Help regarding 3ft IOS

[Ah-lim]

Due to space constrain, I'm using a IOS for my 3 ft tank.Only got 2 compartment.

So right now running a weipro skimmer in one of the compartment,23cm by 16 cm. while the rest is filled with sponge, bio balls and biohome. 6mths old tank.

There is 30 kg of live rock in the tank, and some flow movement with a seio 620.

I'm also using a garbage bin DSB, which i hook externally.

However,my problem is with nitrate, which is around 50 using salifet testkit.

1.Shld i remove the bioball? since i presume the live rock can sustain the ammonia output?

2.any skimmer that can fit that small compartment?

3. Changing tank is rather out of the qn, as my worklife is taking 80% of my time. haha.

Any suggestions?

Thanx in advance.

[jervismun]

Bro... a picture tells a thousand words... like this one... mine is a 3ft with IOS too

[gunzo]

hi bro .. any problems with the lifestock ??

With the bin DSB .. you need about 3 weeks for it to work ..

and what I found out was .. the test kits are WASTE OF TIME !!!

think alot of people found that out

I've used 3 different test kits .. salifert, tropic marine and tetra ..

tetra says 25ppm, tropic says 20ppm and salifert says >80ppm ..

only if my corals stop opening do I test the water now .. or if I see stress spots on the fish

and when I test .. make sure you compare it with PREVIOUS known readings as baseline .. (ie last time my tropic shows 20ppm, and once it shot up to 50ppm .. something was up {my DSB bucket pump died} etc)

BTW, how you setup the garbage bin DSB can affect the effectiveness also .. check that out too

I've been having very good success with my RDSB, and I believe you will too

[Ah-lim]

Sorry for the delay. Burden down with huge work load.

Anyway, the first pic attached is the IOS with the medium I'm using.

Some bio home, with bio ball, my camera sux, it is actually a mini wet/dry version with the water dripping down evenly on to those medium, but design still a bit screw up.

The sponge are changed every few days.

The 2nd pic is a rough sketch of how my IOS looks like, a side view. 3 small area to play with , A, B and C. The small little hole is where the outlet of my skimmer goes, into the main tank. the pump is under the small hole. The smaller pump is for the garbage can DSB.

Currently, housing 4 fish, 1 shrimp and 2 star.

I juz lost 2 firefish, disappeared one after the other. The DSB had been set for 1 month and a half already. The rest of the life stock are 6mths old apart frm my 2 clown which have been with me for 1.5 yrs.

Thanx in advance.

[Ah-lim]

A rough sketch

[Clownfish]

hi... i can see that u hav only a small amout of bioballs... i do tink it is possible to remove them, n even ur coral chips... dun remove the biohome cos they r supposed to help in denitrfication...

a wet/dry coneptual filtration does provide efficient nitrfying effects but can usually cause nitrate probs...

if u hav a space constraint, i tink u can hang ur weipro skimmer outside the tank... u might not hav as strong skimming effects as when it is in sump, but u can always try n see the effects first, if possible try out with a stronger pump

[Ah-lim]

hi... i can see that u hav only a small amout of bioballs... i do tink it is possible to remove them, n even ur coral chips... dun remove the biohome cos they r supposed to help in denitrfication...

a wet/dry coneptual filtration does provide efficient nitrfying effects but can usually cause nitrate probs...

if u hav a space constraint, i tink u can hang ur weipro skimmer outside the tank... u might not hav as strong skimming effects as when it is in sump, but u can always try n see the effects first, if possible try out with a stronger pump

Thanx for the reply.

Was thinking of changing a better skimmer, but due to the tiny wheenie space in the IOS,[23cm by 16 cm] was having trouble looking for a suitable model. Red sea Prizm is out of this qn though.

I will remove the bio balls, the coral chip is actually used as a stand to make a mini-wet/dry thingie due to a rather high water level in the compartments.

K, so I juz leave the biohome inside?

Thanx.

[jervismun]

Yeah removing the bioballs will be a good step #1, but the amount of Biohome seems a little insignificant at the moment. Perhaps you wanna increase it by addind another pack or something.

I am using Salifert test kits too. My reading is 10 for NO3.