temporary mechanical filtration...

[Lostmind]

Anyone use anything to clean out the debris floating in the tank after you clean the sand bed/rocks a bit?

I personally havent even got sand in my tank yet, but I imagine that all the detritus floating thru the water column cant be that good for your tank...

My skimmer doesnt seem to be all that great at removing the larger particles (its new and apparently skimmers have a beak in period so I will wait a bit longer before buying a new one, but this one sucks ass currently).

I am just planning ahead here for my cleaning schedule and I think it would make sense to "polish" the water a bit right after cleaning up the tank and getting all that detritus floating around. I figure if I had a filter or something I could hook up for a few hours after a cleaning to pull the larger chunks out of the water and then turn off the filter, clean it and pack it up until next time I probably wont create a nitrite/nitrate factory and my water/tank would be healthier.

Anyone agree? Disagree? Any filter recommendations for somehting like this?

I have a 120Gallon tank, 75 gallon sump (65% full of water, half the sump is sectioned off for a refuge but as I am still cycling and curing my rock, nothing in there right now)... red sea berlin turbo classic skimmer (rated for 300 gallons APPARENTLY)... closed loop running a custom sealife T4 to a squid, and my return pump from my sump is also a T4 (both quiet pumps, but I am looking to upgrade the return pump already - too much head = not enuf flow )

[Doug1]

Lostmind, I think that a MAgnum type canister filter can be a handy maint tool for the reasons you list and others such as sucking out free floating cyano wads or similar, But, with the capacity of your system, even the Magnum 350 will pale in comparison to the volume of water you have so a couple alternatives
Rig up some sort of basket that you can set under the sump drain and place a couple layers of bulk pond filter pad and ideally draining into one of them micron sock thingies. That should get most of the particulate stuff seperated. Skimmers deal more with dissolved organics and any incidental small particulate that happen to attach to bubbles. Its primary goal is not removal of suspended solids, tho I suspect a high volume Beckett style skimmer would remove more by virtue of sheer volume of water processed.
Another idea I have had is to incorporate a section of pipe after the pump for the closed loop, that, using unions could be replaced with an
appropriate sized filter housing, similar to the whole house filters that go inline, sold at plumbing stores or like the ones the Life Reef incorporate in some of there trick sump/filter setups.
The trick with the generic would be finding SW safe filter elements, hopefully a pleated paper style similar to what Magnum uses in their canister filters. FWIW

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by Lostmind
...My skimmer doesnt seem to be all that great at removing the larger particles (its new and apparently skimmers have a beak in period so I will wait a bit longer before buying a new one, but this one sucks ass currently ... red sea berlin turbo classic skimmer...

I agree with Dug on the mechanical filter options, but you may want to do some mods to the RS Berlin skimmer before you spend the cash to get a totally new one (although if you DO get one, talk to Andy at My Reef Creations in Atlanta, its an awesome skimmer and reasonably priced) Kent makes a turbo venturi pipe that can be used in place of the venturi on the Berlin at the water inlet. Remove the barb at the bottom (it is threaded in), then use a spatula or other wide flat object to screw out the old venturi insert, plug the old air inlet with a nylon screw and teflon tape, and install the kent tube with an albow at the Berlin inlet. Attach a piece of large diiameter air line to the Kent venturi air inlet and enough length to put the end higher than the top of the skimmer, then attach an air valve to control the amount of air that enters the venturi (a little filter is a good idea as well on the air inlet side), Run a Mag 12 into it with a gate valve to throttle the water input (I usually run mine wide open, but you will eventyually need this for some unusual circumstance). The outlets for the water from the skimmmer will be quieter if they run out horizontally a bit and you install a "T" at the end with a verticle riser (to prevent overflows) to vent the output. I have the 50-250 Berlin (an old model) that cranks out thick sludge when it is tuned in. If you want the skimmer to remove more particulates, open the airvalve wide open and make a thin skimmate, it will clear the water column in about 30 min to an hour. Watch your salinity, and use a large waste receptical for the skimmate.

HTH

[Lostmind]

doug - I have currently rigged my fish net so that it is catching the larger particles from the overflow drainpipes... I also stirred up the junk in my tank with a powerhead and then used another net to catch as many particles as I can.. hopefully that helps some.

Only reason I feel a filter type powerhead might help out is that some of these pieces floating around are getting tossed all over the tank (i have lotsa flow) but they never make it down thru the overflow and so the skimmer doesnt have a chance to grab it.

Tom...

That's a great post man, thanks a mill. I just cut n paste that and saved it

[Doug1]

Volume is the reason I suggested the inline filter cartridge option set up so that it goes in line right after the pump for the closed loop. If the CLS pump is behind the tank rather than below you will get closer to max flow rate. I dont recall the ratings on the T4 pumps but you want near max flow for closed loop. With the sump set up so that half of it is a refugium, IME slower flow gives longer dwell time thru the fuge, and is quieter to boot. WHat pump runs you RS Berlin now? having a thruput rate higher than the skimmers ability to process water results in a lot of untreated water circulating back into the display. If that water isnt going thru fuge and or skimmer its kind of a waste in my mind. Is this making sense?