Optimal Set Up ?'s: H2o turnover, live rock/sand, bioballs

[ebosshard]

I have a 220gallon tank and want to see where I need to be on a couple items. Moving towards a reef tank with fish.

Water turnover.
I have 4 Powerhead 802's, 400gph (1600 between them)
The pump I have from my sump is around 1000gph

I am running my wet dry into my sump with a CA-2220 at 800gph.

I have been told I want 2x my gallonage in turnover. In my tank I have 2600gph turnover (1600 from the powerheads, 1000 from the sump). Is that enought? (LFS had engineered tank to have sump run back into the tank but I like it more in the sump).

If that isn't enough, what should I do to address this (as in, what should I buy). (As in, how to do I get from my current 2600 gph to the "target" of 4400.

Second question. I have around 225lbs of live rock and 200 lbs of live sand. I am willing to spend more money to get the tank to have a stronger biological filter (better for the fish, less work in theory for me). Is that enough rock/sand or where should I try to go with that.

Third question. Read a big debate from the fall on this board on wet/dry's. I have a big sump (guessing 50 gallons) which has bioballs in one half. heard that bioballs are good for increasing nitrate. Am i better to pitch the balls and fill that side of the wet/dry with live rock?

Thanks for the help on all three of these.

Eric

 

[Len]

Hey Eric,

I'm not quite sure how your sump arrangement is like. Usually, water is siphoned or overflowed to the sump and then returned via a pump, but yours sounds somewhat different. Can you clarify?

As for rocks, 225 lbs is plenty for your tank. Sand-wise, i am still a proponent of deeper sand beds and would've probably added another 100 lbs or so, but since the tank is already running, 200 lbs will be be fine.

I'd ditch the bioballs since it's completely unnecessary and redundant; its filtration function is fully fulfilled by the live rock and sand. And because wet/drys are strictly aerobic, it only produces nitrate. Rock and sand, however, have both aerobic and anaerobic states and thus can both produce and remove nitrate. In other words, rock and sand does everything a wet/dry does and then some

No need to add more live rock in place of the bioballs. I'd keep the sump as clean as possible for maintainence sake. It sucks (no pun intended) to have return pumps or skimmers get clogged up with muck from live rock in close proxmity

 

[ebosshard]

Thanks for the feedback len!

Didn't mean to be confusing with the sump. You described it correctly, sump sits in cabinet under tank, water comes down from overflow basin in tank, goes through bio-balls (to be removed tonite), then gets sent back up vis a 1000gph pump. Skimmer sits in the sump as well.

While I have you attention I did have one question on this set-up.

My pump is sending around 1000gph from the sump to the tank (means I have 1000 gph coming out of the tank through the two hoses in my overflow basin).

My skimmer runs around 800 gph.

My concern is roughly 50% of the water I am skimming has already been skimmed (as the skimmer is drawing water from the sump, then sending skimmed water right back into the sump).

I keep reading of everyone who likes to put their skimmer in their sump (keeps out of the way, minimizes microbubbles getting back to the tank). However, am I not losing out on the benefit of my skimmer set up this way?

Good help on the rock and sand. Is it a bad idea to add another 100lbs of live sand at this stage of the game (other than clouding up my crystal clear tank)?

Thanks!!

Eric

 

[ChrisRD]

Your skimmer will process all the water in your system in a similar manner no matter where you locate it. If you have a sump, that is the best place for it.

IMO, if you haven't started stocking the tank yet, I'd get all the live rock and live sand you ultimately want into the tank. Let everything sit for about a month to settle-in before you start adding livestock.

 

[ChrisRD]

BTW, I second Len's recommendation to lose the bioballs...