How Often?

[Anonymous]

these guys are nuts

...

Beaslbob...Not to be harsh, but that is why you have stagnant puddle...
Please dont come into this conversation and spout off bad advise...
...

Lord not to be harsh. My fw And FO salt tanks since the late 70's are not stagnant puddles. They do not have scum at the surface. They do not have odors. They have healthy active fish that are not only growing but spawning and reproducing as well. Salt was simple air stone powered UGFs and small sponge filters and fresh was no circulation of any kind. And have remained that way for years with little to no interference (maintenance) on my part.

You simply must not have set up tanks with this method and seen the results. And you definately have never seen my current 55g so can make no observations on how stagnant it is. After all it does have a mag5, powerhead, and air pump. I did confirm a no circulation setup with fish that ran for 2-4 months in salt with exactly the same results as my FW. The FW equilivant is here: http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=60020 which is also an example of what happens when you startup without the plant life from the get go. With plant life you simply do not have the algae blooms and the water remains clear.

Cal's tank and mine are hardly an anaerobic stagnant puddles. So you obviously have never implemented these methods. Otherwise the advice would make sense to you.

 

[Anonymous]

nope, never saw your all of a sudden new 55 tank...post some pics please.
And now they are fish only tanks that you have? I thought they were reef?
Your stories have way too many contradictions to take you seriously.
And 2-4 months of running is not by any means a long time at all for tanks that people have for years and years. :?:
ooooookay? :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

nope, never saw your all of a sudden new 55 tank...post some pics please.
And now they are fish only tanks that you have? I thought they were reef?
Your stories have way too many contradictions to take you seriously.
And 2-4 months of running is not by any means a long time at all for tanks that people have for years and years. :?:
ooooookay? :roll:

What contradictions?

 

[Anonymous]

A fresh water tank is different from a reef tank on so many levels it just is not worth the comparison.

Here is my 110 before I moved. No plants just a skimmer and 20x turnover. It was approx 3 years old. No problems. Please post you tank so we can compare.

 

[Anonymous]

I did confirm a no circulation setup with fish that ran for 2-4 months in salt

What a great opportunity you have here. You could set up a Nano reef with the exact methodology you are advising and show everyone how easy, cheap, and successful it can be.

 

[ricky1414]

I couldn't imagine running a tank with no circulation. I mean, nothing to help the coral's respiration? You have got to be kidding.

 

[Anonymous]

O........Kay......... so back to spoonie's original question, which was about a saltwater fish only tank, anything between 5-10 tank volume turnovers per hour will work just fine. More certainly can't hurt. But no water movement at all certainly will.

 

[ricky1414]

Ooooops, my bad. I did not mean to partake in any thread hijacking.

 

[Anonymous]

Dont worry Ricky..its not you hijacking...view some of the current GRD posts on Beaslbob and it will fill you in on why Matt wants to get back on track..Yes Matt and Len are right on the turn over rate...

 

[ricky1414]

The turnover is what you want to make of it. Lower or higher, it don't make much of a matter. So long as your corals and fish are doing well, why change.

I saw the opportunity to buy 2 Seio 620s brand new for 40 bucks for the pair, and I couldn't resist. I originally had a Seio with a MJ 1200, but the flow was not good. The MJ, while a lower GPH powerhead, was pushing back the gentler flow of the Seio. So I ditched it and went with the second Seio.

The second was the wattage/heat. The MJ1200, while only running at 20 watts or so, can tend to heat the water significantly in a 20 gallon nano. The Seio is a 8 watt pump. Less power=less heat shedding into the water. In my book, that's a-ok with me. The Seio doesn't cavitate like my MJ did either, so no microbubbles that I couldn't seem to get rid of.

People say I am crazy for having 1200+ gph of water flow, but with my hand in the tank, it feels like a gentle current. There is no water splashing out of the tank like a level 5 whitewater river, just polyps gently blowing in the breeze, and when the currents mix together, it creates a nice, almost undulating current.

Thats my .02, don't forget to tip your waitress on the way out. And dont forget, my 10:30 show is different from my 8:30 show, so bring the kids!!!

 

[spoonie]

Well I do appreciate all the opinions. But after much research I have made up my mind. I plan on using two mag 9's for overflow to sump and sump to tank since my tank didn't come reef ready and can't be drilled. I also plan on using a 6 jet ugj sysytem powered by a mag 12. I also have a Tetratec hob filter good for 300GPH along with a Seaclone 150 skimmer. I am buying atleast 30 pounds of live rock to begin with and plan on cycling my tank for around a month or I guess untill it's ready.

 

[ricky1414]

I wouldn't do it. Be off by 1/10 gallon an hour, and it will most likely flood. One will have head loss, one won't, and it will be impossible to account for slime in your return or drain pump that could slow flow. But it's your tank. Keep us updated.

 

[Mihai]

Well I do appreciate all the opinions. But after much research I have made up my mind. I plan on using two mag 9's for overflow to sump and sump to tank since my tank didn't come reef ready and can't be drilled.

Spoonie, I don't know where you made your research but it's simply impossible to make your setup work. There is no way to exactly match the incoming and outgoing rates into your tank. An external overflow is the solution you're looking for (even better, drill the back if the bottom is tempered).

M.

 

[Anonymous]

Life Reef Version
CPR Version
Marine Life Prefilter Boxes


I would get an overflow box, like one from the links above. They hang on the back of the tank and siphon water from the tank into the sump. Some people don't like the CPR version of the overflow boxes. I'm sure there are more.

 

[polcat]

Please don't do the two pump setup. I can tell you from experience it will not work. You need to be able to sleep at night and not worry about floods. Hang on overflows are plenty enough to worry about but they do work, two pumps will not. Best of luck!

 

[Anonymous]

I would get a float switch such as from -
http://www.floatswitches.net/floatswitch.html

You would turn the float so that it is in the normal closed position (the pump will run when the water is at the normal position and turn off when the water line becomes too high). I would place it above the normal water line. Next plug the return pump into the float switch. This way if something happened to the overflow the return pump would turn off and prevent flooding.

You could make the two pump option work with two of the float switches.

The pump returning water from the sump to the tank would be plugged into a float switch haning on the tank wired like I have above. The pump taking water from the tank to the sump would be wired into a float switch located in the sump at a point above the normal sump level. You would need a way to make sure the tank to sump pump would not create a siphon so when the pump turned off it wouldn't keep draining. This would allow the float switches to turn off the sump-to-tank pump when the aquarium water got to high and the tank-to-sump pump when the sump got too high. It would cause alot of on/off cycles on the pumps causing more wear and tear. I WOULD NOT TRUST THIS OPTION!!!!!

 

[Anonymous]

Well I do appreciate all the opinions. But after much research I have made up my mind. I plan on using two mag 9's for overflow to sump and sump to tank since my tank didn't come reef ready and can't be drilled. I also plan on using a 6 jet ugj sysytem powered by a mag 12. I also have a Tetratec hob filter good for 300GPH along with a Seaclone 150 skimmer. I am buying atleast 30 pounds of live rock to begin with and plan on cycling my tank for around a month or I guess untill it's ready.

absolutely don't do it. Only one pump is necessary and let gravity pull whatever overflows from the higher to the lower.

 

[Anonymous]

You decide if you want a tank like this:

 

[Anonymous]

:lol:

 

[Anonymous]

You decide if you want a tank like this:

Wings: perhaps you could explain to spoonie why having a pump in the display and another pump in the sump has anything to do with the excellnet condition of my tank or any of the others pictured here.

Spoonie: Don't use two pumps. You get more floods with two pumps. You will probably get floods with one pump but only rarelyt. The only way to almost eliminate possibility of flooding is to not pump water to an open container at a different level. but most do use an external sump refug of some type.