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[somecallmedaniel16]

Hello all!

Well I just have a couple quick questions. I am a freshwater tank keeper and have not had a sw tank before so out of curiosity I wanted to ask what a protein skimmer does and what a sump is.

-Daniel

[mgamer20o0]

a sump is a type of filter bellow the tank. they are used in fw but tend to be in larger tanks. water over flows down goes though bio balls or one of countless ways you can filter then pumps back up. skimmer collects surface scum. i think....

[ORayRay]

Stock list and tips for maintaining your SW tank.

[Kurt_Nelson]

A sump is merely an additional reservoir for water that's plumbed inline with your main tank. It increases the capacity of your system, and also allows you to stick equipment like heaters and skimmers in that area to get the clutter out of your display tank. Sumps are obviously not required, but going along with "dilution is the solution to pollution", more capacity is always better.

A skimmer is a man made way of recreating ocean surf. It basically makes a bunch of bubbles and forces the bubbles up a tube into a collection chamber. Organic compounds in your water adhere to the bubbles, and are pushed up and out of the water into the collection cup. These organic compounds, if left in the water, will eventually degrade your water quality. So in a nutshell, a skimmer takes stuff out of the water before it can decompose and make your water quality bad. In smaller tanks (say less than 20g) skimmers are often not used and more frequent water changes are done to insure pristine water.

[somecallmedaniel16]

wow, thanks kurt! so when you use a sump you have more water going through your system, but wouldn't you need to use more treatments like pH up/down, water conditioner, bacterial supplement, etc?

[HN1]

More water conditioner, yes. pH adjusters and bacterial supplements are really not needed in the vast majority of systems and IMO tend to do more harm than good.

[Kurt_Nelson]

Well... yes and no. Along the lines of what HN1 said, it's best to stay away from additives like that to start with. Other than a chlorine remover if you're using tap water, the use of the things you listed implies something is not right with the tank. In those cases, it's best to find the root cause and fix it. But yeah... if you're going to use that stuff, then yes, you'd have to use more.

[somecallmedaniel16]

Well to sortof take this thread in a new direction, don't you use bacterial supplements to cycle a tank that has artificial plants?

[somecallmedaniel16]

Actually, I probably seemed pretty ignorant right there, because there is information all around AA about cycling which I have not read much up on yet. But just for the sake of the question, what do you all think?

[Kurt_Nelson]

Time to hit the books! But to answer your question...

Cycling a SW tank is just building up a population of nitrifying bacteria. That bacteria will establish itself in your live rock, sand bed, or whatever you have for a biological filter - all it needs is an ammonia source to start things rolling. The cocktail shrimp methods works great... no fish harmed/killed to start the cycle. No bacterial supplements needed.

As long as you slowly add fish - say one per month - then your bacteria population will slowly catch up to the new bioload and you won't see any additional cycles as you add fish. And you won't need any bacteria supplements, etc.

Regarding artificial plants... not sure what you mean by that, except I *think* that in freshwater, somehow live plants can be used to help with a cycle? Sorry... never done freshwater. Artificial plants aren't used much in saltwater - as far as the tanks I'm familiar with. And who needs artificial plants when you can get beautiful coral to stick amongst the rocks?! (Which is an animal, and not a plant... just in case there's some confusion there...)