2 questions on water quality

First question I have is how can I add carbon effectively to a refuge? I have a 26 ish gallon sump 3/5 full with 3 sections. First section all the water dumps into and the skimmer sucks up water and dumps into as well. The second section houses the skimmer, large ball of cheato, 2 peppermint shrimp, a turbo snail, hermit crab and 2lbs of live rock (along with alot of copepods and bristle worms). The 3rd section houses the return pump. I've heard about bagging it in nylons but how does that work if most of the water just goes around? I used to use an overflow in addition but its ugly and splashes alot with the built in overflow.

2nd question -- when you do water changes where do you take water from? Siphon the sand/substrate or off the top where most of the proteins are supposed to be?

I also have a large ball of cheato in a back corner of the main tank for the tangs to chew on and houses tons of copepods as well which doesn't seem to get any smaller from the tangs

I skim pretty wet to so the skimmer can take out as much as possible and I employ the cheato so do I need carbon? Do I really need to siphon the sand? The sand gets turned over by the nassarius snails and sand sifting starfish so these are basically my two questions. Tank looks great and want it to stay that way.

 

I would take water from the bottom near the sand.
I would hit the spots in the sand where the debris collects with the siphon, but I would not siphon all the sand as there are some beneficial buggers there.

That said, I would periodically groom the sand with a chop stick or something to prevent 'caking.'


If it were me, I would have all chemical and mechanical filtration after the cheato section, but not everyone does it this way.

You don't need carbon but periodic use does help with water clarity and smell.

hope that helps!

 

That does help, I have about half crushed coral and half sand, mostly sand on top (layed the crushed coral from the old 72 bowfront on the bottom and poured sand on top). The new tank with all the old water and critters has been up about 2 weeks and looks great. My big concern is my yellow tang poops like crazy as he chews on alot of cheato and craps out strings of it and I just dont want build up but I don't want to siphon up critters.

I'm also thinking of using nylons for a charcoal bag but I really only have about an inch between baffles. Guess I could run it a couple of days a month but so far the water has been crystal clear and the critters stir up the sand and keep that looking nice as well. I'm with the whole idea an ounce of prevention is better than a pound later on.

 

a good clean up crew should take care of the fish waste. the salt will eat the nylon, better to have a reactor or filter bag. the baffles are to close to put anything inside of, that will limit flow and may cause a flood later.

 

You can also use a powerhead to blast rocks and get some crap into suspension for the filters and to siphon out.