My skimmerless goal

Xenia does not have mouths. I believe there are a few others, although off the top of my head, I can't remember which others this is true of...

 

This is true, nitrate is a molecule. It doesn't need a month to consume it. It just absorbs it... Not proven but it's believed to be reason some have pulsing action.

 

3?!! Wow!! Nice! Wish I could even get my hands on one!! It's not easy to get a CFL scrubber working as well as an SM100 does.

 

Interesting, I never knew or even considered the form of consumption.. By feed I really means converts it to energy.. in one form or another..


Does algae consume (if you will) nitrate and phosphate in the same manner?

 

My returns are putting about 900gph each. I'm thinking of taking my two returns and mounting two of the units on the top back of my tank (you wouldn't even notice them in my set up, especially with there clean design.) And running the returns off through them then into the tank. Sound like a good plan?

Then I will probably bring the 3rd to my 150 gallon.. It is in my business running on two fx5 canister filters... I know... It needs some filtration desperately. It's a simple fowlr.

At first, I'll keep my protein skimmer run till the screen mature.

 

I am sure I don't understand it perfectly, but from my research this is the basic idea.

There a chemist in the house?

 

I would normally recommend you measure the flow, how Floyd R Turbo has suggested in the scrubber basics thread on RC. However depending how they are plumbed, it maybe easier to connect the SM100 and see how much coverage your getting. I believe the SM100 needs ~840gph so you are good so long as your getting close to that 900gph flow... and yes sounds like a great plan...

For the work tank, setup the scrubber as you planned... IMHO I would remove at least one of the FX5s but that totally your call.

Oh one lovely word of advice, on that fowlr tank... Once the scrubber screen has matured feel free to never do water changes again...
So long as your N and P stay at zero there is no need on a fowlr. Once a year if you feel bad about it... Lol

 

I used a 1 gallon pitcher and stop watched the time to fill. I'm within 50gph at least. That should be perfect, that way an pods can drop straight in the tank as an added bonus!


Oh, that thing will be PERFECT for the fowlr tank.. I feed a small batch of pellets twice a day.. After the phosphate build up in the rocks and sand bed is removed, it's going to be GREAT! I am going to measure the return power of one of those fx5s hopefully it's high enough to power the scrubber.

Why would you remove one of the canisters?

 

How long can a filter go without water before there is die off? Is 30 minutes for coral feeding once a week ok?

 

Power savings mostly, the SM100 will cover filtration almost completely for that tank.