Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, part 1-4

Thanks and I'll look that all up. I'll be starting a new thread where I can get some advice on everything. It's been well over 30 years since I had a marine aquarium and times and equipment have really changed. I'm picking up a 55 gal (standard size) tank, stand and some equipment on Friday. Once I get an inventory I'll be better able to ask questions. I want to keep as much of the filter systems out of sight as possible. I always hated having the filters and plumbing visable. Oh, and I have read through this thread a couple of times. Thanks
 
Wow. There's so much to post that I don't know which should be first. Today I'll cover max inputs that's I've been able to achieve.

I've been experimenting with how much I can feed my 90g, with only my 144 square inch turf screen doing the filtering. I'd add more food for a few days, then the Salifert N test would start showing a tiny bit of pink (about a .2 reading). Then I'd cut the food in half, until the reading went clear (zero N measured). Interestingly, P never increased. Ever. Only N. So after a few tries, here's the max I've been able feed the tank while just barely getting an N increase:


Max Feeding:

Liquid Life Marine Plankton with Cyclopeeze: 3 pumps a day
Liquid Life Bio Plankton (live phyto): 2 pumps a day
Frozone mysis: 2 cubes a day, unwashed, thawed in 4 oz tap water.
Silversides: 1 per week (for the eel)


Tank:

90 Display, BB
20 Sump
150 pounds LR
60 inches fish
40 corals, all softie and lps
6000 gph circulation
Carbon now used once a month for allelpathics


I'm now settling in on a lesser amount:

1 pump phyto
1-2 pumps plankton
2 cubes mysis, unwashed, thawed in 4 oz tap water.
Silversides: 1 per week (for the eel)
 
i need to give the report here... after 4 days running in my aqua... i has a green hair algae growth around 3-4 cm....... and i didn't see any brown diatom algae :(
 
Green is good! Diatoms are not better, just different. So you are doing good. When you say 3-4 cm, is that the space on the screen, or how long the hair algae is? A pic would help so much.

Just make sure your light is right next to the screen... no more that 5 cm away.
 
Here is the screen from the person who bought pre-grown turf from Inland Aquatics, after growing on the tank for one week, and then after cleaning:


UserJski711onRS-1wk.jpg
 
That cleaning seems rather harsh to me in light of what I remember from Dynamic Aquaria. Didn't he sort of "cut" the excess off, which would allude to leaving a fully intact mat? Seemed to me that the mat would get perhaps an inch thick and he would trim it back to perhaps half that, never getting back to the actual screen. :confused:
 
Part of the "new method" of using turf is not to trim it in-system. It's better to remove the screen and scrape it in the sink. And you are only scraping one side, so the other side is intact.
 
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