BC29 Fuge/Skimmer Opinion Please...

[mrwilliams2]

Alright so we've had our BC29 all set up and running for several months now. 25 lbs LR and 40 lbs. LS. We have two small clowns, a small flame angel and a small royal gramma. We also have a fire shrimp some zoas and a hammer coral with 30+ various snails and a few handfuls of blue leg and zebra leg hermits.

We are currently running the inTank Mediabasket in chamber 2 with filter floss, purigen and chemi-pure elite. All bioballs and sponges have been removed as has the BC cartridge filter.

Our temp has been constant 78-79 degrees. Amonia and Nitrites 0, Nitrates have been up and down a little with the addition of fish over the last few weeks, nothing above 20ppm. Usually 5-10ppm. We due weekly 5 gal. water changes. We top of with R.O. water and use pre-mixed salt water bought from the LFS. We typically feed mini mysis shrimp every other day and supplement with a pelleted food once a week.

Fortunately everything is healthy, hungry and looking great.

Now that our Bio-Load has increased we were thinking it would be a good time to invest in a protein skimmer.

Originally we planned on getting the Tunze 9002 with the inTank collection cup. Recently we have been reading alot about fuges and the use of macro algaes. That said we also like the idea of adding some chaeto to help reduce our nitrates.

Finally for the question; Should we:
A. keep the current chemical filtration and add a tunze skimmer?
B. keep the current chemical filtration and add a fuge basket with chaeto?
C. keep chaeto in the mediabasket we have and add the tunze skimmer?

or maybe D. run the chemical filter we have with a new fuge basket with chaeto and add a small are stone skimmer to the 1st chamber?

Any help or advice you can give is (as always) greatly appreciated. Thanks, Matt.

 

[mrwilliams2]

OK... I know you guys all have opinions and you all certainly have more experience than me; so lets have 'em... feedback is always welcome.

We hope to get something going soon...

Thanks, Matt.

 

[sh8wn9]

I have a biocube 29. Heres how I have mine set up: I have an SR3 skimmer in chamber 2 which does a really good job. In the first chamber I have the heater, and in the last chamber I have some chemipure. I also have a hang on back refugium with chaeto and DSB, which sucks water in through chamber 1 and releases it into chamber 3. I think this setup works for me...

 

[zigginit]

i have a 29g and i am thinking of doing a refugium in chamber 2 aswell. The way i am thinking of doing it (not yet researched) is to have my heater and biocube skimmer in chamber 1, then in chamber 2 remove all bio balls and grates from top and bottom. this would open a 9x4x13 inch area for some live rock rubble at the bottom (about 2 inches deep?) and chaeto or other micro algea in the rest of the space. i would get 2 Cree LED lights over the top to light it. (i think that is good light for it) in the last chamber i would have a filter bag with phoszorb or something and the pump to the tank. doing this will require adding more water to keep all the chambers full.

im not sure about everything yet but i think it would help with hair algea problem. and i could have pods grow in it.

do you think that removing the bio balls would hurt filtration? i have like 35 pounds of live rock in the tank.

 

[mrwilliams2]

Thanks for the feedback!
I am not sure about making the 2nd chamber a refuge, only because once all the stuff is in the bottom of the tank it will be really hard to get it all out or make changes. One reason I am leaning toward the fugebasket by inTank.

I would suggest getting the bio-balls out of there. From everything I have been told on this site and read elsewhere, they only create more problems down the road and make it hard to keep nitrates down.

Hows that bio-cube skimmer working out for you?? How much load do you have on your tank?

 

[zigginit]

i looked into the fuge basket your talking about and i think i may build something like that for the chamber. that way its just pull out if i need to trim it back or something. i just pulled out all the bio balls the other day to see what the hell was down there and i found like an 1/4inch of brown crap at the bottom!!! i sucked it all out and the water just looks clearer now. less things floating in it. hopefully i will stop farming so much hair algea. that could have been part of the problem the whole time :smack: as far as my bio load... i have a clown, 6 line wrass, green chrom, and blue allen dansel. on top of that i have a lot of soft and LPS coral. so i would say bio load = a lot. here is a pic of my tank,one fish has died since this pic but coral pretty much the same with a few more frags. i need a bigger tank:fingerx:

 

[zigginit]

o and about the biocube skimmer, its ok i guess but it is hard to get the settings right. to much air and the cup will fill in a few hours (mostly water) to little air and the thing will never fill. it seems to has high and low tide with this thing meaning sometimes its working a lot and others i see nothing. i notice it will work harder when i add supplments to the water which makes me think its taking them back out. for $30 its good but if i could use that $30 to something else i would if i know it works good. thats if i had the cash:smirk:

i hear a lot of people talk about the "yellow scum" that smell bad in their skimmer but i never get anything that looks yellow or smells really. i get light green water with some foam suds on top. the suds must be the bad stuff because the green water just looks like algea water or something. so now that i think about it... buy something else and tell me how that works! :tongue:

 

[mrwilliams2]

Wow your tank looks great.

The more I think about it the more I am leaning toward getting the Tunze Skimmer. That way it will fit with my mediabasket and then down the road I can still add a HOB fuge or plumb into a fuge down in the base cabinet if we decide to add some additional water volume.

 

[redseareef]

mrwiliams2,
Hi my name is Todd. I am from Global Aquarium Supply. We are a sponsor at Reef Sanctuary. I would urge you to go to the RedSea Max forum and find the Euroreef/RSM nano skimmer page. We sell the Euroreef for all sorts of nano tanks. The alloy mesh wheels blow away anything else on the market.
Being a hobbyist myself, I run one on our office 130d max tank. This skimmer pull sout mor ethen my 500.00 Deltec 600 hang on ever did!
There is no comparison between it and the Tunze. Please have a look at the thread and see what the reef sanctuary members are saying! And the prices are VERY affordable. All parts are inexoensive and readily available here in the USA. The skimmer is hand built here as well!
Thank you
Todd Santora
Global Aquarium Supply Homepage for your Salt Water Aquarium needs including AquaC - Reef Complete - Acrylics - Hamilton Lighting - Spectra Pure

 

[zigginit]

thanks but i am not happy with my tank tell the hair algea war is over

 

[mrwilliams2]

Thanks for the plug Todd. I have been in talks with Robert about having a custom model made that would fit within the back of the BC29.

From what he is saying it can be done, but only with the use of the older (less reliable) mesh wheel, that will need to be replaced every 2-3 Mo.

I am still interested in the EuroReef skimmers, but the boss doesn't want to be able to see the thing above the tank.