#1: Hang on the Back (HOB) Overflow Boxes
HOB overflow boxes came about so people with non reef-ready tanks (tanks that are not drilled) could use a sump. HOB overflows work by creating a syphon to draw water over the top of your tank and then down into your sump. When the syphon breaks, then your return pump in your sump pumps all the water in your sump into your tank, causing an overflow.
Many people drill me for saying HOB overflows are bad because they assert that when HOB overflows are setup properly, then they are fail safe. Setting them up properly requires buying extra pumps and modifying the overflow, which is like buying a new car and the salesman says, “to make sure it runs right, you have to bang on the hood twice, turn the key just right, then check under the hood every other day” Who would buy that car? Not me.
Lots of people have stories about HOB overflows that have run fine for years, which is great. I also have several friends who had HOB overflows which were professionally installed, and they all had several floods each. They don’t have any floods anymore because they switched to a drilled, reef-ready tank. Just because you can play with fire and not get burned, doesn’t mean you should keep playing with fire.
#2: Canister Filters
Canister filters are great for freshwater setups, not for saltwater tanks. Unless they are cleaned regularly (like weekly, EVERY week), then these canisters become nitrate factories and cause more problems then they are worth. Maybe you reef junkies would be up for that kind of work, but if you are a reef junkie, then you are going to have a sump and won’t need a canister filter anyway.
#3 Tap Water
Yes, its paid for, but if you use it, you’ll pay for it down the road. Tap water is full of all kinds of nasty stuff we can’t see with our eyes – metals, chorine, rust, sediments, etc. Using straight tap water introduces a whole bunch of things that will either harm (and probably kill) your fish, or create a huge food source for nuisance algae. There are declorinators that condition tap water to an extent, but make it easy on yourself. Use ONLY RO/DI water in your tank.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Mark,
Help me please, I have a 55 gallon reef set up that has been running now for 5 months. Everything has looked great up until about 1 week ago. My corals have started to die on me. The fish and inverts are fine. But the corals are starting to drop like flies. My PH is at 8.0, Nitrites are at 0, Nitrates are 0, Alkalinity is a bit on the low side, the tank temperature is at 80 degrees. I do water changes of about 5 gallons per week. I run a Reef Octoput protein skimmer, with a Eshopps 20 gallon sump. I have had both bio balls and the ceramic noodles in the sump – I have since taken the bio balls out but left the noodles in. I have Chemi-pure in there along with a bag of charcoal. I feed the tank Reef Essentials, Iodine and Kalkwasser on a weekly basis. The fish and corals eat frozen brine shrimp and plankton on a daily basis. I am at a loss as to what has happened. Any help or suggestions on what to look for would be greatly appreciated.
Good Morning Mark and hiya Linda:
I’m a novice when it comes to reef keeping and MrSaltwatertanktv is a awsome spot to broaden your knoweldge on reef keeping. This website has many different types of information available to view. and learn from. Personally speaking after I viewed all of MrSaltwatertanktv videos I grew as a reefer. Linda the questions I asked myself when I experinced the dieing phase of reef keeping were the following.
What are the needs of my coral?
a. nutrition – lighting or hand feeding
b.lighting – too bright, not enough, Do I need to replace my bulbs?
c.water movement – enough current? too much?
d- Parameters alkalinity, calicum, etc
e.water- are you using ROwater or tap water?
—These were some of my questions I went put through my head when I had my corals die. I learned alot from MrSaltwatertanktv and you will too. I also would urge you if your new to reefing, stock up some literature and visit some websites like wetwebmedia, reefcentral and ofcourse Mrsaltwatertanktv.
Linda, I hope this helped even alittle and good luck. patience is key in the hobby.
Thank you Mark forallowing me a palce to share what I learned from MrSaltwatertanktv, keep up the great work.
Thanks Frankie.
I know this wasn’t quite the place to leave my comment but I couldn’t find another area. I really am not totally new to reef keeping. I had this tank set up for amost 5 years close to 15 years ago. I lost my animals at that time because I had gone away for the weekend, only to come home and find that the air conditioner had quit working and the tank had way over heated.
I need to tell you that what I started with originally before the sump was a TOM aquatics filtration system. I liked the ease of the set up, but didn’t like the fact that the protein skimmer was way too small. So I decided to go to a proper sump and the Reef Octopus skimmer instead. I kept the overflow box from the TOM set up because it has a venturi stop on the box that shuts the system down if the power goes off so the sump won’t overflow and when the power comes back on it self primes and starts flowing again.
I then plumbed the hoses to the new sump and kept the same pump, it pumps at 700 gph. I am running 4 Koralia powerheads (2 at each end – at the surface) to push the water into the overflow box.
My lighting is the AquaticLife T5 HO at 48″. My lighting was set from day one at the recomended times for the 10,00K and blue actinic. I was told the blue LED’s wouldn’t matter.
I have been buying the same brand of distilled water from the same place since day one. The other reefer I work with has been using the same water and she has no issues.
Thank you for the recomendation on other helpful sites for gaining even more knowledge it is greatly appreciated; and just to let you know, I do have books on reefing but they are all more than 15 years old and I have found myself that in this length of time, things have changed alot with the husbandry.
I USE TAP WATER!
And I’ve been using it for over 6 months… There is nothing wrong with my tank!
But I DO understand the problems. And i’m working on buying a ro/di system.
Cheers,
I use my tap water because I live in the country and we draw water from a well, which is filtered several times so it is almost pure.
Lucky me right?
Alex…well water can be very pure, or very dirty so make sure your TDS is in line. Here in Texas, people on well water sometimes have TDS up to 400! And if it rains enough, the water can get contaminated with run-off. Of course you’d never know if the water was contaminated till something went wrong…like fish/corals dying.
I have a 55 gal reef tank and I’m having a brown algae problem, I have about 10 hermit crabs and 1 banded coral shrimp as my cleaning crew, what else can I get to help me out?