Is this filtration over kill or just enough for a saltwater tank

[Otherone]

Driftwood and plants contain Tannic Acid as they rot the tannis is released into the water making the enviorment more acidic lowering the # value on the PH scale. Saltwater is Alkyline the opposite of acidic. Tannis also turns the water yellow, if using carbon to remove toxins the carbon will then be pulling out tannis instead.

Most canisters employ 40 and 60 dpi pads to trap debris and allow them to breakdown free of the tank, they also use stars and rings to house B+B, this is great with large volume w/c's but a nitrate bomb with smaller w/c's. Your tank will grow algae everywhere feeding on the nitrate. Because Nitrates and Phosphates generally walk hand in hand the same algae will grow very quickly with high levels of po4. Remove the pads and bio- media to prevent trapped detritus from building and you have one large expensive reactor where the water moves to fast for chemicals like purgiun or chem pure elite to work properly.

 

[Wiggles92]

Driftwood and plants contain Tannic Acid as they rot the tannis is released into the water making the enviorment more acidic lowering the # value on the PH scale. Saltwater is Alkyline the opposite of acidic. Tannis also turns the water yellow, if using carbon to remove toxins the carbon will then be pulling out tannis instead.

Most canisters employ 40 and 60 dpi pads to trap debris and allow them to breakdown free of the tank, they also use stars and rings to house B+B, this is great with large volume w/c's but a nitrate bomb with smaller w/c's. Your tank will grow algae everywhere feeding on the nitrate. Because Nitrates and Phosphates generally walk hand in hand the same algae will grow very quickly with high levels of po4. Remove the pads and bio- media to prevent trapped detritus from building and you have one large expensive reactor where the water moves to fast for chemicals like purgiun or chem pure elite to work properly.

x2.

Great explanation!

 

[cichlid_king]

Ya dam, good fact finding lol

 

[TheCanuck]

You would suffer PH problems with driftwood in the tank.

 

[M3AN ONE]

I dont want drift wood and plants but I thought they would assist in removing nitrates that canister filters hold.
So for salt water with a coral tank set up all that is needed is the right size sump?

 

[Wiggles92]

I dont want drift wood and plants but I thought they would assist in removing nitrates that canister filters hold.
So for salt water with a coral tank set up all that is needed is the right size sump?

Yes, all you need is a sump, live rock, plain aragonite sand, and a protein skimmer.

 

[M3AN ONE]

What size sump would you recomend for a 150-180 gallon tank if i want to have a refrigum in it?

 

[Wiggles92]

What size sump would you recomend for a 150-180 gallon tank if i want to have a refrigum in it?

Go as big as you can go. You can't really have too big of a sump considering that a bigger sump will give you more volume and thereby a more stable system, so I personally would go with maybe a 55 gallon or a 75 gallon.

 

[cichlid_king]

A 55gal would defintely be the smallest I would go for a sump on that big of a tank. It would give you plenty of room for lots of LR.

 

[BigCountry]

55 gal sump would be the easiest for a 180g.

No driftwood. It will not work in salt. Salt plants are different that fresh plants. Most of us grow microalgae in our sumps (refuge section of the sump, created via baffles etc). If your good with plants, I suggest you try mangrove, it's cool stuff you will like it). Maybe that and a ball of chaeto. Combined those 2 can bring your nitrates down to 0. I have read some guys even unplug their protein skimmers (the ones who are good at growing it). If your interested in mangrove, look into a 75g sump though.

Lose the canisters and filter with live rock. Most of the cool stuff in salt - anchors and lives off the live rock, literally. The inverts (crabs, shrimp), mushrooms, coral, anemonese etc. A few of your fish even live off it it - blennies, dwarf angels etc.

So if you never have rock, you will be missing out on a lot of cool stuff to play with, collect, trade, watch and observe.

X2 a big, large and in charge quality skimmer. A quality protein skimmer is king. Saves you a ton of headache with filtration problems. I dunno what I would do without mine at the moment. My nitrates have never been above 10ppm. And I give the skimmer all the credit. You can also run skimmer out of your sump, along with heaters. So it's a nice clean look when your done. The only thing in your display tank will be your powerheads.

Good skimmer and a RO/DI water filtration unit have been the 2 best purchases for me atm with my 135g build.