Hoping to start first marine tank (75 g) for GSPs. Advice?

[postal_blowfish]

LMAO oh man those comments made my day XD
Thanks guys, glitter, I have 80 pounds in a 75, I'll probably need a little more right?

[Nuclear_Glitter]

It's definitely not a bad start, but more is always better. Just build up over time what you can afford and eventually try to get around 150 pounds. Liverock is really your main filtration source (beyond your skimmer and stuff) so it's good to have as much as you can.

[Nuclear_Glitter]

You could order some dry rock from http://www.marcorocks.com/ and your liverock would seed it, and it'd be cheaper this way, too.

[J-P]

You could order some dry rock from http://www.marcorocks.com/ and your liverock would seed it, and it'd be cheaper this way, too.

Check out the Marco Rocks thread on Reef Central. It is in his sub forum. He has a "cherry pick" contest where you get 30~40 lbs of dry rock for $.99. He does this weekly. You have to pay the shipping. So it still comes out to less than $1 per pound (if you win).

** ok forget that idea. It looks like they have stopped running the promo

[postal_blowfish]

It's definitely not a bad start, but more is always better. Just build up over time what you can afford and eventually try to get around 150 pounds. Liverock is really your main filtration source (beyond your skimmer and stuff) so it's good to have as much as you can.

Regarding the lr being my main source of filtration, I have a question...
I can't seem to quiet my sump down at all I've tried to modify it many ways and it doesn't seem to be working.. It's tolerable during the day, but when I try to sleep its near impossible I've actually been losing hours of sleep :/ haha. Now my question is, do you think that I could stop the sump during the night just for the hours I'd sleep? I would still have a powerhead on in the tank for circulation, and I'd still keep my heaters on in the tank itself so there wouldn't be a drop in temp. And during the night the live rock would be able to do its thing in terms of filtration. Would this be ok or do you guys see this causing any major harm to my tank?

[Nuclear_Glitter]

Well, what made you decide on a sump in the first place? Just wanted extra capacity or what?

[postal_blowfish]

Well, what made you decide on a sump in the first place? Just wanted extra capacity or what?

Yeah pretty much, I didn't wanna have my skimmer hanging over the tank and whatnot. Do you think it'd be ok if I were to do that? At least until I find a way to keep it quiet enough for me to sleep at night haha

[Arny]

Would a filter sock not stop the water crashing into the water in the sump?

[Nuclear_Glitter]

Can you not just make your hosing reach to the water or something and get those little balls that stop them from flooding if you have a poweroutage?

I don't think shutting stuff off while you sleep would be a good idea, but I do agree you need to do something. You may just have to for-go the sump all together until you can find a way to make it be quiet.

[postal_blowfish]

I have a filter sock and my tubing is underwater already haha. The thing that makes noise is the bubbles coming up from under the water. The filter sock helps a bit but not by very much.

See but I wouldn't really be shutting anything off... The only thing I'd be shutting off for the night would be the skimmer unfortunately cuz it's in my sump... But aside from that there'd still be circulation, heat and some filtration in the tank for just my sleeping hours. Wouldn't some sump filtration be better than none at all?

[Nuclear_Glitter]

Is it the skimmer that's causing these bubbles or what? Or is it just the pump that is putting the water in the sump creating this problem?

[Pufferpunk]

Did you contact Melev?

Here is my sump:


The chamber on the left is where the water enters. Below the pipe, I have LR rubble to prevent noise & reduce micro-bubbles.

[Nuclear_Glitter]

The image won't load for me.

[postal_blowfish]

No I wasn't able to contact him directly but I did read up on how I might modify it to quiet it down. That's where I learned about the different mods you can make for the standpipe, I even made my own new one out of PVC pipe. However now it's restricting the flow somewhat to my sump and the chamber with the return pump is sucking up air! >:/ so in the meantime I put back the standard standpipe

[postal_blowfish]

It's not the skimmer that's making all the racket, it's the drain pipe from the overflow to the sump. The water that goes down gets sucked down the pipe with air, and even if the end of the drainpipe is fully submerged in the sump, the air still cOmes out from the water in bubble form, and it's the splashing of the bubbles that's keeping me up lol