Ashley's New Adventure _ 46 Bowfront SW reef

[lilladybug05]

ohh no nothing to do with a water change, i had a strange sound in my canister filter and I turned the water flow thingy and unplugged it and was going to check it well dumb me didnt realize that I had gravity working against me and I opened the canister and whooooooooooosh there goes the water hahah woops live and learn

 

[mr_X]

well, you need to cycle the tank. water changes are only slowing the process, or making the bacteria colony smaller/weaker. the important thing is just that, not keeping some pods or starfish alive. you'll be introducing plenty of them down the road.

 

[lilladybug05]

gotcha , One less thing for me to do for a few weeks lol

So basically I dont need to worry about levels until I get that new rock and start that cycle ... and then toss some shrimp (fresh but not live) in and the ammonia should rise then nitrites and then nitrates ( if I read correctly) and then I start doing water changes.. i think

 

[hackteck]

gotcha , One less thing for me to do for a few weeks lol

So basically I dont need to worry about levels until I get that new rock and start that cycle ... and then toss some shrimp (fresh but not live) in and the ammonia should rise then nitrites and then nitrates ( if I read correctly) and then I start doing water changes.. i think

yup thats the whole process

 

[Henry405]

only start the water changes after ammonia and nitrite gets to zero, not just when nitrates spike.

 

[lilladybug05]

Thank you, all you fishy experts haha I rely on you all a lot for advice and will continue to do so .... ( still bummed I wasted 50$ on grunge .. hope it does something for my tank )

 

[Gti_Leo]

it'll probably so a small thing. grunge is refugium mud right? from what i hear its good for replenishing some trace elements, although i don't know how well it works

 

[mr_X]

no. garf grunge is not refugium mud. they tell you it's a collection of stuff obtained from live rock they put in their systems over time. it would be similar to scooping some of the soot out of the bottom of a live rock curing bin. allegedly "seeding" the tank with organisms that lived on their live rock. if you have your own live rock, those organisms come free.

 

[Gti_Leo]

oh thats pretty dumb, how many organisms could actually be on there. i'd personally rather use an old filter pad to seed the tank over that

 

[lilladybug05]

Well yes that's what they claim on the grunge hahha, but I do in fact have old filter pads also. As the tank I have with the fluval filter has been in operation for some time, the live sand was about 6 months old when I bought it and I purchased another bag of live sand when I picked up the tank.

The dry rock from marko should be here this week along with the useless grunge lol and Im was thinking on going to get 1 live rock from the lfs to toss in there for some variety also maybe ask them for a cup of sand

SO... on top of all that. We decided to go with a sump instead of the over the back, cause I cant handle all the ugly pumps in my tank. So because we are working with such a small area underneath and we looked into the tanks we have here to try to use those (they wont work, they are to wide) We have decided to go with a pre-made acrylic one

15 Gal Refugium-Sump Wet/Dry Aquarium Filter 24x9x15 | eBay

its 24 by 9 by 15 (15 gallons) which gives us enough room to fit the skimmer underneath and the refugium. Now this sump is recommended at 200- 300 gph so I am assuming I need to look for an overflow box and a return pump (powerhead) that is around 250- 300 gph. My skimmer does 650-700 gph so hopefully that wont mess anything up. I got a new one its rated for 125 gallons and its the coralife ... I know some of you do not recommend that one.

My husband plans to put ball valves on what he can so he can shut them off if necessary and I know we need to drill 2 holes in the return line just under the surface of the water.
Is there anything else of massive importance I need to know before venturing into the sump world ? Im a little nervous about over flow but I plan to fake some power outages and siphon failure to try to avoid any possible mishap .

Thanks for all your help

 

[lilladybug05]

alrighty ... overflow box Aquarium Overflow Pre-Filter Box Eshopps PF-300 GPH



Aquarium Overflow Pre-Filter Box Eshopps PF-300 GPH - eBay (item 290520821820 end time May-08-11 11:28:15 PDT)


and the return pump which is a

RIO + 2100 Aquarium Pump/Powerhead 692 GPH Taam


RIO + 2100 Aquarium Pump/Powerhead 692 GPH Taam - eBay (item 300419586775 end time May-14-11 18:48:06 PDT)

rated at 375 gph at 4 feet, thats about the height we will be pumping at ...
will this work or am I going about it wrong?
Sorry I ask on everything but this has become more upfront $ than I thought , but I want to do it right so wasting any more money is not an option.

 

[Gti_Leo]

i would get two of those over flow boxes 300gph isn't much flow for a 46 gallon wit ha 15 gallon sump/refugium.

to get the full benifit of a fuge you should have atleast 10x the system flow through it so in your system 600gph should be what you aim for

 

[lilladybug05]

i would get two of those over flow boxes 300gph isn't much flow for a 46 gallon wit ha 15 gallon sump/refugium.

to get the full benifit of a fuge you should have atleast 10x the system flow through it so in your system 600gph should be what you aim for

So would that become a problem with that 15 gallon sump tank since they recommended going 250-300 gph ? will it bust the seams or anything ? and instead of two if I do that could I just go with a larger one ?

 

[Gti_Leo]

no it won't be a problem, unless the return pump doesn't fit in the return chamber but it should have more then enough space

 

[lilladybug05]

OK another sump question ... all I need is a line coming down from my overflow and a line going up from the powerhead for return .. is that correct ? all these plumbing diagrams I see are making it so confusing.

Im hoping all that is necessary is 2 lines... I did find a 600 gph overflow box I liked very much and also a rio 2500 pump for return. Now is says at 3 ft it would return 592 gph and at 4 feet it would be around 540ish . Is that ok or do I need to go higher if im doing a 600 gph overflow ?

 

[Gti_Leo]

its a little slow but it would be ok and you'd hasve to adjust your overflow so its not pumping to much water out that the return pump can't send back up.

as for the way its plumbed, that is correct one from the overflow or overflows and one going from the return pump to the return jet or jets if multiple

 

[lilladybug05]

Would I be better suited to step it up to the rio 3100 that puts out 690 gph... or would that be too much. hahah I dont know which way is better to go a bit higher or lower? Are rio pumps even any good lol

 

[lilladybug05]

Happy Easter BTW !! (if you celebrate it )

 

[Gti_Leo]

from what i heard the rio pumps aren't bad but the magpumps are better and what most use as their return pumps

 

[mr_X]

a 300 gph overflow is fine for that size tank. you only have to consider what components are in the sump. in other words, if you have a skimmer that has a 400 gph pump on it, it won't be working to capacity if you are only feeding it 300 gph.
a refugium is not cleaning water that fast that 300 gph won't be able to keep up.
that said, i would purchase the protein skimmer you want, and then purchase the sump to fit it, not the other way around.
i would stay away from the rio pumps. all of the ones i had didn't last very long. mag drives are better, as are "quiet one" pumps.