Bare bottom

[Lew90]

Charlie,

The pumps that I just placed in the back corners of my 90 gal. were Maxi-Jet 1200, 295gph. Since this is my softy tank I don't have as much flow as my other tanks or as much as you. ~1300 gph of return with ~600gph in display and now I've added ~600 more on timers in the display.

Talk with you later

Thanks,
Lew90

 

[Scooterman]

Charlie,
If you are going to go for it you may as well go all out. I'd cook the rock, literally in a turkey fryer with water of course.
As far as maintenance. I do just water changes. I go through phases with filter socks. Sometimes I get tired of the detritus in my sump so I clean it up and start using a sock. Other times I get tired of swapping socks so I just let it go. Either way it really doesnt matter.
Flow flow and more flow. I have 4 spots in my tank that collect detitus, so I suck this out once every few months.

Hope this helps
Don

as stated about, I feel this is about the best piece of advise you can get, mainly because your rock was one a sb for a long time & it was up a long time, most people hasn't had tanks with rocks long enough to say otherwise.
Now as far as the part about QT, you can let new rock cycle but it takes longer to see things come from it, I just like to use caution to eliminate problems I had in the past, also if you ever had flatworms etc, now is the time to get rid of all that. Otherwise see what Don posted, also with the socks, the way my tanks runs most of the detritus goes to the sump, either gets skimmed or I suck it out every now & then. I use a sock sometimes if I blow off the rocks inside & this just speeds up the clearing process but for the most part I don't need it. I use a sock when I vacuum the sump. I tie it down & put a hose on the outlet of a MJ, & I suck everything into the sock, the tank gets cleaned & I don't even have to change water, unless it is required.

 

[CarlaW]

So for me Charlie I had an AM3K on a 75 gallon tank.

I know someone that was running eductors on a high pressure pump (Pan world pumps work well for this) and it worked great. If I was doing a big project like this I would seriously look into eductors (as long as you can get enough space between them and the corals so you don't strip tissue).

Here's what I think I would do....get a large volume, low amp pump for the flow down the back (maybe 750-1000 gph per 2 foot of back wall), then decide what type of flow you want in the rest of the tank. You could do an oceansmotions to distribute flow throughout the tank and go with a smaller, high pressure pump with eductors. You could go with another high volume, low amp pump and seaswirls. You could go with seios or something similar. Flow is so personalized.

I was wondering whether an ampmaster would handle the eductors, since those are not pressure rated pumps. Are Sequence pumps pressure rated? I know Iwaki pumps are. The Iwaki 100 is 2000 gph and I know I could use that one.

Charlie,

The pumps that I just placed in the back corners of my 90 gal. were Maxi-Jet 1200, 295gph. Since this is my softy tank I don't have as much flow as my other tanks or as much as you. ~1300 gph of return with ~600gph in display and now I've added ~600 more on timers in the display.

Talk with you later

Thanks,
Lew90

Lew, hey thanx for the link to your post yesterday. I have never used anything like that in any of my reefs. I also have a pretty unlimited supply of tywraps handy.
I was wondering how softies do in a BB tank, I have always been under the impression that they would like sand more than BB.

 

[CarlaW]

as stated about, I feel this is about the best piece of advise you can get, mainly because your rock was one a sb for a long time & it was up a long time, most people hasn't had tanks with rocks long enough to say otherwise.
Now as far as the part about QT, you can let new rock cycle but it takes longer to see things come from it, I just like to use caution to eliminate problems I had in the past, also if you ever had flatworms etc, now is the time to get rid of all that. Otherwise see what Don posted, also with the socks, the way my tanks runs most of the detritus goes to the sump, either gets skimmed or I suck it out every now & then. I use a sock sometimes if I blow off the rocks inside & this just speeds up the clearing process but for the most part I don't need it. I use a sock when I vacuum the sump. I tie it down & put a hose on the outlet of a MJ, & I suck everything into the sock, the tank gets cleaned & I don't even have to change water, unless it is required.

Thanx Scooter, so you actually think I should go ahead and boil the rock? I was trying to avoid that. If everything works out, I should be able to have the rock in a container for close to 3 months, wouldn't that be long enuf to let everything shed out?

 

[Ed Hahn]

I was wondering how softies do in a BB tank, I have always been under the impression that they would like sand more than BB.[/QUOTE]

Charlie,
I have three Softies in my BB tank. One softie I have in there by mistake. Its a green tinted leather toad stool. The other two are Fiji Leathers. They did quite well in my tank with SPS. They grew pretty fast.

I also have a ton of pink zoos. A few other zoos that hitchhiked.

 

[CarlaW]

Ed, what pumps are you using?

 

[Ed Hahn]

Ed, what pumps are you using?

I am using 4 Tunzes. I have 2 6200s. I have two 6100s. I am using a Dolphin 2100 return pump.

 

[CarlaW]

Have you got some pics of the placement on the Tunze? You are running them on one controller, right?

 

[reedman]

I wouldn't do an AM on eductors...I think you'd blow a seal.

 

[CarlaW]

I wouldn't do an AM on eductors...I think you'd blow a seal.

Kinda what I thought too

 

[CarlaW]

What are everybody's thought on taking the returns all the way down to the bottom, or like Reed did, just have them blow towards the bottom of the tank?

 

[reedman]

I had mine at the top just pointing straight down...easier plumbing, not invasive to the view and effective.

 

[sihaya]

I know you're just looking for people who've had a BB... but I've always wanted to contribute to a peaceful BB/DSB thread and this might be the only one so far.

I think of a DSB as just another filter. Like any filtration system, you can screw it up and have problem...or you can do it right and have a "miracle." There's enough real science out there to assume that DSBs do function more or less the way Dr. Shimek says they do. That's not to say that he's right about everything. However, I do believe that his basic explanation of how sand beds work is definitely justified with existing science.

I think tanks can be run just fine with or without sand beds. I love sand beds because I love critters. I love worms and pods and all that crazy stuff. But you can have a lot of that on live rock too. So really, it's just a personal thing in the end.

Little off topic... I always thought it would be cool if someone would grow a mat of star polyps over the bottom of entire bare bottom tank so that it looked like a grass lawn!

 

[Ed Hahn]

Have you got some pics of the placement on the Tunze? You are running them on one controller, right?

Charlie,
The two larger Tunzes are opposite of each other around my center overflow. The two smaller (6100s) are in Tunze Rocks pointing from bottom to the center over flow on opposite or placed diagonal from each corner of overflow. The goal of the lower power heads is to push water from bottom to surface.
Yes, I am running controller with all four.

 

[CarlaW]

Little off topic... I always thought it would be cool if someone would grow a mat of star polyps over the bottom of entire bare bottom tank so that it looked like a grass lawn!

Thanx Sara!!!!! That is the way my 80 is starting to look now, They need to get mowed tho!!!

 

[CarlaW]

Charlie,
The two larger Tunzes are opposite of each other around my center overflow. The two smaller (6100s) are in Tunze Rocks pointing from bottom to the center over flow on opposite or placed diagonal from each corner of overflow. The goal of the lower power heads is to push water from bottom to surface.
Yes, I am running controller with all four.

I was wondering how those Tunze rocks worked!!!!! Thanx alot, that is just another idea I can stash in this little pea brain of mine.

 

[sihaya]

Thanx Sara!!!!! That is the way my 80 is starting to look now, They need to get mowed tho!!!

LOL... that reminds me of that scene in the beginning of Finding Nemo with that crab clipping his "lawn" which I swear is a mat of star polyps!

 

[Curtswearing]

My entire RR overflow used to be covered with star polyps and zoanthids. It made fragging real easy.....just used a razor blade and scraped them off.

In terms of BB, it seems that no matter how hard you try to work out your flow, there's always one corner somewhere where there's a dead spot. However, that isn't necessarily a bad thing because it makes it easy to siphon.

Charlie,

I ran the most pitiful BB SPS prop tank that you could possibly imagine. 3/4's of it was lit by PC lighting. (No, I'm not kidding) One end was lit with MH. I had growth out the wazoo with this system. Want to know what my wave-maker was? It was me and a piece of 1/4" thick piece of plexiglass that I would run back and forth anytime I let one of my dogs outside or inside or whenever I was changing the laundry. Other than my periodic waves, it's flow was linear which is not normally good idea with SPS.

As far as 1.5 lbs of LR goes, if you're using extremely dense land-mined base rock that get's dumped into the ocean to acquire "life", then I think that's fairly valid. If you are using porous real LR though, this is overkill by a long shot. It not only creates flow problems, it also leaves less space for fish and coral growth.

Sara,

I have to disagree with you regarding Dr. Shimeks explanation on DSB's. He's backed off many things he said in his own book and articles big time in recent years. (Rightfully so and I give him credit for changing...he used to stubbornly say, "I'm a doctor so I'm right"). Regardless, that's not the point of this thread. The guy's a genius when it comes to creepy-crawlies but I ignore most of anything else that comes out of his mouth these days.

 

[CarlaW]

Hey Curt, great to hear your input. Flow is always a crap shoot, no matter how you design it, and how well you think it is gonna work, there seems to be something that you could have always done better. I am just gonna do the best I can, and try to make the flow as adjustable as I can.
This whole redo may not take place for a while, but that gives me more time to get all my ducks in a row.

 

[DonW]

Just a thought here, are you of the opinion that our long lasting theory of 1-1.5 lbs of rock per gallon is total BS. I have noticed that lately, people are going with less rock, lower profile aquascape, and especially BB folks, a ton of flow that when all combined together creates some really nice random flow.

Ive really never fallen for that. I just aquascape the way I like. If I decide I want another rock I add it if not I take one out. Ive never had close to 1.5 lbs per gallon.

Don