20 Gallon reef

[Canuckgod420]

So I just tore down my daughters tank, cleaned it all up, and now I wanna redo it.

It is sumpless, 3-4 inches of sand, 15-20 pounds of rock and a couple of fish.
Filled with zoa's, ricordia's, and maybe a couple of lps. illuminated with a new wave t5 4x24w.

So I guess to start with there has to be a way to filter surface scum off the water........surface. What I was thinking was creating some sort of divider in the tank to create an overflow area where a heater and pump can be situated to return water. I guess sort of like one of those all in one bio-cubes. Any ideas on how I can create something like this.

[JTaylor420]

Perhaps do a diagonal sectioned off area with glass just below the water level and put a powerhead at the bottom with a hose going back in the tank ( a hole through it or back up over and down a little ways back into the display ) thats the easiest and cheapest way to get a little surface skimming i can think of also u could put a bag of carbon in there to get a bit of filtration

[michika]

Hit up nano-reef.com or RC's nano area for some ideas on how to turn your standard tank into an all-in-one type. There are lots of fantastic ideas to be had.

[Canuckgod420]

thanks

[Diana]

A little overflow area would work, you would be loosing valuable tank space tho.

You could try to rig some sort of surface skimmer attachment onto some HOB filter, such as an aquaclear, and fill it with filter floss and carbon. If you get a big enough one you could even partition it, light it, and have a little fuge in there. I've seen like a tube that comes off the intake at a right angle and then goes directly up to the surface, with a little cage at the top to prevent fish getting in. This pulls water off the surface. But then also have the regular opening at the bottom of the intake as well incase the water level in the tank drops your filter wont run dry.

[Jack]

Check out the Tunze Nano cleaner. I have one and it works great. It removes all the surface slime and it's a good place for carbon.

http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...t_ID=tz-ps3165

http://www.tunze.com/details.html?&L..._tunzeprod_pi1[prodid]=3165.000

[Canuckgod420]

Originally Posted by Diana

A little overflow area would work, you would be loosing valuable tank space tho.

You could try to rig some sort of surface skimmer attachment onto some HOB filter, such as an aquaclear, and fill it with filter floss and carbon. If you get a big enough one you could even partition it, light it, and have a little fuge in there. I've seen like a tube that comes off the intake at a right angle and then goes directly up to the surface, with a little cage at the top to prevent fish getting in. This pulls water off the surface. But then also have the regular opening at the bottom of the intake as well incase the water level in the tank drops your filter wont run dry.

I have actually done that before on a freshwater tank once....it worked allright I guess, dont know whatever happened to it though...lol

I was thinking if I built some sort of overflow chamber on one end then I could have a decent little return pump(not 1/3hp monster lol) to create the flow(so no powerheads),
and the heater could be in there as well, and because the light would overhang it, I could grow some chaeto in there.

I got some black acrylic today and had it cut to size.
So the question is then, do i notch overflow teeth all the way across? Or just a shorter section on one end? Will this make alot of splashing noise going over? Arghh so many damn questions...lol