Juwel Tank For Marines

[jollyjacktar]

I have a trigen juwel tank and i am converting for marines (already have a big marine tank). I am a lazy so and so. Which means water changes get ignored a lot and I am fed up with pipes and stuff hanging everywhere so going to try a new way which hopefully i can then use on my large marine setup.
I was told this would work for minimal if any water changes so i will give it a go as nothing to lose with tank being new start.

So i am running a large external filter in the cabinet with 4 trays of media 1x coarse sponge 3 live rock rubble, which feeds back into the juwel box filter which has these new bio-cubes i am having success with in my 3 foot tropical tank. I have an airstone under the cubes aerating them then the water flows back into the tank i dont want to have a skimmer sticking up ruining the lid appearance so i have put a cheap internal filter stuffed with just filter floss at the back of the tank as i have been told this will act like a skimmer for the bio mass the cubes create.

I will give it a go and keep you all updated. Any input or warnings would be much appreciated as will a pat on the back if it works.

 

[Donya]

How big is the tank? I'm not familiar with the model. The smaller the tank, the more critical it is to do regular work on it. If you don't like to do regular maintenance in water changes, then a marine tank is not going to be a great thing to start up regardless of the size. Some systems do decrease in workload over time as they are fine-tuned, but that's on large systems and only after they have matured quite a lot (a year or more down the line). Lack of maintenance early on easily lead to disaster in a new, unstable system.

I have an airstone under the cubes aerating them then the water flows back into the tank i dont want to have a skimmer sticking up ruining the lid appearance so i have put a cheap internal filter stuffed with just filter floss at the back of the tank as i have been told this will act like a skimmer for the bio mass the cubes create.

This doesn't sound like the same thing as skimming. Filter floss catches only very coarse stuff compared to what a serious skimmer will remove. A proper large skimmer is one of few things that can help lengthen the time between water changes, so you absolutely shouldn't skimp on that if you are averse to water changes but determined to set up a marine tank.

 

[Aquascaper]

I'm guessing it is either a Trigon 190 or a Trigon 350, both of which can and are successfully used for marine tanks.

There is a way to get a sump into the cabinet but as you mentioned an large external i'm assuming you're not going down that route, this would obviously solve your problem of clutter in and around the tank but it's tricky.

All the Trigon's I have seen used for marine have run Red Sea Prizm skimmers which are HOB types and once installed don't actually spoil the look of the tank at all as it's only the top 4" or so that you see (75% of that is the collection cup). They do require a little cutting to the rear lid but I don't think i've seen a Trigon without a modified lid anyway

Here's a couple of photos of my Trigon 190 with a Prizm skimmer and where it would be if fitted to give you an idea (just happened to have one lying around):

^An idea of the height above the tank top

^An idea of what you'd see of the skimmer when installed

HTH