Reefer_Madness

Sump holds like 30g. Tank is a 120g. The 2x/hour turnover is just a guess really. It could actually be less then that. I'm just eyeballing and guessing. The swings are not huge, but they are more than I had at about .6 degrees. My other tanks were around .2. Another interesting thing is that the tank is, on average about .3 degrees less than what I have the Apex shutoff set at. That is probably because of my redundancy. I have the heaters themselves set to turn off at 8.1, so my sump compartment is probably at 8.1 and the individual heaters are turning themselves off. You think? I could probably keep the flow the same and turn the individual heaters up to 8.3 or so, but that makes me a little nervous and cancels out my redundancy plan.

You don't want to get that "salty air" into the return. That's a no no. I build hotels and recently the trend has been saline pools. Any engineer or HVAC pro is going to tell you not to let that salty air into your ducts unless you have SS ductwork. It has been a pretty big problem for Owners lately, since they want to switch over to saline pools from chlorine. Galvanized ductwork just doesn't cut it. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I would not duct in the return in the fish room. I'm not a HVAC guy, but I would run a supply to the basement and a small exhaust vent/louver. It's what we do for bathrooms in hotels. You just want the air to go away, not get into the house.....kind of like poop air and humidity from the bathroom. Put air in and give the old air a place to go.....outside.

I started with 2x turnover in my tank and noticed a swing in temperature. It makes sense. I keep my heaters in the return compartment of my sump. If I am not pumping the warmer water up to the tank, then it can't keep up with heat loss. I am going to bump my turnover up until my temperature fluctuations level out. I don't want to put my heaters in my tank.

Carbon is a good idea. I've never fragged leathers, but I've heard they can spew out some toxic stuff. A mesh bag full of carbon would help.

I saw this setup over the weekend. He needs a build thread for sure. Amazing setup and a true reef geek with skills (meant as a compliment of course). Ben

Sorry Jason. That sucks.

That's a good idea.

Ok, so I've decided to go with a little different plan. I could use a little extra live rock in my system since I don't do the typical wall of rock that some reefers do. I'm going to fill the refugium with live rock rubble and install an algae scrubber above it. That will give critters a place of refuge in the rock and I can try the nutrient export in the scrubber. I ordered a Santa Monica Filtration Surf2x so it doesn't have any pumps to chop up critters. It will just float above the live rock in the fuge compartment. Theoretically, the pods would have a good home in the live rock. I would experiment with the flow in that area for optimum growth. When they leave home and go across the overflow weir they would have a straight shot to the return pump which would send them to the tank with a small percentage going to the skimmer. In addition, I think the scrubber floating above, growing algae, would be beneficial to the pods as well. Kind of like a natural feeder for critters. I have read the algae scrubbers grow pods pretty good too.

Nice looking tank!!

Awesome info. Thanks.

Dave W - I have no idea what I am doing, so there is no contadictions at all in your post. Refugiums are such a debated topic. It is very interesting actually. At this point I am kinda just trying to figure out if a refugium is only for macro algae or is there a pod benefit. It seems to be a hotly debated subject. One question for you is this - I have a recirculating skimmer at the moment. It is fed by my return pump. So the water from my refugium goes straight to my return pump and back to my tank. Only a small portion of the water from my return pump manifold will go to feed the skimmer and flow back to the return pump. In theory, this seems to help a little on the pumps, right?

I think I got hung up on the tank size vs how many times I should turn it over. I'm going from a 60g to a 120g and started thinking about twice as much water going through my sump. Twice as much water through my sump seemed excessive. Too much flow.

I feel you. I had a 100% loss from MV a few months ago. Made me feel like a bad Dad.

That's exactly what it is. Thanks man!

gill slug?

Anybody know what this is? Breaking down the tank and saw it. I assume it is not an Australian toxic sea slug....right? He looks like a snail without a shell from the glass side.

Really the purpose of my post was to figure out what everyone's flow was in their sump. If you haven't noticed, that is my MO. I see that a lot of WAMAS members give advice that they do not always practice, so I ask questions like "What are your Ns and Ps in your tank?" rather than "Where should I keep my Ns and Ps for the best SPS growth?". I know most of your tanks from looking at posts on WAMAS or knowing you personally, so I would rather see parameters and associate them with the pictures I have seen or the insightful posts you have made. I way advice based on your tank. I realize that some people are just trying to be helpful, but to me.........facts talk. There are so many opinions on what you "should do" that I tune it all out and look at facts. Theory is cool only if it works. If you don't have any success from your advice, I don't listen. Feelings are really cool.....for someone else. The proof is in the pudding. Show me your success and show me how you did it. Sorry if this sounds blunt. I just want new reefers to know that this hobby we have is full of opinions and they are just that "opinions". None of them are WRONG. There are a bunch of members above that have very successful tanks. All have different approaches. We always need to keep our mind open to new ways of doing things. And that is what I am doing now. I have done it one way for a long time, now I am checking to see what others are doing. My advice to anyone would be that you should never think your way is the only way. That is not the case. Be open to change and admit when you have made a mistake. Most WAMAS members only talk about their successes, so don't get down when you have a failure that didn't work. We've all had them. Ok, I'm off my soapbox now.

I'm not just looking to export nutrients, I actually more interested in growing coral and fish food like pods and such. Does a Chaeto ball grow pods well?

Exactly. It's a 40 breeder sump.

At one point I thought about it. They stink from what I hear though. That could just be troll talk from the forums I read though.

10g is all I have. Maybe someday when I have a fish room or aquacave. No way to increase it.

No light yet, but that's just a minor detail. Lol. I have a compartment for a fuge, a dedicated valve for flow, and nothing else.

Your tank is an anomaly. When I saw it I was shocked. You have a green thumb for sure.

Starting a new tank and looking for useful ideas for the refugium. I'm thinking low flow fuge. Not sure if I fully believe in the nutrient absorption benefits of macro algae in a fuge, but I'm going to give it a shot. What I do believe in is the benefits of a safe refugium for pods and other good stuff to grow and become coral and fish food. I've never really taken my fuge seriously. It's always been a good place for fish in "time out". My new sump is setup like a Triton sump and I have a recirc skimmer in the 2nd compartment fed by the return. Refugium is about 10g. DT is 120g and I like to keep my nutrients low, but not ultra low. Tank is 99% SPS and has about 80lbs of LR. I'm hoping to get some suggestions on what I should put in the fuge. At this point the only thing I know I am putting in there is water.

That happened to one of our Coral Banded guys a couple years ago. We thought he died. His name was "Convict" because of his stripes. The next day he came out of a cave and my wife renamed him "Jesus the Convict". He had risen from the dead. Haha.