Saltwater & Marine aquarium network
The Fish Report, My Filter Specs And The State Of The Union.........
Last night, it took me almost 3 hours to acclimate the 2 Blennys that I bought. So far they look really healthy and are very active. They already found prime real estate to settle down at and to hide in. There are plenty of cracks, tunnels and crevices for them to hide in. I decided to try to feed them along with my Clowns, the Clowns were very hungry but then again, they always are!!!
The Blennys didn't want anything to eat and normally that is enough to get me concerned but they are eating the algae off of the rocks and the sand. So as long as they are eating, then they should be good to go. These are silly little creature, thats for sure!!! My wife says that the Scooter Blenny, Preminger is kind of creepy. She says that all he does is stare at us and gives us dirty looks. It kind of reminds if of our Bulldog, "Bertha". She is big, clumsy and likes to snatch food out of our hands. It is just like the Scooter Blenny, Preminger!!
Yesterday at the Local Fish Store, they had some dry goods on clearance at the store, I think it was 20% off, anyways, it was a replacement sponge filter for a Fluval. It was 2 sponges in a box and they looked like they would fit perfectly in my over flow compartment of my sump. The best thing about it is that they are reusable!!! That is a big plus!!! These sponges are quite sturdy and I used them many moons ago when I had a bunch of fresh water aquariums!! So I paid around $4.00 for the 2 sponges, which is a decent price.
I was using cut out filter pads and they do the job well BUT they get expensive after a while and they don't last any more then 2 weeks before I have to swap them out. The removable filter in the overflow compartment that came with the sump are OK but they are WAY over priced and don't last more than 2 weeks at the most either. They use the filter floss on a plastic frame with activated carbon inside. I was looking at prices for these filters and they were like 2 for $7.99 at one of the Local fish Stores. Its hardly worth the money, so thats why I decided to use long filter sheets and cut them to the length that I need.
So on a whim, I decided to try these sponge filters and lucky for me, they fit perfectly. So I will be using these sponge filters from now on!! They are not as dense as the cut away filters but the sponge filters are 4 to 5 times as thick as the cut away filters and are more porous. The issue with my sump is that I have to be careful on how much Pre-filter media I use!! The more material I use, the less water flow I get to the actual sump area. That causes the sump to drain out more water than it takes in, so the power head will start running dry. So I have to make sure that I dont pack down the overflow with too much media or else I run into that problem.
Lets talk about my filter, for the record. My tank is an Oceanic Biocube 29 gallon. The tank has a built in wet/dry trickle filter system. The first compartment in this system is the overflow compartment. The material I use is the new Fluval sponge media. This is supposed to filter out the solid chunks of crap in the water. The next material I use right after the sponge is activated carbon sheets. I am able to cut out what I need and then place them where I need it at. After that I have Phosphate Sheets. Again, this is the type where you can cut out what you need. So far, even though I am using De-Ionized water to mix the salt and to top off the tank after evaporation. I am using these phosphate sheets to help combat any phosphates in my tank. So whatever the activated carbon doesnt remove, the phosphate sheets should handle them as far as phosphates go. I was able to remove the tray in the overflow compartment so I could insert my heater in there.
The next compartment is for the Bioballs, which I removed. Back in the day, the Wet/Dry systems were the thing!! After being out of the business for almost 20 years, Using Bioballs in a Wet/Dry systems were found to be not the best way to run a reef tank due to the nitrate retention of the Bioballs. So using the Wet/Dry Trickle System as a sump turned out to be the best way to use these filters. So following the advice of my local Fish Store, I removed the bioballs and installed a protein skimmer by CPR model SR3. This skimmer is made especially for the Oceanic Biocube tank. This runs on a power filter using the venturi system to bubble the water and capture the gunk in the water in a collection cup.
After that, the next compartment is the sump. My sump contains a large sponge that is immersed under the water in this compartment. I have a large filter sock filled with Activated Carbon and I also have a bag of ChemiPure in the sump too. I also have about 3 pounds of live rock in the sump to help with biological filtration. Fitted in the sump is the power head that moved the water out of the sump to the tank. So this is is as far as my filter goes. I have to admit that I have yet had a major issue as far as chemistry goes. I only had the Nitrites spike once and that was when I added in a bunch of coral at one time. It only spiked up to around .25ppm, this is pretty minor for the most part. The levels went back down to 0.ppm in a matter of a few hours. Nitrates have been a consistent .0ppm and that probably has to do with regular weekly water changes of around 5 gallons.
I have been feeding my Clams, Scallop and Coral Zooplanktos-S, which contains Phytoplankton, Rotifers, Rotifer Eggs along with other crustaceans. At least that is what the bottle says. It is made by Brightwell Aquatics and the size of the of the critters in the bottle are 50-300 microns in size. Anyways, my Flame Scallop seems to be recovering and doing much better since I started using this product. Well, the unfortunate thing is that I am having an outbreak of diatom algae all over the sand and parts of the live rock. I know that this is the cause of the outbreak because the sand was completely clear before I started to use this product.
The outbreak isn't too bad though, I just need to monitor how much and how often I feed my inverts using Zooplanktos-S. The corals both SPS and LPS, Clams, Scallops and Zoanthids look fantastic. It will be a balancing act but at least I have plenty of snails and hermit crabs to keep the problem from getting out of hand!!
As far as my lighting goes, I have several timers to control the lights and fans. My Metal Halide is controlled by one timer. The Blue Lunar Lights are controlled by a separate timer than the White Lunar Lights. I have the internal fan on my metal halide lighting system on its own timer along with another external fan that keeps the temperature of the lights from overheating the tank. It is a complicated maze of wires inside the tank stand. I spent an evening using zip ties to secure the wires. Now I will need to use my labeler so i can label each wire so I know what goes to what.
Anyways, it is time to clean the Algae off of the glass!! The interesting thing is that this is something I have to do twice a day. Not only the lights are intense especially a 250 watt 14,000 metal halide but also due to the amount of nutrients in the water. If this is something I have to do 2 times a day to have a nice looking tank, then thats fine with me!!! AS long as the fish and critters are happy, it is well worth the work, if you know what I mean!?!
Have a Great Saturday!!!
The Blennys didn't want anything to eat and normally that is enough to get me concerned but they are eating the algae off of the rocks and the sand. So as long as they are eating, then they should be good to go. These are silly little creature, thats for sure!!! My wife says that the Scooter Blenny, Preminger is kind of creepy. She says that all he does is stare at us and gives us dirty looks. It kind of reminds if of our Bulldog, "Bertha". She is big, clumsy and likes to snatch food out of our hands. It is just like the Scooter Blenny, Preminger!!
Yesterday at the Local Fish Store, they had some dry goods on clearance at the store, I think it was 20% off, anyways, it was a replacement sponge filter for a Fluval. It was 2 sponges in a box and they looked like they would fit perfectly in my over flow compartment of my sump. The best thing about it is that they are reusable!!! That is a big plus!!! These sponges are quite sturdy and I used them many moons ago when I had a bunch of fresh water aquariums!! So I paid around $4.00 for the 2 sponges, which is a decent price.
I was using cut out filter pads and they do the job well BUT they get expensive after a while and they don't last any more then 2 weeks before I have to swap them out. The removable filter in the overflow compartment that came with the sump are OK but they are WAY over priced and don't last more than 2 weeks at the most either. They use the filter floss on a plastic frame with activated carbon inside. I was looking at prices for these filters and they were like 2 for $7.99 at one of the Local fish Stores. Its hardly worth the money, so thats why I decided to use long filter sheets and cut them to the length that I need.
So on a whim, I decided to try these sponge filters and lucky for me, they fit perfectly. So I will be using these sponge filters from now on!! They are not as dense as the cut away filters but the sponge filters are 4 to 5 times as thick as the cut away filters and are more porous. The issue with my sump is that I have to be careful on how much Pre-filter media I use!! The more material I use, the less water flow I get to the actual sump area. That causes the sump to drain out more water than it takes in, so the power head will start running dry. So I have to make sure that I dont pack down the overflow with too much media or else I run into that problem.
Lets talk about my filter, for the record. My tank is an Oceanic Biocube 29 gallon. The tank has a built in wet/dry trickle filter system. The first compartment in this system is the overflow compartment. The material I use is the new Fluval sponge media. This is supposed to filter out the solid chunks of crap in the water. The next material I use right after the sponge is activated carbon sheets. I am able to cut out what I need and then place them where I need it at. After that I have Phosphate Sheets. Again, this is the type where you can cut out what you need. So far, even though I am using De-Ionized water to mix the salt and to top off the tank after evaporation. I am using these phosphate sheets to help combat any phosphates in my tank. So whatever the activated carbon doesnt remove, the phosphate sheets should handle them as far as phosphates go. I was able to remove the tray in the overflow compartment so I could insert my heater in there.
The next compartment is for the Bioballs, which I removed. Back in the day, the Wet/Dry systems were the thing!! After being out of the business for almost 20 years, Using Bioballs in a Wet/Dry systems were found to be not the best way to run a reef tank due to the nitrate retention of the Bioballs. So using the Wet/Dry Trickle System as a sump turned out to be the best way to use these filters. So following the advice of my local Fish Store, I removed the bioballs and installed a protein skimmer by CPR model SR3. This skimmer is made especially for the Oceanic Biocube tank. This runs on a power filter using the venturi system to bubble the water and capture the gunk in the water in a collection cup.
After that, the next compartment is the sump. My sump contains a large sponge that is immersed under the water in this compartment. I have a large filter sock filled with Activated Carbon and I also have a bag of ChemiPure in the sump too. I also have about 3 pounds of live rock in the sump to help with biological filtration. Fitted in the sump is the power head that moved the water out of the sump to the tank. So this is is as far as my filter goes. I have to admit that I have yet had a major issue as far as chemistry goes. I only had the Nitrites spike once and that was when I added in a bunch of coral at one time. It only spiked up to around .25ppm, this is pretty minor for the most part. The levels went back down to 0.ppm in a matter of a few hours. Nitrates have been a consistent .0ppm and that probably has to do with regular weekly water changes of around 5 gallons.
I have been feeding my Clams, Scallop and Coral Zooplanktos-S, which contains Phytoplankton, Rotifers, Rotifer Eggs along with other crustaceans. At least that is what the bottle says. It is made by Brightwell Aquatics and the size of the of the critters in the bottle are 50-300 microns in size. Anyways, my Flame Scallop seems to be recovering and doing much better since I started using this product. Well, the unfortunate thing is that I am having an outbreak of diatom algae all over the sand and parts of the live rock. I know that this is the cause of the outbreak because the sand was completely clear before I started to use this product.
The outbreak isn't too bad though, I just need to monitor how much and how often I feed my inverts using Zooplanktos-S. The corals both SPS and LPS, Clams, Scallops and Zoanthids look fantastic. It will be a balancing act but at least I have plenty of snails and hermit crabs to keep the problem from getting out of hand!!
As far as my lighting goes, I have several timers to control the lights and fans. My Metal Halide is controlled by one timer. The Blue Lunar Lights are controlled by a separate timer than the White Lunar Lights. I have the internal fan on my metal halide lighting system on its own timer along with another external fan that keeps the temperature of the lights from overheating the tank. It is a complicated maze of wires inside the tank stand. I spent an evening using zip ties to secure the wires. Now I will need to use my labeler so i can label each wire so I know what goes to what.
Anyways, it is time to clean the Algae off of the glass!! The interesting thing is that this is something I have to do twice a day. Not only the lights are intense especially a 250 watt 14,000 metal halide but also due to the amount of nutrients in the water. If this is something I have to do 2 times a day to have a nice looking tank, then thats fine with me!!! AS long as the fish and critters are happy, it is well worth the work, if you know what I mean!?!
Have a Great Saturday!!!
Comment
About
Badge
© 2009 Created by Travis on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
You need to be a member of ReefSpace to add comments!
Join this Ning Network