Bought my Santa-Monica100 today!

[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.