Pictures of my new 90 gallon overflow setup!

Pictures of the new lights!

Ok so I set-up the lighting and just took some pictures in the dark. It looks great! This is by far the best lighting $60 can buy! Including bulbs and fixture! There is one T12 actinic blue bulb and one T12 daylight bulb.


Just a simple $20 industrial T12 48" light fixture from the hardware store

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Very nice actinic blue color to the light, looks great at night

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Took off the canopy to show the top of the fixture

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Oliver, I guess I will have to track my nitrates when im adding fish to make sure I dont overstock. I had a feeling I might be going over the limit. When my nitrates build up too fast I will either stop stocking the tank, or think about installing a refugium (which I still need to learn more about).
 
Senos- a refugum is just a sump under the tank that is iluminated, maybe has some live rock in it and is meant to be seen. you can use it to keep hard to keep or agressive fish in or to breed different types of small crustaciens such as brine shrimp, mysis shrimp and amphipods and copeopods or in your case to increase the volume of water and make it possible to keep more fish in the main tank.
 
Should I use Activated Carbon?

Ohh I see. Oliver made it seem as though it somehow reduces nitrates? Ill have to research and read up on refugiums sometime in the future. But probably wouldn't even need one until later down the road.

Anyway I have another question. I've been keeping freshwater tanks all my life, and have always used aquaclear filters with the activated carbon inserts (basically just a bag of carbon) which really helped to remove bad chemicals from the water and clear the water up nice. Should I be using carbon in a marine tank? I just put a bag of carbon in there (I bought one that is supposed to fit an aquaclear 120) and put it in the return chamber of the sump. What's everyones feelings on the use of carbon in a marine tank? Is it beneficial? does it harm anything? will it remove things from the water that I dont want removed? Im already supplementing calcium and buffer into the water to keep the calcium level at about 450ppm. Some advice on this would be great! Thanks
 
Carbon is fine if you have a yellowish tinge to your water, but it isn't needed like fresh water. I may run carbon for a few days out of a month.

As far as a refugium, if you have a basement you can do like a reef keeper I know does, that is if you plan on keeping your tank there by your stairs:

Drill a few holes to get plumbing to your basement where you can set a stand up to house a tank that would host plants and some animal life. In this tank you would alternate your lighting to your upstairs tank as to keep PH high at night. Run water to and from this tank downstairs and it basically cleans the *Show* tank. It will host many small creatures that would normally perish in your show tank by the fish that are benificial to your show tank. This second tank would be a HUGE benifit to your main tank by cleaning the water.

The neat thing about it, is now you have two tanks and more totall water volume so your water quality changes much slower. You could even start growing your own food for your fish in the secondary tank! Best part is, is that it is 100% natural and FREE! The options are huge when setting one of these up.

Hope this gives you some insight and an idea or two.
 
senos said:
Ohh I see. Oliver made it seem as though it somehow reduces nitrates? Ill have to research and read up on refugiums sometime in the future. But probably wouldn't even need one until later down the road.

This is the whole point of refugiums, they break down the nitrate! You use macro algae which grows by eating the nitrates and nutrients in the tank. This way less algae grows in the large display tank and the macro eat all the nitrates! It works sooooo well for me.
Click to expand...
 
I see... well that may be a future project then :) thanks for the tip!

Anyhow im going to have some more pictures posted up tomorrow of my new plumbing job. I had to remove my Mag 9.5 return pump because it was overheating the water by 3 degrees and I cant live with that. I decided to plumb it externally to dissipate the heat into the atmosphere instead of my water! Im also adding a diverter to slow down the rate of the pump but forgot to pick up a 90 degree elbow so Im not yet done.

Pictures tomorrow!!

-Dave
 
New pictures of external pump plumbing

Ok so I got pictures of the new plumbing to mount my return pump externally. Lesson learned - submersible pumps heat your water too much! Just plumb it externally so you have greater control over your aquarium temperature! Basically what I did was put a "T" connector and two ball valves to control the flow of water. when I slow the return water going back to the tank, I open the ball valve that diverts the water back to the sump. This should put less back pressure onto the pump since its still pumping the same amount of water, and should make it last longer. For an extra $20 (for the second ball valve and "T" fitting) it's worth it because I paid alot of money for that pump (Magdrive 9.5). Anyway here are the pictures!...

Plumbing finally complete!! .... for now...

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You can see the "T" fitting and ball valves coming up from the pump

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There are my little green chromis damsels

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The live rock is starting to look pretty nice!

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More pictures to come! Going to look into some automatic feeders for when i go away on vacation in a month. Any suggestions?
 
Dave,

A few questions for you regarding the sump.

1) Are you planning to keep the bio-balls? I've read some things here that seem to indicate that bio-balls are undesireable due to nitrate production.

2) Any trouble getting that sump into the stand? Or, perhaps more importantly, would you be able to get it OUT of the stand without removing the main tank? In other words, does the center brace get in the way of installing/removing the sump?

As a side note, I'm glad to have read your experience with the submersible pump, as my current FW tank hits 79-80 degrees during the summer (unless we really crank down the AC)... I'll be sure to plumb my return pump externally!

--Mike
 
Hey Mike... ya i really dont think im going to ever use a submersible pump again. It seemed to have impacted my water temperature way too much. Now that its out of the water its much easier to regulate the temp.

About the Bioballs... I am not sure, i haven't read anything about them being undesirable... But I will sure look into it now that you mention it! What else could take their place? I suppose a refugium could go in that area instead... But i dont know how my biological filtration will take place without the bioballs. I mean, isnt their main function supposed to be to produce nitrates (which reduce nitrites) ?

As per the stand, the sump goes in and out of the front door with ease. If it were any bigger then it might be a problem, but it seems to be the perfect size to be able to remove. I could remove it right now if I wanted. Just need to undo some unions on the PVC lines and the whole sump can come out for servicing.

-Dave
 
yea, bio-balls should not be used in marine tanks!!!!! They are like a pump sponge, after about a week they are filthy with stuff from the tank and then they start to produce nitrate like crazy!
 
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