10g maybe? quesitons...

[palmer373]

Well my mom is thinking of trading the 10 FW for a 20 long so she can have more fish and I was thinking of taking the 10 and add it to my 75 system. I was originally thinking of plumbing the 10 into the sump of the 75 so I just have to feed the 10 and nothing else but then I relized that might be a little hard. Would it be easier/better to just put a HOB filter and maybe a skimmer and just top it off every once in a while? Buddy could you chim in? I got the idea from your tank. I was thinking that if i did do this I could grow corals in the 10 and keep the 75 a FOWLR cuase I like a lot of non-reef safe fish but I like the corals too. great dilema in this hobby!

any ideas on what to do with the 10?

[mr.x-ray]

Is it drilled? If it is I would make a fuge out of it.

[Flash]

You could start cycling it to be a hospital tank for treatment, or a quarantine tank for new fish. Also, since your planning on stocking up on some fish, you may need a place to put a mean fish if things get ugly. "The Jail Tank".

[asuttles]

I'm really no one to ask about sumps/refugiums (mines going to be made out of a hob filter, nano-reef look for the modded ac70's if that interests you). But you have established tank water, if you got a filter with some purigen or chemi pure in there, small light fixture, koralia nano or one, and another heater and some LR you've got yourself a 75 gal fowlr and a 10 gal coral grower Flash has a good idea as well, that could be useful down the road if anything unexpected happens with some of your fish.

[foam jocky]

a 10g can be a good fuge, some glass plaets to compartmentalize and a mag or quiet one pump for the return and no need to drill it is a little small but it will be better than the one you don't have. the glass is cheep to have cut and a tube of silicon and you are styling!

[Salty]

actually the water is not what is established its everything else in the tank (LR, sand, mehcanical filtration) that carries the bacteria in it. Very little bacteria is actually in the water itself.
Just mentioning this so somebody doesnt just take 10g of water out of their DT to put in a QT and think its cycled becuase your DT was. Like flash said you need to let it cycle too, or add something to the tank with the bacteria in it. I leave a filter sponge in the sump and add that to the QT tank when I set it up. I also let the little whisper filter I run on my QT run on the side fo the sump for a few days before adding it to the QT. This way I get 2 sources of bacteria in the tank. Add a small powerhead to get the water moving through the sponges and you should have a tank that doesnt require a cycle.

[aquariumreef]

I just took my sump down today. They seem to be more trouble than they are worth, unless you get it working right! It was a 10 gallon, with acrylic baffles. Going to convert into a pygmy seahorse tank, maybe you should do the same? Sorry for no being not much help though!


Sean

[palmer373]

x-ray- It is not drilled. It is currently running as a 10g with 2 dwarf gouramis. oh and I have a fuge in my sump. 5-6 inches of LS and some cheato and grape caulerpa.

flash- that makes a lot of since, BUT idk if i could live with an empty tank for longer than 5 seconds plus id like a coral/frag tank if i could get the right lighting. more options with a 75 FOWLR and a 10 reef...

asuttles- I had the idea of turning it into a reef when I saw your tnak on this tread. probably wouldnt make it a sump... I might try to incorperate it into the sump of the 75 so it is easier to take care of. my questions for you is how hard is it to maitain with top off and such like that and would you recomend turning a hopefully to-be spare 10g?

foam jockey- like i said i already have a fuge but good idea.

salty- very true. I was thinking of takin some spare LR form my tank and collect a pound of LS here and there and throw it into my tank and put my tank water on top of it.

ar- lol sounds fun... id like that IF i knew enough about seahorses...

[foam jocky]

you could fairly easily put an overflow box on and tee off your return pump (if large enough) and run both tanks through one sump, and one skimmer. and a 10g wouldn't take a overly excessive light and you would have the start of a reef, and when you go bigger you would have something to seed it with!

[asuttles]

well if you could get someone to make you a plexiglass lid from home depot or something like that I'm not sure the evaporation would even matter doing weekly water changes, I want to do a do it yourself auto top off since I have an extra air pump but I have no experience building those. I don't have a lid so what I do is probably do a h2o change everytime the evaporation has brought my water level down to just below the black trim, some of you might cringe at that but my salnity seems to stay pretty stable. The only downside I've experienced with this is since I don't have that lid the bubbles from the hob when the water level starts getting a bit low burst at the suface which lands on the acrylic piece of my light. This isn't much a problem though cuz that piece easily slides out for cleaning which I do every water change. If anyone is good with auto top off's let me know, I def would and I'm sure palmer would want to learn if he gets his up and running.

[palmer373]

foam jockey- thats what I was thinking but it seem a little hard to do.

asuttles-ok yah on my 75 i noticed a great deal of not as much evaporation when I got my glass lid from the reef. plexiglass would be a lot easier and cheaper tho. and yah if anyone can help you with a ATO id sure to be listening!

[palmer373]

asuttles- where did you get your coralife 96w 50/50 from? that could work for the 10 and maybe a larger size for the 75!

[asuttles]

I got it from hellolights http://www.hellolights.com/index.asp?Pa ... rodID=1323 thats the exact model, I would def shop around however I remember seeing it cheaper a week or 2 after I had purchased mine somewheres else.

[palmer373]

mmmk thats a nice light. Ill keep my eye sopen for anothe rlight like that and/or a 48" version.

[foam jocky]

my 180 &100 are bridged like that with common return pump. I have ball valves to regulate the return flow and it works great. very easy to do

[palmer373]

oh so both of yours are plumbed into the same sump and refuge and have the same return but its just split? whats the demensions of the 100?