Tropiquarium recommend a pro clear for my 150 tank. so far doing good. then I heard bioballs not good cause they build up nitrates. I took some out but realized when they're all out I still cant use that section because of the trickle effect. how can I eliminate this problem and use it for a refugium even though I have one above the tank?
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pro clear
- Thread starter reeferwanabe
- Start date
Hmm Just a thought but could you put a contaner in there and drill a few holes on the sides half an inch from the top?
If i understand your problem properly, the solution would be to close the exit or a bottom of the trickle box, leaving only a hole for a water raiser pipe or small section for a overflow baffle thus rising the water level in the trickle box. To eliminate the standstill water on the bottom, you can add second (underflow) baffle or extend the raiser pipe in the U shape all the way to the bottom of the trickle box, with a couple of holes to eliminate syphoning effect.
8)
Did you get any of it ? ;D
8)
Did you get any of it ? ;D
You'd have to modify that middle section so that it had higher baffle before the return section to allow the mid-section to hold more water. You can't do that without taking the acrylic strip out that runs horizontally through that chamber. For us, that wold have caused overflow when the power went off. It would have also made the "evap chamber" (the area near the pump that evap would have the greatest effect on) to be very narrow and would cause a problem if the tank had any significant evap before top-off. It didn't seem worth the effort to me, so we just got rid of the pro-clear. That was for our 120 (though in the time we had it running it didn't create any problems for us either).
Which ProClear model sump do you have? There are 3 or 4 different designs of them?
Have you measured your nitrates to see if keeping the bio-balls is bad for your system or not? If you can keep nitrates under say 5ppm then there may not be a point in removing them. An occasional cleaning and the organic are washed off keeping them from contributing to a nitrate buildup in the tank. If you have something like a 150 model you'll want to clean the top sponge a lot or you will have problems with nitrate build ups. That particular wet/dry is a blessing and a curse. The top filter arrangement is very good at removing organics from the water and keeping the bio balls clean. It's also a great place to run poly-pads instead of the sponge if you want to. The down side is that it can be difficult to get to under the tank to clean every few days.
With that said a lot of reefers like to remove both the sponges and bioballs and replace with cheato to make for a system that requires less maintenance overall. They generally need bigger skimmers in the end however to remove the organics the sponges could have removed. It's a trade off.
Anyway, which particular model do you have?
Carlo
Have you measured your nitrates to see if keeping the bio-balls is bad for your system or not? If you can keep nitrates under say 5ppm then there may not be a point in removing them. An occasional cleaning and the organic are washed off keeping them from contributing to a nitrate buildup in the tank. If you have something like a 150 model you'll want to clean the top sponge a lot or you will have problems with nitrate build ups. That particular wet/dry is a blessing and a curse. The top filter arrangement is very good at removing organics from the water and keeping the bio balls clean. It's also a great place to run poly-pads instead of the sponge if you want to. The down side is that it can be difficult to get to under the tank to clean every few days.
With that said a lot of reefers like to remove both the sponges and bioballs and replace with cheato to make for a system that requires less maintenance overall. They generally need bigger skimmers in the end however to remove the organics the sponges could have removed. It's a trade off.
Anyway, which particular model do you have?
Carlo
pro 200 and yes it has a sponge on top which takes a lot out of the water pretty easy to clean usually every 3 weeks when I do a water change
also my nitrates are very low
reefsandrotts
NJRC Member
Are you using an internal or external pump?
If internal you could remove the bio-balls add you chemical filtration and pump in that chamber ex:Carbon,phosguard or whatever you may use and put live rock rubble on the other end.Refugium should have as minimal water flow as possable for the anarobic bacteria to filter the water properly.
HTH
If internal you could remove the bio-balls add you chemical filtration and pump in that chamber ex:Carbon,phosguard or whatever you may use and put live rock rubble on the other end.Refugium should have as minimal water flow as possable for the anarobic bacteria to filter the water properly.
HTH
external pump I have a refugium so I guess I could leave it empty.
The 200 is a lot easier to clean then the 150 (got both of them). Does your 200 have the built in protein skimmer or not?
With the 200 you could just remove the top sponge and bioballs and then put cheato in it. You could use a clip on light in the range of 6,500K which cheato seems to like a lot.
However, if you don't mind cleaning the sponges and do it often I'd really think pulling them and the bio-balls is going to hurt you more then help you. Since your presently cleaning the sponges you are pulling out a lot of organics that never get a chance to break down and go through the nitrogen cycle ending up as nitrates and/or phosphates. The sponges will pull far more of the raw organics out of the tank then a full amount of cheato is going to be able to pull from that size compartment. Space for space in the right setup the sponges will outperform any macro algae if and only if they get cleaned regularly. Otherwise they'll contribute to the problem.
Most people will usually prefer to pull the organics out of the water if possible and use macro algae if needed to remove anything left in the water. The most popular form of export is a protein skimmer but sponges work just as well and sometimes much better all depending on the flow and how often you clean them.
Carlo
With the 200 you could just remove the top sponge and bioballs and then put cheato in it. You could use a clip on light in the range of 6,500K which cheato seems to like a lot.
However, if you don't mind cleaning the sponges and do it often I'd really think pulling them and the bio-balls is going to hurt you more then help you. Since your presently cleaning the sponges you are pulling out a lot of organics that never get a chance to break down and go through the nitrogen cycle ending up as nitrates and/or phosphates. The sponges will pull far more of the raw organics out of the tank then a full amount of cheato is going to be able to pull from that size compartment. Space for space in the right setup the sponges will outperform any macro algae if and only if they get cleaned regularly. Otherwise they'll contribute to the problem.
Most people will usually prefer to pull the organics out of the water if possible and use macro algae if needed to remove anything left in the water. The most popular form of export is a protein skimmer but sponges work just as well and sometimes much better all depending on the flow and how often you clean them.
Carlo
thank you carlo and yes the unit has built in protein skimmer and seems to be pulling out a lot of stuff.
right now it seems like that top sponge is really removing a lot and I do clean it often. how ever that bottom sponge below the bioballs is impossile to get out without removing balls
right now it seems like that top sponge is really removing a lot and I do clean it often. how ever that bottom sponge below the bioballs is impossile to get out without removing balls
also I have alot of water flow i'm using an external pump called a dolphin its rated 4600/3600 dependining on size pipe you use I'm using 1-1/2 pipe and with all my returns 2 on side 4 across the back and 1 across the bottom I figure I'm getting about 3000 gph.approx. also 1 to my refugium placed on side a little above main tank. running a phos reactor in sump with small powerhead also dripping kalkwasser and occasional turbo cal.to boose it up to about 460 ppm.
thanks. one annoying thing is evaporation in pro clear every morning and evening I have to add 2 qts of water any ideas for this? also my bottle from drain on skimmer seems to fill up a little fast every 2-3 days smelly stuff but thats good right.
www.autotopoff.com has a double float switch that you can use to topoff your system with. Then just put a SMALL pump (or aqualifter) in an RO/DI bucket and plug that into the float switch. You could put that on a timer to come on twice a day, if you wanted. That way the pump wouldn't top off for every single tiny change in water level.
We use an ACJr to turn ours on 4x a day to top off evap on our 65 and an ACII to do the same on our bigger system.
We use an ACJr to turn ours on 4x a day to top off evap on our 65 and an ACII to do the same on our bigger system.
thanks for that info. I saw they have single or double is there abig difference between the types?
reeferwanabe said:
The double gives you a back-up level of protection by having a high-level shut-off feature. WELL WORTH the peace of mind in my book! Tie it into a timer and you have 3-way protection to pretty much guarantee no failures.
<<<ANTI-FAILURE-JINX>>> (sorry, I had to cast that to prevent a flood in basement or bedroom
)I know a lot of people like this unit but I had a problems with the double unit from autotopoff.com. Little strands of Cheato would get caught in it and it would stick. This would happen to both of them. A bunch of people on RC experienced the same type of thing happening and I took someone else's advice and picked up the Tsunami AT-1 Top-off System. I like the way this unit works as it can't get jammed as it works on water pressure.
The downside to the Tsunami is that it uses suction cups to hold it in place. Sooner or later IT WILL come off and your sump could run dry. I made a bracket for it and secured it to the side of the sump and haven't had a bit of problem since.
If you don't have a worry about this type of thing happening then I'd say go with the autotopoff.com unit.
Carlo
The downside to the Tsunami is that it uses suction cups to hold it in place. Sooner or later IT WILL come off and your sump could run dry. I made a bracket for it and secured it to the side of the sump and haven't had a bit of problem since.
If you don't have a worry about this type of thing happening then I'd say go with the autotopoff.com unit.
Carlo
reeferwanabe said:
It is good because it shows that your skimmer is working fine and doing its job. On the other hand, excessive amount of skimmate can indicate overfeeding. Then, of course, there are differrent "types" of skimmate. It can be "wet" or "dry", depending on does it look like clear soup, green tee or a black coffee. Wet skimming is aggressive skimming, where you are trying to get out as much as you can.
sounds good where do you find room for ro bucket?