Hobby fads

[David MC Lee]

It seems every time you turn around there is some new wizbang way to setup a reef tank. You might think I spend hours and hours each day on this site bit I really don't spend that much time on RC except for the CIMA board. I know there are people here that know far more about keeping coral that I. I contribute my success to the fact I didn’t make any mistakes with my last setup. But there is room for improvement.
I did how ever take some time to read most of the latest tank of the month and it seem like this guy is not doing anything fancy and has very nice looking sps.
Since I’m about 2 weeks away from getting water in my tank I’m wanting to see if there are any hardware system changes I should make.
I’m going to put my clam tank on hold for a while longer and just focus on the main tank.
I should have better water flow due to the larger wave maker and the fact my over flow is larger and will allow a 4th pump to be connected in. I’m also looking at adding two 2” bulkheads to each end of the tank for more water flow options. All of my MH light will be switched over to Lumenarcs fixtures. I will still keep the dual 7’ skimmers that dump into the 500G refugium that will have a 6”-8” DSB. This will gravity feed back into the main tank to help flush pods into the tank. I still have my DIY CA reactor which seems to work well. I also had good luck adding a Kalk tank to my old tank and plan to keep this but make it larger so I only have to fill it once a month. This new tank will have an integrated 200G tank for water changes at the flip of a few valves (or switches). I plan to start doing more water changes. My old tank I was luck to get 50G per month.
If it was your dream tank what else might you do?

[TikiDan]

If it was your dream tank what else might you do?

Move it to my house!

[medic29]

Dave,

The changes you plan for your system sound great, especially the luminarcs. I think you will see a big change with them. The other big thing I've heard of right now is flow...having enough flow in the tank that goes both ways. I think you are addressing that with you bigger wave maker.

[Horace]

I think your doing everything right honestly. The things you are doing meet the basic needs of your tank and then some IMO. I think you could actually cut some of them out and still be fine. For example, I dont think you need to use Kalk. However, doing so should help keep your PH a bit higher. I think using Lumenarcs are a good plan, for your tank I would probably use the big ones along with 400w bulbs all around.

When it comes down to it, it doesnt matter how you achieve the parameters we all strive for. There are 1000 ways to skin a cat it seems. I think the equipment you have should do that job just fine. I think you should have plenty of flow, I think with 400s in lumenarcs you have plenty of light, and so long as your skimmers are removing enough gunk to keep your nutrients down, along with your fuge, I think your going to be on great shape.

[Benny Z]

while "fads" change, the fad part of all this is more related to the method of delivery; the principles are still the same. i think you've got them covered.

plenty and random flow - check
high light output with good coverage - check
enough skimming power to polish the water - check
nutrient export to maintain low trates/phates - check
a way to maintain calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium - check

[lglamb]

I'd give a second thouht to putting a bulkhead in the viewing end.

Oh, wait. You mean to put it thru from the back, right? Not thru
the glass itself? Well, OK then.

Lowell

[David MC Lee]

Thanks all. One other thing I'm going to do is add reticulating needle wheel pumps to my skimmers. I did this to one of the skimmer and it seem to really help make smaller bubbles and more foam. And yes the bulkheads will go in the wood back & side of the tank not the glass. The Kalk was only add for ph boost. The ca reactor has not problems keeping up. Before adding the Kalk my ph was around 7.8 and after it stayed around 8.2 - 8.3.

Magnesium is not something I've done much with in the past. I did add some at one point in the last three years. Can't say bring it up helped much.

Thanks for the input.
DAvid

[RV8tor]

David
If you are looking for a bag of Mag, I have a 50lbs bag that I bought two of and don't need it as much as thought. FWIW. 10 bucks would cover it. It is not Mag flake but I have never had an issue using it with every water change to kick up my Mag level, and no issues with any impurities either.

[David MC Lee]

John I would like to try that. I know my IO salt is low in mag.

[saltyseaman]

As everyone has already stated, you seem to be doing things right.

There is one thing I thought I would throw out there. It is something I have been thinking of for when I set-up this 180. Perhaps you have already thought of it. The philosophy I am trying to go with is to get all detritus out of the water before it has a chance to break down. This is achieved by having good flow, which you allready have. It is also achieved by a bit of targeting your flow. I have found that detritus likes to accumulate around the base of the live rock where it touches the sand. When I set-up my 180 I will have PVC rock frames so that none of my live rock is even touching the sand. Then I will epoxy live rock rubble onto any exposed PVC so it doesn't look like PVC. I will target some of my flow directly into the center of these rock frames (they will be isolated spires of rock) so that no detritus will have a chance to settle under there. I will control the flow so that it doesn't blow too much sand around, but keeps the detritus in the water column.

I will get detritus out of the water with a pretty simple system. I will have the overflow from the tank go directly into the skimmer body through a uniseal. This will make sure that all water goes through the skimmer at one point. The skimmer will take out what it can, and the stuff that makes it through will come out of the skimmer and directly into a filter sock. This should leave no detritus sitting in the bottom of my sump decaying and fouling up my water.

I don't know how possible this is for you to do, or if it's even appealing. If it is something you want to do, something I thought of is that you could have a "pre-sump" that you hook the pumps to that feed your skimmers. Then you can have your skimmers flow back into your real sump through filter socks. Another option is that you could have the water flow directly into the body of your skimmers and turn your skimmers into giant recirculating skimmers by turning your feed pumps into recirculating pumps. I have heard of people doing this with darts and turning them into needle wheel pumps, which they say works absolutely wonderfully.

I hope that helps someone.

[saltyseaman]

On second thought, the "pre-sump" idea wouldn't work because you would have to make sure that water is coming out of your tank as fast as your skimmer pumps are pulling water out of the "pre-sump". The recirulating idea would work, tough, by simply hooking your skimmer pump's intake into the body of the skimmer.

[saltyseaman]

Oh, and I don't know if you allready have your lumenarcs or not, but if you are looking for the big ones that I would act quickly. Coralvue is redesigning these and there are very few left in the market. I hear that www.reefexotics.com still has the big ones in stock. If you are going for the lumenarc minis then you should have no problem finding them.

[eshook]

One thing that I plan on adding is a RDSB (Remote Deep Sand Bed). For your scale you would probably use a large rubbermaid tote instead of a 5 gallon bucket.

For those unfamiliar with the idea:

Fill a container at least 8-15" deep almost full of sand. Leave ~1.5" on top for water flow. Have enough water flow to guarantee detritus does not settle on the sand. Thats it. It should help lower nitrates once the bacteria seeds the sand. There is a very long thread in the Advanced forum describing this practice.

[David MC Lee]

saltyseaman One problem I have with my skimmer & pump is my skimmer can only handle about 2500GPH and the pumps do 5000GPH. On the old setup I had 1/2 of each pump feed a skimmer and the other half went to spray bars. So half the water coming out of the tank just went back in.
I think what your talking about is to run half of the skimmer output back into the pump input and that way I get 2500GPH leaving each pipe on the tank and going into the skimmer. Inside of the skimmer I get 5000GPH of water movement and then only get 2500GPH out the final output. That way all the water goes through the skimmers.
Also on the old tank I has one pump that did not feed the skimmer at all it just came back in through the spray bars. It also had a chiller in that line.

I have a total of 4 2" holes in the bottom of the over flow. I planned to add 4 2" holes to the tank sides as well.
Right now I have 3 of the 5000GPH pumps I had a forth but I broke it.


As far as keeping detritus out I have thought about going BB in the main tank or putting the live rock on egg crate.

www.reefexotics.com does not sell the lumenarcs that have the vents in them. I had to get them from the manufacture.

[David MC Lee]

Yea eshook that is what I'm talk about using my 500G water tank as a RDSB.

[saltyseaman]

Here is a picture to demonstrate what I am talking about, though it is by no means accurate to what the final product would look like . If I remember correctly you have a downdraft or beckett skimmer, so I followed that design. One pump could run both of your skimmers, recirculation style, so that is what I drew. You wouldn't be pushing 2500GPH per skimmer after head loss, though. One problem I forsee with this design and the pumps you have available is that if you had 5000GPH feeding the skimmers from the tank overflows then that may cause so much turbulence that you could lose the small bubbles. You would probably have to divert some of the flow directly into the sump, or get a smaller pump to return water into your tank from the sump. You could keep the 5000 GPH pumps on closed loops if you got a smaller pump.





You could also get rid of the downdraft towers and switch to a giant needlewheel recirculating skimmer. If you turned your pump into a needlewheel then you would probably get more bubbles, but you would probably need a difuser plate covering the diameter of the skimmer body right above where the pump returns to cut down on turbulence. This is what they do with the Bubble King Skimmers




Look at this thread to see what I am talking about when I say turn your pump into a recirculating needlewheel pump
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...25pagenumber=1
There are better threads out there with better designs and better pictures, but I can't seem to find them and this thread gets the point across.

[lglamb]

quick side question...

Why does the return from the recirculating pump run up so high?

Lowell

[Benny Z]

more contact time?

[saltyseaman]

I believe that is the case. The main reason I put that height in the drawing is because that is how David's skimmers are right now. David, why are the returns so high?

[David MC Lee]

I didn't build them ask tschopp I would say more contact time as well. These are more or less downdraft skimmers. Most of the air/water mixes on the way down then the air bubbles float up in the large chamber.
When I added an extra pump to one of the skimmers I had it suck water off the near top of the skimmer and re inject it at the bottom again.

saltyseaman your design breaks my golden rule (and here you all go oooooooooooo) "redundancy” that is why I have the two pumps & two skimmers. I try to keep from having a single point failure.

[saltyseaman]

Understandable rule to have .

[lglamb]

Originally posted by David MC Lee

...your design breaks my golden rule (and here you all go oooooooooooo) "redundancy” that is why I have the two pumps & two skimmers. I try to keep from having a single point failure.

Does Deanna know about this?

[RV8tor]

David

Just let me know when and where you would like the Mag. I do go to C/U a lot and could drop it off at your work, at least if I remember correctly you work in C/U right?, just PM me with the details