How does my set up look?

[tava716]

Hey gang!
Just wanted to attach a few pics of my filtration set up. Wanted soem constructive critisism from you experts.
90 gallon FOWLR
55 LB live rock (have some mushrooms on the rock)
4 small fish, 2 bristle stars, sea urchin, 1 shrimp, 1 crab.
Special grade reef sand
1 actinic blue and 1 10K.
Aquaclear 500 power filter with carbon media, amonia redusing media and Kents phosphate sponge.
2 air pums pushing home meade skimmer (only get skimate after I clean the tank)
10 gallon sump with 5 gallons of bioballs. return pump rated at 650 gallons hour.
skimmer return spills into top of sump and over the bio balls. Skimmer inlet is the white pvc with the blue thing on it. overflow box is for the sump.
Setup is about 6 months old.
Any suggestions to make it better? (Wish I had room for a bigger sump and a skimmer that would go in the sump).

 

[tava716]

one more photo!

One more photo.

 

[Krish]

Wanted soem constructive critisism from you experts

I guess I can't give my opinion then (LOL). Just kidding (I'm no expert though). Did you do it all yourself? Not bad at all. I think Mike (Mojoreef) would apprecite your skimmer. He seems to be a fan of air driven skimmers and makes some really nice ones. Do you have any hair algae in your tank? When I went FOWLR and used a wet/dry with bio-balls the first time around, the combination killed me (along with in- sufficient flow and not using ro/di water). If you decide to go with more LR, maybe you can get rid of the bio-balls slowly and let the LR be your source of biological filtration and denitrification and then you could use that extra sump space for your skimmer like you wanted to. Wet/dry's are said to be best for FO systems, but you never know...No 2 systems are the same.

About using an ammonia remover in your aquaclear 500, I don't think you'll need it once your tank has cycled. The good thing about the wet/dry you have is that it is the best and quickest at breaking down ammonia and nitrite, and once your tank has cycled, you will never see any traces of either.

As for the phosphate sponge, I've never used one...Don't really know how they work. How often do you have to change it out? I use a 2 little fishies phosban rector which has worked great for me and I only have to change the media once every 3 months.
However, from what I'm gathering from your pictures, you look like you are doing just fine. Keep up the good work.

 

[tava716]

Thanks! To answer some of your questions, yes. I built everything myself. I sometimes get a hair algae breakout. (I will gently brush it off with a "soft" toothbrush about an hour before I vacuum the substrate). Been having a red and brown dusty algae problem lately. Using the Phos sponge seems to help though. I change it about once a month. Ammonia ussually sits around 0-0.25 ppm. When I introduced the ammonia aponge, it is now a solid 0.0ppm. PH seems to sit around 8.0-8.2 (I think the air from the air driven skimmer helps with that). Nitrate and nitrite at 0.0.

What is this little fishies phosban yu speak of? Any pics or a web site I can visit to educate myself on it?

Thanks for the words of encouragement. Anyone else have any insite for me?

You guys are all great! Thanks!

 

[Krish]

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9897&pp=15
This thread has a picture of mine I posted half way down the page.

Here is where I bought it from http://www.reefexotics.com/pbr_combo.htm

 

[Krish]

skimmer return spills into top of sump and over the bio balls

Where does the skimmate go if it completely fills your collection cup? I know one thing about skimmers is you have to keep the neck of it clean in order for it to work properly. How often do you clean it because it seems to me you are using white PVC and you can't really tell what's going on in there?

 

[tava716]

Collection cup never fills up completely. I rairely get any skimmate at all. I have a clear top on it.

How well does that phosban reactor work? I am thinking of getting one!

 

[Krish]

It works really well. A lot of people are using them on salt as well as freshwater aquariums. For the price, you can't beat it.

 

[fleetbox]

You should be getting skimmate. You might try adjusting your skimmer flow/ air to produce more. Live rock puts out an amazing amount of gunk. I run 100 gal W/ 30 Gal sump. Around 100 or so lbs of live rock right now and one fish. That is it. I run a coralife 220 (not the best skimmer by a long shot) very dry (almost black) and get about 4 cups a week. Tank has been up about 6 mo. If your skimmer is new you may be just going through a break in period.

Tank looks nice. It is always more satisfying when you build it your self. Good job!

 

[tava716]

thanks! I will attach some photos of the inside iof the collection cup. The water level is where the black marker line is on the pic of the outside of the collection cup and I will also attach pics of the outflow so yu can see how much is flowing through it. By looking at the pics, so you think I should make the water flow higher or lower in the chamber? More waterflow or less? I have been fighting with the skimmer for months now. I just recently gave up on fighting with it. Just figureed I did not have alot of disolved solids in my tank. Your advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks!

 

[fleetbox]

I would look up some of the DIY skimmer posts from Mojo. He can help. With the white pvc it makes it impossible to see how far up the neck you are pushing. Also hard to tell where the air is coming in at. Looks like just below the neck. Should be as low as possible , more hang time for the bubbles.

It would be pretty hard to know exactly how your skimmer is performing with out being able to see the bubbles and the action. Mojo can help more than I as he has built many skimmers. I am not that mechanicly inclined to DIY such a project. I work with wood..... Got a question about wood?... wait that sounds bad........

 

[clayswim]

Looks like you've got a pretty good setup going; but I do have a few suggestions. For one I would get rid of the ammonia media. Not only is it extremely ineffective in saltwater, but you should also be removing ammonia only by biological means. By removing it I'm sure you'll find the ammonia stays at zero anyway.

Try increasing the airflow to the skimmer and raise the water level inside the chamber by cutting back on the output. You can do that by placing a ball valve on the outlet. That should greatly help with the foaming ability. Not all rock will produce a lot of foam; it really depends on how cured it is. A tank with fully cured rock and with very little bio-mass will create next to no foam.

A few questions...
What size is your skimmer?
What kind of air pump are you using?
What kind of airstones are you using?

With a little fine tuning you should be able to get your skimmer working properly.

Clayton

 

[clayswim]

I forgot one thing. I agree with Krish that by adding more (fully cured) live rock you could start to slowly remove the bioballs. This will likely result in much lower nitrate levels in the future.

Clayton

 

[matts125]

bio balls

Every time I have ever had bio balls I always had problems with nitrates! not too sure if they are good for anything but a fresh tank, thats just from my experience... I would try and get a new skimmer too, not too sure how hard it will be for you to actually get that thing adjusted, and then as the parameters of your water change over the months to come you will always be re-adjusting that skimmer to get it to work again... just my 2 cents


Matt Krom

 

[clayswim]

Wet/dry filters cause high nitrates in FW too, it's just easier to get rid of them.

Clayton

 

[tava716]

Fleetbox, Clayswim,
4 foot skimmer 4 inches in diameter with airstones 22 inches from neck of skimmer. 2 wooden stones with a dual output Whisper 600 pushing each stone (thats 1 pump per stone). 55 LB of live rock (35 LB from an established reef tank and 20 from LFS).

Matts125,
I agree with you. thinking about getting a skimmer to sit in my sump. I have about 20 inches of clearance under the tank.

 

[tava716]

I have heard that a short (15-18 inches)skimmer is not very effective.

 

[fleetbox]

My live rock was not fully cured and could be why I am getting skimmate. I blow my rock off every day with a turkey baster as well. After six months maybe only five there is still a lot of detritus coming off the rock.

4 foot Awesome! Should work great if you can figure out how to tune it. I have read a lot on the skimmer issue and figure that as long as you keep the water topped off you should have minnimal adjusting once you get it going IMO...

 

[clayswim]

Tava, you should try adding a couple more airstones and see if that works. Each one can only handle so much flow through it, so you could be restricting the pump. Short skimmers can work, but they have to be fairly wide to have a sizable reaction chamber.

Fleetbox; sometimes not enough current in your tank will allow detritus to build like that.

Clayton

 

[tava716]

I too get a brown "dust like" substance on my live rock. Every 3 or 4 days I also get a brown film on my glass and ussually the day after a water change I have brown and red dusting on my tank bed. I have NOT had any green hair algae in about a month or so. I am going to purchase a Phosban reactor and run it on my tank and also run it on my water mixture for a couple of days prior to using the mixture for a water change or top off. I hope this will help. I do use Instant Ocean salt. It claims to have NO Nitrate or Phosphates.