John

I am new to the list, and to the world of aquarium.I need some help.

I am planning to set up a 90 gal. saltwater aquarium. I have not decided if it's going to be a fish only or reef and. The store owner in my neighborhood showed me a $600 fitration system what involves a smaller tank under the main tank. This filtration tank has water in it and is constantly running, and requires a lot of cabinet space (30" height is required). What type of system is this? I felt it was kind of expensive, noise and bulky. Could someone kindly tell me if there is another type of filter that I can use? Something that is quiet, takes less space, and relatively easier to maintain. I've heard about canister filters by Eheim. If they are good filters, what model should I use for the 90 gal. saltwater tank?

Thanks in advance.

Zach Miller

• http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=aquaria
• http://faq.thekrib.com/begin.html
• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=aquarium+filtration+faq
• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=saltwater+aquarium+filtration
• http://search.lycos.com/default.asp?lpv=1&loc=searchhp&tab=web&query=saltwater+aquarium+filtration
• http://www.topica.com/search/?query=aquarium&search_type=cat

These are some good starting points. There is quite a lot to understanding the many filtration options and practical uses. It is arguably the most important part of running salt-water aquaria. I suggest some study as I'm deeply concerned for the well-being of you fish...

John, I don't know your situation, exactly. The following is provided as-is take it for what you think it is worth...

About a year ago, I had in my mind that I wanted a saltwater aquarium. What I found was that everything seemed to cost quite a bit more than I expected. (Way beyond my passing fancy budget) Furthermore, as I did my research, I found that there were quite a few other skills/experiences I needed before I went to salt. I made a decision to build/buy the components I knew I would need and test them on a freshwater setup. I expected the experiment to last six months and it has been over a year now. As soon as I think I have a grasp on it something changes. The following are thoughts that may be helpful to you...

1. I have found that dealing with algae blooms is something that one should definitely go through a couple of times. The best control is proper filtration before the problem.
2. I have found that chemicals, except in the form of supplements or antibiotics, are definitely not something one wants to use in an aquarium. Nature doesn't use chemicals out of a bottle...
3. All fish don't play nice together.One can not discipline a fish.
4. People at the Live Fish Store (LFS) may not always have a complete knowledge or your best interest in mind.
5. People on the news groups/online may not always have a complete knowledge or your best interest in mind.
6. People that write books may not always have a complete knowledge or your best interest in mind.
7. People that sell wiz-bang gadgets may not always have a complete knowledge or your best interest in mind.
8. Understanding the fundamentals of filtration and the potential for chemical, mechanical, and biological filtration is key to understanding how to provide good water quality and prevent problems)
9. Knowing someone with a chemistry degree can be quite helpful...
10. People chemistry degrees may not always have a complete knowledge or your best interest in mind.
11. A lot of little changes change more water than less-frequent big ones.
12. Specific gravity sucks get a "refract-o-meter."
13. Fish die without cause. (That you can discern)
14. Bioballs are great! (knowing what they do and how to properly use them is great-er!
15. There is a lot to learn, understand, and apply. (Especially if you want a reef-type setup.) Do a lot of research before you "jump-in."
16. Freshwater is cheap. Salt costs...
17. Start small, there is a lot of work involved...
18. Only assholes buy/raise fish that are way to big for the tank. Relative to the fish, they should live in a mansion, not a efficiency apartment with 20 of their friends.
19. Walmart should be ashamed of their fish department. One can't rescue them all and buy buying the fish it only perpetuates the problem.
20. Plants and macro/micro algae make great filters (it is what they do in nature)
21. Jelly fish are very difficult to raise. Hard, sad, truth...
22. There are no saltwater sharks, easily available, that are small enough for the average person to raise. Another hard, sad, truth..
23. When the power goes off that return works like a siphon. Check-valves clog.
24. Contrary to popular opinion, siphon overflows work very well. The trick is to set them up right and keep them maintained.
25. People who make bulleted lists on newsgroups have way to much time on their hands...

P.S. Don't drill tempered glass...

Mike Kirda

Contrary to popular opinion, siphon overflows work very well. The trick is to set them up right and keep them maintained.

One of the biggest regrets I see overall...

I shoulda drilled my tank when I had the chance.

Take it from someone who has the experience to know- Syphon overflows *will* fail. Probably when you are on vacation. This is not something you want a friend to have to deal with. All it takes is an errant snail, piece of algae, etc. and you have 10-30 gallons of water on the floor.

I've had it happen at least four times in the last ten years. Twice when I was on vacation overseas...

Any tank I get from now on will either be drilled or be reef-ready. This way, you can set it up so that either SINGLE overflow can handle the amount of water being pumped from your sump. Redundancy is a good thing when it comes to sumps.

Otherwise, Zach, I agree with you 100%.

Aaron

Ok, I am usually quite on this list but I have to comment on this. Saying that ONLY syphon overflows WILL fail while alluding that a pre drilled tank will NOT fail is just false. When you have a pump thats sole purpose in life is to pump the main tank full and will not stop until every bit of water that is in the sump is gone then you run the risk of a flood no mater what. Sure redundancy will lower your chances of a problem significantly but there is still that chance.

A well maintained "U" tube syphon overflow is still one of the best solutions for people who don't have the means of getting a tank drilled or don't want to have their tank drilled. When I say maintained I mean changing out the U tubes with clean tubes once a month so they don't become clogged with algae and also making sure the drain lines are clear and free of algae.

Mike Kirda

Heh. Reading more into what I said than I actually said...

The only sure-fire way to not have a tank leak water is to not have a tank at all.

Syphon overflows are prone to failure, IMO, and the experience of many others bears this out.

Going to a drilled setup, your chances of failure are drastically reduced, but chances *DO* remain. The best solution is redundancy. Being sure that one overflow can be completely blocked, and the other one can handle it easily. Using proper pre-filtration techniques will keep snails, algae, etc. out of the overflow.

Having a sump means that you accept the risk of flooding. But, having a tank, period, means you accept the risk of flooding. It's not like tanks don't occasionally fail too.

To bring it back home, properly set up drilled or reef-ready systems have a greatly reduced chance of failure than do syphon-based external overflows. They do not entirely eliminate the chance of failure however.

Is that better? {grin}

Mark Lanett

Saying that ONLY syphon overflows WILL fail while alluding that a pre drilled tank will NOT fail is just false.

Anything can fail. You need to look at probabilities. Siphons fail more often than non-siphoning overflows, and since all other things are roughly equal, this makes them a bad choice. There is no reason for someone who has the opportunity to plan a tank out to choose a siphon.

Of course even disregarding the overflow itself, sumps can fail. For instance if the sump is too full, then in the event of a power failure the sump itself will overflow. So you need to design sumps very carefully - they need to hold enough water to resist underflow due to evaporation for a reasonable length of time, but not so much that that can't hold the residual overflow from the tank when the power goes off. And there needs to be enough room in the tank that if the overflow fails, the additional water pumped up from the sump does not flood it. So it's tricky. The trouble is there are no standard plans out there which have taken all the failure scenarios into consideration, so everyone has to plan their own tank, usually wrongly.

You must test:

• the power failure scenario (complete power failure)
• individual pump failures
• blockages of each individual pipe or intake, including the overflow (whether siphoning or not).

Zach Miller

Since gravity is always on, I agree that drilling is best. However, portholes and overflows can clog too. I do not believe that a person, just starting, will have the knowledge on how to properly configure such a setup. I suggest that the overflow ( I like the S.O.S. from Tidepool) may be a better option for the beginner. The aquarium can always be drilled later. (Just don''t buy tempered glass.)

The reason I'm not concerned is that I built my sump in a way that very similar to the one suggested by miracle-mud. By doing so, I control what is available for the return. (without the return of water there is none to pump.) The worst that can happen is the pump will burn out. (Unlikely) I also drilled small holes in the top of my return pipe so that the siphon would be broken in case the pump stops for whatever reason. (I found that both spring-type and flap-type check valves clog easily and are a pain to clean/replace) These two steps give me the confidence not to worry about failures without the need for complex, and failable, control systems. Maybe they could help others...

G Atwell

I must agree in principle. Although I do not use new tubes once a month I do keep them cleaned and have not had an overflow in the three years that I have been using them. It all comes down to the fact if you do not properly keep an eye on them and maintain them ANY system will eventually fail.

Mike Kirda

Keeping an eye on them is fine- Up to a point.

All it takes is a single snail to break the syphon. One lousy Astrea can climb over the teeth and into the U-tube. Which equals flooded room. Once this happened to me at 3am- I was home and woke up to the sound of water pouring over the side of the tank. One astrea in the middle of the U-tube desperately trying to hold on... Unless you are willing to watch your tank 24/7, I don't know how that could have been prevented.

Another time, as far as I can tell, the pump in the sump slowed. Due to what, I cannot say. However, it was enough to cause the U-tube to fill with air and break syphon. The person watching the tank (I was in the Philippines at the time) had to clean up roughly 10 gallons of water. Most of it had soaked into the hardwood floor, then caused the plaster in the basement ceiling to fall.

Similarly, when in Aruba, had the syphon break for unknown reasons. Our downstairs neighbor, who was taking care of the tank, realized something was wrong when water started dripping from the ceiling onto him while he was watching TV...

Both times I had cleaned the syphons/pumps/etc. a few days before departure, and let them run for a few days to be sure everything was running perfectly. Not some last minute thing an hour before I left. Each time, I was confident nothing would happen. I have since learned the hard way that syphon overflows are not reliable enough for me. Two out of three overseas trips they have failed while I was gone.

G Atwell

I guess I should have elaborated a bit more. Redundancy is also a key factor. In my overflow I use 2 tubes both capable of handling the flow rate. So if one goes down the other can handle it.

Brian Ferguson

With this technique, you are probably more likely to have an overflow. Here's how it works: the U-tubes need a high rate of flow to keep their prime. If the flow is too low, bubbles accumulate in the top of the U-tube. If the flow is high enough, those bubbles are washed through.

So, by using two tubes instead of one, you reduce your flow by half, and run a good risk of overflow.

Roy Wang

Murphy's law strikes....

One useful trick I've been using is to stuff those useless bioballs into the surface skimming side of the overflow. This way, no fish or snails can get through there to plug up the overflow u tube. The only time I've flooded is when a mandarin made it all the way to the tube down to the sump and got stuck.... Poor guy....

G Atwell

I have never thought of using bio balls in that way. Do you ever have a problem with them getting plugged up with gunk?

Zach Miller

Does this become a nitrate factory? I was told this anyway. I drilled holes near the top of the over flow tube to keep fish and snails out. This also raised the level of water in the over flow box reducing noise. Some have used plastic screen covering the top of the tube. This also works.

Roy Wang

Probably a little, but the balls are mostly submerged, and so few of them, that I can't see them processing very efficiently. A screen probably works fine too, but this provides a lot more surface area, so even if part if it plugs up, it won't hinder the overall flow much. Besides, it was a quick fix and I feel like I'm actually using 6 or 7 of the hundred bioballs I have....

Mark Lanett

One useful trick I've been using is to stuff those useless bioballs into the surface skimming side of the overflow.

Into the overflow pipe? If so, I'd consider this ill-advised, since they will accumulate detritus and can not be cleaned.

I think one is better off putting a strainer over the entrance to the pipe, because this can be inspected and cleaned easily. There is the risk of an anemone covering the strainer, in which case a Tee with two strainers would solve the problem.

Roy Wang

Not into the tube, but the little box that hangs inside the tank...

Bob Ashcraft

Having a sump means that you accept the risk of flooding.

I do not accept the risk of flooding. If a lttle time is taken when designing a sump, whether using a siphon overflow, or a drilled tank, the risk of flooding CAN be eliminated completely.

The sump must be large enough to contain all the water which will drain into it during a failure. This isn't hard to do using a siphon break on the return line.

The water level in the tank, must be set, so as to allow all the water in the return pump compartment in the sump, to be pumped into the tank, without overflowing. By adjusting the size of the return pump compartment in the sump, and the water level in the tank, this can be controlled very easily.

Aaron

Bob, you describe a foolproof setup but I find it hard to look at my tank if I leave enough room in the tank to accept the full volume of water in the sump. I have no problem with having a sump that will accept water from the tank up to a syphon break point. As my sump is designed for such an issue. But if I left the water level in my tank low enough to accept the full volume of my sump I would have to leave the water level several inches below the top frame of the tank. I just find it hard to look at a tank when I can see the water level line.

Also since some of us use a relatively high powered pump having the water level low in the sump will run the risk of the pump causing a mini 'cyclone' for lack of a better word where the pump actually has the ability to pull air from the water surface down into the pump creating the issue of bubbles being injected into the tank. I have found with my pump that if I have the water level lower than 3-4" above the pump intake I will get this cyclone action.

If someone gets egg crate and builds a little cage and puts it in their overflow that should keep all but the smallest of snails out as the eggcrage has small 1/2" squares.

Roy Wang

You can add a standpipe to the intake of your pump from the sump, so that you couldn't pump the full volume of the sump into the tank, this way, you don't have to lower the water level in the tank.... Add an inverted U on the standpipe, and you should be able to eliminate the mini-cyclone from sucking air....

Mike Kirda

I do not accept the risk of flooding. If a little time is taken when designing a sump, whether using a siphon overflow, or a drilled tank, the risk of flooding CAN be eliminated completely.

Bob, You bring up a good point. However, you will NEVER eliminate the risk entirely. If the plate fails in the sump, the pump could pump enough up to the tank to overflow it. Similarly, tanks have been known to fail. Stands have been known to fail. You get the point. Having a tank means accepting the risk that floods can potentially occur. It is up to us to cut that risk down as much as humanly possible.

A sump that is properly designed, with built-in overflow wall for a pump compartment would be the best way to cut down your risk of flooding regardless of whether or not you are using an external overflow or drilled tank. Most of us seem to use smaller glass tanks though. This sort of sump is probably a better investment than arguing about overflow types.

Somehow, I feel like we've probably scared the new person away (sorry, forgot your name and had already deleted the e-mail...). Such are the way these discussions go. We feel passionately about our hobby. Get past the discussions, you will find some really good nuggets of information. Bob's suggestion is one of them.

Mark Lanett

But if I left the water level in my tank low enough to accept the full volume of my sump I would have to leave the water level several inches below the top frame of the tank. I just find it hard to look at a tank when I can see the water level line.

Not the full volume, just the operating amount in the sump. I'm sure you meant this.

I have found with my pump that if I have the water level lower than 3-4" above the pump intake I will get this cyclone action.

Yes, I've been thinking for some time that sumps work best if they are tall and narrow, so even with a high-ish water level they still don't hold much water. But this is difficult to arrange inside the typical stand.

Try this: put a PVC Elbow on the intake to the pump, and point it down. This enables you to run the water level as little as 1" above the Elbow intake without sucking in air. If you put a strainer on the intake then you can only point it sideways, but it still helps.

Bob Ashcraft

I just find it hard to look at a tank when I can see the water level line.

I can't see the water level in my tank... It's behind the plastic trim around the top.

Also since some of us use a relatively high powered pump

Like the Mag 12 that I use?

I have found with my pump that if I have the water level lower than 3-4" above the pump intake I will get this cyclone action.

I didn't say to lower the water level in the sump. I said to make the return pump compartment smaller (move the baffle). The water level can remain the same.

Scott Wilson

My Vote is still for the drilled overflow as long as

1. sump doesnt contain more than tank can hold
2. pump cannot pump faster than gravity can feed water down
3. sump can all hold all excess water if power fails

then the drilled corner "box" has it over anything elsesiphons will break eventually whether due to microbubbles in water "sticking" to inside of tube, snail crawling in, algae breaking off and clogging etc.. etc.. corner box with tall drilled pipe to act as grate and "quietener" if blocked at base just flows through next set of holes above.

I have never had a drilled tank overflow and would recommend to any beginner before a siphon box, just rate the pump a bit smaller that box flow rate.

Btw current setup is diy siphon box due to freebie tank with no hole, (would have been cheaper to get new tank!!) have had one of these last a year before breaking siphon ( including power failures) but as I said before it will happen eventually.

John

Thanks to all who offered your opinions and experience. I really appreciate your time and patience. I HAVE been reading a couple of books, but they are not even close in terms of clarity as in the messages you guys wrote. Of course the authors did not know my specific situation and didn't have my interest in mind.

Noise of the skmmer is an issue that I 'll have to really think about, since the tank is going to be in the study which is frequently used as a bedroom. Does the skimmer have to be on 24 hrs. a day? Or can it be turned off at night?

ut the filter, I am leaning on using a Eheim---the 2217 model. Anyone happens to be using it?

the biological filter, one website recommends a bio-wheel. Is it a noisy piece of equipment?

Kevin McDonald

You'll find there are a lot of nice folks on this list. Everyone is well intentioned, but you do want to take the advice w/ a grain of salt. What works for one person may not work for another.... Just something to think about :-)

The noise of the skmmer is an issue that I 'll have to really think about, since the tank is going to be in the study which is frequently used as a bedroom. Does the skimmer have to be on 24 hrs. a day? Or can it be turned off at night?

You can run it intermittently. Some people only have it on during the day, other's at night. Regardless of your schedule, you could safely shut the thing off for 8-10 hours at any given time while a guest is sleeping in there. That's certainly not a problem. Airstone driven skimmers are a lot quieter than Venturi's, however generally not as efficient.

About the filter, I am leaning on using a Eheim---the 2217 model. Anyone happens to be using it? On the biological filter, one website recommends a bio-wheel. Is it a noisy piece of equipment?

Bio-filters tend to get a bad rap lately... there's some evidence that they can become a sink for DOC's (Dissolved Organic Compounds), and eventually become completely ineffective, even leaching the stuff back into the water. However a key to anything in this hobby, is regular, thorough maintenance and cleaning. With regular cleanings, I think even Bio-filter's can be effective. Personally I prefer a more natural method, and use a Refugium loaded w/ Macro Algae and Deep Sand Bed's to deal w/ the organic compounds in my systems. There was just recently a very good article at AdvancedAquarist.com about the effectiveness of Macroalgae harvesting on removing DOC's. They finally did some real research and attached hard numbers, proving what a lot of aquarist's knew for some time now. Worth a read if you've got an half-hour to kill.