TimSchmidt
New Member
Hello all,
I have been reading up on reefcentral on nanotanks and was directed to this site (which has been very helpful from just reading other posts). Here are a couple of questions I have about my first setup.
The general layout is a ten gallon tank with a ten gallon sump. I have already drilled the display tank and have a cone filter to keep a single snail from clogging it. I purchased a via aquapump 1300 for my return pump. I plan on using a 50w titanium heater in the sump in the refugium area (is there a better spot?). My plumbing plan is to have the display tank overflow go directly off a 90 degree turn and go down at slight angle to help reduce noise (if there is a better way to keep noise down cheap please let me know). The water will enter one chamber in the sump with LR rubble and then overflow into a refugium with Chaeto (sp?) LR and LS.
Here is my first question: Is a dense sand bed beneficial to corals that feed like sun corals and frogspawn? Or should I just have 2" of sand or just bare bottom?
I would love to have either a hammer or frogspawn with a sun coral as the two "main" corals in my tank with maybe one or two small fish. I like the blennies that look like they walk along the sand bed (brownish color will post a name when I find it) and maybe a clown fish (seemed a nice small fish that could provide movement and maybe host in the frogspawn or hammer... hey it could happen right?).
Returning to the setup, from the refugium the water would go through a set of three baffles to help reduce micro bubbles and then go up the return pump where I would have it split to two lines, one going up to the display tank and the other going back to the refugium, on both sides of this tee I will install ball valves so I can tune how much flow I have in the display without putting any strain on the pump. Plus it should make water change time a bit easier. I have a lock line for the return part in the display.
Ok next question, should I run a skimmer on this proposed setup? I think that the frogspawn or hammer and sun coral would do better in water that is not skimmed of all of the protein. Is this right or should I use a skimmer to help keep the water clean? (I don't want to hurt the corals just because I'm a newbie).
For lights I planned on using the 20" 1x96W Coralife Aqualight CF hood w/ Quad 50/50 using the adjustable mounting legs.
Ok... Thank you very much for putting up with this horrendously long post :wlift but any suggestions or help would be very much appreciated.
Tim Schmidt
I have been reading up on reefcentral on nanotanks and was directed to this site (which has been very helpful from just reading other posts). Here are a couple of questions I have about my first setup.
The general layout is a ten gallon tank with a ten gallon sump. I have already drilled the display tank and have a cone filter to keep a single snail from clogging it. I purchased a via aquapump 1300 for my return pump. I plan on using a 50w titanium heater in the sump in the refugium area (is there a better spot?). My plumbing plan is to have the display tank overflow go directly off a 90 degree turn and go down at slight angle to help reduce noise (if there is a better way to keep noise down cheap please let me know). The water will enter one chamber in the sump with LR rubble and then overflow into a refugium with Chaeto (sp?) LR and LS.
Here is my first question: Is a dense sand bed beneficial to corals that feed like sun corals and frogspawn? Or should I just have 2" of sand or just bare bottom?
I would love to have either a hammer or frogspawn with a sun coral as the two "main" corals in my tank with maybe one or two small fish. I like the blennies that look like they walk along the sand bed (brownish color will post a name when I find it) and maybe a clown fish (seemed a nice small fish that could provide movement and maybe host in the frogspawn or hammer... hey it could happen right?).
Returning to the setup, from the refugium the water would go through a set of three baffles to help reduce micro bubbles and then go up the return pump where I would have it split to two lines, one going up to the display tank and the other going back to the refugium, on both sides of this tee I will install ball valves so I can tune how much flow I have in the display without putting any strain on the pump. Plus it should make water change time a bit easier. I have a lock line for the return part in the display.
Ok next question, should I run a skimmer on this proposed setup? I think that the frogspawn or hammer and sun coral would do better in water that is not skimmed of all of the protein. Is this right or should I use a skimmer to help keep the water clean? (I don't want to hurt the corals just because I'm a newbie).
For lights I planned on using the 20" 1x96W Coralife Aqualight CF hood w/ Quad 50/50 using the adjustable mounting legs.
Ok... Thank you very much for putting up with this horrendously long post :wlift but any suggestions or help would be very much appreciated.
Tim Schmidt
