FishWife

What pretty pictures! We are redesigning our sump as we move to a bigger tank. The BIGGEST problem with our sump in the current setup was microbubbles. It seems to be a tradeoff between rate of flow thru the sump and microbubble busting. SO, for this reason, I might lower the drop from your bubble trap to the return pump. That big of a drop adds bubbles just at the last minute, defeating the purpose of the bubble trap, in our experience. Also, consider adding a bubble tower to the first return (front left corner)? Here's a picture of one: Melev's Reef site: DIY projects/sumps Just our experience. HTH!

We just got about 300 lbs of live rock from a tank that had been let go when its owner threw his back out. It's covered in aiptasias. We're considering getting a copperband to eat them. Will that work? How delicate are these fish? True life experiences, please?

Brendan: I saw your thread! It looks really nice. I'd like to add the rocks to mine as perches for future corals in our taller, larger tank. So... where did you buy said Touch 'n Foam?

For our new 175g bowfront I am thinking of trying this as a background, with real live rock islands in front, so I can isolate aggressive corals: Reef Central thread. Anyone done this? Anyone see problems with it at all? He's from the UK, so (assuming I do this) I need to know two things: 1. Pond foam: BK's is reef safe? Yes or no? 2. Epoxy... what kind is reef safe? 3. Thinking of placing it mostly between the two overflow boxes to hid pipes behind: siphons, lower manifold returns, etc. Think I should worry about losing fish or creating a detritus nightmare BEHIND the egg crate? TIA!

SO fine. SO good. Congrats!

Brian: yes! We agree about all of the above. We are working on lowering the overall water in the sump and we want to use the center section as a return. We could mount it similarly to how we have it; we need to see if PVC couplers can replace the rubberized ones we grabbed in a moment of crisis while doing "open pump surgery" in switching out the Mag 24 for the Dart. Tell you what about the Mag 24: we had it in 15 gallons of water, on pad made of filter webbing, in the far end of our sump. I could sit on the other side of our mudroom wall (ten feet away) hear it hum AND feel the vibration. The difference with the Dart was incredible. AND, the water temp. was only controllable after we got the submersible out. SO, we're leaning towards finding some way for the second Dart. ON ANOTHER NOTE: Thanks for the help with the Standard 8. I didn't mean at all to badmouth Dan's skimmer. I thought it was just "the way it was." We've LOVED the skimmer, and if we can silence the flexible tubing, that will be SWEET and open up all kinds of plumbing options for us with the 175g. We get to pick it up on Saturday!!!! I am SO excited! Thanks for the offer! Where are you located, generally speaking?

I dunno. We ran the mag for about two weeks and it was vibrating hard AND loud--submersed. I could hear it in the other room. The skimmer itself is ok; it's the flexible tube... escape?.... that gurgles really loud... sounds like a constant gurgling hiss... python choking on a rat that won't go down right... you know. I just don't want it under my display since I have the luxury of a room.

Yeah. All ours says is "Some Pig." We hardly get any press at all! GREAT pic!

We got a Sequence Dart and we love it, but we are redesigning our sump for the new 175g bowtank. We have a fish room, so it's not that it has to go under the tank (which is a good thing, because Dan's Standard 8 is LOUD). Anyways, we have an undrilled old 75g sump shape to work with, and here's the thing. We have been wrestling microbubbles in our current setup, so after perusing Mel's reef website, we like THIS idea of putting the skimmer section to the left and the 'fuge section to the right and having the return come from a center section. NOW: this poses problems for using a new Sequence Dart, which we'd thought of buying. Question: what QUIET submersible pump would you guys recommend to move 1800gph for one tank (and more eventually for a FOWLR 75g added to the same system) from the MIDDLE section of our sump. Currently, our dart is OUT of our water on the right. We *could* mount it above the water again in the middle, but that means we have to prime the pump and use a check valve. BTW, we have a Mag 24 and it is WAY too loud. Any other ideas?

Inspiring; way to go.

Ditto! Easier for newbies!

Me, neither. Hence the cry for advice above! Dave, I'd love to have a custom sump, built to my specs. but WHAT ARE THEY???? THIS is our problem: HOW do we improve our design???

I'm newer, but years ago we left this hobby because of frequent fish kills via ich. The first thing we did on our new system that we couldn't afford was to buy a UV sterilizer. Ditto Ybenormal on this one for us, but we sure don't know much.

We're thinking it will take us at least a month ('specially given the holidays) to get it set up and plumbed. We'll be cannibalizing our master bathroom to keep our livestock alive during a week or two interim to redo the sump. Poor things: they JUST got used to the new tank. But, I hope they'll like their new, bigger home when we're done!

You sure will! We'll have you over when it's in. (Thanks for rejoicing with us!)

Here's another idea we're thinking of trying along the back of the tank to both provide a fake rock wall to put coral frags on toward the back of the tank. The egg crate would come in front of the two overflow boxes AND shield any siphons for the closed loop. Reef Central discussion of pond foam and egg crate rock wall backdrop What type of epoxy is he probably using? I'm thinking of using old lava rock that's been around since our last foray into reef keeping five years ago. No problem using that kind of dead rock, is there? (It will eventually be overgrown with coraline algae, green algae, and corals (I hope!)) Pretty wild... see any problem with it?

Yeah; I'm thinking of skipping the aptasias and majoring on sponges! Well, OK; not 2". It's only 2" from the top in the first compartment where water enters from the tank; more headroom is had as the water progresses. BUT, it's VERY CLOSE when all the pumps quit, to overflowing and that's without bringing online the second tank that this sump will eventually service. SO: is half-full enough given the need to process 1700 gph?

Well, just as we get our 80g bowfront up and running, we decided that our worthy friends (who will soon join WAMAS and only have four feet of wallspace to work with) need our tank more than we do, 'specially when we just made a KILLER deal on a 175g bowfront. Yep, same tank shape, same color, just BIGGER. Double the size! We have 7' of wall space (about 6' is useable) in the same spot. SO, we get to fix all our beginner mistakes with more advanced ones! Our BIGGEST dissatisfaction with our current setup is our sump. Current setup is this: plus a calcium reactor not pictured. The sump is a converted 75g brick tank. We're planning a closed loop for flow using two lower manifolds like our old one for flow. BUT, because we want a mixed coral community, tank turnover (through filtration) and nutrient import from our sump/'fuge is important to us. We're going to want to turn our 175 over ten times an hour thru the sump, but that's about what we have now (since ALL our flow goes through out sump) and it's a lot of flow! All along with our current setup, we've fought microbubbles as a result of flow. We're going to haul out our sump and redo it. One thing we'll do is to enlarge our first compartment so that our Grey Seas skimmer (Standard *8) goes IN the sump. (Less drop; fewer bubbles.) We are also intrigued with a benthic zone, duplex approach as seen in this video linked to this thread. Hover mouse over second box on top row: Sump Concept How high do you all keep water in your sumps? (Ours leaves NO room for error currently; it's 2" from the top). Does anyone have remote sand beds inline with their (separate) purification tanks? How do you deal with microbubbles? Any other ideas for sump?

What's the difference between Mel's lights and any 5100 K spotlight with a long-life bulb that's garden variety at HD? We got two of the latter (and reflectors). Our cheato isn't growing very fast, but then, it never has in our system. It's dark green and holding steady, but not growing as others describe.

Where can we get some nylon clamps (or any other good thing) to replace these metal ones? We tried replacing them with standard plastic rip ties (since metal long term is not a good idea, and we knew this was a jury rig) but they don't keep all the oxygen out. YOu can't see it, but there were two clamps near the top of this black valve (where it meets the PVC) and two down lower, near the bottom of the check valve (where you can see them in the picture). Near where the PVC meets the check valve near the top, the water regularly drops down via evaporation. Every time the sump level falls below the black collar of the check valve, we get serious microbubbles. If there are no non-metal clamps in the world, how best can we solve this problem? O-rings? Silicon? TIA as always!

THAT's really helpful; thanks for your time, Justin!

Thanks for this, but I wasn't thinking they needed scenery at all. My comments about the prison thing was more of a "this water/light is sub-par because the system is small, there is no skimmer or sump, the salinity and pH fluctuate more than my main system, the light is a three-bulb PC, etc." Your post is helpful: light and water quality. Got that. My question is: how to provide water quality for three weeks for fragile SPS's when I've already done so in my main tank. I think I'll just dip and not QT corals from now on.

So, on the 10th, we went to the GREAT WAMAS meeting, and got some golden digitata, red 'shrooms, and a couple of acropora frags, and a bunch of cheato. These SPS's have now been in our 28 g QT tank three weeks and look awful. Tips are bleached, the stalks are less populated with polyps, etc. Mushrooms look, well, OK is the best I can say. In the small tank, salinity is hard to control 'cause water evaporates overnight and then we add fresh and the thing swings like crazy. Temp is ok, but of course there's no nutrition in there whatsoever... it looks more like a penetentiary than a happy "first place" for corals to thrive while waiting to be put into the new tank. How do you all do QT successfully? Do we need a sump/skimmer, etc. on a QT tank or what? AND, while I'm at it, we're supposed to get some zoas tomorrow, so we plan to dip these SPS's (we'll SEE if they can recover in our display.. :( ) and these red mushrooms... We're getting picking up the zoas from NIKI at an LFS, so we need to pick up some dip... what brands/types should we get? (Can we use these dips on zoas?)

THAT is so GOOD to hear! Yes, the rock was a life saver for us and has given us MUCH pleasure! SO glad you guys got your tank back up! Here are a few more pictures for Ryan: Monti Dig is all filled in and beautiful! Monti Cap Green: Don't think it's grown much, but it looks healthy to me... Hammer: I do think it's pinking up! Monti Dig Brown: lookin' marvelous Monti Cap Brown: not as happy???