Saltwater Questions! Help The Noob!

[markaj04]

Ok I've been looking at setting up a FOWLR tank somtime in the near future. I just have a couple basic questions, i've been reading alot about what i need, but some of the things I don't know what they are or what they do! Please help. k.....

1. a Sump? What is it? Whats it do? Totall confused on what a sump is.

2. Protien Skimmer, not quite sure what these do? are they like a filter? or do you use it yourself?

I guess thats it. only 2. Thanks for the help you give me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[nmonks]

I suspect you'd do best asking this question on the Saltwater forum. As a rule, beginners begin with freshwater tanks, and hence the people who stop by here seem to be from the freshwater end.

I've only kept a a few marines over the years, and mostly coldwater stuff, so I hesitate to answer in depth. But a sump is basically an "extra" tank that goes underneath the main one in which all the pretty fish and corals are kept. The two tanks are connected, and you put all the things like heaters and skimmers in the sump, out of view. You can also stock it with living rock to help with water quality.

A skimmer removes organic compounds (i.e., does much the same thing as carbon, only better). With organic compounds removed and regularly decanted off, your filter does less work, and the nitrates, etc., stay lower.

Neither a sump nor a skimmer are essential for basic marine fishkeeping (e.g., a tank of coldwater marines collected from the beach, or a few hardy tropical marine fish) but they are very popular with reef fishkeepers who need to create very stable, clean environments.

Either way, if you plan on keeping tropical marines, you should read up on the subject before spending any money. Tropical coral reef fish and invertebrates are fairly to very delicate, and need a lot of care. They are also hideously expensive, so you don't want to make mistakes!

Cheers,

Neale

 

[k.o.d]

In answer to your questions

1. A sump is a tank/receptacle outside of your main tank fed by gravity that acts as a filter, my sumps in my freshwater tanks contain filter matting and filter floss for fine polishing then has approx 1oo litres of bio media, as you can see, the advantage of a sump is having a large volume for whatever types of media you wish to add, people use their sumps as eco systems and will have a light above it and have miracle mud systems to grow caleurpa/mangroves that will naturally filter out the nitrates and phosphates out of the system, also the miracle mud is a 'live' system so small copepods and other inverts can grow and feed the main tank via the return pump
A sump is not essential and with live rock any extra filtration is not needed as the live rock itself acts as the main filtration in a Berlin based system, if using a berlin system then either an algea scrubber or a skimmer is a neccesity.
Basically a sump is a large versatile external filter

2. A protein skimmer is also called a foam fractionater because of how it works
A large volume of tiny bubbles is produced by either a pinwheel/venturi/air pump with air stone, this is run through a tube in the water column, any lipids/proteins etc coat the external surface of the tiny water bubbles and are lifted out into a collecting cup, the cleaned water returns to the main tank for recirculation
The main advantage of this especially in a tank with live rock is that the proteins/lipids etc are removed before they have a chance to break down to nitrogenous waste and thus loading the denitrifying capabilities of the live rock, this is a big thing, removing all these wastes makes the filtration much more simple.

Basically the rule is fairly straightforward, if you are going to spend a lot of money on your livestock, dont scrimp on the equipment because that is your life support system for your fish and paying a few pounds more at the start makes all the difference a year down the line.

Hope all goes well and your tank looks great

Steve