Couple qestions

[StirCrazy]

Hi I have a couple question I am looking for answers for befor I start buying my equipment..the first one is on a 33 gal tank (for free) and I was thinking of going with two 55watt pc atinic bulbs and one 55watt pc 10000k bulb. is this a good combanation and enuf light? or should I be looking at something like two 96watt pc (one atinic nd one 10000K?
The second questions was about proteen skimmers.. I was told at my lfs for a reef tank you don't want the best skimmer you can find but rather one that is just ok as you don't want it to take everything out of the water.. his reasoning for this was thet it will remove food that the coarals and such will eat.... now I don't realy belive this my self as everything I have heard and read points to the oposit but, is this true?

thanks
StirCrazy

[ October 02, 2001: Message edited by: StirCrazy ]

 

[StirCrazy]

anyone?

 

[pathos]

with the light, the more the better usually, so go with the 96W PC. As for the skimmer, your LFS does have a point, but it depends on what you would like to keep. SPS require pristine water, while some LPS and softies thrive with more disolved organics present. As long as you have a skimmer and a small "clean-up-crew" you should be fine. With a tank that size I'll bet it's gonna be a hang-on skimmer. Don't get the Sea Prizm or the Seaclone. Go for the CPR backpack. General consensus is that the first two suck. HTH

 

[Mouse]

Dont know about your LFS but im going to spend about £900 on my skimmer. Deltec AP703, unless i see evidence of this over skimming scenario i as yet dont beleve it. On the other hand the system i intend to run with this skimmer should produce its own fresh food from the refugeum, which logically will be placed after the skimmer.

Skimmers removes disolved organics, and as far as i know the corals eat what we call Marine snow, small floating plants and organisms which are defenately not disolved. I suppose it also depends on how much you intend to feed and what sort of bioload you intend to keep. Personally i feel that the majority of people dont feed more than 10% of what a wild reef would recieve. As i intend to get closer to this figure i can only assume that this in turn will produce a respectively larger ammount of waste.

In some situations i have heard that over skimming is more to do with the type of skimmate your producing. If the skimmate is too wet then you will be removeing many beneficial trace elements allong with all of the crud. But if the skimmate is dry, i.e. very dark and sludgy then the trace elements wont be so heavily affected.

 

[Rich-n-poor]

im running 2X55 wattts power compact on my 37 and it does fine with soft corals but you can never be too rich too thin or have too much light on your reef.
go with the back pack and if you are concerned about over skimming then shut it down on occassion

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