We have had a 90 gallon reef tank up and running since last Summer. It has a 30 gallon three chamber sump with a skimmer in chamber one, small 12'x12' fuge in the center and the third chamber is the return with GFO reactor. We have been real lucky and so far our corals and fish are thriving.
I realized our fuge chamber was too small to grow enough pods to support a mandarin goby, so I bought a $40 PETCO 40 gallon breeder tank. I drilled the upper left corner for a bulkhead drain and fabricate an acrylic overflow box. On the right side I made a 1/2" CPVC "spray bar" with 8 holes drilled, evenly spaced to provide gentle even flow across the fuge. There is a 300GPH pump in chamber one of my sump pumping water up to the fuge and gravity drains it back to chamber two, where there is alge and oolithic sand. I am running 60 watt 6500K bulbs over both fuge sections and my chaeto is growing great. Even with the GFO pulling nutrients it is growing great and I harvest a clump each month and discard it.
I read for two days straight about the pros/cons of deep sand beds and decided to try it out in the breeder fuge. If it goes south I can always unplug the pump and deal with it without harming my main reef system.
So after speaking with people who are running DSB I came up with the following design. I placed the established live rock on the sides and rested it on the bottom glass. I then added 7 bags of fuji pink, rinsed live sand and seeded it with 4 cups sand from my reef. I added 10 Nassarius sand stirring snails and 4 peppermint shrimp, on the recommendation of a RC member. There is a feather duster worm, 3" Conch Snail, a sponge, and 2000 pods I got from reefs2go.com
So here are a few questions I had:
1. Was I right to place the rock below the sand bed level? I read that rocks on top of a DSB inhibit the release of gas due to the weight. I figured it best to place the rock and back fill sand around it.
2. Do I need to "feed" the shrimp and snails in the fuge? I thought they would starve so I have been adding about 8-10 pellets of food a day to the huge and the shrimp and snails seem to consume it in 5 minutes.
I was worried about adding food to the huge because the simple overflow design means that detritus and waste would sit on the sand bed and maybe build up and contribute to nitrates.
I just let the dust settle from adding the sand and I still need to level it out a little. I am open to ideas as to what to change or add to make it more interesting. I really want to ad a fish of some sort, one that won't eat the pods.
Here are a few pics of the Fuge, Sump and Reef....
Thanks,
Larry
I realized our fuge chamber was too small to grow enough pods to support a mandarin goby, so I bought a $40 PETCO 40 gallon breeder tank. I drilled the upper left corner for a bulkhead drain and fabricate an acrylic overflow box. On the right side I made a 1/2" CPVC "spray bar" with 8 holes drilled, evenly spaced to provide gentle even flow across the fuge. There is a 300GPH pump in chamber one of my sump pumping water up to the fuge and gravity drains it back to chamber two, where there is alge and oolithic sand. I am running 60 watt 6500K bulbs over both fuge sections and my chaeto is growing great. Even with the GFO pulling nutrients it is growing great and I harvest a clump each month and discard it.
I read for two days straight about the pros/cons of deep sand beds and decided to try it out in the breeder fuge. If it goes south I can always unplug the pump and deal with it without harming my main reef system.
So after speaking with people who are running DSB I came up with the following design. I placed the established live rock on the sides and rested it on the bottom glass. I then added 7 bags of fuji pink, rinsed live sand and seeded it with 4 cups sand from my reef. I added 10 Nassarius sand stirring snails and 4 peppermint shrimp, on the recommendation of a RC member. There is a feather duster worm, 3" Conch Snail, a sponge, and 2000 pods I got from reefs2go.com
So here are a few questions I had:
1. Was I right to place the rock below the sand bed level? I read that rocks on top of a DSB inhibit the release of gas due to the weight. I figured it best to place the rock and back fill sand around it.
2. Do I need to "feed" the shrimp and snails in the fuge? I thought they would starve so I have been adding about 8-10 pellets of food a day to the huge and the shrimp and snails seem to consume it in 5 minutes.
I was worried about adding food to the huge because the simple overflow design means that detritus and waste would sit on the sand bed and maybe build up and contribute to nitrates.
I just let the dust settle from adding the sand and I still need to level it out a little. I am open to ideas as to what to change or add to make it more interesting. I really want to ad a fish of some sort, one that won't eat the pods.
Here are a few pics of the Fuge, Sump and Reef....
Thanks,
Larry
