My Sump...
I have (2) mag drive 9.5's.. one for the display, and one for the previously mentioned "fuge" and dual BRS carbon reactors... I have a dual pump Octopus Extreme 300, which i bought new in November 2008... i also have a Koralia magnum 6 powerheadh in the front left corner near the Display drain, so there is quite the current in my summp, jus like in my Display which as you can see, is (2) Mp40 ES... I beleive in alot of flow throughout a system to keep oxygen high and everything clean... again, i need to get a new pump to keep the "fuge" in the same conditions, as it normally is... also, the 1/2" feed that is flowing out in the far right corner of the sump, is the return from the Dual BRS carbon reactors... I have it so i can see visually what is going through the reactors, so i know when the pressure is low, and it needs to be cleaned/carbon needs to be replaced... I usually clean and change every two weeks anyhow... my sump stays very clean aside from what jus grows on everything, there is no detritus in there whatsoever, and i do not use filter socks... I allow my skimmer to remove detritus for me, and it does so quite well... especially when the flow through the "fuge" is up to my standards and likings...
I also use a simple flaot valve, gravity fed auto top off... utilizing a 5 gallon jug as the resorvoir... on average, lose about 2 gallons a day to evaporation, but that is fine, becuase i have a whole lot of air and water mixing for a very high level of oxygen in my system, which i like.... as well as gas exchange, and i think this is very important...
also, both the fuge and the display have dual mag 9.5 pumps which are plumbed together, s if one of them over needs to come offline, or i need to conserve energy used, such as in an outage, i can use jus one to run the whole system...
My systems runs entirely on the idea of no detritus, no sand, and high flow for a clean water column... along with an oversized skimmer, a few peices of live rock, and the proper addition of activated carbon... I also change 4.5 gallons of water every other day, and have been for nearly 2 full months... my sysytem has approximately 140 gallons of total water volume...
I use RO'd well water, and plan to finally setup my DI part of my water filter, which is a 5 stage RODI from the filter guys, however for the last 16 months since i got back into the hobby after a year off, i havent used anything but RO'd well water, and I would like to go back to DI as well... clearly, only RO'd water, as well as being from a well water source, which surely has some good tds, can still get some nice color and growth... however, I am thinking i can improve it further if i start using RODI again, with TDS at 0...
I am also going to start dosing Lugol's sparingly when i get a bottle soon...
At this point in time, i dose 3 ounces daily of both BRS two part, as well as about 6 ounces of BRS two part based magnesium as well, and again, cahnge 4.5 gallons every other day, and i will soon be using and lugols regiment...
