Bottom Flow Necessary??

[Weatherman]

Originally Posted by ScallopKing

You say 'and of course the entire back is open' is that a requirement of BB that I missed?

No, I just chose to set it up that way because the tank is wide enough (24"), I have corner overflows (instead of those ridiculous offset megaflows), and I have one very active fish.

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by ScallopKing

...I siphon daily, into my micron and change that daily too right now. I also clean my skimmer weekly which gets covered in thick mud. Sometimes I don't get the piles daily though and too see algae buildup on the front and sides of the tank.

This type of reaction for a system in early flux stages from a DSB setup is to be expected, and will probably continue for another 2 or 3 months until a good bit of the nutrient load cooks out of the rock. Would it be possible for you to set up a temporary second skimmer and a phosban reactor?

BTW, good to get rid of the seios, basically just Rio PH's in disguise...

[tdwyatt]

Oh, and WELCOME TO TRT!!!


Do you have a photo of your setup that you could post for us? That will help us make suggestions that are more appropriate to your setup for pump placement.

[Spanky]

Tom, Casey posted a picture of the "setup".

ScallopKing - WELCOME TO TRT!

[Geoff]

Welcome to TRT!!





here is a pic of the backside of one of my mounds before i did the epoxy SB. the 1.5" elbow you see is one of the two outlets from an Ampmaster 3000. the other outlet is under the secound LR mound.

so far after 2 months of running i have had zero build up of detritus under the LR. i have a couple of spods, but it took less than a gallon of water to get them.

G~

[Spanky]

That's the idea Scallop. It does not do any good to have 50 million gallons of flow in the tank, and only 10 gals going to the skimmer.
Try to match your flow in the tank to the flow in the skimmer so it's taken out.
Not just circulated round and round.

[redwinger]

Don't you mean match skimmer flow to return pump flow?

[Spanky]

Something like that.

Let me try that again.

Try to match the flow out of your tank to the skimmer so the skimmer takes it out.

nope not quiet there yet

Try to match the flow in your tank to the flow out of your tank to the skimmer so the skimmer takes it out.

ok, you guys have a go at it!

[Mike O'Brien]

And you also need to have the flow in the tank setup so the waste actually makes it to the overflow. It's not as easy as it sound's.

Now let me try. Match the flow going out of you're tank to the flow going through the skimmer. I like the seperate section's in the sump, the drain dump's where the skimmer pump is and the skimmer pump's the water to the second section. That way all water get's skimmed every pass through the sump. Otherwise water would be able to bypass the skimmer and spend more time blowing around the system.

[motorslave]

How about a skimmer pump that is slightly bigger than the return pump. Have the skimmer dump into the same chamber the tank drains to so the skimmer actually has a chance to skim some of the water over before it returns?

Robert

[Black71gp]

i have my drain going into a 5 gallon bucket in my rubbermaid tub and the skimmer draws water out of there.. i have the right amount of holes in the bucket so that the skimmer draws in more water than the tank is giving it to make sure every bit of new tank water is skimmer wet before heading back to the tank.