Skimmer/WetDry Question???

[Rayzor]

Hey All...
Running into a bit of a dilema that I dont quite understand.....
I purchase a skimmer this week (CPR Aeroforce) should be here Friday...but after a trip to the LFS they gave me the impression that i needed to have a wet/dry filter as well.....
At first I was planning to go for it skimmerless using natural filtration through the ls and lr but after a lot of good advice here on MR i thought better of it and purchased the skimmer.
Do i need to have both a wet/dry and a skimmer.....should i just go ahead with plans to create a sump with an (extra) 10 gallon i have....should i turn the ten gallon into a wet/dry (if thats even possible) and add the skimmer to it.....
Is having a wet/dry with a prefilter just redundant if i also have a CPR skimmer?
Do i just add a small light to the HOB and add Cheato and some LS and LR rubble.....
Ugh....what do I do.....? Can anyone help me understand how best to keep my water quality at its best without buying unnecessary equipment. Thanks for the help in advance.....


Heres what i have currently:
30 gallon long tank
Whisper 60 HOB running carbon(for the time being)
SolarMaxHO T5 (1/39 watt Daylight 10,000K bulb, 1/39 watt Actinic-03 bulb w/6 Moonlight LEDs)
2 X Koralia1
10 gallon tank in stand (just for top-off water right now)
30Lbs Live Rock
40Lbs Aragonite
Small colony of (hitchhiker) zoas/palys...and few hitchhiker Mushrooms
2 Blood Shrimp...2 SpinyStar Snails...3 Nassarius Snails
Running 5 Weeks everything seems to be going well...my intention is to have the tank well supplied with Soft coral and LPS coral for the most part maybe 2 or 3 small fish....so pretty low bio-load i guess
Params:
Ammonia:0
NO2 (Nitrites): 0
NO3 (Nitrates): 10ppm
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 79* - 80*F

 

[motortrendz]

i dont like the wet/dry system.. make a sump out of your 10g.. the wet/drys become nitrate breeding grounds and cause high levels..not good..

 

[Awibrandy]

Do not do a wet/dry. The LFS is just trying to get you to spend more $$$.
The skimmer you ordered is a hang on type, so you don't need a sump for it.
I understand the 10g tank you are using for top off. Do you have it on automation of some sort, or just holding the water for when you manually top off?
What is it that you plan to do with a sump?

Sumps are great, but IMO not absolute. I have sumps under all my tanks, so I am not saying that they don't serve their purpose. I have seen, and heard of a few nice sw tanks with hang on back filters.
For the most part your lr, sand, and protein skimmer will be the ones doing the biological filtering. Your hob is playing the role of the mechanical filtration. I'd put some floss (which I would remove, and replace weekly depending on how dirty it gets) on top of the carbon.

 

[Rayzor]

Hey Awibrandy.....Im starting to see that the LFS was just trying to get more $$ from me....MasterSwimmer steered me right and gave me great advice.....
Not to mention that from everything Ive read over the months clearly showed that good quality LR and LS would be a great Bio-filter....My concern now with the HOB is that it will accumulate trates.....but i guess that can be kept under control if i am consistent with changing out the media.....
Its a shame (i guess) that even reputable LFS's will steer u into buying unnecessary equipment...would think theyd get more return business (in the form of media, fish, invert, coral etc. purchases) when they were as honest as possible from the start instead of trying to get newbies to buy big ticket items that arent absolutely necessary.....:scratch:
BTW....right on for ur Quote post...when will ppl learn that its not the breed its the owner....
Dont Breed or Buy....While Shelter Animals Die!!!!

 

[Rayzor]

hey Awi....jsut got done reading thru a thread u started about ur phosban reactor.....one of the items Masterswimmer suggested was a reactor instead of the whisper im currently using for chemical filtration (and a bit of mechanical filtration i pressume) While i understand that my new skimmer (when it gets here:snailwill skim the SW to remove dissolved organics and nutients and that the reactor will give u sparkly clear water by using carbon or remove phospates using GFO media.....
Im running a 30 gal. long no fish....(yet....maybe 1 or two in the future)
should i even bother to get one until or unless i notice a problem w hair algae......could i just use a similar product in one of my whisper chambers (Whisper60 Dual Chamber) to (hopefully) advert the build up of phosphates.....?
Also would putting some lr rubble in one of the chambers help as well....?
or as i may have already said.....making or buying a sump w refugium chamber.....?(Which im kinda nervous about attempting so early in my SW experience (jsut over 1 month):help:

 

[Master Shake]

if you have a lot of live rock there is no need for more biological filtration (the wet dry), a skimmer is needed. all you really need if you have the live rock is a means of mechanical filration like a hang on or filter sock or something

 

[Awibrandy]

hey Awi....jsut got done reading thru a thread u started about ur phosban reactor.....one of the items Masterswimmer suggested was a reactor instead of the whisper im currently using for chemical filtration (and a bit of mechanical filtration i pressume) While i understand that my new skimmer (when it gets here:snailwill skim the SW to remove dissolved organics and nutients and that the reactor will give u sparkly clear water by using carbon or remove phospates using GFO media.....
Im running a 30 gal. long no fish....(yet....maybe 1 or two in the future)
should i even bother to get one until or unless i notice a problem w hair algae......could i just use a similar product in one of my whisper chambers (Whisper60 Dual Chamber) to (hopefully) advert the build up of phosphates.....?
Also would putting some lr rubble in one of the chambers help as well....?
or as i may have already said.....making or buying a sump w refugium chamber.....?(Which im kinda nervous about attempting so early in my SW experience (jsut over 1 month):help:

LOL, yes I have 3 of those reactors. And I decided to run both gfo & carbon through one for the reason you read on that thread.lol As you also must have read, my buddies here do not like that idea. Hey it works for me for the time being, there's no telling if or when I'll go back to individual reactors.
To answer your question: I do not see a reason why you couldn't run the carbon in your hang on filter, the gfo is another animal altogether. Some will argue that it absolutely must be placed in a reactor with just the right flow!!! But I have read/seen where it can be placed in a mesh bag in a high flow area. Which is actually what I am doing in my fowlr. Someone had given me a jar of
Contains a special blend of commercial strength granulated ferric hydroxide, high capacity cation-exchange zeosorbent and acid-washed activated carbon. Which is in a bag layin in my sump directly under the flow from my skimmer before the water cascades down into the return section of my sump. Actually this is where I got the idea for running the gfo & carbon in the same reactor on my reef.

As to refugiums, I stopped that a long time ago. I'm not one to advocate for or against them. The way I had mine running it did nothing for my tank.;( I have also read that in order for a fuge to be effective it really has to be pretty large. Check out Malev's site for more info on that!!!!!

 

[Rayzor]

thanks for taking the time to respond...i appreciate the info....i am very early into the life of the saltwater/reef experience...i guess ill see where it carries me in the coming months.....always good to know that i can come to a forum like this to get free advice from some very experienced New York Reefers ( and other)
And i think unless i can find a way to do a bigger sump/fuge than a ten gallon tank broken into sections, i will wait on it and see how my tank does without one.....im not that off-put by having some visible equipment in my tank and the small amount of water that would be added to my total volume seems negligible and not worth the time and effort i would have to put into making one......and as u stated Awi.....if you dont see a noticeable difference in water params or quality.....why should i go nuts.....:scratchch

 

[kaOzGrUnT]

Sump/ refugium best way to go, I had the wet/dry and nitrates never went under 20ppm