back to Marine after a 2 year rest

[the boy]

I gave away all my marine equipment 2-3 years ago as i had gone to mad (2 tanks 6'x2'x2' and 1 tank 5'x2'x2') and due to work commitments i could not cope with the massive maintenance of these tanks ( a 15% monthly water change took 9 hours!!) so the whole lott went including all my fish

I have regretted it ever since,

I have just ordered a 4' x 18" x 3' tall tank in a nice oak cabinet (ouch) and i need some advice.
I bought a 2' cheep tank that i have set up in the garage and rigged it with an under gravel filter and a small power filter and put 8" of coral sand in, i salted it up and put a load of shrimps in it. this is just to breed some bacteria so i can tranfer the coral sand to the new tank (along with the water) when it arives (about 1 month away) to help it get under way.

now the info i req.

i want to know what is the absolute quietest air pump (stipulation by the missus thait she IS NOT going to hear it!!)

I want to put a big sump in the bottom as this shape tank does not have much surface area. but i dont want a trikle filter as such as they are NOISY!!) so i need help with the design of a quiet filter with a very quiet pump.

i need help with the weer as i used to use a straight pipe from a drilled hole in the bottom of the tank to just below the water surface but this was NOISY and only collected water from the top of the tank. i was thinking of a pipe as before with a 45 deg cut at the top surrounded by a 4" plastic drain pipe but with slots in the bottom so efectively the water will be drawn from the bottom?? (thinking out loud!)

i was also going to fit an external canister filter so that i can take time with cleaning knowing that whichever filter is removed there is still some filtration going on. but i need a QUIET filter, any recomendations?

its going to be a fish only tank but they will be preditors so a fair bit of filtration is required. will i require a skimmer, if so it will have to fit in/nexto the sump. again any recomendations?

sorry about the lenth of this post (it is my first) but you guys could save me a lot of time.

Thanks

Dave

 

[ste2k3]

Hi and firstly, welcome to the forum. firstly, to take water out of the main display tank to the sump, you can use a durso stand pipe which is simular to what you mention but much quieter. see pic below.

at the top of the pipe, there is a hole drilled (about 4-6mm) and air is sucked through.

when the water enters the sump, it will firstly need to be mechanically filtered, so a layer of filter wool/floss, on some eggcrate will do the trick. then you will need the water to be skimmed before the main biological filtration to remove the bulk of the organics. you have 112gallons in the main display and normally, the sump volume is counteracted with rock displacement. so, as for a skimmer, i'd go for a deltec apf600 or an aquamedic turboflotter 1000SL.

deltec apf600

aquamedic turboflotter 1000SL

after this, you will need biological filtration, I'd go for course coral gravel suspended on eggcrate so that water is forced through it. after this, you can have your chemical filtration, eg, phosphate remover (from day one to cut down the algae) and carbon 9for about 3 days a month but can be left a little longer on F/O tanks). then you will need a large return pump to take water back up to the main tank. if you are having a 50mm hole drilled (1.5" pipe) then a 3500lph pump will do fine such as an eheim 1262 or an aquamedic ocean runner 3500. as for lighting, you will only need a couple of tubes, one blue one white but it may be a little dim at the bottom with the tank being 3' deep. a halide would get the light down but would cost more. with this type of system, you won't need any external filters or air pumps. as for substrate in the main aquarium, I'd go for a fine layer of coral sand no more than 1" deep. live rock is always a good thing so I'd advise getting some for the masin display as apposed to ocean or tufa rock.

ste

 

[Adrinal]

 

[RamJet]

The sound of running water is relaxing, or at least thats what I try to tell myself as I am trying to fall asleep at night. Good luck, let me know if you find a way to make it quiet. Then again, if I stay some place other than home, I dont sleep well. If I can hear it, it means that it is working, anymore I think of quiet as being something going horrible wrong.

 

[bodasafa]

yeah i know what you mean ramjet if it is quiet in my house there is something wrong with one or all of the tanks

 

[the boy]

Many thanks for your replies especialy Ste. that is exelent, (the weer idea with the U bend and an air hole on top is spot on, the air enters seperate to the water so it wont gurgle)

I had deltec skimmers before and although i think they are exelent they are a tad noisy. has anyone have any experience of the "flat" skimmers that hang in the side as i was thinking of putting a couple of these on the sump as i have been told they are prety much silent, and they will also fit in the cabinet.

on my last tanks i changed from tubes to Metal Halide and started an algae bloom which just about wrecked everything (no time to keep on top of it) so as a fish only system i will probably go 2 daylight tubes and 1 moonlight.

one last question, is the shrimps in my small set up tank enough to start the bactiria rolling or should i put some of that "bottled" bacteria in and a couble of fish?

Agan thanks for the replies

Dave

 

[Adrinal]

 

[ste2k3]

there are ways of making deltecs silent. firstly, you can get one of the little aquamedic thingys that they use on there skimmers. it loks lick a bubble counter or something. I'v got a deltec skimmer so I'm not sure how that works but if you sit the skimmer in the sump, so that the air injection pump is completly submerged, then that will also cut the noise. (a bit of silicone under it may help to stop it vibrating as well.

ste

 

[the boy]

Cheers guys,
My next quest will piss off the local suppliers when i ask them to power up their entire stock of skimmers so i can listen to them!!

if they dont i will set the wife on them

Dave

 

[ste2k3]

I don't think that the dealers will do this a this would make the skimmer second hand. Also, Its hard to judge the ammount of noise in a shop as it will seem quieter than it is. when you get it home and put it in a quite room, it may well seem louder

ste

 

[Adrinal]

Can you set the wife on them any how and take videos? Nothing like a good LFS store owner beating!

 

[ste2k3]

Can you set the wife on them any how and take videos? Nothing like a good LFS store owner beating!

LOL oh, and post the vid on here so we can all enjoy it

p.s. glad to see you say owner and not worker

ste

 

[the boy]

Ste, i gather from the last post that you work in an aquatics shop

what shop is it and do you do mail order ?

only asking because its nice to have someone who works in a shop and who is a keen fish keeper. our local shop would sell you a goldfish for a marine system. there must be people there that know what there doing because they have hundreds of tanks and fish all butifully displayed but about 20 staff (mostly kidds) that its dificult to find someone. there always VERY busy

Dave

 

[ste2k3]

I work at the Aqua-world partnership in warrington. and yes we do mail order.

ste

 

[the boy]

My tank is over a week old (it is 2' x 12" x 18" tall) and imp just using it at the moment to mature some coral sand to put in my main tank when it arrives (got 8" of coral sand with under gravel)

I have approximately 50 river shrimps in there as I do intend to keep the tank for live food after I have transferred some of the water and most of the sand to the main tank.

I have fed them marine flake VERY sparingly once a day.

I deliberately did not do any measurements until it was 10 days old so I did them today here are the results

PH 8.2
Ammonia 2
Nitrite 5
Nitrate 8

From these very high readings I assume the filter is cycling quite nicely!! But I am in a dilemma. I put some "cycle" in there at the beginning but do I keep adding it as the instructions say or are these "additives" more trouble than they are worth.

Dave