Hello Advice Needed

Hi everyone,​

My wife and I have been running a 72 gal bow front tank for about 4 months and are having a great time, enjoying the scenery. It's incredible how much the tank changes from day to day. Everything seems to be living/growing great.​

We have had fresh water for over 10 years and decided to switch to sw, originally we were just going to make it a fish only, but is just sort of started to become a mini reef.​

We are currently running a remora pro protein skimmer(Works Great), Glo T5 lighting w/2 actinic and 2 daylight bulbs, Marineland canister filter, penguin bio wheels and a lifeguard sand filter. The tank has about 92 pounds of LR, 60 pounds of live sand, 1 yellow tank, 1 angel, 1 maroon clown, 1 bubble tip anemone, about 30 snails(various types) 15-20 hermit crabs, 2 emerald crabs, 2 Cleaner shrimp, 2 small colonies of pulsing Xenia's, 2 colonies of yellow polyps, Flaming green polyps, and 1 colony of Sun polyps.​

We just have a couple of questions on refugiums. I have read lots about both HOB and sump type and would like to put in a sump type refugium in but I am a little nervous about overflow boxes. Our tank is not currently drilled with overflows and I don't feel comfortable with drilling it so I'll have to deal with some sort of overflow box.​

From what I have read lots of users have had issues with overflowing the main tank after a power outage because the overflow looses suction. Can this be avoided? What is the best type/brand of box to get so this doesn't happen? Anyone using them successfully, how is the best way to set one up?​

Eventually I would like to just use the protein skimmer, the sand filter, and the refugium as the only means of filtration, is this realistic?​

Thanks for any help,​

Chris Blaisdell​

 

Very realistic. Most boxes are fine, the one i have has a "Nipple" for the adittion of a "Suction" style pump. IE, The AQUALIFTER Pump. I have the pump run 24/7 and it holds the siphon and restarts it after a power outage

 

Oh, and welcome to 3reef!

 

Thanks,

I haven't come across that yet, I'll have to look into that, thanks..

 

What kind of filtering are you currently using? need to know more, my tank is not drilled either and I aways used overflow boxes, w/o any problems, when the power goes out for whatever reason, either by turning it off manually or power failure, when ever starts back up everything should keep flowing normally, the syphon effect in the over flow pipe shouldn't be affected, unless air get inside of it

 

I have used a old style one with a u tube for about 16 years and have never had an over flow problem and it has never lost suction but have had a snail or 2 sucked in and flushed down into the sump.

 

Hi,

Right now we are using a marineland 330 Canister Filter, a Penguin duel bio wheel, a Lifeguard Sand filter model 330, and a remora pro HOB Protein skimmer.

I have read in several places that for reef keeping canisters are not allways a good choice because they can release phosphorous into the system so I'll probrobly get rid of it eventually.

Thanks for the feedback...

 

Welcome to 3reef
I have use CPR overflows with aqualifter pumps to take all the air out. The only thing you need to keep an eye on is things building up in the box that would restrict flow some how. It would be much better to have a drilled tank but that may not be an option.

 

Welcome to 3Reef>>>>>>>

 

we had a 2 hour power outage yesterday and mine started up just fine when the power came back on.