Sump/In sump skimmer

ErinCahir

Sausage Wrangler
So my husband has been working really long hours. Which means bigger checks. Which means I get a new skimmer! I was looking at the Octopus ones that everyone keeps talking about on here... we want an in-sump one.
So here's my (possibly ridiculous) question. It says they do best in 8-10" of water. But my sump only has 2.5-3" of water in it. How do I raise this? One side has the bio-balls that the water trickles down through, the other side has the heater and the return pump in it.
 
I would modify your sump. Aren't you wasting a ton of volume if there's only a few inches of water in it?

Remove the bioballs, and put the skimmer in that section instead. Can you post a pic of your sump?
 
Here's the whole skimmer (it's a big rubbermaid tub to try to control the salt creep)

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Here's the return side

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Here's the bioball side (even as I was typing "bioball" out in the original post, I already knew you were going to tell me to take 'em out... why haven't I done it before?)

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So why do you only have a couple inches of water in it? Is there something in the sump that prevents you from filling it more?
 
well,sorta,I asume that it's a hang on back or HOB system? because if it's not then your in tank overflow should be able to handle the amount of water going in your DT from your sump..can you post a pic or 2 of your system so we can give better advise..
 
You need to put a ball valve on the return line after your return pump to turn it down. It sounds like the return pump is moving water back to the tank too quickly, draining the sump. Is that correct?
 
Here's the tank
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Here's the box in the tank
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Here's the back box
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And again
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I really just didn't know how much water we were supposed to have in the sump when we set it up. The LFS guy said as long as the pump was underwater it was alright. (We don't go there anymore, by the way).
 
The more water, the better. The more water you have, the more stable your water parameters will be. You want to fill up your sump about 2/3 of the way. The extra space in the top 1/3 of the sump should accomodate any water in the plumbing if the power goes out.

What are the dimensions of your tank? It doesn't look like a 150 gallon.
 
Turn off the main return pump. The overflow/siphon box will drain water out of the tank until the water falls below the teeth in the overflow/siphon box. The tank will not drain any farther because the water level is too low to flow past the teeth in the box. So the tank ain't gonna drain any farther now.

Your sump will fill with water until the overflow box stops draining the tank. Wait for everything to stop draining. Give it 30 seconds.

Now look at your sump. Is it full? Is the water all the way up to the top of the sump?

If the sump is full to the top - you're hosed. You can't add any more water to the sump.

If it's not full - fill the sump with salt water until the water level is only about 1" below the top of the sump.

Now turn the main return pump back on.

Let the tank fill. Let the overflow box begin to drain. Let it all circulate for about 2 or 3 minutes until all the water levels are stable.

Now take a black magic marker and mark the sump at the water line.

Keep the sump this full. When you perform daily top-offs - simply fill the sump up to the black magic marker line.

If you want to test it - just unplug the main return pump. It should not overflow if you followed the above instructions.

:Cheers:
 
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And RC, what LFS do you like in the area?

Elite Reef on 84th & Wadsworth Blvd. has a lot of corals and the prices seam okay. The corals look good. But I don't have a tank right now, so I haven't purchased anything from them.

Elite Reef -- Denver Colorado

The rest of them suck IMO.

Liquid Kingdom in Broomfield has flat worms and aiptasia in every tank. They've had those pests for as long as I can remember. I asked them for a discount on corals one time - due to the flat worm problem. The guy basically told me to pack sand and buy some flat worm exit from him. F U dude!!
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Fish Den has never had a decent selection of corals. Tanks full of algae and prices are exorbitant.

Premier Fish & Reef has a nice selection of frags, but prices are ridiculous.

Neptunes has a few decent corals now and then. You should at least go in and check out the hammer coral. It's the size of a small sofa. Basically, it takes up an entire 100g or 150g tank.
 
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We've been to another store on Wadsworth... I cannot for the life of me remember what it's called now... Aqua-something...
 
We live in Parker... if we need something quickly we head out to Neptune's. I've been going there since I was a mere cichild owner... I love the people there.
They fragged the crap out of that hammer coral recently. Probably half of it is gone. And it's still freaking huge. There was aiptasia in the hammer's tank when I went in today.
We also go to Reef & Pond on Santa Fe. Have you been there?
 
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