I would like to thank everyone on captivereeding for their help and information.
I am not an expert! I just want to do a little show and tell about my setup.
55 gal tank
40 pounds of live rock
30 gal sump holds about 20 gal h2o
Fluvial 404 canister filter (340 gph)
Rio 2100 sump return (300 gph) at 4 ‘ head
Powerhead 170 gph
Lights
4 X 65 sunpac Power compact florescent light
2 50/50 6,700 K and !0,000 K daylight
2 50/50 420nm and 460 nm actinic
2 28 W T5 10,000 K
1 28 W T5 Actinic Total 340 watts of light
Livestock
Tomato Clown
Mandarin
Algae Blenny
Fire Fish
3 Damsels
Cleaner Shrimp
Green Hairy Mushrooms
Green Striped Mushrooms
Lots of cool stuff on live rock zooanithids, feather dusters, rock boring snail??? Brown kelp like plants
This setup is eight weeks old I have never seen ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate, at testable levels in this system. I have between the addition of the sump and water changes put 70 gal of new salt water in the system. I also started with good live rock and a culture from the live rock tanks at the LFS. I am going to wait and see if the system remains stable. Comments and Ideas welcome. I think i have improved skimmer performance by using surface box and locating skimmer intake in the overflow discharge compartment of sump
The float valve is from usplastics 1/4 id 3/8 od tubeing seems to work well, i have raised the float valve since the picture was taken.
one thing I would do is keep an eye on the mandarin, they are pretty dependant on live food. you may not have enough pods in the tank for him to survive. make sure he stays fat and happy
Good sump design.Your skimmer should really rock with it being configured that way in your sump.Graphixx is right on about mandarins,mine never accepted any foods,they have a specific diet which requires the need for lots of pods in your tank.The best advise i can give to get a nice pod population is to feed your inverts alot.Start off small,maybe 2-3 times a week at night with the lights off.Eventually,step it up until your doing daily nightitme feedings.Use fine particulate foods like Golden Pearls(smallest size-50micron),LIVE phytoplankton like DT's,and mysis shrimp for corals.
Does the skimmer draw water from the first part of the sump and return it to the middle? It seems that would keep it from skimming the same water over and over.Is one bubble trap after that enough to get rid of micro bubbles?
The skimmer draws water through a surface box in the overflow compartment and returns it to same compartment. I think the sump flow is great enough to prevent the water from going in circles. I had the skimmer draw and return to the fuge for the first 3 days and noticed foam buildup in the overflow compartment, as if the bubbles from the overflow were skimming so i turned it around and skimmer performance improved. I get Bubbles in the fuge but the final 3 baffles which have 1 1/2" spaceing prevent there return to the display.
The mandarin is doing well, the most amazing bit of luck i have had with the system is the quantity of micro fauna in the tank. I will try your suggestion Dave. Also the set of baffels before the return pump i designed with the return of small critters to the display in mind. under/over/under
55 with 30 sump pictures
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