EVO 13.5 Filtration Setup Advise

[dherman15]

Good Morning,
Had my EVO 13.5 set up for over two and half months. We have two small clowns and a CUC. I want to start purchasing some corals need some advise on filtration setup.
My current setup is below. I was thinking of removing the Chemi Pure Elite and moving the Chemi Pure blue over, then turning Chamber 2 into a refugium. I probably will get one for fish at some point but was curious what you would recommend.
thanks in advance

 

[lapin]

If you are into a little more work then a fuge might be something to try.
Kinda depends on what you want the fuge to do.

 

[dherman15]

In my mind the fuge would be for natural filtration rather than changing floss weekly.

 

[obaptista]

Hey. Lots of fun trying to fit filtration into an AIO. I have a JBJ flat panel 15. I feel the pain. Let me share my thoughts. Pick and choose to fit your needs.

The heater in your pic is in the evap chamber and will run dry if you forget to top off. Fire hazard.
Filter floss is mechanical filtration. You will still need it before your fuge to keep gunk out.
I am planning to hang things off the back to deal with the lack of space. If you are thinking fuge, there are hang-off ones. Or the Tunze submersible light in the chamber with the heater. You could use a reactor if you like to tinker by placing a pump into the chamber. I will be using a AquaMaxx Bullet-1 skimmer hung off the back. I am considering an aquamaxx reactor and a strip light for a reactor. The nice thing about a reactor, is that I can switch between algae reactor, or biopellets or carbon/gfo without buying new gear. The pump just needs to be enough tumble the biopellets but tunable down if GFO/Carbon. HTH.

 

[Nano925]

I also have an Evo 13.5. In chamber one I have floss...activated carbon....bio balls. Second chamber I have chemipure blue and floss at the bottom. Chamber two runs dry at the top as indicated on intanks website. I think your on the right path. Good luck !

 

[LardLad]

If you have enough live rock in the display, you can ditch the marine pure.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but it is true. They are nothing more than an expensive detritus trap.
I would honestly place a wad of poly fill (teddy bear floss from hobby lobby) in the bottom of ch 1. Empty out chamber 2 completely for now until you get this squared away.

The poly fill teddy bear floss is the best kept secret weapon in all of reefing. And it costs about 3$ for a year supply. It will super-charge your filtration and elevate your reefing. I promise.

 

[LardLad]

Also, placing floss at the bottom of ch 2 will inhibit your flow. Get rid of it. Flow is your best friend. Don't inhibit it.

 

[GoReefin]

I ended up drilling my evo 13.5g tank and added a proper sump/refugium to make life easier. I've seen people add mangroves in chamber 1. I've see HOB refugium that tend to work well. You have a lot of filter floss in there imo you only need it at the intake to the filtration area. I would remove the others.

 

[dherman15]

If you have enough live rock in the display, you can ditch the marine pure.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but it is true. They are nothing more than an expensive detritus trap.
I would honestly place a wad of poly fill (teddy bear floss from hobby lobby) in the bottom of ch 1. Empty out chamber 2 completely for now until you get this squared away.

The poly fill teddy bear floss is the best kept secret weapon in all of reefing. And it costs about 3$ for a year supply. It will super-charge your filtration and elevate your reefing. I promise.

Thank you for the recommendation. Ill have to read more on removing marine pure.
Does the poly fill teddy bear floss from hobby lobby have any chemicals in it? I thought they have some sort of fire retardant.

 

[olonmv]

Mine is as follows. Chamber 1: filter floss on top and half of the supplied foam under it, all stacked on top of my green machine UV. Chamber 2: other half of supplied foam and bio media. Chamber 3: heater, pump and, ATO optical sensor. At one time I had chemi blue in chamber 3 but my nutrients dropped and cyano and dinos started showing up. That setup has seemed to do ok filtration wise. Corals nems and inverts all seem happy.

Edit; I also plugged the hole that leads from display to chamber 2. Filtration works lots better with it plugged, just keep the tank topped off.

 

[LardLad]

Thank you for the recommendation. Ill have to read more on removing marine pure.
Does the poly fill teddy bear floss from hobby lobby have any chemicals in it? I thought they have some sort of fire retardant.

If it has fire retardant in it I'm not sure about that. I can only tell you but I have been using it since it was suggested to me bye hey very successful reefer. It is the same stuff that they make the white poly pads out of and a lot of reefer swear by it. In fact those poly pads are such good filth magnets but you can literally let them float on top of the water and they will suck up all kinds of crap. Obviously they're best used within your filtration. I can only say that I have never had anyting but excellent success with Polly filtration. And cross my fingers have never lost a fish. I keep goniopora alveopora and bernardpora extremely successfully and these are somewhat sensitive corals.

 

[LardLad]

Thank you for the recommendation. Ill have to read more on removing marine pure.
Does the poly fill teddy bear floss from hobby lobby have any chemicals in it? I thought they have some sort of fire retardant.

As far as removing biomedia goes please don't take my word for it. Check out Brandon 492. He has prolific writing and research and he is the one who has guided me to removing all biomedia. I found myself having to clean it with every water change because it held up detritus. I think it is great and works well however if you have sufficient live rock in your display you are gaining nothing by putting additional media in your sump. A lot of reefers will think this is heresy of course. And certainly the multimillion-dollar industry of Bio media will speak harshly of such heresy. When I removed my bio media I was scared. But now I am feeding very heavily and still enjoying ultra-low nutrients. This is a result of having a nice chunk of live rock a 1 inch deep sand bed a small algae scrubber in chamber 2 and dosing 5 cc's of phytoplankton each night. My nitrates and phosphates are undetectable and I almost never have to clean the glass. Again most people will cry heresy over 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates but it is simply trading out inorganic compounds for the more productive organic nitrogen and phosphorus available from heavy feeding. This was my aha moment. And the point where my reefing became successful. Good luck to you and don't be afraid to dump all that crap

 

[FishyFishFish]

I keep some Seachem Matrix in the middle of chamber 1, not because it needs it but so I always have some seeded in case I need to quickly set up a quarantine tank.

Be careful with loose stuff in the bottom of chamber 1. I have seen a post made by somebody where the media got stuck under the skimmer guide in the tank, and they then had problems getting the media basket out.

 

[dherman15]

As far as removing biomedia goes please don't take my word for it. Check out Brandon 492. He has prolific writing and research and he is the one who has guided me to removing all biomedia. I found myself having to clean it with every water change because it held up detritus. I think it is great and works well however if you have sufficient live rock in your display you are gaining nothing by putting additional media in your sump. A lot of reefers will think this is heresy of course. And certainly the multimillion-dollar industry of Bio media will speak harshly of such heresy. When I removed my bio media I was scared. But now I am feeding very heavily and still enjoying ultra-low nutrients. This is a result of having a nice chunk of live rock a 1 inch deep sand bed a small algae scrubber in chamber 2 and dosing 5 cc's of phytoplankton each night. My nitrates and phosphates are undetectable and I almost never have to clean the glass. Again most people will cry heresy over 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates but it is simply trading out inorganic compounds for the more productive organic nitrogen and phosphorus available from heavy feeding. This was my aha moment. And the point where my reefing became successful. Good luck to you and don't be afraid to dump all that crap

Thanks for the follow-up.
I will check out your recommended research. I've only been reefing for about 5 months. I would really prefer to keep my tank as natural (little or no chemicals) as possible.

 

[sammolson]

As far as removing biomedia goes please don't take my word for it. Check out Brandon 492. He has prolific writing and research and he is the one who has guided me to removing all biomedia. I found myself having to clean it with every water change because it held up detritus. I think it is great and works well however if you have sufficient live rock in your display you are gaining nothing by putting additional media in your sump. A lot of reefers will think this is heresy of course. And certainly the multimillion-dollar industry of Bio media will speak harshly of such heresy. When I removed my bio media I was scared. But now I am feeding very heavily and still enjoying ultra-low nutrients. This is a result of having a nice chunk of live rock a 1 inch deep sand bed a small algae scrubber in chamber 2 and dosing 5 cc's of phytoplankton each night. My nitrates and phosphates are undetectable and I almost never have to clean the glass. Again most people will cry heresy over 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates but it is simply trading out inorganic compounds for the more productive organic nitrogen and phosphorus available from heavy feeding. This was my aha moment. And the point where my reefing became successful. Good luck to you and don't be afraid to dump all that crap

Can't find Brandon 492 anywhere in Reef2Reef...

 

[LardLad]

Can't find Brandon 492 anywhere in Reef2Reef...

Maybe

Can't find Brandon 492 anywhere in Reef2Reef...

brandon429

 

[LardLad]

Maybe

brandon429

Sorry

 

[sammolson]

Sorry

Maybe

brandon429

no problem! Thanks man. I found him

 

[dherman15]

Update
Removed intank chamber 2
Added a couple 4 lbs of cured rock
Removed marine pure and replaced with polyfill.
Setup is Chamber 1 (floss, chemi-pure elite, polyfill), chamber 2 (heater), Chamber 3 (return pump)

 

[NanoTommy]

Update
Removed intank chamber 2
Added a couple 4 lbs of cured rock
Removed marine pure and replaced with polyfill.
Setup is Chamber 1 (floss, chemi-pure elite, polyfill), chamber 2 (heater), Chamber 3 (return pump)

How did you get on with this?