New to the hobby, what do you think?

IHAVEMTS · May 12, 2009

lunatik_69 said: ↑

You did all of this in what time period? Luna
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Thats what i was wondering

Kirklandp · May 12, 2009

Looks great man.

browntrout · May 13, 2009

OverThinker said: ↑

What is that purple fish?
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It's a purple dottyback. Sitting in a trap at the moment, heading back to the LFS. For some reason it thought he should attack every single fish in the tank even if they were not bothering it. Especially the goby he can olnly clean the sand in half of my tank.

browntrout · May 13, 2009

PharmrJohn said: ↑

Greetings again. And no we are not going to kill you!!!! .....but you do need to slow down on your livestock additions. I would stop for the time being and let your tank catch up. Remember, one rushed move in this hobby can equal a very bad week. So.....no more fish for the time being!!! Now that aside.

Your Sump/Fuge.

For a 75g I would consider two sizes. The 20g long and the 30g standard. The 30 is six inches longer, which is the advantage. The height difference means nothing as you will not be keeping it any more than 40 to 50% full. I have a 90 and am running a 20g long with 12" of it being devoted to a fuge. This can be achieved simply by siliconing a piece of acrylic with a piece of eggcrate on top to hold the macros in the fuge.

The acrylic and eggcrate (light diffuser) can be found at Home Depot or Lowes. To give you an example, my 20g is 12 inches tall. I used a 7" piece of acrylic with a 3 inch piece of eggcrate to do the job. The acrylic can be found in the Windows section and the eggcrate on the bottom shelf in the lighting section of the store.

Now, some people get fancy with bubble traps and partitions and whatnot. I keep it simple. I just have that one little divider and called it good. I keep microbubbles from polluting my tank by using filter socks. If you decide to do this, just change them out twice weekly. Wash in warm with a little bleach and do the two rinse cycle. Hang dry. Rinse in RO water before reuse.

In my 20g, I have pretty much filled it with hardware. I have a good sized skimmer, a heater and three powerheads (two returns and a Mag 9.5 for the skimmer). I have the 12"x12" full of macros. It has a mineral mud base (one $30 jug did the job) and I am still considering putting some live sand on top of that. LS in a situation of heightened nitrates is not recommended. But if you have controlled nitrates, I would add 1" LS to your 1" mud base. Some do not use mud. Some just LS. Some do a deep sand bed. Others don't. I don't recommend a DSB. Aquarists have had problems with aging DSBs.

Now how to get water to and from. You have to consider the how and how much. I run a CPR overflow with an aqualifter (with filter) and am very happy with it. Weekly maintanence is recommended to keep it running top notch, but I believe it to be the best out there if you do not have a drilled tank. So google that and see what you think. For your's I would consider a 600GPH model. As a return pump you could run a Rio 2100+ or a Mag 7. Both would give you good flow back up to the tank. You would be running about 10x turnover with that set up. Some people run 4 to 5x. I run 7x. If you want to run slower, either get a smaller pump (a Mag 5 or equiv.) or put a ball valve on the higher rated pump. Dialing down a little won't hurt the pump.

The major rule here is not to exceed the capacity of the overflow with your return pump. You will notice that the Mag 7 has a head pressure of around 700GPH while your overflow capacity is 600GPH. That would be a bad thing to do, EXCEPT, the head pressure at 4 or 5 feet is only about 450 to 500GPH. It goes down when pumping against gravity is introduced.

So kick that around for awhile and do your googling. Take your time.

And no more fish young man!!!! Slow, slow, slow.......

Here is a pic of what my 20g sump/fuge looks like. You can barely see the eggcrate topping off the acrylic piece. The fuge is beyond.

Sorry.....I rambled again. I do that.
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Ok here is what I drew. So I need to purchase some sort of overflow, this will suck water out of my DT and send it to the sump/refuge the the pump in the sump will send it back to the tank correct? Now for the power heads that I currently have in the tank those stay where they are at correct? Im a NOOB bare with me.

FYI

The mods felt my old user name was racist so I was forced to change it. Gotta love America always watching out for who might get butthurt

ermano · May 13, 2009

browntrout said: ↑

Ok here is what I drew. So I need to purchase some sort of overflow, this will suck water out of my DT and send it to the sump/refuge the the pump in the sump will send it back to the tank correct? Now for the power heads that I currently have in the tank those stay where they are at correct? Im a NOOB bare with me.

FYI

The mods felt my old user name was racist so I was forced to change it. Gotta love America always watching out for who might get butthurt
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Looks good!!

micstarz · May 14, 2009

Nice setup!

browntrout · May 21, 2009

Ok so here is the sump/refuge I just finished cutting out. I know how hard it is to keep acrylic panels square when assembling, so I made this sump/refuge easy to build by putting some male/female notches in the panels. take a look. Squared up perfect and just needs some silicone

http://www.3reef.com/forums/i-made/glue-yourself-sump-tank-65105.html

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