in_a_days' saltwater adventure

[in_a_days]

Well I got everything up and running last night, but I didn't trust it overnight. The sump has been running all day today without any kind of problems. I think it's a pretty safe set up. When I cut off the sump the 10 gallon still has maybe 3/4 of and inch from being full before the water level drops below the line of the overlow. And even after the flow stops it maintains the siphon in the overflow, so I can't imagine how the main tank could possibly overflow.

No problems today, like I said, but I'm not going to let it run when I'm asleep or not at home until my plumber buddy comes and gives it his stamp of approval. I did have a couple amusing experiences over the course of putting this all together. I had to go to Home Depot twice and Lowe's once to get the correct parts that I needed.

I also learned that I do NOT want to put the return feed in the water as when the pump is cut off the reverse suction pulls the water from the main tank back to the sump.

I also had a couple hoses pop lose on me spilling large volumes of water on the floor. Fortunately, I keep a bunch of towels close at hand for just such an emergency. One time the return hose (flexible plastic tubing) wasn't secured and started dumping water (think fire-hose), the other time the hose disconnected from the bottom of the ball valve. Very exciting.

When I first put the return hose in the water the pressure was a little stronger than I expected and caused a minor rock slide; no major damage.

Other than that I think everything is going well. I did a water change and between that and the water I added I probably introduced about 12 gallons of new water to the system today. The nitrates tested at 20ppm about and hour and a half ago. I pulled my little bits of algae from the main tank and put them in the 'fuge. I'll try to get some pics, but it's kind in cramped quarters and it's also kind of a mess right now. But I'll come through.

[in_a_days]

My plumber buddy came by and checked out my set up and was pretty impressed. He likes fish tanks (though lacking a little in the commitment department) and had never heard of a wet/dry filter or sump or refugium or anything like that. So he thought it was really cool. But he also recommended switching it to solid PVC instead of flexible tubes. Hopefully this evening he's going to come over with the parts and plumb this bad boy!

I am yet to have any problems with hoses coming off or major spillage since I got 'er working. But I still refuse to run it when I'm not home. Once it gets plumbed with PVC I'll let it run. But right now I'm just not willing to risk 10 gallons of saltwater on the floor.

Next two items on the agenda are to get some more sand and macroalgae for the 'fuge. I'm probably going to purchase live sand from that same eBay dealer I used before. I mean 20 lbs of dead sand from the LFS costs $20+. I think 30 lbs of quality live sand for under $30 is a vastly superior deal (not to mention the guy throws in a couple snails and a small clump of chaeto). So that should be all I need for the substrate in the 'fuge. Then a big clump of chaeto or two (in all likelihood this will be another eBay purchase) and I think it's ready to go.

The LFS has a Yellow W/M Goby and a Tiger Pistol Shrimp that are paired up. If they still have 'em when I get stocked with sand & macroalgae I might add them as the only big critters in the tank.

Once this is knocked out it's on to replacing the lava with live rock in the 56.

[in_a_days]

Just ordered some chaetomorpha from e-bay.

I'm not sure if it's a result of running the 'fuge, or just the maturing of the tank. But my nitrate's seems to be stabilizing and maybe even dropping very slightly. The last water change I did was Saturday and I tested 20ppm of Nitrate. I tested Nitrates again yesterday and it appeared that the result was somewhere between 10-20ppm. It was just a little lighter than the 20ppm and darker than 10ppm. Either way I took it as a good sign. Just the fact that it hasn't increased at all over five days I think is a good thing. I'll do another water change this weekend and hopefully the level will continue to drop.

I also relocated my single "tester" mushroom and it actually looks great today. I'm sure the nitrates and phosphates are still above ideal, but I'm seeing progress which is all I need.

[in_a_days]

My buddy came over today and PVC'd pretty much everything. I gotta give it a couple days before I get it flowing, but here's what it looks like...

[tbittner]

I take it that your overflow box can exceed the pumping capacity of the pump? You have a ball valve on the drain but you don't have one on the return from the pump so you can't slow down the pump if you need to.

It also looks like the return pipe is an inch or two above the water. That's going to create a LOT of salt spray. It does prevent a back siphon if the electric goes out but it's going to create a bit of a mess. You'll get salt creep all over the place.

[in_a_days]

Originally Posted by tbittner

I take it that your overflow box can exceed the pumping capacity of the pump? You have a ball valve on the drain but you don't have one on the return from the pump so you can't slow down the pump if you need to.

It also looks like the return pipe is an inch or two above the water. That's going to create a LOT of salt spray. It does prevent a back siphon if the electric goes out but it's going to create a bit of a mess. You'll get salt creep all over the place.

Yeah the overflow box drains like 4x faster than the return so no worries there. The return is about two inches above the water level right now, but if you'll notice there is almost an inch of exposed overflow box. When the system is running the water level is up to the top of the overflow box. But when I shut it down I just turned off the sump, just to confirm that in the event of a power outage the 'fuge doesn't overflow. So there's about two or three extra gallons locked up down below right now. And then since that pipe is hooked up to a flexible hose at the bottom, I can loosen the PVC return and slide it down another 3/4" which should put it right at or above the water level. I defiantly don't want it completely submerged, 'cause I don't want to risk dealing with the reverse suction. But I will make every effort to get it as close to the surface of the water as possible.

[tbittner]

Ahhhhhhh, brilliant! I didn't think of the water level rising when the pump is turned on... *duh* on my part.

[in_a_days]

Well I've had this weird critter on a piece of live rock for a couple months now. And I'm finally sure that it's Aiptasia. Fortunately there's only one of them and it's never moved so hopefully if I get rid of him that'll be the end of it. I read you can inject them with lemon juice and that'll kill 'em. Guess I'll cruise up to the local pharmacy to get a syringe this weekend.

[in_a_days]

Everything is running great today. Not a spot of leakage anywhere along the PVC so I'm quite comfortable letting it run when I'm gone. Chaeto is on the way and I ordered another 30 pounds of live sand to finish the bed. Nitrates have been steady at 20 for the last week or so.

I'm thinking about adding a fish or two to the 'fuge once I have the sand and algae. Not sure what yet, maybe a couple clowns or a goby. In the meantime I'm going to keep my eye out for some nice pieces of LR for the main tank.

[Craig Manoukian]

Nice work!

[in_a_days]

Originally Posted by Craig Manoukian

Nice work!

Thanks Craig!

According to USPS tracking I should be receiving the sand to fill out the 'fuge today...

I moved my 300W heater into the 'fuge last night. So I woke up this morning and the power was out down stairs... I flipped the breaker and everything came back on so I took off for work. My girl called a couple hours later and apparently it was back off. Roommate called a couple hours later and it was still off. I had him flip the breaker again and it came one but crashed again after a few minutes. So I went home a little early for lunch to check it out. I hit the breaker again and went inside to look at everything...

The fuge looked like a little fireworks display. The heater was cracked with a big chunk of glass on sand and it was sparking like crazy. I pulled the plug immediately and removed it from the tank. I didn't know what to expect, but the lone hermit in the 'fuge is still alive so I guess it didn't get shocked into its next life. I have a little 50W backup heater going, but I had to get back to work, and here I am still, before I can go pick up a new heater... Water temp is off by about three degrees and I hope it doesn't get any worse. Everything looked okay in the tank, but not particularly happy. No idea why the heater could have cracked... It was a 300W Visi-Therm Deluxe and was less than a year old. Bummer.

[in_a_days]

I bought a new heater to replace the one that exploded and added the sand I received to the 'fuge. So the sand is a minimum of 3" throughout the 'fuge and as deep as 4 1/2" in a couple spots. Hopefully this will be a positive step towards nitrate reduction.

But I have a couple questions for anyone paying attention out there.

I have a couple small clumps of Chaeto in the 'fuge, but neither one of them really seems to be growing. They don't look like they're dying, but it doesn't look like they're getting any bigger. Right now I have a 20W standard florescent on it. Should this be sufficient or do I need to get something more powerful? I've been considering these Home Depot lighting set-ups.

Additionally, I would like to keep a small cute fish in the 'fuge but I'm not sure that anything really fits the billing. Originally I wanted a little Goby. The problem there is that it seemed intuitive to me that a Goby would probably devastate the micro-organisms in the DSB that are so beneficial for NNR. I've read some things online that more or less confirmed this concern, so I don't think a sand sifting Goby is really practical. I was thinking maybe a couple small clowns instead, but I'm not sure if they're be happy considering that, with the addition of the sand, there's probably only 4-5 gallons of actual flowing water in the 'fuge. So does anybody have a suggestion for a nano fish that might be content in this setting?

[in_a_days]

The system has been running continually for about a week and a half now. No leaks anywhere, but, as tbittner predicted I do have a little splashing and creep. My buddy is going to shave down the front of a 45 and put basically a "shield" in front of the return drain. Hopefully this will eliminate most of the splashing.

I'm not exactly sure what it was, but I think I may have introduced something unhealthy into the tank when I first got everything going. I didn't notice at first, but after a couple days I noticed my "tester" mushroom, which had really been looking excellent, was shriveling up and shrinking. I also noticed my lion "coughing" or "yawning" which he usually only does when he's shedding his slime. So I prepped a big batch of change water and the next day and two turbo snails had bit the dust...

Ammonia and Nitrite were zero, nitrate was 20 PH is/was 8.2. So I did a big water change and the lion hasn't shown any signs of irritation since. But the little shroom has not really recovered. It's still got it's color, but it's only a fraction the size it was only about 10 days ago. The fish seem fine and happy, but I'm still worried that something might not be right. I've done a couple subsequent water changes, just in case there was something harmful in the water. I've read that water changes can disturb corals so I don't know if this might be the reason.

Only other possibility is another "issue" I've noticed. The tank is set up in a corner near a sliding glass door. The glass is poorly insulated and this part of the house/room tends to get a little colder when it's really chilly outside. So for the last week or longer I was noticing that in the morning the tank was about three degrees (73) from where I usually keep it (76). A couple days ago I did a little work to insulate the tank and it has been much more stable since.

But what I know for sure is that the lionfish's irritation started a day or two after starting the sump. And it's been winter for much longer than that.

So that's where everything is right now. My fish look good and happy, but my little mushroom does not look good. My nitrates have been testing between 10-20 for the last week or so. I'm not sure if I should continue with weekly water changes to keep the nitrates down, or if I should give the mushroom a chance to recover.

To add to all that the LFS has a little fish that I would really like to add to the fuge. It's a Green Clown Goby. I know I said I was reluctant to get a Goby, but these guys aren't voracious sand-sifters. He'll eat some pods, but he should not rearrange the sand bed on a daily basis. But of course, I'm not sure that everything in my tank is well so I don't want to introduce anything new.

Not quite sure what I should do/not do right now.

[tbittner]

73 is a bit on the cool side. You also changed the flow in the tank, that takes a little while for them to acclimate too.

[lcstorc]

Glad to hear you are getting the nitrates under control. I know you have been trying for a while now. Aren't sumps wonderful?
Personally I love clown gobies in all of their different colors. They stay small and love to perch on just about anything (including my clams). Not sand sifters at all. I do wonder how much you would see the little guy in the sump though. I keep my sump empty of fish with just a few snails to keep things clean. You can keep fish in them but my primary reason for having a fuge is pod production and if there is a fish there they will eat the pods.
I would give the cheato and the mushroom some time. They are both likely to take off once they have adjusted to the changes. The cheato you want to have a bit of flow on. It likes to tumble.