Reefer82

They're pretty common in aquaponics setups. Part of it may be due to size, not all systems have the space for the bell portion. It will also completely drain the overflow area unless you have one heck of a pump which I'm guessing would have to be at least a few thousand gph for a 1.5" drain at full siphon. The noise from when it breaks siphon is pretty noticeable as well. There might be things where they'd be useful but as a primary drain for your tank, likely not. Now if you want to make something for say like a surge it could have its uses.

I was going to say I thought gate valves were inherent to the design of that type of overflow because you needed the finer control to balance it all out? Never ran one so I could be wrong too...Wouldn't be the first time. At either rate a valve leaking is never good. Swap those suckers!

I have mine in the sump, not in the return section though. That's just a disaster waiting to happen. I'm coming up on a few years for this heater so I'm probably going to replace it soon and when I do I'm going with 2 smaller ones, one in sump, one in the display behind some rock. I have a black back to the tank so it should conceal pretty easily. That'll help should one fail. Even if sump flow is lost the one small heater in the diaplay would cause the tank to take the better part of the day to cool off and my Apex will alert to that long before it's a problem.

Guessing I probably shouldn't miss that one. You don't see too many falcons at an INDMAS meet. I was supposed to be off but somehow got scheduled 11-8 that day but I'll make it work. If I have to take a 3hr lunch and come back till and stay till 930 I will.

Ok, so you probably have the coolest side hobby of any other member of INDMAS. Family Guy and some alcoholic beverages once inspired me to want to become a falconer at some point in my life. Lol. Seriously though that's pretty awesome along with taking some serious dedication. Welcome to the club! This swap is pretty tough to beat from what I hear. I've only been to ours but it's gotten massive over the past 5 years. Selection is amazing game and the amount of raffles could almost stock a medium sized store.

And there's a tank in my living room that Tiffany really wants gone. You should come pick it up

Looks like you have a solid build underway. The rock work looks nice. Modern has a fairly decent livestock selection. Everything you listed would be easy to get your hands on. My only suggestion is move the heater to the middle chamber. The reason being that the eheim is pretty long as heaters go and in the event your ato is empty or just fails you could easily expose it to air within a days time with evaporation. That middle chamber being baffled would prevent that. I relocated the heater on my fusion 20 for a more deadly reason. Its a finnex with the separate temp sensor and I didn't pay attention to where the water level would drop if it were neglected until one day I heard the low temp alarm on the heater going off and the high temp alarm on my digital thermometer simultaneously . The sensor was exposed to the 71 degree air causing the heat to never shut off. The tank was only about a half gallon low on water so there wasn't much room for error. I lose that much in less than a day from evaporation. This obviously wouldn't be an issue if I checked it every morning but busy working during the holidays I overlooked it. Getting used to an ato that doesn't need filled but once every week and a half makes you complacent sometimes

Even though you won't be dosing it's still a good practice to test. Who's to say the salt mix isn't deficient in somethingv? Rare but it has happened. Jaco's testing regimen would cover the bases pretty well. API is the big one to avoid. They have a terrible habit of being inaccurate at the levels we need to be at in a reef.

Salifert and Hanna checkers are considered the most reliable. The Hanna calcium I believe can be finicky though I have no personal experience with it. I try and test weekly, not going to lie I get lazy and sometimes a month goes by. Don't get into the habit, especially in a small tank because things can go south quickly. Being you'll likely do frequent water changes on that size tank I'd make it a point to test before each one so you know where you're at. It's basic math to know where you'll be afterward.

I'll go for night before/AM if that's how it ends up. 2xl

What reactor are you using for this? Lighting schedule? I have a pretty big vertex reactor just sitting around that could be put to use... it's far too large for any gfo/carbon for my tank.

Let me know if I need to pick up anything from you to take over there. I'll be right by your house most of the week.

That should turn out nice, similar to what my daughters will have. She probably won't have any euphyllia for awhile though. Skimmer would definitely be wasted on a tank of that size. A quick 10% water change would likely do as much and help keep alk everything else in check. The light would probably suffice for what you want to do. I'm personally going to use either the reef breeders full spectrum PAR38 I have or a PAR30 50/50 I picked up awhile back. Just need to find a suitable lamp holder and see what looks best. I think the spread on the 38 will be too much unless it's quite a bit closer to the water.

Welcome Paul. We are actually in the process of setting up the exact same tank for my oldest daughter. I'm guessing by the user name you're in Danville, not too far away myself over in Brownsburg. I think you'll really enjoy the tank. We already have a fusion 20 as a frag system and it's been trouble free for the past 18months. Be on the lookout for a pump upgrade. I've yet to fire this one up but if it's anything like what was in the 20 the vibration can maddening. I highly reccomended the in tank media baskets for it. The stock basket is horrid. I was going to order the sock for it but I fear such a small sock and the only point of filtration would require virtually daily maintenance. The spin stream nozzle is a nice upgrade as well to randomize the flow a bit

Seriously though, Ive never done this because it can't be good. The ocean tastes horrible! No need for a fancy pump unless you're just in a hurry. I always just put a hose in the water, let it partially fill, put finger over the end out of the tank and raise the hose up out of the water and repeat this a couple times till it fills up. All you do then is release your finger from the other end and ta-da, siphon starts and your face is much less salty. For quick water changes I do toss a backup return pump into my sump with a wireless remote switch and a 3/4" hose. It drains the sump in a couple minutes and saves the back breaking effort of leaning around inside the stand trying to use a siphon.

I'll make this one. I have to work but I'll be just up the road.

Honestly with the way you tank looks I'd not move any rock, maybe suck out half or so of the sand and then fill back in with the reef flakes. The fine stuff will stay down low for the most part. It'd just be no good to ruin that look if you had to pull the rock out. You could probably get 1.5-2" hose and a funnel to add the new sand back so it just lays down onto the old and not stir up much. Itll give a lot more control on where it lands. Just make sure its a thin wall, flexible tube or youll be fighting it. Pair it with a big water change day and maybe you won't have to add any of the old water back and create all that cloudiness.

I was going to go but the meet is the same day, I'll just be waiting for our swap it seems.

So what I hear is this coral just put you over the limit and now you're forced to upgrade to a 240g at tax time? Try that with the wife, live stream though I have to see it. Lol.

I'd ditch the hood and go low cost black box. Sbreef basic 16 would be a good fit I'd think and keep investment minimal. You'd probably be able to sit it right in the rim as well so much less work being it's just QT.

I'll try to make it. I should be back to rotating Saturdays off by then. Haven't seen next month's schedule yet.

I'd like to get in on this depending on when you'd receive. I'd rather not get anything until new years just because I'm working like crazy atm.

Thanes to everyone who made it out and made it yet another successful INDMAS Christmas get together! Good food, good people and good times were had. Even the remains of Craig's gift brought joy to some. Somehow it managed to make it through the entire house. Never underestimate a 4yr old!

Since it's just a sump it's probably overkill but I had fantastic results with Berghia. I threw 10 in my 100g display which probably had north of 150 aiptasia and they got 99.9% I've seen like 2 in the 8 months or so since they were "all gone". Definitely not the cheapest solution but I'd do it again without a second thought.

The oldest ones are my yellow tang and Clown and they'd be close to 7. I've had them for 2 years. I purchased both from a guy who lived down the street and got transferred out of state for work and he said he acquired both pretty much at the same time.