Newbie Marine Question(s)
Shawn Salyers
drilled and has no overflow (should I get it drilled, and where would I get
that done?). I went to my local Pet Supermarket and got a GREAT deal on the
tank and stand, that's why I bought it there, less than $300 for the tank,
unfinished stand, and glass hoods (which I probably won't use). so I have
it in my dining room just sitting there and it is driving me crazy! I want
to put together a reef system, so I am gathering the hardware and then was
considering Tampa Bay Saltwater's "Package".
My questions are:
1. Filtration. I bought a Eheim 2229 from Ebay and my intentions were to
use that. When I was a Pet Supermarket the manager told me they are no
longer selling saltwater supplies. Their wet/dry filters were marked half
off, and then another 20% on top of that! I can get a 125 or 200 gallon
wet/dry for around $80 complete (minus pump). What pump should I use, and
what should the GPH be? Which would be my best long-term solution? I don't
mind spending the money (and I'll use the Eheim on my freshwater), but I
want to get the right stuff the first time.
2. Substrate. If I do NOT go with Tampa Bay Saltwater's "Package" what
should I use. I have read a lot about using sand (Southdown?) from Home
Depot. Should I mix this with live sand, and if so what should the ratio
be? I'm in Florida, real close to the beach, I can go get sand from there
if it's better. I am looking to save a few bucks, but want to do it in the
right places.
3. Stand. Any advice on wiring inside the stand? Being a network engineer,
I had planned to wire the entire setup to a good quality UPS because Florida
is famous for 'brown outs'. Any other suggestions?
4. Protein Skimmer. Suggestions? Seaclone, Berlin........
Sorry about the long post, but I want to do this right and my LFS (not Pet
Supermarket) recommendations seem more profit minded rather than what I
really need. I have an Eclipse 6 reef system that they helped me with, but
in retrospect I bought a lot of stuff I didn't need.
Thanks,
Shawn
Mel Beckman
Shawn Salyers wrote:
>
> 3. Stand. Any advice on wiring inside the stand? Being a network engineer,
> I had planned to wire the entire setup to a good quality UPS because Florida
> is famous for 'brown outs'. Any other suggestions?
>
I'm also a network engineer. You can't run most aquarium gear on the average
off-the-shelf UPS (e.g., American Power Conversion, etc). These UPS units don't
put out a true sine wave, making them unsuitable for the inductive loads found
in lights, motors, and heaters. You need a true sine-wave UPS, and these are
pretty expensive (about $150 per 100 watts; you'd spend a couple of grand on a
UPS that could run 600W of lights (what you need minimum for a 120G tank) and
another 600 watts of pumps and heaters. That would run for about 30 minutes on
a 1400VA true-sine battery backup (about $2,000). You could just run the heater
(you'd need a 300W titanium) to maintain temperature for about an hour on,,
say, a 650VA UPS, but you'd still need to spend about $1000 for the UPS.
-mel beckman
Chuck Gadd
>off-the-shelf UPS (e.g., American Power Conversion, etc). These UPS units don't
>put out a true sine wave, making them unsuitable for the inductive loads found
>in lights, motors, and heaters. You need a true sine-wave UPS, and these are
I've found this to be mostly true, but I have found that the output of
my cheap UPS is good enough to run an airpump. I don't try to keep
the other equipment going, but by running an airstone during the
outage, at least I can be sure the O2 level will stay acceptable,
increasing the chances of survival.
Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua
vampelèon
hallucinated:
>On 03 Jan 2001 03:13:29 GMT, Mel Beckman <m...@becknet.com> wrote:
>
>>off-the-shelf UPS (e.g., American Power Conversion, etc). These UPS units don't
>>put out a true sine wave, making them unsuitable for the inductive loads found
>>in lights, motors, and heaters. You need a true sine-wave UPS, and these are
ummm, neither heaters nor lights are inductive loads, old style
tar-ballast may be seen as such but the newer electronic controllers
certainly are not.
the motors found in almost all filters are inductive and probably will
not start off a square wave but heaters, airpumps, lights and anything
else that doesn't use a motor will run just fine - battery drainage is
a problem though, most off-the-shelf UPS won't last more than an hour
or so with a standard aquarium.
--
~..~
i had to go to the police station recently to report a bumper-bashing.
the sign on the door said "CRIMINALS BEWARE, this police station protected by armed response!"
Larry Stern
overflow and a sump tank. The Eheim is probably not necessary.
For a 120 a 30-55 gallon sump would work. Your return pump will need to be at
least 1200 gal/hour (At 0' head, actual return will be
less). I recommend lots of water circulation and that it be well distributed.
Powerheads can help here. Spray bars are much better than a
single return point. So, you will get mechanical filtration via a prefilter
either in the sump or in the overflow (clean or replace regularly),
and you will get biological filtration from the rock, thus making the Eheim
unnecessary. I don't recommend chemical filtration (i.e.
carbon) in a reef tank unless your water gets yellow and only for a short
"clean up" period. Carbon removes to much "good stuff" like
trace elements from the water that the corals need.
One key to a successful reef tank is live rock. For my tastes, I use more than
the "recommended" amount. It can be had for about $3.25 a lb
mail order. I use reef fanatic, but they are on the west coast so air costs
might be to high if you are on the east coast. When I got my rock
the newspaper from Fiji that the rock was wrapped with was only 2 days old!
Live rock needs to be cured. Since this is a new setup you
can cure it in your tank directly. Use no light during curing. Add no fish for
at least a month. After ammonia, nitrate and nitrite get to 0
(get a good test kit, I use both of red sea's (Reef and Marine), then add a few
damsels (they are hardy and cheap). They will tell you if
your tank is ready. For light I use metal halides, some people are switch to a
greater use of power compacts. For a 6' tank I would use
three bulbs at least 6500K, 10K is probably better, 20K is only for "deep
reefs". if you are going to mainly do soft corals I would do 250
watt. If you plan on doing hard corals (i.e. Acropora) then I would do at least
1 400 in the area of the hard corals.
As for the sand, don't use two deep a substrate unless you plan on keeping fish
that burrow like the Jawfish. Deep substrates run the risk
of going anaerobic and are thus a risk to the rest of the tank inhabitants
(anaerobic conditions can release sulphur dioxide). A small amount
of live sand will suffice. All you want are the copepods and other small
creatures that come with it, they will multiply on their own. Don't
buy an entire tank of live sand that's a waste. Consider adding the live sand
after that rock is cured (If you're going to cure in the main
tank), as ammonia will spike and much of the "live sand" would die. After the
rock cures add some snails, trochus and turbos work well.
Also some small hermit crabs and maybe a small starfish that is a detritus
eater (there are various starfish types). I use brittle stars for this
purpose.
You will need a large skimmer. Red Sea Berlin is a good one. I'm not a big fan
of sea clone. There are lots of other good skimmers too. I
put mine in the sump. It works well there and is "out of sight". I put the
heater in the sump too. Drive the skimmer with at least 400
gal/hour pump if you get the Berlin. Others may need different flow. Clean out
the skimmer at least once a week.. The protein skimmer
will remove many good things too, so you will need to replenish certain things
from the water. Skimming can readily deplete iodine for
instance. Many people turn after their skimmer for at least a few hours when
they add iodine. All these electrical beasts generate heat so
temp must be monitored closely. Depending on where you live a chiller and a
temperature controller may be necessary, but they are
extremely expensive. Keep in mind that conditions on the reef are extremely
stable, i.e salinity, temperature, calcium concentration, etc.
The reef creatures have a small range of adaptability to these conditions, so
you must strive to duplicate these conditions in your tank as
closely as possible.
My biggest advice is four fold: 1) have a lot of patience, don't add
fish/corals to fast. Try easy corals first like mushroom anemones and
leather corals. 2) The first $200 you spend should be on books. Information
helps a lot in a successful reef. Two books I would
recommend are vol's 1 of both Fossa (Modern Coral Reef Aquarium (it is from a
German translation, but it is an excellent book), and
Deelbek and Sprung (Successful Reef Aquarium Vol 1). Both of these books are
fairly expensive maybe $65 but they are well worth it.
Specialty books can also be helpful if you plan on doing anemones or clams,
etc. 3) Rely on expert advice until you gain experience, local
experts are best if at all possible. 4) Reefs are expensive and pinching
pennies in the short run may cost more in the long run.
Best of Luck, feel free to write me directly if you have more questions.
Perhaps I gave you to much info to start with.
Larry Stern
Mel Beckman
vampelčon wrote:
> On Wed, 03 Jan 2001 06:07:23 GMT, cg...@cfxc.com (Chuck Gadd)
> hallucinated:
>
> >On 03 Jan 2001 03:13:29 GMT, Mel Beckman <m...@becknet.com> wrote:
> >
> >>off-the-shelf UPS (e.g., American Power Conversion, etc). These UPS units don't
> >>put out a true sine wave, making them unsuitable for the inductive loads found
> >>in lights, motors, and heaters. You need a true sine-wave UPS, and these are
>
> ummm, neither heaters nor lights are inductive loads, old style
> tar-ballast may be seen as such but the newer electronic controllers
> certainly are not.
You're probably right -- the newest PC lighting uses all-electronic ballasts and won't have an
inductrive aspect into the power supply. However, many of the first-generation PC ligthts are not
really using all-electronic ballasts. They still have an iron core with an inductive coil for the
basic voltage increase (usually from 120V to 480V) and then use folding to get to 1000+ volts.
gas laser power supplies (which I work with quite a bit) have a design similar to first-gen PC
lights, and they won't run cleanly from a UPS either.
> the motors found in almost all filters are inductive and probably will
> not start off a square wave but heaters, airpumps, lights and anything
> else that doesn't use a motor will run just fine - battery drainage is
> a problem though, most off-the-shelf UPS won't last more than an hour
> or so with a standard aquarium.
Also, keep in mind that many pump motors will start with a square wave, but they won't run
efficiently and will run hot. They usually fail prematurely. Retail UPS units are usually rated
to run equipment for fifteen minutes at full load. Fifteen minutes of filtration or heating or
airstone operation won't usually mean anything in an aquarium -- the hysteresis of the system can
easily absorb outages this long. To get a battery backup that will run an aquarium system for a
meaningful time requires sizing at 4 to 10 times over capacity, which gets expensive very fast.
You'd be better off buying a cheap gasoline-powered generator (about $500), which produces a real
sine wave clean enough for any aquarium appliance. This you could run for hours and hours.
Note that most cheap UPS units will not run on a generator's output. In our experience, you need
a UPS with advanced power sag protection (such as the APC SmartUPS), which can have its
sensitivity set to "low" so that it does not false-trigger on the somewhat dirty generator power
output.
One of my jobs is designing backup power systems for our data centers, so I have lots of
experience with UPS and generator equipement.
-mel
Earl Fitzgerald
shoul d have gone to rec.aquaria.marine.misc or
rec.aquaria.marine.reefs.
Thanx,
Earl
--
Earl Fitzgerald
=-= JF4-3-J12 - (503)712-2171 Office/Pager (503)204-1342 - JF4-302 =-=
efit...@ichips.intel.com
must...@my-deja.com
In article <3A543AF2...@psy.utexas.edu>,
Larry Stern <st...@psy.utexas.edu> wrote:
> Drilling the tank can be done, but it is risky. I would suggest doing
an
> overflow and a sump tank.
Huh? drilling is part of doing an overflow. Of course you're probably
talking about doing an over-the-side type overflow. I have to say
though... risk of losing siphon is by far more risky than drilling the
tank. Every morning I get this sudden fear that my overflow has
stopped. It's even worse when I'm away for more than a day.
> So, you will get mechanical filtration via a prefilter
> either in the sump or in the overflow (clean or replace regularly),
Not necessary. There's nothing that says you have to have mechanical
filtration. As far as I'm concerned you're filtering out all the free-
floating food that could be going to good use.
then add a few
> damsels (they are hardy and cheap). They will tell you if
> your tank is ready.
Cheap damsels make good guinea pigs? hehe. Kinda like parakeets in a
coal mine. How about just cycle the tank with live rock and sand. When
the water tests OK, then add the first fish you really want instead of
dirty damsels that you'll want to remove eventually. Surely a yellow
tang would be an inexpensive first fish.
the area of the hard corals.
> As for the sand, don't use two deep a substrate unless you plan on
keeping fish
> that burrow like the Jawfish. Deep substrates run the risk
> of going anaerobic and are thus a risk to the rest of the tank
inhabitants
> (anaerobic conditions can release sulphur dioxide).
What do you consider "too deep"? It is my belief that you WANT
anaerobic conditions. Aerobic areas produce Nitrate whereas anaerobic
areas convert Nitrate to Hydrogen. Someone please correct me if I'm
wrong. I only have a 2-1/2" sandbed, but I plan on adding another inch.
Sorry for nitpicking... I'm not trying to slam you. 80% of what you
suggested sounds like solid advice.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
niko...@my-deja.com
My reef UPS consists of 3 RV batteries, an automatic charger, a cheap
Damark invertor, and a relay. It only runs the Iwaki MD55 main
circulation pump. The longest outage I've had was about 8 hours (about
the battery capacity - I charged them from my truck), but I test it
regularly if only to run the batteries down some. The pump starts and
runs fine, although I know it's not really nice to run it from the
modified square wave it doesn't seem to have suffered any.
Stephen
>
> -mel
squin...@my-deja.com
Americle overflow setup is as close to fail-safe as possible. I can't
figure out how the my Americle overflow WOULD fail! Any small bubbles
that do get drawn into the "U-tube" just go on through since the flow
is to fast.
Maybe I'm uncomfortable with putting holes in glass because I live in
an earthquake zone. When the tank shakes, I'm sure any weakness in the
glass would increase the odds of it failing.
Try to use Clown fish, not Damsels. They are very nearly as hardy and
you can leave them in permanently.
You don't need to run mechanical filtration all the time -- just for
clean-ups and fast corrections. Constant mechanical filtration will
retard the development of natural filtration in live rock and live sand
bed, reducing its bio-load capacity. If the canister filter fails,
nutrients will accumulate faster than the other systems can adjust.
In article <9325sl$dtr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Tom
Gee wheeze! And while you're at it, why not plan to accommodate an entire city
usage's as well. - all you really need is to get an air pump to come on and it
doesn't take a genius to figure that out!!!
--
Located in S. California. We specialized in fresh and marine, cichlid, tank set up,
and services. Information, pictures and aquarium supply also available here. Home
on the web http://www.paps2000.com
Mel Beckman
Tom wrote:
> Mel Beckman wrote:
>
> > Shawn Salyers wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > 3. Stand. Any advice on wiring inside the stand? Being a network engineer,
> > > I had planned to wire the entire setup to a good quality UPS because Florida
> > > is famous for 'brown outs'. Any other suggestions?
> > >
> >
> > I'm also a network engineer. You can't run most aquarium gear on the average
> > off-the-shelf UPS (e.g., American Power Conversion, etc). These UPS units don't
> > put out a true sine wave, making them unsuitable for the inductive loads found
> > in lights, motors, and heaters. You need a true sine-wave UPS, and these are
> > pretty expensive (about $150 per 100 watts; you'd spend a couple of grand on a
> > UPS that could run 600W of lights (what you need minimum for a 120G tank) and
> > another 600 watts of pumps and heaters. That would run for about 30 minutes on
> > a 1400VA true-sine battery backup (about $2,000). You could just run the heater
> > (you'd need a 300W titanium) to maintain temperature for about an hour on,,
> > say, a 650VA UPS, but you'd still need to spend about $1000 for the UPS.
> >
> > -mel beckman
>
> Gee wheeze! And while you're at it, why not plan to accommodate an entire city
> usage's as well. - all you really need is to get an air pump to come on and it
> doesn't take a genius to figure that out!!!
>
Geez , yourself Tom. Can't you read? He asked specifically about running the whole
setup. Go meditate at your tank for a while.
-mel
Tricky
will not really make it any weaker, just prone to cracking across the area
that you have drilled it, rather than any random point elsewhere. I would
suggest you spend the money from the trickle filter on a powerful pump
1500 - 2500 gph, and plenty of live rock. Drill the base of the tank in 4
point, with at least 2 inch standpipes for overflow (or the pump will run
dry). Return the water via the other two holes in the base, the pipework
can be arranged to create platforms (or rings) that live rock can be rested
on, and multiple points for water return around this ring. Buy as much live
rock as possible. Make sure it is cured correctly, and then start stocking.
There is no need to use damsels or clowns. This is a cruel practice and
should be discontinued, there is no to use fish for maturing a tank when
there are solutions to be found elsewhere. Finally, buy the biggest skimmer
you can get your hands on. Turboflotor or Berlin are fine. Some of the
Tunze skimmers are good as well 230/240 series (I use 2 x 235 tunzes on my
130 gallon tank, they're rated at 230 gallons each!!!). Don't bother with a
UV unless you use it very minimally (i.e. 2 hour per week). Don't use
Ozone, it cleans the water TOO much. I can recommend having a look at this
link http://www.reefkeeper.co.uk/, it will give you some idea of equipment
to be using. There is also a downloadable document call 'the perfect reef
aquarium' which you may find very useful reading.
Regards
Tricky
P.S. Don't, Don't, Don't, Don't, Don't use a trickle filter. You'll end
up with more nitrates than you can shake a fishy stick at. Spend the money
on more live rock, it's the way forward.
cmpe...@hotmail.com
system. While running lights off it my be very taxing on the UPS I have
run my Pumps off an APC unit for several years now with no problems
what so ever. It has saved my livestock move than once when the power
went off and I wasn't home to deal with it..
--
cmpe...@hotmail.com
Home Of ReefCon 2K - Aquarium Maintainence,
Reference, Logging, and Control software
http://www.infinitysoft.net
In article <3A580C97...@becknet.com>,
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Mel Beckman
Tricky wrote:
> There is no need to use damsels or clowns. This is a cruel practice and
> should be discontinued, there is no to use fish for maturing a tank when
> there are solutions to be found elsewhere.
I am curious about your feeling that using Damsels as a maturing check is
somehow cruel.What makes this practice cruel? Do the fish suffer unreasonably?
How is this more cruel than feeding live brine shrimp to your tank? From my
point of view, it's a legitimate excercise in animal husbandry to ensure the
maximum life of more expensive stock. I never think of it as cruel or somehoe
immoral.
-mel