my sump

One of the other reasons I do not use baffles especially on the return side is because evaporation drops the water level so fast in such a little area.

The only issue I see is the Bio Balls. Not the balls themselves but they will grow bacteria on them and if that bacteria is exposed to air it will die. I would find a way to keep them covered in water at all times.

I have to agree with you Mark. Although you can use a "baffled" sump and do just fine, I choose not to. In fact my sump consists of a 55 gallon AGA tank, with a DSB, lots of LR rubble and TONS of macro algae. I do use a skimmer, UV, and AC reactor; but IMO I could probably do without fairly easily. I also have caulerpa macro algae growing in my display for my tang and other herbivores. My nitrates are 0 all the time even with feeding some of the larger carnivores like my bluejaw trigger.

It's not a bad set up by any means. I personally wouldn't use the bio balls, especially since it looks like you have plenty of space for a nice sand bed and some LR rubble, so what's the point of the balls. Otherwise I think it looks fine.

Yeah simple is better a lot of the time, but I don't think there's anything wrong with your setup.

With the bio balls you have to be careful and they need to be rinsed every once in a while. You have a nice empty space in the middle I'd put a deep sand bed in there with some LR rubble and then you have plenty of surface area for bacterial growth and you don't have to bother with rinsing the bio balls and risk having your tank spiking. (The whole purpose of the balls is surface area for bacterial growth, so it would be unnecessary with the LR and sand)

You could also throw some macro algae in that area and you have a decent refugium which in my opinion would be easier to take care of and is less likely to cause any spikes in your tank.

Again, this is my opinion as I'm sure people use bio balls quite successfully, but I'm a big believer of letting nature do what it does as much as possible.


Edited by Luckedout - December 11 2009 at 11:09am

so dont put anything in that area were the bioballs are?

Yeah, leave the egg crate. It also gives you a nice place to throw some carbon in a sock as long as you don't block too much flow.

 You can find Macro all over the place and I'd strongly suggest grabbing a handful of chaeto. It's a great macro and plus if you get it from an established tank it's usually teaming with pods that are very beneficial for you tank. Most people are willing to give it away.

Well if I'm looking at that tank right, I'd say it's probably a 55 gallon tank. Right? So really he's going to have about 30 gallon space for rock and sand. A deep sand bed and rock rubble = better surface area for beneficial bacterial growth. The other benefit is that you can put snails in the refugium to clean up your detritus which you can't really do with the bio balls. That way you don't have any detritus build up and you still get the benefit of more bacteria.

It's all about increasing the surface area for propagation of beneficial bacteria which convert your nitrates, etc. Bio balls do the same job, but you can't stick cleaners on them. Rock rubble and sand you can.

Well if that sump is well thought out, which I believe it is, he will only be using half of that with water. If you are filling your sump up more than half way without proper precautions you are risking a serious flood should the power go out. So that middle section is maybe 10-15 gallons full?