new to site

[nige]

hi a have been veiwing this site for a long time and did run a ats for about a year and had success with it but then ran into problems which I blamed on my ats i later traced my problems to a perlonged power cut any way that all water under the bridge now pardon the pun, I now run np bio pellets with great success in a 5/2/2 tank with lps and a few sps not going over board on the sps as I intend on an upgrade shortly and know that the move might kill them anyway been a bit long winded here but to my reason for joining my new tank is going to be a hole in the wall 6/2/2 and I was going to give the old ats another try as I like this natural approach to things now last time I also neglected water changes as I seen on here people saying they were not needed I also think this did not help my tank as things been used up were not being replaced.I now use the ballings lite method for ca mag & alk and this is working realy well for me just want to know your opinion on running an ats with bio beads or with out and your opinion on water changes and size off ats I need ,I intend running about 1500lt of water.

[SantaMonica]

Check here for building techniques:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=68




and, Tank Size Guidelines:

0.5 actual (not equivalent) fluorescent watts per gallon MINIMUM [0.13 watts per liter].

1.0 actual (not equivalent) fluorescent watts per gallon for HIGH filtering [0.26 watts per liter].

1.0 square inches of screen per gallon, with bulbs on BOTH sides (10 x 10 = 100 square inches = 100 gal) [1.64 square cm per liter]

2.0 square inches of screen per gallon, if vertical but lit on just ONE side. [3.28 square cm per liter]

4.0 square inches of screen per gallon, if HORIZONTAL [6.56 square cm per liter].

1.5 actual (not equivalent) fluorescent watts per gallon if HORIZONTAL [0.4 watts per liter].

18 hours of lights ON, and 6 hours of lights OFF, each day.

Flow is 24 hours, and is at least 35 gph per inch of width of screen, EVEN IF one sided [60 lph per cm].

Very rough screen made of roughed-up-like-a-cactus plastic canvas.

Clean algae off of screen every SEVEN (7) days NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK.



Feeding Guidline:

Each cube of frozen food you feed per day needs 12 square inches of screen, with a light on both sides totaling 12 watts. Thus a nano that is fed one cube a day would need a screen 3 X 4 inches with a 6 watt bulb on each side. A larger tank that is fed 10 cubes a day would need a screen 10 X 12 inches with 60 watts of light on each side. If you feed flake, feeder fish, or anything else, you will need to blend it up super thick, strain out the excess water, pour it into a cube, and see how many cubes it is.

[nige]

thank you for your reply when i start my build i will post progress on tank and scrubber i do have afew pics of my tank when i was running ats if you would like me to post them.