Refugium setup

Make sure that you think about what will happen if the power goes out.  I don't think it would be that hard to do.  Usually show tanks are on top and refugias and sumps are on the bottom.  Just switch it.

My question for you:

Why don't you put it under the tank?

I feed my main tank by putting a chunk of brine or whatever in my sump, then it melts and my pump shoots it into my main tank.  I still see complete brine shrimp floating around when I do this, so I know that the impeller doesn't chop it up too much.

Pumps do not damage the microinverts!!!!!

The level of the lower tank must be kept many inches below the top so that the water from the tank above does not flood the lower tank and ruin the floor. I have written an article about this with a diagram of my DIY overflow box. Email me if you want a copy.

Again - pumps Do Not damage copepods or any other tiny inverts. (The exception is tiny jellyfish.) If you want, post a request it and I will take the time to explain it.

Thanks for the advice.  I have always heard that pumps will damage the phyto and other microverts that would pass through them.  So I was working off of this assumption.  I will definately use this new information to my advantage and change my thought process on how to design my 'future' setup.  Also if that is the case then I have some excellent ideas that would probably help me achieve the setup I want.

It's great to have Jon bring his engineering and scientific brackground to our group.

We had a visitor a few years back, actually he was so good we had him three times. He is John Walch, the builder of C-Quest, one of the two or three major marine ornamental fish breeding and rearing companies. He tried unsuccessfully to create what he then thought was a need to provide water circulation without killing fish larvae or plankton. It was a sort of screw inside a rubber cylinder first developed by a scientist way back when.

I think it was called an Archimedes Screw. Anyway, he couldn't get it to pump enough water for their needs, so finally went to the impeller driven pumps and studied just how much damage they did. What he found surprised him. I think that his number was something like less than 2 percent damage. If anyone is interested his seminars were very informative and are on VHS tape (transferred from my 8mm camcorder tapes) in the club library.

If you think about the physics of it, the copepods are in a fairly large envelope of water that is being pushed by a paddle. This paddle is huge to them. Relatively few animals actually make contact with the paddle because they are suspended in the water being pushed by the paddle. The larger the organism the more damage is done. Half the live brine shrimp going through an impeller come out visibly damaged. I've observed it when I feed live GSL brine shrimp.

BTW - Sponge are very important to the stability of our tanks. Sponge is one of the reasons why an older tank is so much more stable in mishaps. Something I may not have mentioned before is that one of the reasons my little 10 gal is so amazing so soon is that along with the sand, coral and algae introduced immediately, I also introduced a fast growing sponge that can exist in light or dark areas. Call me if you want a cutting.

Mark 296-1563

P.S. Jon, please tell us the story of the white bass  ...please...please.