product advice

[ram303]

Hi there everyone I was just chasing some advice on a fish product by 101 fish. has anyone used these filter pads befor, and how effective are they. I am currently building a 330gal setup, and wanted to incorperate These pads into the sump 102035

102036

102037
if people have good comments about these pads then i will ad some more stages to my sump to incorperate them.

[thereef]

For this application I would pay attention to the tightness of the weave of the pads. The tighter the weave the quicker it will clog. I would use sponges to fill the chamber and possibly place a cut pad on top of that for easy maint.

[ram303]

thanks thereef. sorry the pics i posted arnt verry good, and the sump is a long way from finished, the sump will flow from left to right. the first stage will be 2 different grades of foam filter. followed by bioballs then 3 or 4 stages of the removal pads. hopfully all the deterious will be traped by the foam, leving the filter pads to do there thing, without getting cloged. each chamber will house 12 pads, 1 pad per 60-100ltrs.
do you know how the carbon pads will stack up against activated carbon in bags.

[ToeJam]

Some things I observed:

The center wall ...why is it there? Normally I see sumps with a wall between the pump and the rest of the sump..Wall Foam Wall...

Or in case of a fuge.... Wall foam wall...wall....fuge design was slightly different....in your case if it was a fuge set up...with the return on the left of that pic....the central wall would actually be 1-2" from the bottom of the tank with a foam block in place to keep snails and critters out of the pump ..plus bubble breaker.


I havnt looked in a while but this is a great DIY site. http://www.melevsreef.com/


Also since going sump....why would you use bio balls? They only hold one type of bacteria..vs the two like live rock does...

Why such compact filter pads? Detritus getting trapped is not a good thing since it just decays and breaks down into DOC's ...which can not be filtered out without a skimmer, waterchange or macro algae eating them.

To me if I had your situation with the way it seems you can do a lot with on your own in a shop there.

Sump +Fuge set up..... There you can have the benefits of the two...

I've been a firm believer in having only Skimmer,Fuge, Rocks, Substrate being the only filters you need... The sump only needs something more porous to keep debris from reaching the pump. Its not there to act like a detritus trap but a snail keeper outer or pebble debris catcher to prevent that pump from being destroyed.

Taking a second look at your pic: Man oh man...I would have a field day if I had the shop.... Makes me want to have a sump that big so I can have a huge fuge under my tank...

Too bad the stupid bow front stand barley has room for a sump....I wish I went with a Cube shape every day I look under my tank.

[ToeJam]

I uploaded my terrible drawing but to give you an idea what im talking about. Its not a great drawing ...but what Ive observed when I researched a bit.

[ram303]

Thanks for the advice toejam.
I chesked out the website you suggested, and just got even more confused lol
I am pritty new to all this sump/fudge setup stuff.
What is the differance between the 2
all the sump sutups i have seen seem to be complicated labrinths of glass and pipework.
unfortunatly the lfs in my area dont really specialise in marine settups at all
and there are only 2 to choose from. neather have any corals just fish.
lucky for me i can get all the coral and live rock i want. from local reefs.
without much help, and very little computer skills i am going it alone on my first big settup. I currantly have a 55 gall settup with a fluval 305 filter, and a JEBO 180 Skimmer. It has been going for almost 3 years now. Although i havent had a great deal of success with the hard corals, soft corals seem to do ok as do the fish.
I was building my sump to sort of emulate my fluval. by pushing water through several chambers, all containing differant filter medias.
I am working on the theroy that enough is never enough. Max filtration will not hurt,
although i still know that nuthing can replace regular water changes.
i want to keep my new system as simple as possable, so anyone will understand, with a glance how it all works. also it needs to be transportrable, as i live in rented accomadation 1200ltr settup on wheels. yes it can be done, the wheels cost me $130 each and are rated to 500kg x4 = 2 ton.
the stand wich is at the cabnet makers now cost me $400 in steel to build, and i built it myself. $700 for the cabnet around the frame. I will post pictures of the build soon, i just want to get it all into place so i can
give the full story.