Bought my Santa-Monica100 today!

[thatgrimguy]

I have a recently set-up 210 gallon display. I set it up as a pretty standard berlin style system. It's been through cycle for about 2 months now, nitrates 10-15 and not sure about phosphates. Everything is doing fine, but I really like the idea of using less chemicals/man made items and more natural forms of filtration.

My goal is go skimmerless, GACless and gfoless. I already ditched my filter socks and sponges. My hope is to be able to keep sps and lps comfortably and growing like gangbusters lol.

I will run the first santamonica unit off one of the overflows (using a 1gallon pitcher I calculated it to be 900-1000gph) and dump that into the skimmer section. If that drops me to 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate (tester has been ordered from Hanna) I will dump that after the skimmer section (so i don't remove as much food). As long as it stays 0 I will save up for a 2nd unit and when I get it, I plan to pull my protein skimmer and run high amounts of live rock and the algae scrubbers as my sole filtration (well.. uv as well)

Is there any chance 1 unit could handle a tank this size (I want the liberty to feed at least 2-3 cubes a day plus some coral food once a week and nori daily)



Pics of my tank are here
http://s967.photobucket.com/albums/ae15 ... ed%20Reef/ (http://s967.photobucket.com/albums/ae157/thatgrimguy/210%20Gallon%20Mixed%20Reef/)

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/ae157/thatgrimguy/210%20Gallon%20Mixed%20Reef/Fulltank.jpg

[Ace25]

First off, that is a great looking tank! Love the rock work. Nice equipment too, 5 AI SOLs and 3 vortechs I think I see.

Unfortunately, with your fish, I would not count on 1 SM scrubber being able to handle your size tank long term without other filtration methods. Tangs and foxface leave quite a mess in the water. For your size tank and the amount of food you want to feed, along with your skimmer, sure, 1 SM scrubber will really help out and probably keep you at 0/0 for close to a year without the need for carbon and GFO, but I think you are on the right track to save up for a second one and ditch the skimmer when you can buy the second.

[thatgrimguy]

First off, that is a great looking tank! Love the rock work. Nice equipment too, 5 AI SOLs and 3 vortechs I think I see.

Unfortunately, with your fish, I would not count on 1 SM scrubber being able to handle your size tank long term without other filtration methods. Tangs and foxface leave quite a mess in the water. For your size tank and the amount of food you want to feed, along with your skimmer, sure, 1 SM scrubber will really help out and probably keep you at 0/0 for close to a year without the need for carbon and GFO, but I think you are on the right track to save up for a second one and ditch the skimmer when you can buy the second.

Thanks for the compliment! I take a lot of time and pride in my rockwork!

That makes sense. I had been told that one unit could handle 10 cubes of food a day. That just seems a bit extreme compared to all the other info I have read about scrubbers. Is there any reason to run the scrubber before or after the skimmer?

[SantaMonica]

Brand new, it should handle 5 cubes a day, with no other filters or waterchanges. 8 square inches of nori = 1 cube.

Once it's getting into 3D mode, then you can get 10 cubes a day. Other fiters will help, although they will reduce your coral food.

It's not how many or how large your fish are; it's how much you feed.

[thatgrimguy]

Brand new, it should handle 5 cubes a day, with no other filters or waterchanges. 8 square inches of nori = 1 cube.

Once it's getting into 3D mode, then you can get 10 cubes a day. Other fiters will help, although they will reduce your coral food.

It's not how many or how large your fish are; it's how much you feed.

So, skimming only one overflow and scrubbing the other one (and skipping the skimmer section to keep the food in the water would be a perfectly acceptable way to start using the scrubber?

I'm really not that heavy of a feeder. I didn't get any wrasse or anthia. My stocking list is as follows. I really will only feed a cube in the morning, and a cube +4-6" of nori a day (that's really on the high side) Hmm... I can't wait to get this thing up and running!

current fish in tank
8 blue/green chromis
1 blue reef chromis
2 spotted mandarin dragonette (paired up!!)
2 Black ocellaris clownfish (seem to have paired as well)
1 ocellaris clownfish (not sure of what to do with him.. I'm worried about him with the others, but it is a big tank)
2 Royal Gramma
1 Midas Blenny
3 Engineer goby
1 yellow tang
1 sailfin tang

6 Skunk (scarlet) cleaner shrimp
1 Coral Banded Shrimp
5 peppermint shrimp
1 Hawaiin red reef lobster
clean up crew

Long tentacle anemone


I plan to add:
1 more large show type fish - Debating between another Tang (clown/naso/p.blue) a Harlequin tusk or another Foxface
1 flame angel

[SantaMonica]

That's not much food at all for the scrubber to handle by itself with no other help.

Your placement is fine. It's not so much how your start; you currently have almost no export, so putting the scrubber anywhere will help greatly. The real difference comes later when you are trying to push it to the extremes of feeding (especially if you decide to use liquid coral food). You won't want any mechanical filters at all, an no other place for food to get trapped and rot (like a sump).

[thatgrimguy]

Is that beautiful reef system that has the blue-ribbon eel of yours run without a sump?

Could I put a Vortech MP10 on Nutrient Transport mode to keep everything in the sump as stirred up as the main tank (I have an extra from breaking down my old tank?)

[Ace25]

An MP10 in nutrient export (wave) mode in a sump would be awesome and probably the most ideal thing one could do if you don't use a skimmer. If you use one you have to be careful with water levels in the sump, making waves would probably make the skimmer go crazy. It just cost so much that I have never head of anyone using something like a vortech on a sump. Since you have it laying around I say go for it. Keeping stuff from settling in a sump will help out a ton in my opinion.

[thatgrimguy]

Yeah... ridiculous overkill lol... But then I could just through a bunch of rubble and that in there and use it as a pod farm type fuge (no need for macro's I feel sure) On my 40B sump, 1 MP10 will be plenty of flow.

[SantaMonica]

I have a sump, but I'm in the process of trying to remove it. First I had to move the scrubber from the sump to a shelf above the display; so now both scrubbers on are the shelf. But they are still draining into the sump, and both pumps are still in the sump. Next I'm going to move one pump up, so that it pulls from the display, and drains back into the display. Once that is fine-tuned, I'll do the other one.

Long term, even if you keep the sump "stirred up", it will start growing tube fan worms and stuff, and this will start trapping waste. So from a coral-feeding viewpoint, a sump only hurts.

As for the eel, he may have run his course after 5 years. He recently ate my scooter and cleaner shrimp, and then disappeared for two weeks.

[thatgrimguy]

I have a sump, but I'm in the process of trying to remove it. First I had to move the scrubber from the sump to a shelf above the display; so now both scrubbers on are the shelf. But they are still draining into the sump, and both pumps are still in the sump. Next I'm going to move one pump up, so that it pulls from the display, and drains back into the display. Once that is fine-tuned, I'll do the other one.

Long term, even if you keep the sump "stirred up", it will start growing tube fan worms and stuff, and this will start trapping waste. So from a coral-feeding viewpoint, a sump only hurts.

As for the eel, he may have run his course after 5 years. He recently ate my scooter and cleaner shrimp, and then disappeared for two weeks.

What a shame if it is... I saw a couple of your videos of him and it took a solid 4 hours to pick my jaw up off the floor.

I see what you mean in terms of food finding places to rot. I feel I'm still pretty far away from being worried about that. I can easily see where coral food could become the problem (I destroyed my 30 gallon trying to feed my corals... I had no export, not even a skimmer and I was weak on my water change schedule lol)


When i get the scrubber I should clean the screen based on what type of algae right? Darker algae cleaned more often and you can let the lighter GHA grow longer for 3d growth right?

[SantaMonica]

Right.

[thatgrimguy]

May have just gotten a 2nd sm-100, putting me in a position to go skimmer-less sooner..

How long should I give the units to mature before pulling the skimmer offline?

What are the advantages/disadvantages of running the screen doubled? (like 2ply toilet paper)

[SantaMonica]

As soon as the screen starts growing.

No advantage to double-layer screen for most people. It requires very high flow, very bright light, and very frequent cleaning (including between the screens) to make it work its best. Only then can it out-perform a single layer in the same screen size.