cycling with "life rock" ???

Yes, you can add cuc before you have live stock, there is enough food in there for them.
Copepods will naturally form. They come in on anything you put in the tank. Save your money.
 
Well sir , i thank you for your help.

cleaner pack on order ,

it mite be time to let this post die , or at least idle for awhile. .

off on my next quest , micro bubbles in main tank from protein skimmer ...ugh..
 
mariobrothersleeve said:
Do you have baffles in your sump?
Click to expand...
Umm..yes and no..
I have over three years of research into this build and i think my biggest mistake was believing the hype on the sump i bought. ..

I'm using a proflex model 4 ..with some mods,
mod one was i used limo tint on the outside of the sump , on the back, sides , and in the front only where the refugium is , this was so my stand doesn't look like the closest in poltergeist ..!
2. I installed a plastic bar and siliconed the adjustable door between 1 and 2 so it would not fall down in the event of power outage. .by doing this it caused a waterfall effect into the refugium, so i had to raise the out put from 2 to 3 ..
And by doing that...it caused a LOUD water fall into the sponge baffle between 2 and 3 .. so i added coarse filter media to quite it down ..

now onto 3.
in there i have a heater, a rack to hold my 46 ozs. Of chemi pure elite. My a.t.o. and protein skimmer. .coarlife super skimmer 220g.
With a bubble trap , and i added a 200 micron sock to the output last week..
now the skimmer has been running for at least 2 weeks and I have it set wide open .. but with no bio load.
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1418812184631.jpg
 
2 things I see......

1. The return line from the skimmer should be mounted in chamber 1 or 2, the filter sock is just over flowing.

2. Lower that flood gate between chamber 1 an 2. This will lower your water volume and not allow it to cascade into chamber 3.
 
Humm..
I know it's hard to tell from the pics , but the skimmer output water is going through the sock and not over flowing it ..

but I'll take the changes under advisement. ..it will take some time to figure out how to pull that off with the room I have ..

thanks .
 
Let's talk this out.

I run socks too, and after them, I have bubbles in that chamber. Maybe remove that sock and angle the return to chamber #2 and have the return just below the water line. This will give it time for the bubbles to surface.

on the intake for the return pump, are you able to install a 90 degree elbow? This would allow for bubbles to rise?
 
Umm.. I'm not sure .. if you find a picture of the proflex sump .. between 2 and 3 is a small chamber with a sponge filter ..water flows over the wall from 2 into this small chamber through the sponge and enters 3 from the bottom of the sump...

before I built the sock setup I had the skimmer out put in that area between 2 and 3 . Using a bubble trap and the stock black sponge ..

I believe that there was to much air for the proflex sump sponge to handle. .. and thus the sock setup ..I have confirmed that it's the skimmer ..I shut it off and the tank goes cristal clear ..

so...i am open to ideas .. and running the skimmer return to 1 maybe possible. . I just have to sit on the floor and take a good look at it ..i know already because of bracing in the top of the stand i can't go higher with the skimmer (and i would need to , to make the output higher that the level of 1 )
BUT, if i move the skimmer to the left (and way from sump) a few inches , i would clear the brace and have an additional 4 inches of hight to play with ..

this is the biggest problem i have with this sump , the skimmer has to be in 3 ..

As for the return to tank feed .. i had to pull off my own mod there .. if you look at the lower left corner of the sump you will see a white block and the return line running out of it ....i had to drill and install a 1 inch bulk head (with custom made spacer of acrylic because the sump wall is so thinn ) to feed my pump .. i tried using a strainer cap with a black sponge on it , and it did very little so i thought it better to let the pump feed be wide open .

i don't under stand why this skimmer is pumping out so much air ..
 
On a side note .
should i put some of the cleaner pack in the refugium. . It's looking a little hairy in there ..? ? A sand sifter ?
 
I had the same sump, they are hard to work with.
I had a hob skimmer that I dumped the return into chamber 2. I used a rubber hose to feed under the water surface and that took away all my problems.
I have a huge expensive skimmer now and still have bubbles. The bubble traps are the best thing to get rid of them..... Ie dumping into chamber 2.
 
There is one ..it's the lower half of the bubble trap . 1 inch pvc maybe 4 1/2 inches long with holes drilled in the side, a cap on the bottom with a 1/4 inch hole in the center .. and it has the stock black sponge on it ..

I'll take a pic of it tomorrow morning when I go to work , if you like .
 
What sump did you use to replace it ?
My challenge is i have i 150 high..
so it has a small foot print .

now i over sized the stand when i built it ..but I'm lucky if i have 24 wide and 48 long inside to work with .. and I wanted as much water volume in the stand as I could get .
 
I got my cleanup crew today from reefcleaners.org ..
I am so damn excited. .
I floated them , dumped them in like that said too...
and wow.. most of them started moving .. I think some of the snails died ..I have some small white blobs next to some shells ..
but the hermit crabs are awesome. .
there like little mischievous little kids ..running around , changing shells. .. I can't stop watching ..funny as hell...
 

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