20 gallon

[ArowanaLover1902]

I’m in South Carolina, ever built a sump before? I can send you some blueprints to make one if you need any help. I’ve got some yellow watchman and a shrimp (you follow my thread, guess you know) they’re fun. Mine haven’t paired up but hopefully they will.

 

[Plauri55]

I’m in South Carolina, ever built a sump before? I can send you some blueprints to make one if you need any help. I’ve got some yellow watchman and a shrimp (you follow my thread, guess you know) they’re fun. Mine haven’t paired up but hopefully they will.

I've been following along on this thread and really enjoying Corey's story about his tank build. Especially Langston.
You mention blue prints for a DIY sump. Would you mind sending to me. I have a Fluval 13.5 that I would love to add a sump to.
And where are you in S.C.? I'm in Beaufort.

 

[Corey Shelk]

6 line wrasses should be 1 per tank. At least as per my pet store folks. And some pretty in-depth reaserch.
Ill just spill some of the easy stuff. Perhaps some of it may help.
Dont worry much about the chromis. Being new and a new tank setup to many variables are possible. Many can not be seen and require preventions.

Wrasse are beautys but unless a proven couple should be housed 1 per tank.
Saphire Damsels.. Aggressive.. Very begginer/Hardy and cheap but not a great community fish.
Skunk clowns are always an option! They can co-exist with your current clown!.
Pajama cardinals!! Awesome almost no impact.
Four line damsles. Black and white! This has been a great addition!.
I would also look into maybe..
Scorpion blenny.
They stay small but need an established aquarium.

I am going on because many of these are common fish. And it seems ur local petshop is unreasonable. Some are less responible as sellers. Most good petstores will work somthing out. Infact mine often says if something does not work out bring it back.
I made a few mistakes to!! Hope this helps in some way!.
The tank looks great and that clown seems happy!! Always good news!

Four line damsels aren't too aggressive? And yeah I was looking into PJ cardinals but my LFS rarely has them in stock and shipping makes the fish way more expensive. Do blennies stay in the rock work or open water? Also I don't think I can get a skunk clown because I got another ocellaris! He's really cute and him and the female (I'm assuming because she's way bigger) have been getting along swimmingly

 

[Corey Shelk]

I’m in South Carolina, ever built a sump before? I can send you some blueprints to make one if you need any help. I’ve got some yellow watchman and a shrimp (you follow my thread, guess you know) they’re fun. Mine haven’t paired up but hopefully they will.

I've never built one before and I have no idea where to start haha

 

[Plauri55]

I've never built one before and I have no idea where to start haha

That was for Arowana. Sorry!

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Yeah I’m in Landrum/Spartanburg. I’m not looking for money, I like doing this stuff. I am a full time college student though, so my time is a little scarce, always room for fish people though.

Corey - well it’s not easy but not really hard if you’re good with tools. You can get the glass custom cut or cut it yourself. I’m thinking you want about a 15 gallon sump (same as what I use). How does this sound space wise 1/6 for income, 1/3 for refugium, 1/6 for media, and 1/3 for return? If you like it I’ll be happy to make a design and send it to you, it’s basically what I use just with a larger refugium and smaller other chambers proportionally. It’ll add about 12 gallons of what (it’s not full) to your aquarium and help stabilize your parameters as well as give a huge boost to your pod population.

Plauri55 - why don’t we PM, I don’t want to hijack Corey’s thread, I like it too much ha ha ha.

 

[Corey Shelk]

Can you send me blueprints for that and I'll check it out, thank you!

 

[Corey Shelk]

I just received the coralline in a bottle I ordered two days ago. We will what it does, but because I already have coralline algae on the live rock it won't be a "controlled experiment" so to speak. I've heard good things about it though so I was willing to test it out to see if it speeds things up.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Tell me about your results I’ve wanted to use it before but never have.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Four line damsels aren't too aggressive? And yeah I was looking into PJ cardinals but my LFS rarely has them in stock and shipping makes the fish way more expensive. Do blennies stay in the rock work or open water? Also I don't think I can get a skunk clown because I got another ocellaris! He's really cute and him and the female (I'm assuming because she's way bigger) have been getting along swimmingly

Four line damsel would likely cause some problems down the line, they’re territorial and you’re tank is small enough he may just says “it’s all mine.” Cardinalfish are boring, they stay in one spot all day, it’s weird. Blennies are the thing for you, they chill on the rocks. I’ve ordered in a sailfin blenny for my tank and we will see how it goes, I don’t want to recommend it before I’ve had it. I did have a lawnmower blenny for a long time and he was great though. More clowns would be a problem. Consider blennies/gobies and other rockwork dwellers. Also check out firefish.

 

[Corey Shelk]

Yeah I've definitely looked into firefish. I've never looked into blennies but I'll check them out for sure

 

[Corey Shelk]

Update:
Clowns are for the first time today! I only have the blue LEDs on because that's what the directions said on the bottle for the coralline algae to get established, so I wasn't able to get a pic or vid. Also it's game day!! I'll try and get a pic of them later this evenin or tomorrow.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Here is my design, the baffle height is up to you, though I can make some suggestions if you want, it'll just change the height of your water. This is based on the average 15 gallon tank which according to google is 24" x 12" x 12". Now on to to:

Each letter represents the intended purpose of a chamber
A - intake, here you will have the plumbing from the display dump into the tank, you won't need a filter sock because of part B
B - sponge, of varying size, it will need to be cleaned often to prevent water from clogging but will get all the particulate matter
C - refugium, this is a 10" x 12" x ~9", I'm not sure if thats big enough to have a mantis shrimp housed comfortably, but its a big as I dare make it. I'd recommend running cheato and a mangrove or two in here. Its big enough to someday add a frag rack here too
D - media chamber, putting bags of activated carbon, purigel, or seagel or whatever you use here will clean your water. Use biomedia at the bottom.
E - just to help reduce microbubbles, add some additional sponge here to make sure nothing big gets into chamber F
F- return chamber, I made this a bit big, why? Most filter pumps are bigger than you'd expect, it's nice to have some room. I wanted to make it 1-2" larger but it would have meant downsizing the refugium. You also have room to add additional pumps for media canisters if you ever want to add them.

So what do you guys think?

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

You should use glass or acrylic and get it cut at lowes (unless you feel confident doing it yourself). You will seal those with 100% silicon (available at lowes). Don't worry about getting exact measurements, use them as guidelines.

 

[Corey Shelk]

That looks awesome, so I would only need too pumps? I'm confused on how that works.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

No, only 1. You can drill your tank or use an hang-on-back overflow to get water down (brs sells hang-on-backs). Then attach plumbing down into chamber A, the water will push itself through the sump into chamber F, where a return pump will jet the water back up into the tank.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

In this pic you can see the plumbing come down on the left, water going through my sump, then the return pump pushing it back up. My tank is drilled but I advise you use a hang-on-back.

 

[Corey Shelk]

Ah ok thank you! I'll look more into it

 

[Corey Shelk]

Anyone know how to post videos? I got Langston to take his first frozen shrimp off of my skewers and I got the clowns to take pellet food

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Upload to YouTube and then post a link