Opinions on my setup?

[morg59]

Here is a drawing of my setup. Anyone have any comments or suggestions on how I could do something better or different?

Examples are am I ok having the bio balls in there? In the overflow I have them in there to quiet it down.

The tank is a 75 gallon tank and the sump is a 35 gallon tank that I siliconed in some partitions.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm sure that setup would work just fine, though you don't really need the bioballs. Food can easily get trapped in the bioballs and cause nitrate spikes. What kind of setup is it going to be? FOWLR or reef? What kind of corals are you intending on keeping? How much light over tank and over sump? How much flow are you going to have?

 

[Anonymous]

Looks good to me but I would go without the bio balls. Like youve heard they do cause a buildup of nitrates and unless you wanna wash them every few days go without. Seem like you ahve a dsb and live rock that will be plenty bio filtration even if it is a fish only tank. I wouldnt worry to much about the lighting params over the sump refuge combo and flourescent light will do fine.

 

[morg59]

This is actually the setup I am currently running. I have had it setup for a year and a half. I have had the bio balls in there for years and never washed them. For lighting I have 4 110W VHO Flourescents and 2 40W normal output actinic. I am currently keeping frogspawn, various polyps, devils hand, various shrooms, and a Bubble tip anemone. Fish I have are 2 percs, 1 royal grama, 1 yellow watchman goby who has a shirmp housebuiler as a room mate, and 1 bengali cardnial. The reef seems to be doing great but as we all know there are always ways we can improve. I have had a few problems with green hair algae that seems to come and go. Any other suggestions?

 

[Anonymous]

If you do have a problem with Nitrates, slowly remove the bioballs over a long period of time, if Nitrates aren't a problem then just leave it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Lighting and everything look good. How bad is the green hair algae problem?

 

[morg59]

The green hair seems to build up on only 2 pieces of live rock in the thank over the course of a month. At that point I usually remove the rock and squirt it off real quick in the back yard to remove the algae buildup then place it back in the reef. It only grows on these 2 pieces and never anywhere else. A few times no algae for a few months then it comes back. I have done the squirt it off thing 8 times in the past year.