The 90 thread

Scotty DO! lol.. What's up brother.. I have my ball valve on my return at 1 o'clock, if not I will have storm in my tank!! Mine you, it's pumping from my basement one level up. I do have 2 EVO 1400, but when my tank is sleeping I have them off. Like mother nature, the sea tend to be calmer at night. That way I feel the fish are more comfortable..

 

Hey CJ, where've you been? LOL
Looking forward to your post, even tho Im very familiar with your set up, Im sure others are interested in yours as well!

Keep them coming!!

 

Here are some further updated photos from my tank I finally go around to getting the camera out. Some could be better but I didn't have time to clean the glass.

 

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I really am impressed with your setup and sump especially. Do you plan on keeping the ATS and skimmer online for the duration of your setup?

 

I am going to keep the skimmer running with the ATS at least for now. I really want the ATS to be mature before I think about taking the skimmer offline. I did recently take the GFO offline and have had a small amount of brown algae show up in the DT, but I think the ATS has caught up already.

My growth has also increased so it is doing something good.

 

That is interesting about the koralia's sounds like a good idea.

 

That sounds like a definite plan, and a smart way to go about it. I have been looking at ATS for the past few days, and it seems to be the most natural way to get low nutrients in the tank. Which to me, keeping inline with the rules of nature far outweigh anything we could attach to a tank and plug in to an outlet.

 

I did some more research and thought on this last night over a few brews, and it seems there are two general thoughts.

Some do not like powerheads in their DT, either to asthetic reasons or livestock selection (think 'nems). And so they achive large amounts of flow by either upping return pumps in the sump, or through the use of a closed loop system. One potential problem with large return pumps in the sump is that the water from the DT is displaced so quickly that food for fish and especially corals does not have a long time to remain suspended before it is filtered out (as is the case with my system).

The other thought is that of 2in10 and others, that the sump is strictly a fliter, and there are other means of achieving strong flow in the DT by use of powerheads. Powerheads in the DT will still ensure suspension of detrius and food until it is filtered, but it might dwell for a bit longer.

After thinking of the pros and cons of each, I'm going from one extreme to the other. I'm currently running a HF32, which puts out 1500ghp at 4' head, and just ordered a maxi-jet 1800, which puts out about 250gph at 4'. Two benefits I can think of is that noise is going to go from a rush to a trickle, and my temp will lower a bit during the day (going from 115 watts to 38)... we'll see about the rest. I'll update on my findings after a while. My three korlias will still provide sufficient flow around the tank.