a little inquiry on P04

FWIW, it may be hard to actually get your nitrates down to 0 with a DSB and heavy feeding without adding in some form of carbon dosing or doing something along the lines of having the sump with something additional for nutrient export. Nitrates definitely affect coral polyp extension except for your hardier corals (like mushrooms and xenia). It does never hurt to give your skimmer a good cleaning as well.....Your bioload is also pretty high which will make getting to 0 harder and you said you really don't want to part with any of your critters and I totally understand that. I'm going to have to look up how many gallons a 450 liter tank is

ok, what I said does hold true IMO. The chart said 450L =118 US gallons...

 

thx for the support and understanding fishkeeper, been doing some reading on carbon reactors and honestly i have always been a little sceptic about these filtering methods, same held true for GFO, though i have been proven wrong when i statred using it a couple days ago, the stuff really works and works well. however my fear is the use of these chemicals in the long run. have you had any personal experience with them or could you point me out to a good read? im not sure if its correct for me to directly point out brands but im using jbs phosex ultra (ultra pho sex...aahahahhaha...sorry) who apparently needs to be changed, on average, once every 6 months, that sounds to good to be true

 

So that's about a 120 gallon? 12 fish? You're already maxed out at a high bioload looks like. NO sump? Are you using cannisters filters? - often found to be a big nitrate source

 

Nope no canister for exactly that reason, the gfo sits in its provided bag and placed directly in the dt till I get a reactor up and running

 

A sump can maaaaybe be a possibility but I need to carefully plan it out as the space I have is very limited. Ill post some pics of my general sump plan possibly later today

 

right well here it is, this is really just the idea in my head that i drew up real quick, it needs to be more fine tuned if i actually ever do get round to doing this. (im your average sunday, beer enjoying, DYI kinda guy and this would take super man skills to do, skills that i dont have).

the cabinet is roughly 37cm deep, 34 wide and about 70cm tall

the issues im thinking ill have with this set up are:

flooding, though if i calculate the last compartment correctly i may be able to play with the B tank depth

and especially noise.

im a big fan of "keep it simple stupid" and this clearly is not hence my reluctance to jump into this project. anyway let me know what you think.

 

the more im thinking about it actually the more im tempted to do this, the water slide would be replaced by a tube with possibly a sock filter feeding the first compartment directly beneath it (where "C" is now) and the return would be on the other end. is there a company (preferably in europe) who builds you your own sump projects? otherwise im sure i can scruffle this up myself. for the refu/sump to actually be beneficial i would need to exploit the depth of the cabinet (37 cm) in a maximum manner but this is actually totally doable.

yea actually never mind, been doing some measuring and though it is doable there is little margin for error.

basically the reefpack takes 50 cm in hight (you have to keep in mind the room needed to remove the cup for mantaince) that leaves me with 20 cm for the depth of the refu/sump and different compartments.

further more 34 cm of width is really small to section up the sump

 

best case scenario i can creat a roughly 5 gallon refu/sump is this a sufficient water volume to make a difference?

 

I can't help with the sump/ref. build because I am clueless in term of DIY. Since you have a high bioload and like to feed (I'm the same type of tank keeper btw) although my bioload is low now since my tank crashed (a while back when I ran pellets without sufficient skimming). Anyway, I am running biopellets and it has brought my nitrates down somewhat along with water changes and better husbandry overall. There is also vodka/vinegar dosing and something called NOPOX. I am using Ecobak biopellets and you can search to read more under Jon Warner I believe is the person's name that created ecobak pellets. The other methods require you to be very precise in terms of daily dosing (vinegar/vodka dosing) - and I don't know a lot about NOPOX but you can also read on that as well. You have to have a good skimmer to use pellets but they are designed for the exact purpose of your needs (wanting to run a low nutrient system with heavy feeding). Hope this helps!

 

funny you mention nopox as i acquired (for free) a bottle of red seas nopox Wednesday. im currently doing daily dosiing of 10 ml and will see what my values are in a weeks time. anyone else used this product?