As soon as I hit 5 posts I will post pictures, new people rules

 

As for the sump

1st chamber is a 100 micron filter sock
Bubble trap
2nd chamber houses a ton of bio balls
3rd chamber houses the skimmer
Bubble trap
4th chamber houses the return pump

 

Get rid of the bio balls they are no good.

 

I would also like to apologize if any of these questions are stupid or have been asked 1000 times.

 

And this one for number 5

 

 

Welcome, what kind or water are you using, RODi or tap? Tap water is very bad and should never be used in a saltwater tank.I don't see any fish or corals is this correct? The tank will need to go thru a cycle which ill last 4-6 weeks BEFORE you put any fish, cuc (cleanup crew) or corals in. You are going to need test kits.Take out the bio balls, and it looks like filter floss in the first compartment, if so I would take it out or it will need changed every 2-3 days, reef tanks do not need any mechanical filtration like a fresh water does, except for the skimmer. You will need to upgrade the skimmer at some point. Not sure about you lighting, would need a brand and model number. You will need to post all your parameters in the future as it really is the only way to help, saying they are right on ect., doesn't tell us anything, right on to some is different to others, and the most important thing is not too rush, like I said 4-6 weeks to cycle, then just a cuc and then a few weeks later a single fish and a w eek or 2 later a second ect., Corals should wait for 3 months after the cycle is complete and anemones a year. Also your tank is too small for Tangs just as a heads up. That should cover newbe start up errors

 

If you know your pump model, you can find the chart for it.

Here is flow chart for Eheim Compact+ 3000 pump: http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploader/2012Q1/d & d pumps flowchart & Eheim Compact.jpg

I do not know what model you have, but this will give you rough idea what your actual flow is.

I am not sure why there is a restrictor on the drain..

I would suggest increasing your circulation, 800 gph wavemaker may not be enough to wash out all the detritus. For fish and softies, you can keep bioballs, but I would recommend replacing it with a chunk of live rock.

 

Welcome to TRT,

First off, don't add anymore livestock to that tank. Just from the pictures I can tell the tank water is bad. I recommend investing in a Marine test kit before you add anymore livestock. As a new reef tank you will have to test and re-test often. Also we can't help you if we don't know the parameters of your water conditions.

Your tank has to cycle before you add any inhabitants to the water. The hermits might survive but anything else will likely die in this process. When those hermits poop/pee into the water the ammonia from it which is toxic needs to be broken down. Your tank water must grow the proper amount of bacteria to break it down into Nitrite. Nitrite is still toxic, but another bacteria will then began to grow in the water and break down the nitrite into nitrate. Nitrate is far less toxic and this is what is your job to clean from the tank with filters and water changes. This whole process however takes about 6 weeks for the waste and different bacteria to level off into a stable equilibrium. That's what the test kit is for. Test weekly for the first 6 weeks then daily until the water changes have stabilized and your sure the cycle is complete.

The cloudiness of the water is probably due to this process working right now. Until your water is clear and the water parameters stable there is no point to adding more fish to the tank unless you like rotten dead things.

After that, I would upgrade that protein skimmer. I'm not sure what it is but it looks way too tiny to effectively clean a stocked tank of that size. Try your best/biggest one you can afford. The better your protein skimmer is at cleaning tank the less hassle your tank will be.

The following is an article about the different water parameters and what they are measured for. The website has lots of in depth articles on every subject. It can be overwhelming but its good knowledge. If you don't have the time or need a faster explanation You can always ask on the forums here at TRT

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

 

Looking at your picture, I get a feeling that your rockwork is too dense. I would remove 20-25% of it and try to make a lot of holes and caves between rocks. There are several reasons for that: you will have better circulation and not so many areas where detritus accumulates on your rocks, your fish and shrimp will have lots of places to hide, and it will look cool

 

+1
Most or all of the dense rock on the bottom should go, along with the bio balls.
I put mechanical filtration in my sump just prior to sweeping the glass and doing a water change, then remove after a day, or later that evening.

 

like igvm said, remove some of the display live rock and i would put it in the sump. Replace the bioballs with the live rock. You want to make some holes and etc for water to flow through. Make sure you are using RO/DI water and if you dont have a ro/di filter you need one! will be alot easier then going to the fish store to by water every week. with that tank size you will go through at least 3-5 gallons from evaporation a week then need 5+ for a weekly waterchange. Like everyone else said be patient, give it 4-6 weeks to cycle. Think you may want to add another powerhead in there as well for better/more flow.

 

Interesting, I didn't take the abundance of rock work into account but it makes sense. Much of that cloudiness is probably from nutrients and waste floating off all that rock. The rock will collect detritus in all the dead spots as well. Take out at least 1/3 of all that rock, and I still recommend saving up for a better skimmer and waiting on adding fish until it clears up.

 

Try and make some caves out of the rock. Google some aquascaping guides there are some very good ones out there. I wouldn't put any extra rock in your sump. It doesn't take a ton of rock to provide adequate biological filtration, and the extra will just catch detritus that has to be cleaned out of the sump, making more work with little or no benefit.

 

ill toss in my .02 and hope i dont step on anyones toes! youve gotten a lot of good advice so far!

as a few have suggested, water is the #1 most important ingredient thatr goes into a successful tank. tap water really has no place in a saltwater tank, especially if you want it to eventually be a reef tank. tap water contains other things besides chlorine that are bad for our critters. things like phosphate and nitrate will lead to algae issues, and copper will kill any invertebrates. id suggest investing in your own ro/di unit. www.spectrapure.com is the gold standard and the 90gpd refurbished unit is the one ya want.

id also suggest grabbing some of your own test kits. the ones ya want for now are ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH. i use salifert test kits for everything and like them a lot. they are a bit more spendy than api, but for something i only hafta buy a couple time a year, its worth the extra couple bucks. also, something to measure the salinity. hydrometers are cheap and usually not very accurate, so id recommend grabbing a refractometer for this.

on to the sump. id suggest removing the bioballs completely if you want this to be a reef tank in the future. bioballs are good for fish only tanks, but arent needed and are detrimental to a reef tank. filtration for a reef tank is actually pretty simple. live rock, good in tank flow, and a good protein skimmer....thats it! you already have the rock and the flow, so id suggest investing in a decent protein skimmer. reef octopus is a good, affordable brand that does nice work. id suggest either the sro1000 or the nwb150 or 200. the sro line is a bit more spendy, but comes with a better, skimmer specific pump, where the nwb line just uses a repurposed water pump.

as for flow. the return pump should be circulating somewhere between 3-5 times the tank volume per hour, so, in your case, around 225-375gph or so. flow through the sump should be relatively slow and really doesnt count toward IN TANK flow.

now, in tank flow is usually provided by powerheads, or wavemakers. how much do you need? well, that depends a bit on what you eventually wanna keep in the tank. if you want corals, think of the environments the different types are found in in nature. soft corals are usually found in lagoonal areas, or areas of lowish flow. lps are found a little further out and prefer a middle range of flow, in general, and sps are usually found on the reef crest and like very high, turbulent flow. i basically break it down like this. 40x tank volume per hour is a minnimum. thats what you want for fish only or soft corals. 50-80x tank volume per hour is a good target for lps corals, and 80-over 100x per hour is the sps zone. in my tank, i have something in the 80x range and it keeps my lps happy.

check out the reef keeping made easy thread. it is the "easy" link in my sig and is full of great info. there may be a lot of it that goes right over your head at this point, but just ask about anything you dont undersand and someone will help ya out!

 

The pump from what I can tell is a 3000l/h (roughly 800 gph I believe).

The issue im having a hard time figuring out is my flow rate, I realize that with a 10' head that I am no where near that 800 gph. I dont feel that my flow is high enough. So, I guess what Im asking is if you have any pointers as far as return pumps go, I need a recommendation, are those 3/4" points hurting my flow?
1" will help preserve some of the head, but that pump is beyond help
if it's an Eheim Compact. If it's an Eheim Hobby pump, you might squeak by
with a trickle but I'm very very doubtful. You certainly don't want your pump
running on fumes, maxing out the head. I have 2 Blue Line 40 HD-X pumps
and they only have a 13' head. Still, looking at their flow chart, at 10' you're
at 500+gph (9.5GPM) http://bluelineaquatics.com/products/water_pump/hd_chart.html

The Blue Line pumps...
http://bluelineaquatics.com/products/water_pump/hd.html

http://www.championlighting.com/home.php?cat=1209

are heavy duty, heavy weight, made to last
and have a beefy impeller compared to any submersible pump
except for the Red Dragons and that's just not cost effective.
The Water Blaster pumps by Coral Vue / Reef Octopus are pricey
both submersible and exterior, nearly silent, and will save you money on
the electric bill compared to capable counterparts. I'm not impressed with
the impeller, but other than that, I like mine. I have the HY-7000
and it's comparable to the Blue Line 40 HD-X with some head added in.
They're a generic to the Red Dragon so to say

Now you say 10' vertical height..
this takes into consideration, no other head loss factors, such as fittings
and hose barbs (insert type plumbing) reduce flow 25% on 1" PVC compared to 12.5% with glue on fittings.
Elbows, and unions also take a toll with each addition.
What if you wanted to tee off and run a reactor with your main pump rather than purchasing another dedicated pump.
Never max out
what you THINK your head is going to be. Allow for error and expansion
and control any excess with either a ball or gate valve.
Does 10' head include tank height? A water pump can be hit or mis, and once
you've used it, if it's under sized, you then have to sell it at a loss or store it
and buy another.

I think you'll make great strides once you have a gander at that refurbed RO unit Guitar linked you to.
1st things 1st, and that's 1st of all things, the supply line for your aquariums environment. It's by far the most bang for the least amount of money you
could put into an RO system and have excellent water quality coming in.
That's the advice I'd heed 1st…and lose some rock n bio-balls

Also, would my tank benefit from a second wave maker?

My current plans for this tank is very few fish and mostly soft corals with a clean up crew. (as of right now there are 10 hermit crabs working on the brown algae)

 

Ok. So, here we are. In the past two weeks my brother had a successful brain surgery (originally his tank) and is staying at my place, my gf left me due to the stress of everything but not all is bad.

I took the advice you all left me and took the following steps.

1) Mag 12 pump. I'm now moving about 300gph through my sump. This is a great improvement from the 90 it was at.

2) no more bio balls in the sump

3) removed a significant amount of rock out of the show tank and moved it into the open cavity of the sump.

4) invested in an RO/DI unit and have slowly but surely made water changes

5) re-arranged the live rock to allow for much better flow through the rocks. This included adding many caves and passages through the set up.

Since these changes I have solved my issues with the lovely brown algae that covered everything. The flow through the tank seems to be adequate. The water cleaner. And everything inside happier. I also picked up an API test kit.

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrates - normally between 0ppm and 5ppm
PH - 8.2 - 8.4

I want to thank you for the support and patience. It's a work in progress as of right now no livestock has died. I plan on upgrading the skimmer in the sump. Adding some sort of moon lights and picking up a Reef Master Test Kit.

Tim

 

Here is the latest picture.

 

You could still pull like half that rock out, once you add corals that thing is going to fill up quick, think about room for expansion. I have the same tank I believe a marineland 75 long, great tank. Now depending on your budget as far as water flow goes I run 2 mp10's they aren't cheap but they are sweet and will allow you to have any type of coral you wish.

As far as cuc you can really take it easy the cuc doesn't do nearly as much as you would want to believe and since you already have hermits might as well stick with them since they will rip snails out of their shells just to try them on.

 

Good news on your brother, test results and RODI unit :thumbup:
Test results look good, but before you purchase a "master" kit, consider Salifert kits.

You could still pull like half that rock out...

Agreed. The base and contact points have been reduced pretty well.
I believe the problem above that, is you seem to be working with a lot
of small fist sized pieces of rock which quantity will work against you.
Your rock is close to the ceiling. Like walking into a warehouse and seeing
stuff stacked all the way to the lights.
Plus, the far right base rock and the front left tonga branch, look like
a tumble waiting to happen.

Good progress and updates, keep em coming

 

Glad your brother is doing well. Sorry about the girl, but you'll find another.

Tank looks much better. Good idea getting the rock off the bottom as that will really help the water flow, but I am wondering if the rock is on the bottom of the tank or if it is sitting on the sand. Reason I ask, is that you will want to vacuum as much of the substrate as possible during water changes. Sand that is trapped will collect detritus. Also, while cleaning you may suck the sand out from under the rock and cause a collapse.

If it's already touching bottom, nevermind.

 

Oh no, still way too dense. Are you building the Great China Wall ?

 

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f6/nates-40b-build-177706-4.html
Here, have a gander at Nates aquascaping. Starting here at pg4 pg 6
and scroll through a few pages. There's few tanks I see that would
be as easily maintained as this tank. Albeit, not a lot of hiding spaces
you can make a good compromise betwixt the twain.

 

good to hear your brothers surgery went well. that's the important thing here!

sounds like you have made great progress with the tank as well. as japonicas suggested, nates tank is a great example of minimal aquascaping. you really don't need a whole lot of rock. also, a sorta open scape will allow you to clean better and allow less places for detritus to hide!


I would remove any rock from the sump, as well. its not needed for filtration and is really only trapping detritus making it harder to clean. a better use for that open sot would be a sorta settling tank where detritus will settle in the lowish flow and be easy to remove.