Thanks for the feedback. That is interesting advice. I have heard a number of pros and cons to the filter socks. My intent is to replace them regularly so they dont become an issue but truth be told, I am not a maintenance person so I could see myself burning out on that as well. I will definately want to use them in the short term as they will give me a place to put my bio balls while I ween them out of the tank. My sump has mostly live rock with some bio balls in it.
My system has 45 or so fish in it. Right now, I am seeing a nitrate issue. My concern is the effect that removing my existing wet dry will have on the system in short term. Initially, the new sump will get all of the old sumps live rock. I will be adding 100 pounds of figi live rock mud that was removed from a large system, 4 pounds of chaeto and a dozen or so mangroves to the new fuge. This will go in when I do the switch. With a little luck, the new fuge additions will circumvent any negative biological spikes resulting from removal of the original wet dry sump. Just to be safe, I think it might be a good idea to rinse my bio balls and throw them into the socks instead of removing them all at one time.
As for long term use of the socks.. There will be high flow in the first sump as well as a good skimmer. Given that, I may not need to socks at all however as I do have a pretty healthy fish population, there is a substantial amount of food that goes into the tank on a daily basis. It is my thought that if I can filter out the excess food that goes through the overflow, it will spare the system unnecessary waste.
I would certainly like to hear yours as well as other thoughts on the above..
