[j0sh1020]

I have a 55 gallon tank the man at the store said i could go with a filter that hangs on the back and be fine i dont really need the more expense ones. wat do ya'll think?

j0sh

[glampka]

What kind of tank will it be - FOWLR, reef, etc?? At the minimum you should have a protein skimmer.

[crazygator]

a hang on is fine for freshwater, but i would look into a the least a canister filter. much more versitile if you want to switch gears and go to reef. don't waste the few dollars that you will regret later. the ideal is a sump but over kill for a fish only.

[Krazy]

You can get away with an emperor 400 on the back with no bio-wheels, use that as a temp filter until you can get enough live rock in there. an overflow with a sump would be your best bet if you want a corals/reef setup.

[j0sh1020]

i want to set up a reef tank and it sounds like a "hang on the back" filter won't cut it for that huh?

[kawboy215]

nope!! As stated best bet is with a sump system you could build your own out of a 20 gal long or even a 10 gal but the bigger the more versatile and for what your looking to do, I have to say a skimmer is a must.

[j0sh1020]

Can u tell me exactly how do build it and wat i need?

[volitan_fa]

First you need to decide what all you want in your sump. There's a lot of options so study this carefully. Most people here seem to like filter socks on the inlets, run a skimmer, refugium, and then back to the tank. It's effective, especially if you have lots of live rock to help out. You can also add reactors with the sump as well as your heaters and such.

Here's a quick schematic of a basic sump that I like:

[kawboy215]

thank you for posting that. I was racking my brain on how to show him as they say pictures are worth a thousand words. and i still cant figure out how to get my pics up here from my computer

[j0sh1020]

all of that stuff is inside a 10 or 20 gallon tank?

[kawboy215]

Yep although I personally would go with the 20 gal long or maybe a 30 gal. A ten gallon can be used. You see length is more important than depth here if you what a really nice refugium. you can use plexiglass and aquarium sealer to make all the nessasary compartments as shown. Add a submersable heater, a return pump. a skimmer, power compact light about 25- 36 watt for this size will be fine, some live sand and live rock rubble in the refugium to start once cycled add some algeas in there and you'll be set.
if your tank is not drilled for outflow and return bulkheads this can be done fairly cheap. Just use someone with a few references. If not, there are overflow boxes on the market to do this task. Be sure of one thing though that you put a blck flow preventer on your return line and that your outflow is high enough in the tank as when you lose power as we all do sometimes it resulting back flow syphoning will stop with as little as possible so as not to over flow your sump/refugium causing a mess. any more questions feel free
frank

[MattieFingaz]

Question for Krazy K.....

You said in your post earlier that the Emporor 400 is good without the biowheels..can you talk about that a bit?

I have that biofilter in my FOWLR and have read things (volitan talked about this in another thread) that biowheels can adversely affect the nitrate level if the biowheel is functioning "too well".

Are you saying that using the filters inside the tank of the emporor is ok but take out the wheels themselves?

I'm a bit confused and I apologize for my ignorance on this.

Thank you to everyone for their help and guidance...

Mattie

[volitan_fa]

Originally Posted by j0sh1020

all of that stuff is inside a 10 or 20 gallon tank?

Actually I think that's a 30 gallon, but if you scale it down for a 20 gallon long I think that would be well suited for your application.

[volitan_fa]

Originally Posted by j0sh1020

I have that biofilter in my FOWLR and have read things (volitan talked about this in another thread) that biowheels can adversely affect the nitrate level if the biowheel is functioning "too well".

Well I believe what happens is the biowheels can become too populated with nitrifying bacteria so any ammonia/nitrites are almost instantly (so to speak) converted to nitrate, thus nitrates build up very quickly. Running without the biowheels (they're easy to pop out) removes this problem from the equation.

NOTE: This "too much" filtration thing is more pronounced in reef systems as they are a LOT more sensitive to nitrate levels than FOWLR. If you're keeping FO or FOWLR, I wouldn't worry TOO much about it unless you see significant nitrate levels.

[j0sh1020]

See now i run into the problem with where to hide that 30g or 20L cause my stand doesnt allow me to hide it under the tank.

[j0sh1020]

so it looks like ima just have to spend a bunch of money on a small filter that can fit in my stand lol....wat do yall think i should do?

[kawboy215]

Marineland make a sump system called tidepool and ther are other systems out there that will fit under there do an ebay search for wet-dry filter or trickle filter you'll find one just keep looking or you could just pay me a lot of money to build you one to your specs lol

[j0sh1020]

haha seriously though how much would it cost for u or someone else to build something like that?

[kawboy215]

well that would depend on a few things, whos suppling the materials ie skimmer etc and how extravagant you want it built, you can add a lot of money and things to a sump top off systems/ with r/o filters dosing pumps lighting, it all comes into play seriously its not that hard just use the diagram above and do it your self

[j0sh1020]

o i probably am but i was just lookin for a price range.