wow glad I found this site

[thedude657]

Im new to reefing. Just set up a 55g corner tank. Cycled the tank and now have 2 sapphire damsels. Of course after I spent tons of money on sump/refug I come across this site and I I have to say I will deff be trying this out. One of the first things I wondered was how a natural reef works and saw all the equipment people were buying and was like wow I better start working overtime if I want the cool looking corals. Anyway I deff want to try a scrubber out and this looks like the place to go for help. I have a 10g tall sump. My pump is rated at 500 gph and I also have another laying around thats rated a little over 300. Should I try and and work off the overflow or use the smaller pump? Sorry Ive been reading posts off of here for like 3 hours and my brain is scrambled Im also wondering about how big of a screen can I go. Once I start stocking the tank I dont want to find out I build it too small.

[dtyharry]

500 gph might be 350gph approx with head loss over the overflow, you would have to measure it to be certain. You could make a screen 10 inches long by approx 6 inches deep. this gives you your one square inch of screen per gallon recommended and also fits the 35gph of flow per inch of screen width. Bulb wattage would be 1w per square inch of screen total if lit on both sides, so approximately 55w.

[Gigaah]

I think the easiest route to go would be making it 8L x 10H

This way you can shade the top inch(so the slot doesn't grow over) and have the bottom inch in water. You will have an effective screen size of 8x8 = 64
This way you only have to count on 280gph from your pump..and anything over that is just bonus flow.
Then you can hopefully find some 32w CFL bulbs and reflectors..put one on each side(you might have to shop around but you can find them higher than 23w).

That would be the simple and easiest way to go imo.

However, personally I'm all about over kill. Leave nothing to chance. *I* would make it 10W by 12H. Again shading the top inch and having the bottom inch in water giving you a usable screen of 10x10 =100. Then using two 23w cfl on each side(total of 4 bulbs). This route would involve making sure you have enough flow by timing how long it takes to fill a gallon bucket. Then figuring out how to put 2 23w cfl on each side with reflectors.
This is extra work, but in the long run will provide the more filtering.

I'm really glad you found the community as well. I found these guys about 1.5 years ago when I was setting up a 55g and was looking for cost effective ways of doing things.

At first I saw a google link while i was searching called "mega nitrate phosphate remover" or something..I chuckled ..and clicked it anyhow...assuming it was some scam. I quickly realized it was not a scam..and spent the next few days reading until my eyes bled. I eventually put a scrubber on my 55g that was a bit larger than 2 times the recommended size and never looked back. I stocked it quite high, I could add 5 cubes of frozen food per day...not all at once..spread out thru the day(more than enough to give any other tank a heart attack) but it wouldn't skip a beat. Obviously this isn't something you really normally want to do..but it was a test and tribute to how effective these things are. I was also testing out the idea of mass feeding fish/reef. Under the premise that a real reef has an abundance of nutrients in the water..instead of the usual home aquarium that is fed once a day but otherwise is rather lacking in nutrients. hence people sometimes need to spot feed their coral.
It also allowed me to house 2 mated pair of mandarin fish quite happily.

Brevity is obviously not one my virtues. So I'll cut myself off now:)

[thedude657]

[attachment=0:1rta18n4]2011-07-03 11.48.47.jpg[/attachment:1rta18n4]Ahh I love forums like this. Im gonna have to track down a tape measure. Im not sure if I could fit a 10x10 in my sump. What about using 2 smaller screens? I just dont have a lot of room underneath and will have to get creative.

[Gigaah]

As long as you can feed both screens with light and water thats fine

[SantaMonica]

Of course if you remove your skimmer, you could put a screen down the middle, parallel to that center divider (about 1" away), with a bulb on both sides. The bulb on the left side would shine through the divider.

[thedude657]

I cant wait to get rid of that skimmer. I have to adjust it twice a day. I was thinking of putting a screen in each chamber so I can alternate between cleanings. I went out and bought tons of stuff at Lowes today. total nightmare about asking the staff about the materials I needed ( they said they didnt have the bulb reflectors and gave me weird looks) but Ill vent about that on a diff site. Ill throw some pics up after I have something put together.

[thedude657]

Well I was talking about scrubbers on another forum and they banned my account and deleted the post. as far as the actual building goes I hooked it all up but water was getting everywhere so Im trying to come up with some sort of splash guard.

[SantaMonica]

Yes the advertisers on those forums will complain that they will lose sales.

[Floyd R Turbo]

What site did you get banned from?

[thedude657]

reef frontiers. I contacted the admis and asked why. and he said he wasnt really sure what happened but reinstated me. it happened right after I asked about turf scrubbers.