mal
Member
If you have some kind of media in your sump, like crushed coral, shells or sand, I would not siphon it off. It will build up as your bio-filter. After a while you will have tons of life in the sump. Little worms, snails and all kinds of stuff. Anyway, you can throw a whole bunch of macro algae in the sump. Your LFS or a buddie should have some for you. The macro will use up some nitrate to grow / photsynthesis. Then when it begins to grow out, just trim it and feed it to your fish, or trade it to the LFS or a buddie. Having macro algae in the sump gives the little critters a place to hide and reproduce, and assists in filtration. If you put algae in the sump, you'll probably have to light it though. I use a 15 watt grow light from wal-mart. $15 bucks, and it installs to hang on the side of the stand. Some info says to use stronger lights in the sump for growing algae, but this works for me. Some say to light the sump 24x7 or it will go sexual and you will have green water. I have not had this happen yet (knock on wood) and just run my grow light opposite the tank lights.
Also you don't have to clean the prefilter sponge after every feeding, I clean mine out about once a month. Some will say thats not enough, but it works for me.
The cool thing about this hobby, as I'm sure you've already figured out, is there are a million ways to do things. You just have to figure out what you want, and what will work for you. Everyone here will help out too, there is probably nothing you can do wrong that someone else hasn't already done. Just ask...
Also you don't have to clean the prefilter sponge after every feeding, I clean mine out about once a month. Some will say thats not enough, but it works for me.
The cool thing about this hobby, as I'm sure you've already figured out, is there are a million ways to do things. You just have to figure out what you want, and what will work for you. Everyone here will help out too, there is probably nothing you can do wrong that someone else hasn't already done. Just ask...