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 State
of the Tank: 2/04
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| I also brought
to Greg's attention my recent battles with cyano
and suspected phosphates (he had no answer for
the mass Majano-cide, by the way). I showed him
my little Fluval cannister filter stuffed with
Phosban and mentioned that although my original
plan was to run it on an as needed basis, the overall
success I've had changed my mind. I mentioned that
I DO hate the maintenance of having to 'break up'
the bags of media once a week though. I had not
realized that when used this way, meaning when
water basically flows down over them, the stuff
soon becomes hard as a friggin' rock and therefore
completely ineffectual. I'd been reading on the
boards that what several reefers do is employ an
in-line filter that either pulls the water upwards
through the media meaning it can't circumvent it,
or use a fluidized filter which keeps the media
in suspension so it cannot harden. I asked Greg
for his thoughts and he told me what he did was
use a couple of CR-L chambers from www.Myreef Creations plumbed in-line and filled with Rowaphos. A small pump keeps the media moving slightly. So first thing Monday morning, I’m on the phone with Andy from Myreef getting myself a couple of CR-Ls; one to hold the phosphate removal media (I’m still using Phosban), and the other to hold |
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carbon. Plumbed ‘downstream’, the carbon chamber will aid in removing the fine ‘dust’ the of phosphate media. As I write this, they are both up and running beautifully. Of course, I STILL had no
solution to the problems with my sump,
problems that would certainly be exacerbated
by the flow of the new Sequence pumps.
So, once again, I tried to find one by
posting my dilemma on Reef Central. Of
the several (okay, five) responses, the
one that looked the most promising was Barr
Aquatic Systems . A few of the ‘older pros’ had their sumps built by this company and were very happy with the work. My challenge was pretty unique though. How do you design a sump that can handle approximately 7500 gph, stay within a 48 x 48 inch footprint and deliver a relatively bubble free return of water back to the tank? As of this writing, Brent Barr and myself have been going back and forth over this and he has some very interesting ideas... Unfortunately, nothing is in concrete right now so I can’t go into any details. Suffice it to say however that by the NEXT update, sometime before the turn of the decade, I should be able to show it to you!
And this will conclude Feb. Not bad for the shortest month of the year, huh? ... |
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