Tmc V2 Protein Skimmer

[Spinal]

I'm VERY new to Sw... so new, that the only salty water in the house is my contact lense solution...

Soon-ish (4+months) I will swap my 260litre to SW; in the meantime, I'm getting live rocks and equipment ready (and learning...). I have stumbled over a new TMC V2 (800) skimmer for £70 roughly, which seemed quite a good price; but the skimmer is rated for a tank 3 times the size of mine... In freshwater, overfiltering is a good thing... does that rule hold on the salty side of the road? (with skimmers?)

Secondly, is the TMC V2 a "good" skimmer? Any other recomendations (Uk, 260litres, maybe 300 if my sump idea works out).

Finally, if I have a spare tank "culturing" base rock into live rock (seeded obviously), would that need a skimmer or will the powerheads be fine? (no fish, just ~50kg of base rock and ~5kg of live rock) (this is too cut costs when I start stocking the tank with live rock). (While I'm at it, what other equipment would live rock-culturing need? Powerheads, and? Would a mix of marine blue and tri-plus T5-PC bulbs do?)

Thanks,
Michele

 

[Spinal]

Anyone?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Soon-ish (4+months) I will swap my 260litre to SW; in the meantime, I'm getting live rocks and equipment ready (and learning...). I have stumbled over a new TMC V2 (800) skimmer for £70 roughly, which seemed quite a good price; but the skimmer is rated for a tank 3 times the size of mine... In freshwater, overfiltering is a good thing... does that rule hold on the salty side of the road? (with skimmers?)

as far as i know you can't overskim

our skimmer when we get it (xmas, thankyou daddy) is rated for like 4x our tank

 

[robbhp]

v2 are a good skimmer , although i have not used mine yet every one seems to like them

 

[N1z]

I think it shouldbe ok, however i aint perfectly sure tbh they are good skimmers but mines like packed up! stupid rio pump, its on full blown and the exit tube is blocked to the smallest hole for water to escape cos it just lost so much pumping of water. Not happy may have to get a new pump, other then that its good, just be warned it looks ugly the pump and bubble stop to make sure u hide it.

 

[Spinal]

Thanks for the input! My idea is to shove the sump in the garage, and pass 2 pipes through the wall into the room where the fish are, and hide the powerheads with custom rocks, so that no equipment will be visible in the tank... hopefully...
Michele

 

[SkiFletch]

If you really want to hide the rocks Michelle, go with whats known as a "closed loop" system with an internal drilled overflow box. Basically you have a large inlet off of the internal overflow going to a large pump. That pump's output is split 2,4,6, or however many ways you want and returned to the tank near the top. You can even hide the inlets a little if the lip of your hood comes down below your water line on the tank

 

[Spinal]

Thanks for that, but I must admit; I have NO IDEA what you just said

I was thinking of using an abrasive drill bit to drill a hole at the top/rear of my tank, exactly at the highest water level I want. I then silicone a small box with a pipe (or directly put a pipe if I can find some bulkheads to fit) to that, so that when the water goes over that level, it drains down the pipe).

The pipe drains into a spare tank in my garage, which in turn has a pump to pump water back into the tank. I'm thinking of a pump rated 3x/4x the total water volume of the tank.

and now I think I just realised what you meant. Did you mean, to put a VERY LARGE (20x/25x total volume) pump in the sump, and drill multiple holes throughout the tank, so that I don't have ANY pumps in the tank...? If so, GREAT idea... must do some research on that BUT... what happens if the pump fails? Wouldn't all the water drain out of the outlet pipes and into my sump? (This is assuming the outlets are below the water level... I don't see how I can create a current but dropping the water from the top... )
Michele

edit: this is what i was thinking, please excuse the worthless CAD skills...

 

[SkiFletch]

Sort of. There's 2 ways you can accomplish a powerhead-less setup. Either the method you described (which is much simpler to engineer), or a dual overflow setup, one feeding a sump, and a second feeding a closed-loop pump (more difficult to get right but probably more energy efficient). I'll talk about the easier method though so you can get a grasp on this.

Your overflow is protected from siphon by the level at which you set it. Your pump outlet that goes up to the tank should be protected in 2 ways. First, drill 2 holes in the return pipe just below the water line. This way when the overflow drains down to the level where it becomes dry the two holes will suck air and break siphon. Your second level of protection should come from a gate type check valve. Check valves prevent water from flowing down into your sump. Dont count on this as your only method of protection though, cause you can BET that your power will only go out when there's a snail inside the check valve