New setup Recommendations

[insane]

I tried this 16x48x5 / 1728 =2.2

I must not understand

That would be 2.2 cubic feet of substrate. You have it right. A 5" sand bed is a DSB (Deep Sand Bed) and if you are going to have one of those you should research them thoroughly as they have special needs and precautions. I personally don't like an intank DSB as they take up alot of room and get ugly looking when seen from the side through the glass. They should also be layered correctly with different sizes of aragonite. Oolite is the finest and would go on the bottom. You work your way up in grain size for a DSB.

A 22lb bag is .26 cubic feet so you would need about eight 22lb bags for a 5" DSB.

 

[insane]

Looked at that reef octo. its also extremley expensive. Is it possible to go with something that will still be good equipment without the massive cost?

Did you look at the Octopus Extreme 160? The Octopus line is one of the less expensive good skimmers. When choosing your protein skimmer you should never skimp. You want something that will last and also be able to take it with you in the event that you upgrade your tank in the future. Most of us upgrade tanks even when we don't plan on it.

 

[pblogic]

I'm not necessarilly into a dsb. I just want that little jawfish to be able to dig a burrow! yeah I ordered 60lbs of dry rock and will get about 20 of lr locoally


What's the deal with phosban? Worth running?

 

[insane]

If you have a problem with phosphates then you can use Phosban to help reduce the level.

5" to 6" in a sand bed is generaly considered a DSB. The more it gets stirred up the less it will work as a DSB that people use for denitrification.

 

[chubby hugs]

recommendations

recommendations

Insane-
I see your location is Peoria, Illinois. I am in the Peoria and am in the process of setting up a 75G tank. I have been driving to Sailfin in Champaign for everything so far because I don't trust any of the Peoria LFS. Who around here is reliable/ trustworthy? Thanks and sorry for the brief thread hijack.

 

[insane]

PM'd ya chubby_hugs.

 

[jayhawk317]

think i would go with the mag 12 and add a ball valve to control the flow

 

[pblogic]

I think I'm going to go with the RIO pump and probably that octo skimmer! Rock is on the way and I'll get live rock soon. I guess the next step is lighting. One final question I think for this thread:

Ok two

For the DSB can I have one area that's deeper just for my jawfish? Without doing a full DSB?

More importantly?

For chemical filtration I was thinking of buying the replacement parts on my eheim ecco cannister. It's rated for 80 gallones. I thought perhaps I'd fill it with just chemical media and have it filter in the return chamber?

 

[bertoni]

The 6" depth should be fine for that jawfish. Some people would put some sort of container 6" deep in the tank, and fill that with sand, then disguise it with live rock. That'd give the jawfish an area with deep sand, if it decides to burrow there. It might work. If not, the fish might be fine with a shallower burrow.

The canister filter would be fine for GFO and activated carbon. I would run the filter out of the sump and back into the sump. The return chamber likely is fine.

 

[insane]

Another trick you can do when having fish that like to burrow is to takes some 3" or 4" pvc and cut it into sections as long as your planned sand bed is deep and insert the pieces down into the sand so it sits on the glass. Stack you rockwork on top of the pvc pieces so that when your fish dig under the rock, your rockwork will not move and settle into the sand. Doing this also keeps your expensive rock out of the sand bed and up where you can see it instead of it getting buried.