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Re:New Tank

Michael Lee Burgess  mburgess at novia_net   11/28/96

> 3)Will the sump waste alot of CO2. And will iron quickly oxidised in this area?
> 4)Recommendation on suitable canister filter? Model?
> 6)Lighting requirement?
> 8)Feel free to comment on overall setup.
> Thanking you for your every assistance.
> Zon Hisham

    Thanksgiving Evening When I am thankful for the help and company of
other plant enthusiast.
    Dear Zon:
    Regarding (#3)See my posting of a few days ago to refer you to
George Booths experiments on CO2 loss out of a sump, low enough not to
be a problem.
    Regarding (#4) Both Eheim, and Marinland make very good canister
filters as well as Fluval, but you may want to use a seperate pump or
powerhead because lifting water that high and also forcing it through a
reactor could be a great deal of back perssure on an expensive to
replace motor.  But if the motor is big enough, or cheap enough, its OK.
    Regarding (#6)  You could get involved in the free for all about 3
watts per gallon, but reading the KRIB will give you a stronger
reference as to the exact lighting options availible to you.  If you are
doing Marine, your needs are somewhat different than Freshwater Plants.
    Now we come to #8 and the place that I think I can acutally give you
some helplful advice.  In you overflow sump you have placed bio-balls
(presumably to act as a wet/dry filter) instead of feeding into a
wet/dry in the sump.  I believe that this could be a mistake for the
following reasons.  1) Without some kind of prefilter, you will quickly
cover the balls with clogging debre.  2) Without a prefilter any fish
that find their way in are DOA.  3) You need some form of drip plate to
distribute the water over the bio-balls in order to achieve efficient
biological filtration and a good mixture of air and water (hence the
wet/dry).  Overflows often have the majority of their water flowing down
the sides of the overflow chamber.  I believe your bio-filtering results
will be disapointing, although a good canister filter will do well
enough a mechanical filtering.  But then you did need the deluxe version
of a drilled tank.  Finally, you might consider putting the filtered
water return down farther to reduce surface turbulance and CO2 loss.  
Hope my opinions and concerns are helpful, Michael.