I got some advice and am not sure about it

I went to a reef store to beef up my setup and they recommended I do some things differently.

1. I've been using corner filters, 2 of them on my 45gal tank. http://leesaqpet.com/art/13410.jpg
These things. I attached a tube to them so that the bubbles from the air stone would pull water all the way up the tube and the filters would be more effective. The guys at the reef shop said I could just do away with these filters and take them out.

2. They said to take out my UGF too. I have 3 tubes connected to the UGF right now, and they said just to take it out too.

3. They said that if I find real porous rock, like the stuff LR is made of, that if I just plop it in my aquarium, that it will become LR.

4. 10,000k to 12,000k is a good rating for metal halide for a reef tank.


What do you guys think, do you agree with most of this?

 

I would put some very porous rock in their, but make sure you know what its made out of first. It will take a while for it to become live. I would leave either your corner filters or your UG on for a few weeks so the rock can become more live. I personaly like to have some sort of mechanical filter. I like the look fo a 10k halide. But it also depends on what you want to keep.

 

December, can you please give more information about your current setup! Removing the UGF is a MUST. This will cause issues with your levels that you don't want to try to overcome. More info will help and we will be able to help you.

 

So I SHOULD remove the UGF... interesting. It produces too many nitrates, the store guys said. Our current setup:

[35 gallon glass rectangular] [15gal refugium] [45gal glass rect]

In that order, on a counter made to hold them. I'm about to connect them using overflow boxes to the refugium then pump water back into both with one pump and a y-splitter for the tubing.

Both glass aquaria have UGFs, and box filters. I have two porous rocks that are about the size of two fists each.
2 brittle stars
3 tiny feeder fish that haven't been eaten
1 small fish, not sure of type, thumb size
4 purple urchins
1 pencil urchin
1 spiny box fish (misnomer: atlantic puffer)
2 hermit crabs, not tiny but small sized
2 sea cucumbers
1 other sea star


Since all tanks are connected we want to do different things with them all but have the same water circulating throughout, and connect a sump under the counter at some point. The 45gal will be a reef tank with LR, shrimp, a few inverts and such. We'll be getting rid of the boxfish as he's too big for our current tank sizes, and we'll get more fish for the 35gal, which will be our 'fish tank', and the refugium will hold cool inverts and algae.

 

Removing an undergravel filter is NOT A MUST.
Way back when you newer reefers hadn't even thought of reefing, UGF was what we all used in our area back then. Actually, I used pre-filtered, reverse flow undergravel filtration for many many years without problems. The LFS never had live rock in them and didn't worry about nitrates because the water was going out with sales and being replaced all the time. The rest of us had live rock in with the UGF and that took care of the nitrates.
It was about that time the local stores began pushing "wet dry" systems, that were already in europe for many years and here were mostly ignored because Julian Sprung had started his thing with Berlin method.
UGF back then was only really a problem to those who continually chose to overfeed their tanks when advised not to.
Like any system, if you use it the way it was meant to be used, most people could make it work successfully. In fact, some long term hobbyists around here still are using their UGF.
While I no longer use the UGF, I also no longer use plenums, and deep sand beds, but that is by choice as I just like working with my berlin method systems.
I only have two tanks left with shallow sand beds in them and will probably get rid of those someday when I have the inclination to do so.