ricomike Posted March 5, 2007 Share Posted March 5, 2007 In my 46 I currently have 2 maxijet 900s, about 35 pounds of live rock, about 2" of sand, emperor 400 with bio-wheels and carbon as my biological and mechanical filtration. I'm thinking about possibly converting the emperor 400 into a refugium. Is that a bad idea (or even doable for that matter) if I don't have a skimmer or any other type of filtration besides those mentioned above? Also would the removal of the biowheels all at once cause problems. Ammonia and nitrite have stabilized at zero since the end of the cycle while while I'm struggling to get nitrates below 20ppm where it has been at for a few weeks now. I'm thinking the biowheels might be part of the problem in addition to other things. Has anybody here converted the 400 into a fuge (I didn't find any cases through the search bar) Also if anybody has had experience with the emperor 400 do you know if you can remove the spray bar and have it work like a typical overflowing filter because it sounds like a waterfall with the biowheels removed? Link to comment
andrewkw Posted March 9, 2007 Share Posted March 9, 2007 anybody? The first thing I'd do is get some more live rock at least 20-40 lbs. That should help lower your nitrates. Link to comment
GregH Posted March 9, 2007 Share Posted March 9, 2007 I don't know much about the filter you have but you may want to look into getting something that will do surface skimming. Do you have an overflow box in your tank? If you don't, I would get a AC 110 and convert it to a fuge. You can get an adapter for them that will draw water from the surface as a make shift skimmer as well or build your own overflow box. My guess on the high nitrates would be your bio wheels. I have been fighting the same problem in BC14 where I replaced the bio balls with bio max ceramic rings and I think that caused the nitrates to elevate. I just switched back to LR and will see what happens. What do you have in your tank and how long has it been set up? Greg Link to comment
ricomike Posted March 10, 2007 Author Share Posted March 10, 2007 I've had it going for about six months and I have 4 damsels in there that I put in there about two months ago. I also have about 6 snails and some hermit crabs that have been keeping the glass and sand pretty clean. I go to college and the tank is at home so i basically go back and do water changes every two weeks now which is why I haven't really put in coral because I know i can't put the time into maintaining it just yet so I'm kind of just letting it mature. I haven't put any coral in there except xenia that i prune from my ten gallon which i find a lot easier to maintain than the my 46 and it's been going for about 8 months. No i don't have an overflow box but it sounds like a good idea. In hindsight i wish i had got the aquaclear but I'd like to see if i can go anything with the emperor since I already own it at this point. If I do convert my emporer into a fuge stuffed with chaeto with a small light over it should I remove the biowheels and carbon gradually or does that not really matter. O ya and I have black spined sea urchin that I think is occasionally devouring the Xenia I put in their anybody else experience that. Oh and thanks for the advice about the surface skimming and more live rock guys I definitely plan to get more live rock once I get a break from homework and get some more money. Link to comment
GregH Posted March 10, 2007 Share Posted March 10, 2007 It does not seem that you are too heavily stocked so I would say that you would be alright with removing the bio-wheels. You can always buy small bags of carbon and put them in the filter if you need. The spray bar might be the only catch depending on if it is easy to remove or redirect into the tank and/or the filter box. Can you attach some flexible tubing to do this? Greg Link to comment
ricomike Posted March 24, 2007 Author Share Posted March 24, 2007 Ya it does look like tubing could redirect the water so i don't have to use the spray bars. Thanks for the advice. I'm also considering getting a coralife super skimmer 65 for the 46 gallon tank is that too weak a skimmer. Should I go with the 125 instead or would the 65 be enough. Link to comment
ricomike Posted April 10, 2007 Author Share Posted April 10, 2007 I was wondering if anybody has ever used caribsea reef bones or reef rock. They have a pretty good deal at thatfishplace.com and I was thinking about buying the reefbones because they look pretty interesting in the picture. The reef bones they look cooler than the caribsea reef rock and the reef rock looks more dense which i would much prefer to have porous rock for the obvious reasons and also so that it can take up more space in the tank without taking up unnecessary weight by being extremely dense. Oh and thanks for the advice GregH i went with the tubing idea and made my emperor 400 into a functional refugium with an 12 watt pc light that i took off of a 2 gallon pico i used to have. I'll post pics of the setup as soon as I get another break from school and if i can figure out how to post pics on the forum. Also I brought the urchin to the LFS because I actually saw it eating my Xenia and last weekend added a sixline wrasse and ended up putting in a CPR Bakpak 2R that's actually doing a pretty decent job generating skimmate and although i could only see it in operation for three days the microbubbles were almost entirely gone before i head out. Link to comment
ricomike Posted November 9, 2007 Author Share Posted November 9, 2007 Is the Current Usa Nova Extreme T5HO a good light for a tank as deep as 46 gallon. I'm just interested in mushrooms toadstools, zenia, and zoanthids. I currently have a cheap 192w PC light that's some cheap knock off and it's loud and not very good. Basically I'm looking to get a light for under 200$ that'll do well for softies and is reliable. Link to comment
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