For a long time, I have been fighting the water conditions in my 55g display tank. Even before it became a Malawi tank and had only one pleco and one oscar (though both were over 10" long so I guess they counted as quite a bit more than just 2 fish!), I have always had trouble keeping nitrates at a safe level and fought a never ending battle with green water. I upgraded and then doubled filtration, reduced feedings, increased water change from 15% to 20-25%, installed a 6 stage RO system to provide my water for water changes, increased water change frequency to once a week (lately has been every 4 days!), and still fight a constant (losing) battle with very high nitrates (though the green water finally seems to be a thing of the past). To make matters worse, my little Malawi buddies are not staying little (duh, that's how it works! Fish WILL GROW!) and the problem amplifies with each bit they grow.
Recently, while waiting for my first fry to come along, I was looking at my holding female in the 10g fry tank and the question (which should have smacked me in the face a LONG time ago) finally popped up... "How does this all happen in nature???" Realistically, there is no one standing there every few weeks emptying 20% of all the oceans, lakes, and streams and replacing with clean water! Thus began a long journey of research, experimentation, and arguing with the LFS. Of course the LFS wanted to sell me a big expensive canister filter and ridiculously expensive media to remove the nitrates, but again came the thought "that's NOT how it happens in nature!"
My first experiment seemed to be the end-all-be-all answer... PLANTS SUCK UP NITRATES! Good in theory but when my Malawis (here on referred to as "the pigs") will reduce three large leaves of Romaine to a pile of stems and veins inside of 48 hours, you can imagine how other plants worked out with them. Plan B, was pretty non-existant at that point so my spur of the moment thought began to circle around a sort of homemade canister filtration system (thank god I came to my senses before I even started collecting parts for that one!). Throughout other failed experiments, I kept getting drawn back to the idea of a sump/refugium, but finding good information about a freshwater sump/refugium online is like looking for a needle in a haystack when someone forgot to hide the needle in there! So, I took it as a challenge and began designing my own. It didn't take long for me to have a design and a full list of "stuff" to buy, but the price was outrageous for an experiment that could possibly have me back at square one.
By the time I had my design, my fry were here and I was already none too thrilled about the "required maintenance" of the added fry tank while being a business owner as well as a full-time college student. That's when I decided to use the fry tank (much smaller scale) for my latest endeavor.
Unfortunately, I lost all of my pictures through the process of building, but here are the results:
Description: Since it is only a 10g fry tank, I opted for a 3/4" bulkhead for the overflow drain. The overflow is a sort of "dual overflow" that I designed to not only skim the surface of the water, but also to pull water up from the middle and from just above the substrate. The drain runs down into the first chamber of the sump, where it passes through Marineland Rite-Size filter pad, Accurel Filter Fiber, a media bag of carbon and Zeolite blend, another layer of Marineland filter pad, then a slew of bio balls, before exiting to the second chamber. The second chamber consists of simply a 150w Rena Smart Heater and a Lifegard Quiet One 2200 return pump. The pump is plumbed up with 3/4" hose to a pvc cross tee where it splits off to two 1/2" lines, one returning back through the first chamber and the other to the inlet of the refugium, with each line having a ball valve to control the flow to each section. From the cross tee, a 3/4" line continues up to the main tank where it splits off to two 1/2" lines on opposite ends of the tank. The return by the overflow has its holes almost horizontal to the bottom of the tank, and the opposite return is facing almost vertically with just a slight lean back towards the overflow side of the tank. This creates a true circulation of the water back to the overflow and back down to the sump.
Now, before the comments and questions begin, I'll give all the additional pertinent info... Yes, both of the return lines have been set up with siphon breaks which have been tested multiple times. Both the drain and the return are also equipped with ball valves, should the need arise to service anything in the sump. All connections have been glued with the exception of one on the drain and one on the return (both above the sump tank) because there just was not room on this particular setup to have threaded unions for servicing purposes. The refugium is home to a very simple group of 3 Ruby Nerite snails and 3 Java Ferns. The inlet of the refugium is very similar to the outer part of my overflow and filled with broken lava rock at the bottom. Substrate in the main tank and the refugium is Cichlid Sand stolen from my main tank when the fry tank was initially set up. For cleaning up the detrius in the main tank, I simply remove one (or both) decorations and close both of the valves diverting return water back to the filter and refugium, and run it full strength for about 10 minutes (usually takes less before all of the fishy doodoo is down the drain) then partially open the valves returning flow to normal. For feeding, I open both of the valves fully for the sump recirculation, thus almost stopping the flow to the main tank. This eliminates the waste of food lost to the overflow and allows my little friends to enjoy the all you can eat buffet without disappointment. After feeding, flow is returned to normal by simply partially closing the two "recirculation valves".
Water Parameters: The only additives I use to the RO water in both tanks is Seachem's Cichlid Salt, Malawi Buffer, and Cichlid Trace. Before adding the sump, the fry tank showed a consistent 8.1-8.2 ph, 0ppm NH3/NH4, 0ppm NO2-, and ~20ppm NO3-... Since adding the sump, everything remains the same except that I have watched the NO3- consistently drop to 0... Furthermore, I have done ZERO water changes since adding the sump and have 100% fry survival and healthy, fully active little guys almost ready to go to new homes. I have only had to top off water lost due to evaporation and have recently started topping off with the nitrate-rich water from my "pig tank" because my Java Ferns looked a little wilted. I also had to start feeding the snails algae wafers to keep them from eating the Java Ferns! Oh, and I have purposefully overfed my fry throughtout the testing of the sump just to see what kind of load the system can handle and have found that I only wasted a lot of food with no negative effect on the water parameters.
With the system proven strong, I guess it's time to build the sump/refugium for the "pig tank" (anyone have a mag drive 24 for sale? haha)... And change the return lines over to clear rigid PVC for that cleaner looking install! I'll try to make sure I have better "in progress" pictures for the next build!
Almost forgot the latest addition... Albino Bristlenose to keep any algae in the main fry tank under control:
Recently, while waiting for my first fry to come along, I was looking at my holding female in the 10g fry tank and the question (which should have smacked me in the face a LONG time ago) finally popped up... "How does this all happen in nature???" Realistically, there is no one standing there every few weeks emptying 20% of all the oceans, lakes, and streams and replacing with clean water! Thus began a long journey of research, experimentation, and arguing with the LFS. Of course the LFS wanted to sell me a big expensive canister filter and ridiculously expensive media to remove the nitrates, but again came the thought "that's NOT how it happens in nature!"
My first experiment seemed to be the end-all-be-all answer... PLANTS SUCK UP NITRATES! Good in theory but when my Malawis (here on referred to as "the pigs") will reduce three large leaves of Romaine to a pile of stems and veins inside of 48 hours, you can imagine how other plants worked out with them. Plan B, was pretty non-existant at that point so my spur of the moment thought began to circle around a sort of homemade canister filtration system (thank god I came to my senses before I even started collecting parts for that one!). Throughout other failed experiments, I kept getting drawn back to the idea of a sump/refugium, but finding good information about a freshwater sump/refugium online is like looking for a needle in a haystack when someone forgot to hide the needle in there! So, I took it as a challenge and began designing my own. It didn't take long for me to have a design and a full list of "stuff" to buy, but the price was outrageous for an experiment that could possibly have me back at square one.
By the time I had my design, my fry were here and I was already none too thrilled about the "required maintenance" of the added fry tank while being a business owner as well as a full-time college student. That's when I decided to use the fry tank (much smaller scale) for my latest endeavor.
Unfortunately, I lost all of my pictures through the process of building, but here are the results:
Description: Since it is only a 10g fry tank, I opted for a 3/4" bulkhead for the overflow drain. The overflow is a sort of "dual overflow" that I designed to not only skim the surface of the water, but also to pull water up from the middle and from just above the substrate. The drain runs down into the first chamber of the sump, where it passes through Marineland Rite-Size filter pad, Accurel Filter Fiber, a media bag of carbon and Zeolite blend, another layer of Marineland filter pad, then a slew of bio balls, before exiting to the second chamber. The second chamber consists of simply a 150w Rena Smart Heater and a Lifegard Quiet One 2200 return pump. The pump is plumbed up with 3/4" hose to a pvc cross tee where it splits off to two 1/2" lines, one returning back through the first chamber and the other to the inlet of the refugium, with each line having a ball valve to control the flow to each section. From the cross tee, a 3/4" line continues up to the main tank where it splits off to two 1/2" lines on opposite ends of the tank. The return by the overflow has its holes almost horizontal to the bottom of the tank, and the opposite return is facing almost vertically with just a slight lean back towards the overflow side of the tank. This creates a true circulation of the water back to the overflow and back down to the sump.
Now, before the comments and questions begin, I'll give all the additional pertinent info... Yes, both of the return lines have been set up with siphon breaks which have been tested multiple times. Both the drain and the return are also equipped with ball valves, should the need arise to service anything in the sump. All connections have been glued with the exception of one on the drain and one on the return (both above the sump tank) because there just was not room on this particular setup to have threaded unions for servicing purposes. The refugium is home to a very simple group of 3 Ruby Nerite snails and 3 Java Ferns. The inlet of the refugium is very similar to the outer part of my overflow and filled with broken lava rock at the bottom. Substrate in the main tank and the refugium is Cichlid Sand stolen from my main tank when the fry tank was initially set up. For cleaning up the detrius in the main tank, I simply remove one (or both) decorations and close both of the valves diverting return water back to the filter and refugium, and run it full strength for about 10 minutes (usually takes less before all of the fishy doodoo is down the drain) then partially open the valves returning flow to normal. For feeding, I open both of the valves fully for the sump recirculation, thus almost stopping the flow to the main tank. This eliminates the waste of food lost to the overflow and allows my little friends to enjoy the all you can eat buffet without disappointment. After feeding, flow is returned to normal by simply partially closing the two "recirculation valves".
Water Parameters: The only additives I use to the RO water in both tanks is Seachem's Cichlid Salt, Malawi Buffer, and Cichlid Trace. Before adding the sump, the fry tank showed a consistent 8.1-8.2 ph, 0ppm NH3/NH4, 0ppm NO2-, and ~20ppm NO3-... Since adding the sump, everything remains the same except that I have watched the NO3- consistently drop to 0... Furthermore, I have done ZERO water changes since adding the sump and have 100% fry survival and healthy, fully active little guys almost ready to go to new homes. I have only had to top off water lost due to evaporation and have recently started topping off with the nitrate-rich water from my "pig tank" because my Java Ferns looked a little wilted. I also had to start feeding the snails algae wafers to keep them from eating the Java Ferns! Oh, and I have purposefully overfed my fry throughtout the testing of the sump just to see what kind of load the system can handle and have found that I only wasted a lot of food with no negative effect on the water parameters.
With the system proven strong, I guess it's time to build the sump/refugium for the "pig tank" (anyone have a mag drive 24 for sale? haha)... And change the return lines over to clear rigid PVC for that cleaner looking install! I'll try to make sure I have better "in progress" pictures for the next build!
Almost forgot the latest addition... Albino Bristlenose to keep any algae in the main fry tank under control: