Trying to setup Overflow for a Seahorse Tank

[Anabel]

Hello Everyone,

I am days new to this site and I am looking for information that LFS's are not helping me with. But I am also not a pushy person. I know when I am being brushed off. Can you believe and even with money to spend in those stores. But I also don't want to be stupid. Like I have been lately.

I am trying to set up a 37 gallon Oceanic tank but with some type of inside tank overflow and filter system. No plumbing. Something similar to the BioCube. I am setting up for baby or new born seahorses. I don't have any right now. I don't even have adults yet. In the past about 7 years ago I did and I wasn't able to keep up with the deliveries too well. I didn't even know how to keep them alive and I know most people can't . I want to try, so if there is anyone out there that can direct me to somewhere that I can design or purchase some type of overflow that I can place a pump in and filter with algae that will be great. Something similar to a refugium.

I have a separate 75 gallon aquarium that will eventually house the brazillian adults. I can't wait. The algae and small crestacae are growing in number. So far everything is going well in that tank. I Recently put in live rock as well as a cleanup crew to get rid of the bad stuff. Levels are all good at this time.

Any Ideas???

Thank you,
Anabel

[CarmieJo]

Hello Anabel and :welcome: to TR.

I don't have any experience with overflows so I can't help you there. You could consider something like a CPR HOB refugium.

[Anabel]

Hi CarmieJo;

Thank you so much for the reply, Good Idea, but...

Yes, I do have a CPR Refugium, but it is setup on my main 75 gallon aquarium.

I am trying to come up with a similar setup to the refugium but at a larger scale. I am very concerned about setting up something that if the power goes out and I am not home, I will have a disaster. I don't want to make that mistake because this 37 gallon aquarium is being setup in my bedroom on the second floor. My house is not that large so I only have a few options that will actually work for setting an aquarium that wouldn't be right in a window.

Here is a picture of the new tank and where or how it is located. I don't have much room to play with on either side as up can see, but I am trying to make it work. I hope you can see it. I had problems uploading the larger file. Anyway, this is why I want to set something up that would be similar to the way the biocube and a refugium is setup but in a larger scale, if it is possible. Of course, without the look of the refugium and skimmer. Does anyone know if this is possible? Or any other ideas?

Thanks, Anabel

[CarmieJo]

I would love to have a tank by my bed! I think the sounds of the water are very relaxing.

Do you think something like this could work? I can't take pix to show you right now because of my foot but maybe you can get it from my description. Thinking about my NC24 there is a black false wall maybe 3" in front of the real back of the tank that creates a "sump" area. It is divided into 3 parts. On the left the false wall has a slotted overflow at the top and on the right there is a hole where the return pump sends water back to the display via a tube that has an outlet through a hole back into the display. I keep my heater in the back to keep it hidden.

What if you siliconed a piece of glass or acrylic across the back of the tank and put in a couple of dividers? You could use one chamber for a fuge, one for a skimmer and the last for a return. If the power goes out you would have no problem because everything is in the tank. With glass you wouldn't need any additional lighting for the fuge. If you wanted to use black you would need a fuge light (but could probably rig it so you can run a reverse photo eriod) and it would hide all of the other equipment.

[Anabel]

Happy Sunday CarmieJo;

You have a wonderful idea. And you also brought up several very important points about the lighting issues. I had not even thought about that. Thank You.

I am going to see if I can draw up a diagram and scan it in and you can tell me if this is what you were thinking. I am not good at comming up with ideas. I haven't had much practice in that area. Please also keep in mind, I am no architect. But I will do what I can. Do you know if there is something like this on this site? I have not gone through everything and there is so much. I have 3 babies that always interrupt me when I get to do something that doesn't involve them.

I love having a tank by my bed. In our old house, my 75 gallon was right by our king size bed. It was so nice. I miss that, and I believe my husband does too. Right now he is having stress issues and I want to bring in as much tranquility as possible to calm us both down through these really tough times. Having the aquariums really takes us to another world we really enjoy and we don't have to think about anything or anybody, at least for a little while.

I will write more in a bit. I want to work on that diagram.

Thank you so much CarmieJo. You have no idea, no one has even bothered to give me even a sliver of these type of advise. It means a whole bunch.

THANKS!

[CarmieJo]

Here is a Paint drawing of what I am thinking about. I am not good at drawing but maybe it will help.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f198/CarmieJo/tank-1.jpg

The black lines are the tank. The red is the false wall. The little red lines in the upper left are the overflow and the little red circle is the return. The thick green lines are dividers behind the false wall. They would be shorter than the top of the wall.

[saxman]

hi Anabel,

turning your existing tank into an "all-in-one" is a good idea. i do, however, have a couple of questions/comments.

i see where you'd like this tank to be a nursery tank for what i assume are reidi fry (since you said "Brazilians"). first of all, please realize that with the exception of ingens, reidi are about the hardest fry to have success with, so don't get discouraged if it takes awhile to have even moderate success. reidi have pelagic fry which means that they don't hitch from birth, and thus either swim or float around in the current for a few weeks. they are also smaller than benthic SH fry such as erectus.

is this tank something you plan to have up and running all of the time, or just when you have fry? with a natural setup, hydroids are a very real problem due to the large amounts of small, live food in the water column. hydroids can, and will kill SH fry.

also, a 37 is a pretty large tank for newborn fry. i think you may have trouble keeping up on food density in the water column. also, getting the fry trained to frozen will be more difficult in this size setup. most folks have success with splitting the broods into smaller tanx (10 gals) for awhile. splitting the fry up also is a "safety net" for you as one batch may go south, while another doesn't.

IMHO, the 37 would make a great juvie setup...more of a grow-out tank.

all of that being said, if you still want to give the 37 a try, there are a few things that you'll need to do when setting it up, but i'll hold off on those in this post in the spirit of keeping it short until you reply.