You may end up baffling the sump anyways. Depending on the turnover, the skimmer may end up putting micro bubbles back into the water and up in the display. You really want to keep these bubbles out of a pony tank.
Also, if you have the room in the sump, there is NOTHING wrong with adding Live Rock or Live Rock Rubble to help as part of the bio filtration.
Your right David, I may as well just add a center chamber and baffles. It will be easier to do it now then later.
I added 1- 30# bag of agramax sand to the tank. It gave me about 1" of sand on the bottom of the tank. Because I have a cat that thinks all sand is his litter box, I had to cover the sand with 1" of saltwater. Silly cat. I have 60# of live sand arriving Wednesday that I will add to the tank. On top of that I will add some pink sand. It is so pretty.Very light pink sand with Hot pink speckles in it. I will try to get a pic of it to post in the next day or two. I'm not sure if it will show up. It is Natures Ocean "Samoa Pink" . It's a little pricy (the pink stuff) so I will only add it as the top layer. I know it will get mixed in eventually, but I can't afford to do the entire sand bed with it. I'll be ordering the LR next week, along with rubble rock for the sump. Then it will just cycle for a few months. I'm cycling with live rock only. If I don't seem to be getting a decent cycle from the LR alone, I will add the raw shrimp or 2. I have all the time in the world to get this tank going. I don't have any livestock for it yet so there is no hurry. Boy....that's a nice change from my usual tank setups, lol.
I'm wondering about lighting on this tank though. I have 2 lighting fixtures. Both have 192w PC. (384w total) Would 1 fixture be enough for all of the macros or should I put 2 of them on there? So far I don't plan to have any corals in the tank. None, zero, zip, nada. Just macros.
I plan to use a Mag 9.5 for a return pump. That will be roughly 12X the tank volume. I will use 2 spray bars. 1 at the top of the tank and 1 - 3/4 of the way down. I may change that depending on how the flow is in the tank.
Here is what I did with it I did change who goes where though. My "future seahorses" (kuda) will go in the 65g and my current ones are in the 75. I can't wait for the macros to grow in nice and lush. I ordered a 48" 4-54w HO T5 light fixture for this tank. (1-65k 1-10k 2-actinics) I also purchased an extra 10k lamp just incase it's too yellow for my tastes. It will be here this week Then my macros should grow like weeds!
just incase anyone is wondering what the green airline and elbow are for: The airline is for the overflow box and the elbow is attached to it just for weight to keep it in the water. I had it come out once and I had a flood. The other elbow on the sandbed is what I rubberband small pieces of seaweed to for the snails and crabs. I feed them because there isn't much algae or food for them in the tank yet. I'd rather feed them then have them snacking on my macros.
I have a 20-30g seaclear sump on this tank with a G2 or g3 asm skimmer (I forget which it is) The return pump is a mag 7. I also have 2 lg. HOB power filters and a surface skimmer. I will be removing the HOB filters and the surface skimmer soon. I put them on there before I had the sump completed and the plumbing finished.
I hate hang on overflows. I wanted so badly to drill this tank. It's a perfecto tank so I "think" both the bottom and back are tempered. I will have to look into that. I'd empty it just to drill it if I could. It's almost worth risking breaking it just to get rid of that darn hang on overflow. Pain in the butt it is.
Your tank looks great. With that new light your macros should make a forest in there pretty quick.
Back in '94 when I had my first SW tank (complete disaster) the LFS use to sell these "sea fan" decorations. I had one and I believe is was a wood. It was about the size of dinner plate, pretty flat, with a ton of little branches. I seems like would be a perfect hitch post for your ponies. Who knows if it was reef safe. Just an idea. I might still have in the junk bin.
The seahorses hitch to the macros now. I was thinking of adding a large fake coral for them to hitch to right in the middle of the tank untill the macros grow a little taller. I plan to add some more macros. The Red feather kelp will go in the middle and it grows very tall. Sadly, the red feather kelp is expensive. 30.00 for a small frag. If I want a nice long piece it's gonna cost me a lot more.
Looks like I found the right place to find out about sea horses. I'm new to salt water and never did fresh water, but my son wants sea horses so I'm trying to learn as much as I can. thanks for thread - great info.
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I did change who goes where though. My "future seahorses" (kuda) will go in the 65g and my current ones are in the 75. I can't wait for the macros to grow in nice and lush. I ordered a 48" 4-54w HO T5 light fixture for this tank. (1-65k 1-10k 2-actinics) I also purchased an extra 10k lamp just incase it's too yellow for my tastes. It will be here this week
Then my macros should grow like weeds!
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