Setup of my 150g tall? not sure what i need?

[Krish]

great how much flow should i have to the sump/fuge? you are awesome!

LOL!! Thanks! On the overflow, I think there is a formula for calculating what you should have running through your sump, but I honestly can't remember it. Hopefully someone will chime in on it, but if I was going on an educated guess, a standard 150 gal reef ready tank (like all-glass aquarium/Aqueon tanks) has dual overflows rated at about 600gph each I think. So I would shoot for around 1000-1200 gph and that should be good.

 

[the6goat6man6]

ok, let me get this straight. NO sand, anywhere? only live rock, reactors, skimmer, sump/fuge,lights, and the all important flow? thats it?

 

[Krish]

LOL!! That's all I ever do. Works for me, BUT...People do it totally differently with the same results. It's just you have to know how to care for whatever setup you go with. I never used a calcium reactor for example so I had to test my water and dose for it accordingly. I never had sand, so I was limited on certain fish and inverts. So think about it some...Do some more reading and weigh out your pros and cons and then decide which direction you want to go and work towards that. I am the kind of person where I know which method I like best, but I'd never push it on anyone. This is why I always say go with what works best for you and not do it this way. If you are still unsure about certain things, keep asking. If you've asked the question before and are still un-sure, ask it again. It's no problem here and you would never be bashed for it. Some things I still don't get LOL!

Going back to your original question of no sand anywhere...I will show you a setup of mine with fish corals and no sand anywhere. Also tons of flow on a bare bottom tank. Give me a sec. It can work, but so can having sand

 

[Krish]

K...Here's my 38 gal which was the one I had the most corals in (wild corals from here in the Bahamas). Bare bottom tank and drilled for closed loop...Tons of flow!!




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Flow from closed loop. The outputs you see up top, I had the exact same thing down low. So 4 outputs split with Y adaptors for a total of 8 seperate nozzles to direct my flow. The little output on the top of the tank without the nozzle on it yet was my return so in total I had just over 3,000 gph of flow for the closed loop alone and 950 gph of flow for my return. My overflow was built in coast to coast so it was able to handle it. Total flow was about 4,000 gph which is a little over 100x turnover rate




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A shot of my sump. Bare bottom as well. Only thing in there is a bag of carbon I threw in there, my skimmer, my phosban reactor (removes phosphates in the water) and my return pump. That's it. All of the biological filtration came from the rocks in the tank which as you can see wasn't a whole lot. I didn't have a lot of fish though and never overfed.





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The tank. I had a 150w Metal halide over it and also ran a chiller.

 

[the6goat6man6]

wow thats nice, how much maint. is there? i don't have a problem dosing, thats part of the fun! My one and only problem is NITRATES!!! nothing else

 

[the6goat6man6]

i like softies and some LPS and anenomes, will they handle that kind of flow?

 

[the6goat6man6]

Now i'm wondering if i should tear down my 40gal and take the sand out. I kind of like the sand look, is it gonna have that much effect if i have about 1 inch? I don't know though, that 38 of yours looks pretty nice!

 

[the6goat6man6]

i can't get over how simple that looks. how does it work on a larger scale

 

[Krish]

Haha! My maintenance schedule was to change 10-15% of my water every week and that's basically it. I had a few spots in my sump that detritus settles to I just siphoned it out during my water change. Changed carbon every two weeks and phosban media I think every two months. Kept skimmer neck clean and pretty much it. If I had sand I couldn't have all that flow and also it would require me to vacuum it weekly. On a larger scale would be the same. I had a 75gal bare bottom with bare bottom sump and no issues. I also had a 24 gal aquapod same thing except sumpless. I will get you a few pics of the 75 when I get home. As for your nitrates, they will take a while to work off. It took like 6 months I think it was for me to go from about 10 ppm of nitrates to zero. Whole cycle from start up to zero nitrates was about 9 months so it does take some time. Denitrification is a slow process unfortunately but once you find your balance it's usually pretty easy to keep it stable once you don't over feed or overstock your tank too quickly. For every fish that is added your tank will have to adjust and compensate for the increased bioload so keep that in mind. This us the reason why they say to add a little at a time. I will get you a few more pics when I get home and show you a little thing I did to help me out a bit with my nitrates in the beginning.

 

[Krish]

So I typed out the whole post, put up the pictures and it closed before I had a change to submit it!!

Aw well...Here we go again LOL!! This is my 75gal. Small bioload as I don't like a whole lot. This tank had 4 fish...2 clowns, a yellow tang, and a wrasse. Also, one coral bandit shrimp. Cleaning schedule was the same 10-15% water change per week.


Sump has nothing in it again but water. Same skimmer but outside this time, same phosban reactor and bag of carbon, but as you can see, I have a little light over the center chamber. During cycling I had some cyno growing so I made conditions in the sump more favourable for it to grow there and it did. So everyweek when doing my water change, I would suck out the cyno and let it grow back repeating the process. Eventually when my nitrates went to zero it disappeared which allowed me to remove the light. If you look closely, you cans ee the last chamber was added on. I had a problem with the back siphon coming from the return line when the retrun pump was shut off. I need the extra volume to avoid a spill over so I added that on which was what I had explained earlier to you.




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The tank. Bare bottom again. Two powerheads you see are Tunze streams. One put out 1600 gph full blast and the other 1850 gph on a controller than alternated the speed every few seconds. The nozzle you see up top is a sea swirl attached to my return pump (700 gph) that rotated 180 degrees or so every minute or so. Eventually I added in that over the top closed loop I showed you earlier that added another 950 gph to the tank so I had around 5,000 gph of flow in this tank which was around 70x turnover rate.




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Next was lighting. Dual 250w metal halides. I had to use 5 fans in my canopy to keep the temp down. 3 pulling out hot air and 2 sucking in cool air. Also ended up putting a fan on my sump as well. The first shot shows the intensity of the lighting and notice the color. Those are 20K XM bulbs. Very blue! Eventually switched to 12 K radiums.






This shot shows all the fans marked by the red arrows





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Lastly, eventually I neede piece of mind from the lights so I added in a chiller. Plumbed it through my return line so here's a full shot of it all. This was supposed to be the tank with the corals. This was actually the tank that I got my nitrates down to zero making it possible, but with a baby on the way and needing the space and also less work, I went to the 38al.




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[Krish]

Also, my 24 gal aquapod before I chopped it up and did a bit of DIY to it. Transfer from my 38 gal. I used a aquac nano skimmer (hang on), phosban reactor, bag of carbon hung on and that's it. Flow in this tank ended up being three maxijet 1200's (885 gph total) which was about 36x turnover rate. As you can see it was just a glass bottom. Lighting was a 70w HQI metal halide. Same cleaning schedule as the other two tanks.



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Lastly, got tired of the glass bottom and black bacground so I chopped out the backwall of my aquapod, put in an acrylic background with 3 maxijets hidden behind that I used for flow through some lockline and then a tunze nano stream. Think it was rated between 400-600 gph. Then put down a white bottom. Got rid of all of the corals and just kept fish for a bit.



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So all in all, I've kept 3 tanks bare bottom and didn't have any problems. I am very thorough in keeping on top of things which I think helps. Never missed a water change and the flow I think helped me alot. It when you have deadspots, problems can form. I can tell you this, when I had my 90 gal with the sand, I had tons of copepods running arund the place, but eventually over time when I got rid of the sandbed, the all disappeard. I honestly wished sand could work for me because I love the look, but just don't like the maintenance and being limited on flow. Many successful reefers out there with sand in their tanks. Both deep sand beds and shallow.

Hope that helped some...I hate sometimes explaining things and not having anything to show for it so I figured I'd add all the pics as a bit of proof. I am setting up another tank soon (bare bottom again and an all in one) so look out for the thread in the next few weeks. I will be starting from scratch again so we'll see how it goes.

 

[the6goat6man6]

Wow, thats awesome! How much live rock is in there? and what kind of skimmer do you use?

 

[the6goat6man6]

hey that last bit wasn't just there, the 28

 

[Krish]

Wow, thats awesome! How much live rock is in there? and what kind of skimmer do you use?

Which tank?? The aquapod or the 75gal?? In all honesty, I have no idea what I had in either LOL!!. As you can see in the 75 gal, I had a lot of room in there. The rocks were centered in the tank so swimming room all around the rocks. The bioload is what helped me I think. Not a whole lot for the rock to support. You have to find that balance. In some cases people with tons of fish who don't want a lot of rock in the tank will put it in a sump to aid in biological filtration. If you do this, I'd suggest good flow in there and treat the rock in the same way as you would do in the main tank. I once had 3 rocks in my sump and when I removed them to see what was under it I almost died!!! A pile of detritus!! So if you go with the rock in the sump, make sure you take care of it there as well. I had a picture of what I pulled out of the sump. Last I checked, the picture was "X" out for some reason. I'll see if I can find it on my pc just to prove my point that sumps need attention too especially if you have liverock in there

 

[Krish]

hey that last bit wasn't just there, the 28

LOL!!! Just added them


And the picture won't work anymore I was looking for and can't find it on my pc...Aw well.

 

[the6goat6man6]

Ahh, could the rock in my fuge be the problem? Not enough Turnbulance! I was trying to keep that down in the fuge, again I read that the fuge(with macro) neede less turnulance to keep nutriences in!? Wow i feel dumb, that makes alot of sence. Got me rethinking my whole set up.

I think I my tear it all out, again, and start over Again! How what i go about removing the sand and stuff without kicking up too much nastiness?

 

[the6goat6man6]

or should i stick it out and move it all to the 150 after i set it up?

 

[Krish]

On the sand in the sump, I'm pretty sure some of the bacteria in there is being used to support your tank. You might have to remove it slowly like sucking out an inch or so every few days to not shock your system. Not 100% sure though. I'll see if I can get someone more experienced with sand to chime in for you.

 

[the6goat6man6]

I am worried that by removing only the top it will release alot of nasties!

On the sand in the sump, I'm pretty sure some of the bacteria in there is being used to support your tank. You might have to remove it slowly like sucking out an inch or so every few days to not shock your system. Not 100% sure though. I'll see if I can get someone more experienced with sand to chime in for you.

 

[Krish]

I am worried that by removing only the top it will release alot of nasties!

It's the lower regions that would be the problem. The anaerobic zones. With any sandbedm the top layer can be vacuumed and stired, but the lower levels is where you have to be careful. Hopefully someone will chime in on how to remove it all though in a safe way. If you don't get the response you need, maybe start a thread dedicated to emptying your sump and see how that goes.