ZzzDerekzzZ
New Member
Hi all,
My name is Derek, and this is my first conversation on R2R, although I've been reading the threads here for a couple of months now, and have found some very valuable information here.
I hoping that one of you really smart reef tank people could give a Newb some advice on my Waterbox 130.4 set up.
I'm relatively new with the Aquarium thing; I had a 40 gallon aquarium about 1 year ago, and recently decided that I wanted something more interesting... so about 3 months ago I had my local Marine Aquarium shop set me up with a new Waterbox 130.4 with few bells and whistles. Do to my inexperience I let them pick out all the components and set this aquarium up for me. I now have many Apex Neptune components, a 25w UV Sterilizer and a OCTO CLASSIC 200 INT that’s taking up an estimated 85% of the floor space in the Skimmer Chamber of Waterbox my sump. (See Sump Diagram) With my heaters and Apex ATK set up in there I have very little space for anything else. As of now I'm still trying to figure out how to place some media in my Sump for bacteria to grow upon!
The Waterbox 130.4 has a 96.3 Gallon Display Tank with a with a 30.6 gallon Sump… I have very many rocks piled up in my display tank, with some live rocks mixed in from my old 40 gallon system. Minus my rocks, I have roughly estimated my total water volume at 115 gallons.
A couple of days ago I turned on my OCTO 200-INT Skimmer for the first time and it lowered my Sump volume by quite a bit, so I just shut it off to mix up a couple of Gallons of Red Sea Coral Pro salt to make up for the water volume change in my system when I kick on the power to my skimmer. This Skimmer has been sitting in my sump turned OFF up until the other day.
Over all my local aquarium shop set me up with a very nice set-up and I'm quite happy with my beautiful Waterbox 130.4 and all my wicked cool Apex Neptune equipment, but I’m thinking that I've been set up with a OVER SIZED Skimmer for my Waterbox 130.4; I currently only have 4 fish, 6-10 Emerald Crabs, 2 shrimp, hermit crabs, snails, a Pink Tube Anemone, Rainbow BTA, some corals (Zoanthids, Acans)... and with a huge Green Hair Algae problem that I imported form my old 40 gallon system
Mainly I'm writing for some advice on what adjustments, tweaks and or modifications I may make to this OCTO Classic 200-INT to help it work in my inexperienced opinion “undersize system” Keep in mind that is my 1st experience with a Skimmer. Perhaps a higher or lower the recommended operating depth? (Reef Octopus owner manual says 7.9 to 8.7 inches for this Skimmer) I have installed an air valve to make air adjustments (I watched a few YouTube videos) but have not tried any modifications or air adjustments yet.
I'm planning in the not to distant future to down size my Skimmer for a DC model with a much smaller footprint, a skimmer that I can control the pump's power through my Apex Fusion app. I believe that a DC Skimmer will better grow with my reef tank's bio load, although I still need figure out how to do that "DC Pump Control" thing on my Apex, also I just purchased 2 Neptune Apex Sky lights recently (Skys not hooked up yet) so I really can't spend money on a more realistically sized DC Skimmer at this point in time: I need to find a way to get a few months out of this OCTO Classic 200-INT Skimmer
Thanks
Derek
PS I live near a Freight Yard, and the noise coming from my OCTO Classic 200-INT *located in my living room) is so loud that it drowns out the sound of the nearby Freight Train engines at night time from my bed room! … that OCTO Classic 200-INT helps me sleep at night, but its not so pleasant to listen to other than that… lol.
My name is Derek, and this is my first conversation on R2R, although I've been reading the threads here for a couple of months now, and have found some very valuable information here.
I hoping that one of you really smart reef tank people could give a Newb some advice on my Waterbox 130.4 set up.
I'm relatively new with the Aquarium thing; I had a 40 gallon aquarium about 1 year ago, and recently decided that I wanted something more interesting... so about 3 months ago I had my local Marine Aquarium shop set me up with a new Waterbox 130.4 with few bells and whistles. Do to my inexperience I let them pick out all the components and set this aquarium up for me. I now have many Apex Neptune components, a 25w UV Sterilizer and a OCTO CLASSIC 200 INT that’s taking up an estimated 85% of the floor space in the Skimmer Chamber of Waterbox my sump. (See Sump Diagram) With my heaters and Apex ATK set up in there I have very little space for anything else. As of now I'm still trying to figure out how to place some media in my Sump for bacteria to grow upon!
The Waterbox 130.4 has a 96.3 Gallon Display Tank with a with a 30.6 gallon Sump… I have very many rocks piled up in my display tank, with some live rocks mixed in from my old 40 gallon system. Minus my rocks, I have roughly estimated my total water volume at 115 gallons.
A couple of days ago I turned on my OCTO 200-INT Skimmer for the first time and it lowered my Sump volume by quite a bit, so I just shut it off to mix up a couple of Gallons of Red Sea Coral Pro salt to make up for the water volume change in my system when I kick on the power to my skimmer. This Skimmer has been sitting in my sump turned OFF up until the other day.
Over all my local aquarium shop set me up with a very nice set-up and I'm quite happy with my beautiful Waterbox 130.4 and all my wicked cool Apex Neptune equipment, but I’m thinking that I've been set up with a OVER SIZED Skimmer for my Waterbox 130.4; I currently only have 4 fish, 6-10 Emerald Crabs, 2 shrimp, hermit crabs, snails, a Pink Tube Anemone, Rainbow BTA, some corals (Zoanthids, Acans)... and with a huge Green Hair Algae problem that I imported form my old 40 gallon system
Mainly I'm writing for some advice on what adjustments, tweaks and or modifications I may make to this OCTO Classic 200-INT to help it work in my inexperienced opinion “undersize system” Keep in mind that is my 1st experience with a Skimmer. Perhaps a higher or lower the recommended operating depth? (Reef Octopus owner manual says 7.9 to 8.7 inches for this Skimmer) I have installed an air valve to make air adjustments (I watched a few YouTube videos) but have not tried any modifications or air adjustments yet.
I'm planning in the not to distant future to down size my Skimmer for a DC model with a much smaller footprint, a skimmer that I can control the pump's power through my Apex Fusion app. I believe that a DC Skimmer will better grow with my reef tank's bio load, although I still need figure out how to do that "DC Pump Control" thing on my Apex, also I just purchased 2 Neptune Apex Sky lights recently (Skys not hooked up yet) so I really can't spend money on a more realistically sized DC Skimmer at this point in time: I need to find a way to get a few months out of this OCTO Classic 200-INT Skimmer
Thanks
Derek
PS I live near a Freight Yard, and the noise coming from my OCTO Classic 200-INT *located in my living room) is so loud that it drowns out the sound of the nearby Freight Train engines at night time from my bed room! … that OCTO Classic 200-INT helps me sleep at night, but its not so pleasant to listen to other than that… lol.
