wartooth1
Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flower http:///forum/thread/385813/ugh-do-i-feel-like-an-idiot#post_3386338
Nothing is more frustrating than to give advice and it not be taken. In the end it's your tank and you have to make your own mistakes. So you have decided to use two things we tried to guide you away from, crushed coral and an UG filter. So forward from that point....
First thing to address..weight, I'm not sure how well UG filter grids can hold up to the weight of live rock. The grid was designed for gravel and some ornaments. Not the 35 to 40 pounds of rock your 40g tank will need. It's very possible it can do just fine because some folks on the site have used egg crate to place their rock on rather than the glass bottom of the tank. The grids caused different issues but I believe it had to do with gobies that couldn't get to certain areas to clean the sand.
It has been addressed that tiny bubbles caused from air stones get into the saltwater fishes gills and causes problems, to avoid this problem you can remove the airstone and just use the air tube down the UG tubes making the bubbles larger. I will still do the same job of pulling from the bottom without the tiny bubble issue and remove the threat they may cause.
Crushed coral and the underground grid....I don't THINK (I am not sure) you can use live sand with an UG it is too fine, the CC is large like gravel, that's why it works with an UG filter but it's not good for certain fish. So when you stock your tank be careful to not get any burrowing fish like certain gobies or wrasses. The larger substrate is harder for snails to clean up and you may land up with cleaning the substrate yourself.
For me, one of the most wonderful part of a SW tank was having a CUC, and me not doing stuff like vacuuming the substrate...so you may have made more work for yourself. I say may because I have not used an UG filter ever, but I know how horrible CC is to keep clean and looking good. I removed it from my tank after 3 months.
You do need power heads. The bubbles may bring oxygen to the tank and move the water surface a little, but it does not create a current. The current is the life of the ocean and your SW tank. Corals feed from the water passing across them, they can't move on their own, the current is what makes the corals dance..without it they just lay there and starve, the current also carries away their waste. The current also passes over the live rock keeping it clean and healthy.
I have two bubble lines in 30g my seahorse tank which is loaded with soft corals. Still I use three spray bars and a small power head to create my water current. Its hard to see the bubbles in the picture but it should help with a visual of what I'm talking about.
/>I'm sorry you feel this way. For the record, I didn't choose to have an UG filter, it was already set up in the tank when I got it. It is also not using airstones. It is currently connected to a mechanical pump which is both sucking water through the coral sand and providing some circulation. There are no air bubbles. When I went back to the store to see if I can swap out the UG filter for an alternate kind of filter they told me how the UG filter is the best and its a bad idea to not use it. So I may go to a different store after weekend and get something I can replace the UG filter with from people who are willing to show me my options.
As far as the other filter goes, they said it is a wet/dry filter. Water gets sucked up into the roof and passes through two compartments. One compartment is full of little ceramic pieces and the other compartment is full of bio balls. The water then is returned to the tank on the other side.
If I remove the UG filter and only used the other filter thats in the tank, would I need to remove all of the coral sand or can I just put the live sand on top of it?
The tank doesnt have any paperwork, so I'm only going by what I see and what was described to my by the fish store.
Originally Posted by Flower http:///forum/thread/385813/ugh-do-i-feel-like-an-idiot#post_3386338
First thing to address..weight, I'm not sure how well UG filter grids can hold up to the weight of live rock. The grid was designed for gravel and some ornaments. Not the 35 to 40 pounds of rock your 40g tank will need. It's very possible it can do just fine because some folks on the site have used egg crate to place their rock on rather than the glass bottom of the tank. The grids caused different issues but I believe it had to do with gobies that couldn't get to certain areas to clean the sand.
It has been addressed that tiny bubbles caused from air stones get into the saltwater fishes gills and causes problems, to avoid this problem you can remove the airstone and just use the air tube down the UG tubes making the bubbles larger. I will still do the same job of pulling from the bottom without the tiny bubble issue and remove the threat they may cause.
Crushed coral and the underground grid....I don't THINK (I am not sure) you can use live sand with an UG it is too fine, the CC is large like gravel, that's why it works with an UG filter but it's not good for certain fish. So when you stock your tank be careful to not get any burrowing fish like certain gobies or wrasses. The larger substrate is harder for snails to clean up and you may land up with cleaning the substrate yourself.
For me, one of the most wonderful part of a SW tank was having a CUC, and me not doing stuff like vacuuming the substrate...so you may have made more work for yourself. I say may because I have not used an UG filter ever, but I know how horrible CC is to keep clean and looking good. I removed it from my tank after 3 months.
You do need power heads. The bubbles may bring oxygen to the tank and move the water surface a little, but it does not create a current. The current is the life of the ocean and your SW tank. Corals feed from the water passing across them, they can't move on their own, the current is what makes the corals dance..without it they just lay there and starve, the current also carries away their waste. The current also passes over the live rock keeping it clean and healthy.
I have two bubble lines in 30g my seahorse tank which is loaded with soft corals. Still I use three spray bars and a small power head to create my water current. Its hard to see the bubbles in the picture but it should help with a visual of what I'm talking about.
/>I'm sorry you feel this way. For the record, I didn't choose to have an UG filter, it was already set up in the tank when I got it. It is also not using airstones. It is currently connected to a mechanical pump which is both sucking water through the coral sand and providing some circulation. There are no air bubbles. When I went back to the store to see if I can swap out the UG filter for an alternate kind of filter they told me how the UG filter is the best and its a bad idea to not use it. So I may go to a different store after weekend and get something I can replace the UG filter with from people who are willing to show me my options.
As far as the other filter goes, they said it is a wet/dry filter. Water gets sucked up into the roof and passes through two compartments. One compartment is full of little ceramic pieces and the other compartment is full of bio balls. The water then is returned to the tank on the other side.
If I remove the UG filter and only used the other filter thats in the tank, would I need to remove all of the coral sand or can I just put the live sand on top of it?
The tank doesnt have any paperwork, so I'm only going by what I see and what was described to my by the fish store.
