Two Questions

[Roach]

1.) I just received my new Ultralife float vavle. I am using this for top of water. The way I have it set up is : a 5 gallon bucket with a rio 400 connected to some tubing leading into my sump. I put the float vavle into my sump(set for high water). So when the water goes down to a certain level the pump kicks on and fills it back up the right level. I guess my question is what kinds of problems can I have with this setup? Is there a better way to do it?

2.) I was thinking of ordering a clean up crew from Marine Depot. I was going to go with the 75 combo clean up which includes 18 Scarlet Hermit Crabs, 30 Turbo (or Astrea) Snails, 45 Mexican Red-Leg (or 90 Blue-Leg) Hermits, 2 Abalone, 3 Emerald Mythrax Crabs, 2 Sand Sifting Cucumbers, 1 Pink & Black Sifting Cucumber, 1 Brittle Star, 1 Red or Black Banded Serpent Star, 1 Red Fromia/Orange Knobby Star, 15 Burrowing Snails. Is this a good kit? It's $214.00 plus S&H. Are there better deals out there and do I really need all those creatures? Thanks for any help.

 

[Anonymous]

Mr. Roach,
On the clean-up crew- I would keep the scarlet hermits maybe but nix the other 45 hermits. They are pretty controversial in reefs. Even 18 scarlets is a lot unless your tank is big. They are mellow but they will yank food out of your LPS's mouths. The brittle star, if its the large greenish one is a reliable fish and shrimp killer and is frequently sold but you don't want it!

For a 75 I would say 30 astreas, half dozen scarlet hermits, a mithrax, one sand sifting cuke, and the sand burrowing (nassarius) snails. A couple dozen of some other species of small snail leke nerite or ceriths would be nice too, if available.

 

[delphinus]

That sounds more like a float "switch" to me than a float "valve"?

The setup sounds more or less OK to me, with maybe the possible exception of .... the float switch sticks on, thus the rio stays on and empties the bucket. The good thing about this setup is that you are using a reservoir, which means any potential topoff in a "stuck on" situation is mitigated. I used to use a float valve on my household water supply, meaning basically the water supply was infinite. And sure enough, it did fail after about a year. Of course, it was in the middle of the night, so I didn't know about it until morning until after my reef had gone freshwater.

Whew, what a stench. Don't let this happen ... to you.

The autotopoffs I like the best are the auto-siphon types -- nothing but gravity working for you. The Nurce is an example of this.