dante411x

Could I put a float switch into the bucket that will shut off the skimmer if the level gets too high?

With those thoughts in mind, I think that output is going down the drain. As much as I would rather not have my return pump blow from running dry, it's way cheaper to replace that than the carpet. Or the house.

That's what I'm worried about. However, I run this skimmer about as dry as possible. I think I'll give it a few weeks with a collection bucket and if there aren't any accidents, it'll go down the drain and I'm going to be really really happy

Silly question I think. Is there any reason not to run my protein skimmer output into a drain instead of a collection cup? I have an external skimmer (MTC HSA 2000) and a floor drain that are very close to each other....

Well, it's been a messy last few days, but here's what it all looks like now. The skimmer has been patched up and I'm going to do another leak test on it tomorrow morning. My Q is doing pretty great as well.

There's always death in the tanks at this petco as well. I've been coming in there for a few months now and always get terrified of how bad the tanks look. The ONLY reason I actually bought a fish from there is because it was only in the water for an hour or two. Now I'm really wondering what it is that is killing all of their fish... Might be bad corporate policies of how to stock those tanks or maybe a bad supplier..

I didn't. But they don't sell anything but fish there

Well, I decided to potentially waste $20 and bought a fish from that petco. It's a six line wrasse that they just got in two hours before. The fish is doing great so far in my QT, I'll put up a picture of him if there's any interest. Their store has some guys that seem to know what they're doing with fish, but their saltwater tanks still look fairly grim. Out of curiosity I tested the water that came with the fish and I was almost shocked. It read 0 on everything. No ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. Salinity at 1.018. Not too bad Petco. Now here's to hoping the fish makes it!

So I figured I'd expand more on what all the new stuff is. I picked up a used aquaspacelight that's two 250w metal halides and two 24w actinic pc's. The skimmer is a used mtc hsa 2000. I'm only going to run one tower on it for now and potentially upgrade the pump to an iwaki 100 or something similar that can provide enough pressure for both towers at once. The skimmer pump is an iwaki 55 RLT. Return pump for the main tank is a speedwave dc 10000. Light on the fuge is just a lowes par38 led and it's all run by a couple timers and a used reef keeper lite. Heater is a single 500 watt titanium heater from amazon.

And since I'm posting this from my phone, can't figure out how to make sure the pictures are right side up... Sorry

Well there's been some progress. I finally got the rock and since I'll be gone for a month coming up in January I decided I'll just cycle it in the tank. And the skimmer is almost set up! I finally put it all together just to see how it will work. Here's a couple pics of what it looks like right now My limited aqua scaping abilities... And my quarantine tank all set up..

Well, the sand is finally clearing out. It's quite a bit less level than Id like though...

According to ups the entire order is coming on Tuesday by end of day. That'll have the rocks, some filter socks and the rest of the stuff to make the skimmer work.

fair enough. that's what i thought too, so i went ahead and turned everything on. of course, as soon as i did that, whatever did settle got kicked back up and now it looks like a nice backlit frosted glass piece lol. I was thinking of using some of that caribsea bio magnet clarifier stuff. if it does what it says it does, it shouldn't cause any problems. however it seems to need some kind of a filter media for particles to stick to... since i don't have any, would it be a waste? it's been 48 hours and there's no settling of this fine particle dust at all. from caribsea website: Cloudy water is caused by fine suspended particles. BioMagnet™ imparts a positive electrical charge and quickly seeks out and encapsulates the suspended particles, enabling the positively charged particles to be drawn to the filter. Particles caught in the filter are broken down by bacteria, and suspended bacteria are now repositioned onto strata where they are most efficient. The result? Crystal-clear water, fast… and a better biological filter! Quick Facts Highly concentrated Use regularly for Crystal-clear water Great for Reef Tanks A favorite of aquarium maintenancecompanies

I do have a question though. Should I be running the return pump and powerheads while waiting for the sand cloud to clear? There's no filter media in the tank or sump whatsoever (no filter socks, no rock, no filter floss or anything else). It seems to me that if I run them, I'll risk damaging them from sand particles. But if I don't run them then whenever the sand settles they'll just stir it up again....

I was way too impatient!!! Haha, That would have been a much smarter way to go and it's the way both my freshwater tanks were started. :D

yeah i've got two different types of socks in the mail right now too. nothing is gonna get here until next week though! I was thinking of posting something here before now, just never found the time. I was always building something or washing sand or trying to figure something out. Now that it's just the sit back and wait stage, I've plenty of time to write. I'm gonna check out some of these stores that are a bit further away. Maybe I sounded a little too harsh about my experiences so far, but for example, one guy at an LFS in Maryland tried to sell me a Mag12 for $300. He almost had me convinced that it was the best return pump I could ever hope for. Another LFS told me that unless I buy a $700 skimmer, two EcoTech 60's and a DC12000 my system will definitely fail and I shouldn't be wasting my time. So yeah, since then, I trust any forums much more than anyone inside a store

Ok, So here are some pictures: When I first got the tank: Building the sump... It's an extremely simple sump design. Basically the left side is the drain from tank and the skimmer intake. The skimmer output is going to go right into the first baffle. It'll mix a little bit with the water from the tank but I think most of it will go right through the baffles to the return pump. Which is in the middle. The right side is the refugium. Of a sort. I thought I figured out how to get water from the drain pipes to it, but it didn't quite work... Maybe a small pump in the output partition pumping water to it slowly. And it overflows right to the middle to get pumped back up to the tank. A few days later, after I built the stand for it. The stand is just 2x4's and 2x6's. Some metal framing as well and some plywood here and there. Closer look at the left side of the stand. That's the bottom part of the HSA 2000. And the Iwaki. They're not connected at all right now. I'm working on the plumbing for them, but the bulkhead is in the mail with my rock from BRS, so I won't have it finished and plugged up until probably next wednesday. The stand for the skimmer is going to be a very fancy collection of cinderblocks and plywood with some foam on top of it to keep it from making too much noise. A little bit closer of the same thing really. As you can tell, I'm filling the tank in these pics. As fast as my 4 stage mighty mite will allow... Which isn't even slightly fast. It's full now and it took a week. A few days later: (actually these are what it looks like right now) A quick look at what I ended up doing for drain and return connections... It's probably way overkill to use these pipes for the return, and The amount of pvc necessary... Well I'm not happy. But it works great. And after the tank filled up, I mixed the salt right in it! Gonna get a 55 gallon barrel and a cheap powerhead for this later, but figured what's the difference the first time? And then I took all the sand that I spent a RIDICULOUS amount of time washing... And dumped it in. Which quickly turned the tank into this...: Top fin oolite aragonite sand is pretty good price but the amount of washing it is crazy. I washed every bag out about 10 times. Maybe more. It finally got to a stage where I could kinda see the sand through the water, but it still did this.. in comparison, the caribsea sand took 3 washes and it was perfectly clear water running through it. All of the mounting of controls for powerheads and pump is temporary. Eventually there's going to be a wall put in all around the tank and the idea is to make it look like an "in wall" tank. With every compartment being accessible in some way of course. So now I'm waiting out the sand to settle and waiting for the rocks and the last couple pieces of plumbing to get here from BRS next week. As an afterthought. I need some advice on a good LFS. I've seen the map, and been to a couple... But I'm not impressed. So far the impression I've gotten was that all they want to do is sell me the most expensive equipment they have and criticize every decision I've made. Now I get that my decisions aren't perfect. And trust me, I'd love to buy the best of what's out there. However, there's been a good amount of research behind former and the latter is just not possible. Unless one of you wants to give me a winning lottery ticket

Thanks for the welcome! To answer your questions, I'm planning to just stock it with some peaceful fish and eventually corals. I thought about a predator tank, but I really don't think I'm up for it. Not yet anyhow. And the rock is in the mail right now, it's gonna get here tuesday next week... The only bad thing about the holidays I'm kind of tempted to just cycle the tank with it and then add some kind of phosphate removing device later.... Undecided. I'm going to figure out how to attach pictures to my post and add some in a few minutes

First off hey yall! Figured I'd finally post in here and get some thoughts and advice after stalking the forums for the last couple months while I've been setting up my new (first) saltwater tank! I've had some freshwater tanks while growing up, but none in the last few years. Recently I picked up a 26g bowfront and a 55 gal tank and set them up as freshwater tanks, the 26 as a community planted tank and 55 as a (probably too small) home for a tiger oscar. And while I was having fun with them, I got pretty bored and decided to try to set up a saltwater tank for the first time in my life. First off, I wanted to get a big tank. I'd never had a tank bigger than 30 gallons before and thought that a 55 gallon would be huge... Needless to say after actually setting it up and running it, i was pretty disappointed. Second, I'm on a budget. Well, I thought I was on a smaller budget, but it turns out that a saltwater tank requires money to be thrown at it. Alot. So I used to have some savings... Not so much now. With my idea of a big tank, I stalked craigslist and was able to pick up a used 220 gallon, dual overflow glass tank. It's 6ft long, 2ft wide and 30 inches tall. Very exciting. I decided that it was a good idea to scrape off all the old coralline off the tank... Not a fun time, took a week of labor, but finally I got it all gone. With that tank came a 55 gallon tank that I'm going to use as a sump. Then I had to figure out exactly how it was going to work. Found a used HSA 2000 skimmer and a Iwaki 55rlt pump to run it. That cost some money. Got a dc10000 return pump as well. Cost some money as well. Also two Jebao 40's for wavemakers. My lighting is crap right now. A 48" two t5 ho fixture. I figured that I'd definitely upgrade the lights as time goes on, since the plan is to have a FOWLR tank for at least 6 months (which will give me plenty of time to save up for them) and after that I might donate the oscar to somewhere more exciting and change the 55 gallon tank to a quarantine tank. If I do that, that light fixture will fit it very nicely (i tested it :D ) Finally, I picked up some sand (aragonite, about 90 lb of topfin oolite aragonite and 60lb of coralsea aragonite) all dry sand. I'll also get one bag of live sand to seed all that. Ask me of the greatest place to find sand for about 50c/pound dry. And I ordered 80lb of BRS Pukani rock. Wish I had read all the reviews that warn of phosphate leaching before I did. But it was hard to resist that 40lb box for 100 bucks black friday sale. Since I'm at work, no pictures of the setup quite yet, But I'll add them when I get home. I'm sure I forgot alot, so I'll edit this too. Ask questions, give advice! Please... I need it lol