CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

The berlin skimmers are the best IMO. My dad owns one and it is great pulls out the sludge and keeps the water.....I'd reccomend turmimg it on for 4 hours a day.....run it on a timer.

other than that adam covered it :-)

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Clint
CDevoe1111@aol.com

Adam and Clint you guys are awesome. I have learned so much in so little time. Now I just need to get the hands on experience with my tank to actually know a little about what you are meaning. I have one quick question that for some reason I am doubting and racking my brain to figure out. With the power heads and protein skimmers, will I still need a filter, be it cannister or bio wheel filter?
Thanks for your time and i have been reading up on my books, like you said adam. I am going to be getting another soon, I have a magazine that i have been reading articles out of as well.

Well there are many many schools of thought when it comes to reefing and saltwater tanks. The live rock method is the most generally accepted and is usually used in all other types of setups. There are people who swear by the deep sand bed, others who prefer the plenum (dead space with just water below the sandbed to process nitrates). There are many many saltwater hobbiests who use only the sand bed, live rock and a skimmer and no filter. But there are quite a few that do use canister/power/wet-dry filteres in addition. I started mine with no filter and can vouch for the fact that it works, however I added an AC500 to my tank because I was having a problem with diatom algea floating in the water and wanted a way to effectively remove it since the skimmer is really only good for removing invisible dissolved wastes. At the point where my tank is now I could probably remove it but it adds extra water movement and a refuge for small amphipods and shirmp that are very benificial to the tank so I leave it set up. The choice is really yours and the options you have on how you set up your tank are endless and any reefer/saltwater hobbiest you meet will give you a totally differant way to do things then the last.... the trick is finding someone you trust and following their advice until you have a good enough handle on the concepts to decide what is best for yourself (this usually takes about 6 months, at least it did in my case). So good luck and read lots of books!

Adam

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Adam

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Adam@cichlidfish.com
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Yep. :-)

I'd reccomend using a filter for a while at least. But here again there are a lot of options that you can use. Right now I'm trying the plenium and LR method....and using a wet dry....may take it out eventually but for now in the beggining the tank needs it IMO. I've doen the DSB in the last reef and it worked out great, along with the filter.

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Clint
CDevoe1111@aol.com