 5g at a time is a safety thing.
I even wrapped the float in eggcrate just so my return pump that is sitting right next to the float couldnt be bumped or vibrate over and hold it open.
I run a fluval 404 with carbon 24/7 chamged once a month.
The refuge is lit with 2x55w pc's on 24/7 as well.
If you look in the 1st sump picture you can see the blue filter material I run over my baffles as my mechanical filter. I cut a long piece and sink it in the sump so that just the top is draped over the baffles. All the water must go thru this filter to return to the tank. Every day all I have to do is pull it up an inch and the crap is out of the water and a new area of the filter is there. Kinda hard to explain but works VERY well. Once ive pulled the filter all the way up day by day till it cant be pulled up any more I clean it, let it dry then put it back. I have 2 on rotation. Lasts about a week.
I just started to use pollyfill the kind that comes in a big sheet Instead of the blue. I fold it up so its about 4 layers think and place that where the blue usually is. It cloged up really fast for the first few days but now it has scrubbed my water so clean it dosnt clog as fast and im pulling it up every day same as the blue filter except the pollyfill really scrubs EVERYTHING out. My water is super clear. Its IMO the best way to run a filter. The stuff is removed from the water every day so no nitrate factory and only takes a second a day to lift. Once a week cleaning.
All the water in my sump is circulated thru the sump several times before returning to the tank. I think this is a huge plus in this setup. The water enters the sumps first chamber that has my skimmer and my pump for the refuge. The water is returned here
as well from both of them,skimmer and fuge and can be sucked back up by either of them again and again. What water does make it past goes thru my pollyfill/bluefilter material then the bubble trap to the return side of my sump. There is where I pull my fluval from and that is returned back to the first section of my sump to have to go thru the skimmer or fuge or again thru the fluval. Its a never ending circle for some of the water. What does make its way to the return has been going round and round thru the sump several times. I like the setup very much and cant think of anything major that i would change.
