work talk

Just wanted to get peoples advice on a plenum... my boss is wanting to set one up on our display tank
also post pros and cons on uv sterilizers and canister filters

 

well as far is plenums I haven't had much to do with, now the uv sterilizer needs to be placed some where in the return water outlet, it is good to have because it removes parasites and such, but on the other hand will kill any beneficial micro organism that could be beneficiary for the other photosynthetic live that you might be trying to keep.
And the canisters are great cause you can put different kinds of media in them, like phosban, charcoal, nitraban just to name a few, I would use as an alternative, I prefer wet/dry, refugium, sump, or a separate tank that gives me the option to hide some of my other equipment from the display tank, plus providing a greater water volume

 

i am a fan of sump and refuge, canisters you have to clean like once a week and can become a pain, if not they are a nitrate trap

 

ok..ok! I know what a plenum is now, I have always call them under gravel filter..I would say that they are only for fresh water tanks, if you were to use one on the salt water tank, you would need to clean it probably every time that the system was running fine, it will be like starting over every time, due to all the debris collected under it, in my book i don't have any plenum plans soon. terrible Idea

 

Well, I can tell you from first hand experience. Don't use an undergravel filter. It will run fine for about 18 months, then the Green Hair Algae shows up. And you fight it from that point on. The problem is, no matter how good you are about siphoning up the "crap" on the bottom, eventually (little by little) it builds up underneath the undergravel filter. At some point it hits critical mass, and you have to remove the substrate (and filter) to get all of that detritus out. Better off using argonite sand and no undergravel filter.

Now a true plenum system, that's another story. Personally, I don't like them because they require the use of a Deep Sand Bed. DSBs eventually have to be removed and done over (typically 3-4 years). Might not sound too bad, but when it comes time to replace it with newer sand, you'll rue the day you decided to use it. It requires you to remove everything from the tank, replacing the DSB, and then putting everything back in. Too much work for me. I'd rather have 1 to 1 1/2 inches of sand, and use a sump and refugium. Let the fuge do the work of a plenum (much easier to replace the DSB in the fuge as it doesn't require a total tank tear-down).

Here's some links about Plenums:

Reef Plenum: Part 1

Jaubert Live Sand Filtration

Plenum Filtration Reefs

 

Thanks, we would be running a true plenum, I will try and talk him into the good ole sump/fuge with a protein skimmer

 

on the UV thing, they can potentially be a bad thing on a reef tank since it's indiscriminately killing all bacteria that passes through it including the good stuff
Not a horrible thing to have in case of something breaking out but I've never had one, just use critters to do the job for me, i.e. shrimp for ich ect

 

yeah, i hear ya, thats what i have always known, he was saying if you put it in a certain spot it will only kill bad stuff, dont know how though