Couple of questions regarding Vortechs and dry rock.

[Matt LeBaron]

Not exactly new to the hobby but thought this would be the appropriate place to post this.

 

I currently have a 55G tank that in about 2-3 weeks I will be upgrading to a 90 gallon. Right now I just have two seahorses (Erectus) and a Firefish in the 55G, it was my first tank and I wanted to keep it very lightly stocked because of that and due to the pristine water quality that you need for seahorses. Everything went well but I made several newbie mistakes that I hope to correct with my 90 gallon. (Placed the rock so that it was leaning on the rear glass of the tank making cleaning hard and no sump)

 

I've got about 80 pounds of live rock in my 55g and since I'm not planning on stocking my 90 gallon quickly I figured I would just get some dry rock for the 90 gallon to bring my poundage of live rock up to a better level for my 90 I figured it would save me some money and I could find some more interesting pieces without paying out the nose for them. Joke turned out to be on me, I was hoping to find some shelf like and branch dry rock but I cannot find them anywhere. The only two places that I have found any that *could* be for sale are marcorocks.com and bulkreefsupply.com but both are sold out of their respective dry rock. Anyone know where I could get those types of rocks online or in the local area? At this point I've even be willing to pay for live rock of those types if I could find it locally so I could take a look at it first. I had good experiences buying my initial live rock online but I didn't really care what it looked like then, I do now.

 

Second question I have is about the Vortech pumps from Ecotech. Considering purchasing them for my new 90 gallon but I'm not sure what would be the best setup. I would probably run it on lagoon mode with because of my seahorses but I'm a bit concerned as to whether one MP40 would be enough for the 90 gallon (48x25x18) or whether getting like two MP10's or MP20's would be a better way to go. I would not be happy if I dropped $400 on an MP40 only to find that it wasn't enough and that I had to drop another $200 or worse another $400 to make it work out. Does anyone out there have a Vortech pump that can give some advice or tell me of their experience with one?

 

Thanks,

[Chad]

Hi, welcome to WAMAS!! I have found many good and helpful people here.

 

As far as the rock goes, same as you I was doing a project and needed some rock that looked a specific way (I didnt care if it was live or not). Locally, I found the dry rock to be pretty slim picking (except for the random WAMAS member who had some they could spare). I found that Blue Ribbon Koi let me dive into their LR bin and go through what they had to find what would work best. Marine Scene also had a lot of nice pieces of live rock when I was looking (this was two months ago or so) and you may find some there. Otherwise, hammer and chisel? or DIY?

 

As far as the vortech goes, honestly I would just get the MP40, I think it would be fine for the flow you need. Something to keep in mind though is you will need to 'cage' it somehow (egg crate perhaps?) with the seahorses... I find it pretty likely that the seahorses would get stuck against the intake and/or hitch to it and injure their tails on the propellor... The MP40s come with a sponge cover, which would help with the tail injuries issue, but not with the sucked against the pump issue.

Edited April 7, 2010 by Chad

[Coral Hind]

Welcome to WAMAS!

 

I do not know to many LFS near you but if you make it down this way most of them carry both types of live rock so you could pick exactly what you wanted. There is a club social coming up in two weekends you should attend. I am sure Sean could get you some rock in.

 

One MP40 will be enough for the 90g.

[Matt LeBaron]

I'll check out Blue Ribbon Koi and Marine Scene, they're not to far from each other so I may make a day of it and go to both rock hunting. Yeah I'll have to get the sponge cover for the Vortech, the horses getting stuck to it is not a huge concern, when they were babies my two horses would sometimes get stuck to the Korilia nanos I have right now, they just kind of army crawl their way to the end of it and then get blown off. Scared the heck out of me the first time they did it but they seemed to enjoy it because they used to do it over and over again before they got to big for it. If I ever get more juvenile horses or my current two actually manage to successfully transfer a brood of eggs (two failed attempts so far) I may have to build some type of larger cage around it but at least initially that won't be a problem.

[Chad]

haha, that is funny... I have a female erectus that every morning at almost the same time will swim into the output of my PH (I use maxijets and a wavebox in the SH tank) and get blown across the tank, she does this 6+ times in a row every single morning! It is like her coffee!

 

MP40s do produce a large amount of suction (much moreso than a koralia), just be careful with it! (not trying to sound like mom!) hehe

[Novi]

I run (2) MP40's in my 90. I have them sync'd. One was not enough because I had dead spots and "crap" was building up in certain areas. I am actually thinking about adding an MP20 because I still think I dont have enough flow.....

[Matt LeBaron]

Do you have any pictures of your tank? Do you have a lot of live rock that blocks some flow and what is the GPH on your return pump for your sump?

 

This is what really concerns me, I'm willing to spend $400 on a single MP40 but not $800 for two, plus I've seen videos of two running in sync, way more flow than what I want. Wondering if maybe two MP10's might be better or just keep using Koralia's and get a wave controller for them.