Please help with filter questions!

Ok, well this weekend I got a 20g tank for FREE! WahHOO! So to get myself ready for the 125 this summer, I plan on making it into a sump for my 46, so I can get some experience with that. Now I have a good idea on how sumps work, and I need an overflow box. ...But whats the deal with bio-balls? Should I use rubble instead, since my tank is a reef? Also, currently I have a penguin 330 with bio-wheels. I thought biowheels, or bio-balls in the case of a sump, were totally imperative to good biological filtration. It seems as I was misled, and that bio-wheels/balls can in fact raise your nitrates?? I am not having a problem with nitrates, but is this so? I am hearing more and more about people using skimmers as pretty much it, and that the LR does the rest? My sand bed isn't very deep, an inch maybe. I was thinking that maybe a sump would improve the overall clarity of my water, and help with my algae woes (cyano, anyone? ...still waiting on the UltraLife to get here) since I plan to include a small refugium. My water is pretty crystal clear, I guess. But there seems to be some particles always floating around. Not a lot, but enough to notice. Do overflows help with this, since they skim the surface? Should I take off my biowheels? Or the entire penguin filter, for that matter? Or should I leave the penguin going until the sump has had a chance to catch up with the biological filtration? Also, can anyone show me a sketch or a detailed pic of a sump they built, so I can see a little better? Does anyone have an overflow box sitting around that they might sell to me? I'm looking for one on the net and stuff, why they heck do they seem to cost kind of high? Seems silly, but I also don't have the tools necessary to make one on my own. I guess that's it for now! Thanks!

 

Bio balls and any other place where the proper bacteria can colonize will add nitrates to your water. That's their job, and they are very efficient. Liverock can turn nitrates into nitrogen gas but that happens deep within the rock and it won't be able to keep up with how fast your mechanical and biological filters are producing nitrates.

You can certainly use the penguin for mechanical filtration, but you must keep washing your filter media to keep the bacteria from colonizing or trapped particles from further breaking down in the water. External power filters are excellent for running things like carbon, phosphate removers, etc, actively.

A deep sand bed in a tank that small isn't going to have much of an impact so the sand you can have for aesthetics.

If you keep your tank stocked sparingly and keep up on your maintenance you should be able to run a very successful tank with just adequate rock and a GOOD protein skimmer.

I currently run a 20L reef with a single tomato clown (will eventually outgrow the tank) a brittle star and nothing else but hermits, snails and corals which have over run the tank completely.

For overflow boxes, I prefer the amircale ones myself. I have found that ALL failures I have had with them were due to my own negligence, allowing critters to get in and block the tube.

HTH and good luck.

 

I would invest in a phosphate reactor. They can be a very important piece of the puzzle for your tank as you can place different mediums in it. I use it for phosphate remover and carbon.

 

I agree with JustPhish and would get a good skimmer and forego the bioballs and rock rubble. Personally I like to keep the sump clean so my pumps don't suck stuff up when I move things around to clean the skimmer, etc..

If you have the room, you might try to add a refugium on reverse light cycle than your main lights to help keep cyano down and keep pH up. It's not necessary, but it would be a bonus. I was going to do it, but I don't have room in my stand.

An auto-top off would be nice to for your sump.

Good luck!

 

Ok I have been doing a lot more reading, and I am SO close to simply dumping my current power filter. It seems that it is actually doing more harm than good, and more harm than I thought! With the bio-wheels simply makin nitrates, and the filter pads always needing cleaned (which is true from experience), otherwise they ALSO create nitrates. I have a good protein skimmer, IMO (Odyssea PS75). Matt, what is the reverse light cycle? Here's my understanding on refugiums. They have a DSB, LR or rubble, and contain macro-algae. The macro uses up the nutrients that would otherwise be available to feed nuisance algae to grow. Is that right? .......reverse light cycle??? Please elaborate. So in a sump, no bio-balls or rubble? And no filter pads? Just a space to keep a fuge and house the skimmer, heater, ect....do I have this right?

 

If you are going to use a power filter(hang-on), I'd use it for two things. The first being, adding more water movement. The second being, a place to keep carbon or phospate remover. To keep different kinds of filter media.
Reverse light cycle is just that, keeping the light used for a refugium on at night when the main tank lights are shut off. It basically stops macroalgae from going sexual and creating an algae bloom.
In a nut shell you are correct with your definition of a sump. For a reef tank get rid of the bio-balls.
A refugium can be used for what ever you want it to be. Some examples are a fishless on, one using Fiji mud and macroalgae or mangrove rods, deep sand and live rock, used mainly to grow and raise copopods mysis shrimp etc. or one that houses small fragile sessile inverts or fish that would otherwise get eaten by your main tank inhabitants.
Hope this helps!