Water Pump For The Tl 550!

[deblin]

Hi,

Not sure if I'm being paranoid! I have the TL 550 and the pump doesn't seem to give a lot of water movement in the back compartment. It is working as the spray bar is jetting water out but in the filtration part it doesn't seem to be alot happening!!! I thought of maybe of getting a more powerful pump.

Could any one advise?

Thanks

 

[rabbut]

There are people runnign this tank on here that may be better able to advise, so I'd wait for them... Barney I believe has one?

Just check the pump and any associated pipework aren't blocked with anything before going any further. Also, what media do you have in this filter section?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[ben1987]

im sure people usually swap out a stock pump for a MJ1200.

 

[deblin]

There are people runnign this tank on here that may be better able to advise, so I'd wait for them... Barney I believe has one?

Just check the pump and any associated pipework aren't blocked with anything before going any further. Also, what media do you have in this filter section?

All the best
Rabbut

I have the carbon in one section and sponge in the next compartment.

Is this enough?

 

[rabbut]

Depends on how the tank is being ran, i.e; FO, FOWLR or as a full blown Reef system with corals, sinsile and mobile inverts Also, some medias need slower flow than others and some medias will restrict flow. I can't realy answer as a question on normal flow for these tanks, nor any mods if you aren't happy with it, as I don't own one, have never researched them nor have I seen one (or noticed one at least) in real life If you are running a reef or FOWLR or any form of invert set-up, you may be told you have too much unless you are using lots of phosphate and nitrate removers and/or rincing those foams in fresh water weekly allong with weekly replacements of carbon. Obviously, if you are running FO, that foam is your bio-media, and fish are less sencitive to nitrate, so the fact your current media choice is a nitrate factory under usual conditions is of little concern

Carbon exhaursts after about a week under freshwater conditions. My belief is that it should preform the same in Salt water conditions, but my supervisor at work recons it only good for a few hours in SW set-up's. This said, he's yet to ID one of my corals correctly, so I no longer take any of his advise at face value....

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Trod]

Hi, not really sure what sort of movement you are looking for at the back I run mine with the original pump and have no problems, there isn't a lot of visible movement in the back compartment, but as long as you are getting water from the spray bar, I think you are ok
I would get some LR rubble and rowphos in the back too if I was you.

Have you added extra powerheads in main tank?
make sure you clean sponge at least once a month, just rinse under tap water

 

[seffieuk]

Hi, not really sure what sort of movement you are looking for at the back I run mine with the original pump and have no problems, there isn't a lot of visible movement in the back compartment, but as long as you are getting water from the spray bar, I think you are ok
I would get some LR rubble and rowphos in the back too if I was you.

Have you added extra powerheads in main tank?
make sure you clean sponge at least once a month, just rinse under tap water

My sis and I disagree on this one - I don't have the sponge in, took it out straight away, nitrate factory If i had the sponge in I wouldn't rinse under the tap, I would use the old water I took out of the tank and rinse it in that - same as i do in my FW tank Trod was however told by someone on here that it is safe to clean under the tap, but it's not something i would do. As Trod says there isn't a huge amount of water movement in the back but it is of course cycled round the tank by the spray bar and when you do your weekly water change the chambers almost empty - i then pour the fresh water into the chambers at the back

Seffie x

 

[deblin]

Depends on how the tank is being ran, i.e; FO, FOWLR or as a full blown Reef system with corals, sinsile and mobile inverts Also, some medias need slower flow than others and some medias will restrict flow. I can't realy answer as a question on normal flow for these tanks, nor any mods if you aren't happy with it, as I don't own one, have never researched them nor have I seen one (or noticed one at least) in real life If you are running a reef or FOWLR or any form of invert set-up, you may be told you have too much unless you are using lots of phosphate and nitrate removers and/or rincing those foams in fresh water weekly allong with weekly replacements of carbon. Obviously, if you are running FO, that foam is your bio-media, and fish are less sencitive to nitrate, so the fact your current media choice is a nitrate factory under usual conditions is of little concern

Carbon exhaursts after about a week under freshwater conditions. My belief is that it should preform the same in Salt water conditions, but my supervisor at work recons it only good for a few hours in SW set-up's. This said, he's yet to ID one of my corals correctly, so I no longer take any of his advise at face value....

All the best
Rabbut

Thank you for your response.

Hi, not really sure what sort of movement you are looking for at the back I run mine with the original pump and have no problems, there isn't a lot of visible movement in the back compartment, but as long as you are getting water from the spray bar, I think you are ok
I would get some LR rubble and rowphos in the back too if I was you.

Have you added extra powerheads in main tank?
make sure you clean sponge at least once a month, just rinse under tap water

My sis and I disagree on this one - I don't have the sponge in, took it out straight away, nitrate factory If i had the sponge in I wouldn't rinse under the tap, I would use the old water I took out of the tank and rinse it in that - same as i do in my FW tank Trod was however told by someone on here that it is safe to clean under the tap, but it's not something i would do. As Trod says there isn't a huge amount of water movement in the back but it is of course cycled round the tank by the spray bar and when you do your weekly water change the chambers almost empty - i then pour the fresh water into the chambers at the back

Seffie x

Thanks for the advice, thats great.

im sure people usually swap out a stock pump for a MJ1200.

Thanks, I'll look at this......

Depends on how the tank is being ran, i.e; FO, FOWLR or as a full blown Reef system with corals, sinsile and mobile inverts Also, some medias need slower flow than others and some medias will restrict flow. I can't realy answer as a question on normal flow for these tanks, nor any mods if you aren't happy with it, as I don't own one, have never researched them nor have I seen one (or noticed one at least) in real life If you are running a reef or FOWLR or any form of invert set-up, you may be told you have too much unless you are using lots of phosphate and nitrate removers and/or rincing those foams in fresh water weekly allong with weekly replacements of carbon. Obviously, if you are running FO, that foam is your bio-media, and fish are less sencitive to nitrate, so the fact your current media choice is a nitrate factory under usual conditions is of little concern

Carbon exhaursts after about a week under freshwater conditions. My belief is that it should preform the same in Salt water conditions, but my supervisor at work recons it only good for a few hours in SW set-up's. This said, he's yet to ID one of my corals correctly, so I no longer take any of his advise at face value....

All the best
Rabbut

Thank you for your response.

Hi, not really sure what sort of movement you are looking for at the back I run mine with the original pump and have no problems, there isn't a lot of visible movement in the back compartment, but as long as you are getting water from the spray bar, I think you are ok
I would get some LR rubble and rowphos in the back too if I was you.

Have you added extra powerheads in main tank?
make sure you clean sponge at least once a month, just rinse under tap water

My sis and I disagree on this one - I don't have the sponge in, took it out straight away, nitrate factory If i had the sponge in I wouldn't rinse under the tap, I would use the old water I took out of the tank and rinse it in that - same as i do in my FW tank Trod was however told by someone on here that it is safe to clean under the tap, but it's not something i would do. As Trod says there isn't a huge amount of water movement in the back but it is of course cycled round the tank by the spray bar and when you do your weekly water change the chambers almost empty - i then pour the fresh water into the chambers at the back

Seffie x

Thanks for the advice, thats great.

im sure people usually swap out a stock pump for a MJ1200.

Thanks, I'll look at this......

Would it differ alot on the set up if I was running FO or F&C! I'm going to be running fish and corals!

 

[rabbut]

FO set-ups can be ran with just an exturnal filter and if you are keeping messy fish, a skimmer. For corals, the berlin method is recomended, with lots of flow, lots of live rock and a skimmer, often coupled with the use of chemical removal resins. The latter is less work once going by way of waterchanges, but is more £ to set-up

All the best
Rabbut

 

[deblin]

FO set-ups can be ran with just an exturnal filter and if you are keeping messy fish, a skimmer. For corals, the berlin method is recomended, with lots of flow, lots of live rock and a skimmer, often coupled with the use of chemical removal resins. The latter is less work once going by way of waterchanges, but is more £ to set-up

All the best
Rabbut

What do you mean by the berlin method? how does that work? (that sounds good.)

Also I was just thinking if it would be an idea to add a biological bag(not sure what they are called) that they use for the interpet river reef aquarium, which is meant to do the same job as a skimmer!!!

Do you know anything about these?

 

[rabbut]

I know nothing about these "biological Bags" so cannot comment on them

The Berlin Method is basically a recomended way of setting up a tank. It is a set of guidelines that you should aim to meet or exceed to get a good coral reef going These guidelines are 20X an hour of flow in the main tank, 1KG of live rock per 10l of water and a protien skimmer that can run a tank of twice the size of your own Personally, I'd look to double the ammounts of everything those guidelines list, but that almost doubles your set-up cost The Berlin Method, or variants there on, is the most common and widely recomended method of setting up a reef tank A common variant is to add chemical filtration media like Phosban, Rowaphos, Polyfilter e.t.c

All the best
Rabbut