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Upgrade necessities

K

Kai

Hi everyone,
I'm upgrading to a reef ready 75 gallon tank, it's the standard Aqueon tank with overflow box. I have to build a stand before it's ready go get started, but I want to know what sort of equipment I'm going to need.

The skimmer I have will work, it's a Curve 5. I've got a 200 Watt heater, I'll be getting another.

  • Most importantly- What size pump do I need? It's a 600 GPH overflow box. So does that mean I should get a pump that's rated 600GPH, less than that? More than that? I plan to split the return so some is going back to the tank, some to the refugium which will overflow back into the tank.
  • I have a black box light that's got a 24x24 spread, I could get another of the same or does anyone have experience mixing different lights on the same tank? I'll probably stick with another black box but I'm curious if anyone has different lights and what they look like, I might not get one right away and just keep my coral to one side.
  • Also do I need any sort of reactor, I plan to try to fin a balance with minimal water chances. I don't plan on keeping SPS corals, but I do like some LPS, and have softies. I have a phosphate problem last I ran my numbers, so I'm thinking if I get the BRS double reactor I could put whatever carbon, phosguard, whatever I want in there, it's not just restricted to carbon and GFO right?
  • I want to get an ATO, but I don't want to spend a ton of money, I've already spent so much and while it's great to have, I don't really want to go crazy here. Some of the full setups are 100s of dollars, and I'm not willing to spend that right now on an 'extra'. 60 on this however I wouldn't mind. I'm thinking I could plug in my aqualift to this and use it as an ATO. My only concern is that it says it has a 5 minute detection delay. So does that mean if my water dips below the level, the pump turns on and fills it up in a minute, that it won't turn the pump off for another 4 minutes? If you have any other suggestions, that would be great.
  • Anything else that I should be considering? I plan on having a refugium and sump. Sump 20high, refugium TBD.
 
Trio91

Trio91

Administrator
Staff member
Moderator
You’re going to need an extra light as you’ll get shading with just the one.

For the return pump, look up some of jaebo’s as with that you’ll get more bang for your buck, plus they are controllable. I personally would go bigger than a 600gph but that’s me. If you’re going to add and feed other items off your return pump then yes, a lager unit will be needed.

No need for a reactor right now, just add your chemical filtration to a high flow area, like a sump baffle or in your filter Sox

You can use an aqua lifter as an ATO, if you know how to set it up. For a cheap-cheap option , you can use a gravity fed ATO with a float valve in your sump. Place a 5gal bucket higher than your DT, and use an arm float to trigger on n off when needed. Not the most reliable though. The JBJ is another option

You didn’t mention any flow pumps/wave makers in your DT. You can go jaebo on those too
 
jmags080307

jmags080307

SPS Grow Out Winner
ecambero said:
Kai. I’m sorry to say but. An ATo is not an extra. It’s a critical piece of equipment. When your trying to maintain a critical chemistry balance.
Click to expand...

it is a critical piece of equipment. that being said, i ran my first tank without one for a year and a half. i grew coral and had minimal issues. i made sure to top off each morning and night. after being in this for three years, i would recommend it though and i won't start a tank without one:)
 
K

Kai

Thanks for the input on the ATO everyone. I plan to use my aqua lifter for my ATO which was why I was wondering about the sensor that I linked. I guess since I've just been doing my own top offs since my bucket and tank are right next to each other that it didn't seem like much, but I suppose with a greater surface area for water there's going to be more evaporation to factor in.
Maybe I'll do something with a filter sock then for any sort of chemical filtration needed if that's going to be enough, one LFS guy told me that it's pointless to have a sort of chemical media unless you've got water being forced through it.
For water movement my tank has two of the loc-line return jets, 3/4" with regular nozzles not the flared ones. I also have 2 800 GPH SUNSUN wave makers, and 2 530 GPH. I use one of the 800s for mixing salt usually but I figured I could probably play around with the flow between all of those things.

@trio91 what do you mean by
trio91 said:
You can use an aqua lifter as an ATO, if you know how to set it up.
Click to expand...
I'm assuming this is implying about knowing how to set up some sort of sensor, float valve or something similar for the pump to turn on and off?
 
Trio91

Trio91

Administrator
Staff member
Moderator
I meant that as long as you know how to use it as an ATO you will be ok for now. Just make plans to upgrade at some point.

Yea the LFS owner is correct in saying that filtration media needs flow but that doesn’t mean that you need a reactor. They are super efficient but not necessary if on a strict budget.
 
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