Aquarium Lighting

I personally hate this topic. It's what I feel is the least organized and hardest topic to find accurate scientific data on across the entire internet. Aquarium lighting. As you may remember previously, aquarium lighting is very important. It will effect how algae grows in your tank, how invertebrates such as anemones will grow as well as corals! Some people claim your fish are even healthier with the right type of spectral radiation! Not to mention your fish will shimmer and look prettier under the proper lighting. To be honest with you I really didn't know too many specifics about aquarium lighting before researching for this tank. It's a bit convoluted at times and I frankly got most of my preferred information off of this site. So, lets take a look at all this. I forewarn you I will have both option and fact in the article and you're more than free to argue any points with me. In fact, I'd love to have a few more opinions on the matter...

So to begin what is light? Well, light is a particle (photon) that acts like a wave. Like all waves, light has a wavelength. If you don't know what a wavelength is you're already in trouble for this article. There are many different types of waves, X-rays, gamma rays, infrared waves, radio waves, but the type were concerned with is a small set called "visible light waves." These are the waves which we see as colors in case you didn't infer that. So why are these waves so important? Well for starters, visible light waves are the ones we "see" as color. Color is nothing more than your eye's interpretation of a wavelength of light.

Let me show you. As you can see in the photo each color has different numbers listed for it. The numbers listed are the wavelengths associated with that color in the visible light spectrum. So for example green is listed at a wavelength of 550. The wavelengths are listed in the units nanometers (nm) which is one billionth of a meter. So super tiny. You can also See the wavelength listed as "Å" which is a unit called an angstrom. Ten angstroms is equal to one nanometer. To give you a scale reference atoms tend to be between 1-100 angstroms in diameter. Were talking atomic here folks.

The the way in which light works is a wavelength of light strikes a molecule. The molecule can either absorb or reflect that wave. If it is absorbed then whoopie! If it's reflected then that wavelength can travel to your eye where you "see" it. So when you look at green grass it's not green because grass likes green wavelengths but rather because it reflects green wavelengths away!

So, lets talk more about grass. Or more specifically the molecule that gives grass it's green color. Chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is a molecule inside plant cells which can convert light energy into food energy, as you know. It does this by absorbing certain wavelengths of light. This is a chart which shows the colors of light that are absorbed by some chlorophyll molecules. The higher the peak the more the molecule absorbs that color. So as you can see, chlorophyll tends to prefer the blues/reds and doesn't absorb too much of the greens (again, hence plants tend to be green due to the reflection of green light).

Well I'm obviously not growing grass in my tank, so why does this matter? Well, I will be growing other things (hopefully) such as coral or anemones. These creatures have photosynthetic bacteria that live within them. They form a symbiotic relationship- the bacteria feed the animal and the animal keeps the bacteria safe. So, lets say I buy an a coral. The bacteria in that anemone prefer wavelengths in the blue/red spectrum and uses this type of light to create food. If the lights in my fish tank produce every color but blue/red my coral won't be able to photosynthesize and it will in turn starve. This is why it's so important to pick the right lights. If you have the wrong ones you simply won't be able to feed your photosynthetic creatures.

So you might be thinking "Well Ross, last I checked fish weren't photosynthetic, who gives a shit." Well first off watch your mouth, don't talk to me like that. Secondly true. In general your lighting is picked to cater towards anemones and corals. If you don't have either of these it doesn't really matter as much. It's generally views to be the pinnacle of aquarium prowess to reach the point where your tank can handle these creatures though. So I will eventually be hoping to reach a point where I can try my hand at them. Not to say I will, but if my tank is healthy enough why not?

So, these seems rather simple now, right? I just simply grab some lights that produce spectra in the blue/red region. I wish it were so simple. You see, most of the time when buying a light bulb the emission spectrum is not listed. Or at least I haven't seen as many as I'd like. Often suppliers list whats called the "Color Temperature" of a bulb. Let me explain...

So, you're camping. You're making a fire and toss some logs on. While burning you notice the embers are glowing. Glowing HOT! Why is that? I mean, wood doesn't glow. And when your embers cool off they're not red/orange are they? Well there's a reason. It's called color temperature. As objects heat up they eventually reach a level where they begin to glow. They begin glowing red which is the least energetic color (it has the longest wavelength). Then orange, followed by yellow (decreasing wavelength, increased about of energy required to produce that wavelength). Theoretically if you could heat those coal up hot enough they're glow green, blue etc. The color the object glows is related to the temperature, get it?

Color temperature usually ranges from 4000-20000 Kelvin (Kelvin is a unit of temperature. Think of it as Celsius if you're unfamiliar with Kelvins). The lower end (4000ish) is typically a reddish glow, whereas 10000+ is typically a bluish glow. But, I personally have problems with this system.

Lets say I have a have a light which has peaks in the red and blue range. I would be emitting both red and blue radiation but what would that look like? Purple? Some other color? Since a color temperature only refers to one PURE color I'm not sure it would accurately reflect any information regarding a mixture of colors, would it? I'm not positive. I cannot find any direct relationship between Color temperature and wavelength. I've found come crazy mathematical formulas but I do not have the calculus prowess to solve these equations. Ultimately I want to be ensured the bulbs I buy are producing light in the blue/red spectrum. Color temperature does not assure me that at all. It has a generalized correlation but I don't think we can draw accurate conclusions from that, can we?

So right off the bat color temperature is of little use to me personally. There is another measurement people sometimes use called PUR (Photosynthetic Usable Radiation) which ultimately says "how much of the light given off can be used my creatures for photosynthesis" which is exactly what I'm looking for! Sadly, most places do not list out a PUR rating. I did however find this website. This site is realistically the holy grail. I has done all the work I could ever ask for. It's simply beautiful. If you're truly interested in understanding tank lighting this is pretty much the best resource I've ever seen!

So a higher PUR value simply means a higher number of photons will be produced by the bulb in the visible light spectrum needed (red and blue) to produce photosynthesis. Does it list the specific nanometer peaks? No, but it's about as good as it's gunna get. And I'm not going to complain.

Finally. I can stop blabbing on about aquarium light. You wish you were so lucky! We're not there yet. So, I got some lights with some nice PUR values which means photosynthetic creatures should be nice and happy but how does the tank look? I mean, is it worth having a tank with healthy corals if they look like shit? Let us delve into the wonderful world of lumens.... Please look at the accompanying graph. There are two traces here. The first is the action spectrum. This is the spectrum of light that photosynthetic animals require (aka the PUR curve). The second trace is the phototropic curve These are the wavelengths of light the human eye sees most effectively.  The higher the peak the better the human eye can observe. You'll notice the closer you get to the end of the reds and blues the worse the human eye sees (makes sense since the human eye cannot see infrared or ultraviolet at all). So what does that mean for the aquarium?

It comes down to measuring whats called lumen. When measuring lumen you're measuring the amount of light that is present in the visible HUMAN spectrum. So one million photons in the blue spectrum would not look as intense as one million photons in the green spectrum because humans pick up green better. Follow me? So we've spent all this time getting lights to feed photosynthesis and now the tank might not look bright enough! So ultimately you need to keep in mind the total lumens in your system. More lumens = more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Hoo boy. Okay now I think I'm done. If you've made it through all this you're a real trooper. So as I said before lighting is a bit convoluted. It's tough to get the right info about them and frankly it hurts me to try.

So what did I end up doing? Well honestly I did a bit of research and went online and bought a few T-2 fluorescent bulbs. A 6500 Kelvin lamp and a 15000 Kelvin blue lamp. This was before I had done a really thorough job researching though. I think the red/blue wavelengths might end up being okay I just wonder if the intensity (number of photons/second) will be enough for any photosynthetic creatures. So, I'll hold on to these guys for now. If and when I get to corals I'll probably upgrade to some metal halides. They do look pretty though!




Day 5

Cost of supplies- 70$ two T-2 fluorescent bulbs

Total cost of supplies- 470$
Total cost of tools- 110$

Overflow system

Alright, so my secondary sump has been resealed. I'm letting those welds fuse before I try another water test. Now what to do? Well, you know how I keep talking about how these drainage pipes from my display tank to the sump? Have you ever wondered how on God's earth that works? Well let me tell you sweetheart.

There are a couple options. The first one is an external pump. Pretty much there's a pump behind the tank sucking water out of the display and pushing it toward the sump. From what I've seen this is fairly uncommon and frankly expensive. It's also retarded given the other options which are more or less free.

Option two is called an overflow chamber. It's a pre-drilled hole in your tank. That's right, you have holes in your display tank. In this photo the center column is the overflow. Once the water level gets above the center box's height the water spills over and drains into the sump via gravity. The two other holes are the return holes for water exiting the sump. For most custom made acrylic tanks this seems to be fairly common. Some people even custom cut their glass tanks to have an overflow chamber but I would never risk drilling my own glass tank. Noooo way.

The third option is the most complex and is called an overflow box or weir. I'm going to call it a weir so it doesn't sound too similar to overflow chamber. So a weir is this odd little box that looks like this. It's a gravity/vacuum powered box that sucks water OVER the wall of your tank. That's kinda weird eh? No electricity, no pumps no nothing, just some fancy physics that blows your mind. So lets talk about the weir following along in the picture to the left. The left side of the weir is in the display tank. It hangs over the tank wall so the back chamber (where the drain to sump is) is outside the tank. Now, watch what happens when we pump more water into the display tank from the sump...

So as you can see I've taken the liberty of increasing the water level in the tank. Water has an interesting little quality called "pressure" and as you can see the tank will fill up as high as the water line where ever it can due to the pressure of the water. You'll notice though the water level is NOT high enough to travel through the inverted "U" and flood over into the drainage pipe. And even if it WAS high enough we would be overflowing the display tank because that means our water level is above the height of the tank wall, see?! Alright, moving on. You'll also notice I placed a small amount of water in between the baffles down by the drain. You'll see why in a minute. So right now the water pressure isn't enough to push it over the tank wall. That's because the weir is air pressure from the trapped air in the inverted "U" is resisting the force of the water. So see that little tube at the top? You simply just purse your pretty little lips around that and suck some of the air out! This will decrease the air pressure and there will be less resistance for the water and the water level will rise! This is why it's important to have water down by the drain so when you suck the air out of the chamber there's water on both sides to create a "seal" if you will. You have ultimately primed your weir so it will endlessly pull water above the water line and down into the return pump!

Make sense?! So, this is by far going to be the most complex piece I make. It's most important the weir is 100% air tight, if not the vacuum will leak and the siphon will be broken and no water will drain from the tank! So, I got my keys and took ANOTHER trip to my local plastics dealer (I officially have a "plastics" guy now which is a sad thing to admit). I purchased 40$ worth of acrylic and made my way home.

I don't necessarily feel the exact schematic of my weir is of utmost importance. If you really want to see it let me know and I'll draw it up. But I designed and cut and cut. This was actually the easiest part to cut because all the pieces were 7'' or small versus my 15''-22'' monsters on the sumps. Though, the sides of the weir were a bit complex they didn't give me too much trouble. And here it is!

I'm rather proud of this guy.

Now while it wasn't a very hard piece to cut it was a bit more of a pain in the ass to weld. There was just a lot more pieces and I needed to ensure it was all air tight and that it would properly hang on to the tank wall and yeah. There were more issues. I also have about 10 million solvent stains on the box but I really don't care. It's functional. I'd take a video of it working but... well. It's not as excited as I had hoped haha.

Now have you noticed the front of my weir is black? Looking good huh? I assure you, it's not an aesthetic preference. That's the chamber that will be inside the tank. Which is also where all my lighting is! So, by making this black most all the light will be blocked which will reduce algae growth inside the weir. You have to imagine trying to fish a bunch o' algae out of your inverted "U" must be a pain in the ass, eh? Did you also notice the front black screen is slitted? This will allow for water to overflow without letting fish swim into the weir. Cause I don't think my fish wanna end up in my sump. And even more importantly I don't want my fish to end up in my sump!

So that's it for weirs. I think they're pretty neat!

Day 4

Cost of supplies- 40$
Cost of tools- 30$ (I had to buy some drill bits to drill the air hose hole!)

Total cost of supplies- 400$
Total cost of tools- 110$

Sump Expansion

Welcome back children. Last we talked I was having a tough time deciding what to do with my tank. My sump was full and I wasn't really doing much more than skimming the water (which could had easily been achieved with a hang on skimmer instead of an in-sump skimmer). I decided I've been having enough success thus far, why not step it up a notch? I had a very nice introductory sump but I simply needed more room. I decided I'm going to build a second sump to assist the first! But where to put it?

I decided if I moved the tank about 10'' off the wall I could sneak a longer rectangular sump in behind the tank without being highly visible. This would provide me with more volume and further ability to filter my tank. It'd also give me extra space to add on if I ever decided I wanted to annex my sump with extra equipment. So let me draw this out for you.

I am truly an artist.

I'd say this is perhaps a bit unorthodox, but given the shape of my tank I really have no other choice but to place a sump along the back wall in order to get enough space to filter how I would like. This will free up the entire "L" shaped sump to be converted into the refugium. I can simply connect the refugium to the other sump via some pipes and voila! It'll run like one larger tank but it's simply two smaller ones! Or such is the hope. I guess we'll find out if time if it works in practice.

So now what? Well I suppose I need a proper design. I sat down for a while and came up with this plan...

Okay so, what are we looking at here? Well, the yellow tube is the drainage tube. From there the water fills the input chamber. The red is a raised platform for my protein skimmer to stand on. There's a reason for this. When I recieved my skimmer it said the skimmer's pump should be submerged no further than 6'' below the surface of the water. That being the case I simply raised the skimmer higher as compared to lowering the water level (therefore keeping a maximal volume in the sump)! Next I placed a bubble trap to keep the microbubbles down and finally the output chamber where the return pump will sit. I've made an extra chamber for the return pump for reasons I will explain in the future. Ultimately it's to ensure I dont flood my house. Bare with me we'll get to all that in time.

I was low on acrylic so I took another trip to my friendly neighborhood plastics store. The guys hooked me up again, this time providing me with 1/4'' pieces (I didn't want to risk my sides bowing like on the first piece I made). In total these pieces ran me 60 bucks. I spent the majority of the day sawing pieces and welding them together and here's the finished product.

Voila! It came out much nicer than the first tank.

I left that to cure a couple days. I also tried out it's positioning and frankly, I think it turned out just right. This tank ended up being 22'' long which was just as long as the tank stand and 10'' wide which is just enough for the skimmer and return pumps length. Like the other sump it is also 16'' tall.

A few days later I took the tank outside and performed it's initial water test. As you can clearly see, it did not pass. So now I need to reseal the tank, get those holes patched up. I'm surprised this tank failed where the other did not but I don't foresee it being a big issue.

Day 3

Cost- 60$ acrylic

Total cost of supplies- 360$
Total cost of tools- 80$

Water Testing and Complications

Fast forward 24 hours. My sump has cured for a full day and most of the joints feel sturdy (as I had mentioned my welds were far from perfect on the joints). I was real anxious to fill the sump up and do a water test to see how it worked! I was pretty much 99% sure the tank was going to leak if not completely BURST at the seams due to my poor craftsmanship. So, I gave it a go! And who would had guessed...

The mother effer held water!

Not only did it hold water but it didn't leak. Pretty much at all! After 8 hours a small bead had formed on the bottom of the tank (I had forgot to weld a seal on the bottom corner in a spot so this was understandable). I was truly shocked and amazed. If my poor craftsmanship could make something that held water perhaps I actually do have a shot at making this work!

There were issues though. First off the long walls of the sump were bowing out a bit from the water pressure. I had seen people say that happens sometimes online but I'm not too comfortable with that. I think I'm going to find a way to further support the walls to ensure they don't rupture 2 weeks into my tank being set up and flood my living room. But that's an issue for another day.

So I took my sump and performed a fit check and hey! 2 for 2! Things are looking good so far.

Yay it fits.

I had reached the maximal amount of space underneath my tank and had produced a water tight sump. I was pleased. Now I just had to decide what to put in it and how to design it (technically I had already done this prior to building anything and recommend anyone trying this does the same).

So I knew I wanted a protein skimmer in my sump. I also knew I was going to NEED a return pump. I began looking online for options. Here's something I never mentioned- part of the benefit of a sump is you can put all your unsightly equipment out of field of view. you can put your skimmers and pumps and all sorts of stuff away so it's not hanging on the back of your aquarium. Keep in mind you can absolutely buy protein skimmers that hang on the back of your tank. You can also buy water pumps that work externally, so they don't have to be IN the sump. The real difference is going to be price. I looked at a lot of different options and decided what I wanted. Take a look!

The first item I purchased as an AquaEuroUSA Classic Protein Skimmer 55 from CSNstores.com. It's a skimmer made for a 55 gallon tank (slightly larger than what I have) and it put me back about 150 dollars after shipping. Really very modestly priced as far as skimmers go.

The second item I purchased was a Danner Mag-Drive Supreme 9.5 submersible water pump from MarineDepot.com for 110$. This would be the pump which pushes the water back to the display tank from my sump. It's rated at 950 gallons per hour (gph) but there are some technical issues with that. First off when picking a return pump you want to know how many times per hours ALL the water in your tank is cycled through the filtration system. It's recommended at least 5 times per hours with 10+ being okay for a reef tank. Some hobbyists even go so far as to do 30-40 cycles per hour. So with a 44 gallon tank 10 cycles an hour is 440 gph. I was aiming for 10-20 cycles so I was in the 500-750 range. So why did I buy a pump rated for 950 gph? There's this little thing called "head distance." The head distance is how far the pump needs to push the water up. The further the distance the harder the pump needs to work. So at 1' head distance my pump pushes with 780 gph. At 3' 740gph. I approximate my head distance to be about 4-5' so at the low end my pump pushes 685gph at 5'. Not too bad. Lets design this sump!

I updated my schematic and came up with this...

As you can see my sump is quite full in this schematic. I also feel I should explain what the blue area is. It's called a bubble trap and it's used to do exactly what it sounds. When saltwater splashes around it creates what are called microbubbles. Just really fine bubbles in the water. Also, I believe protein skimmers can increase microbubbles but don't quote me on that. Anyway a bubble trap is made of 3 separators called "baffles." These baffles direct the flow of water toward the bottom of the tank while at the same time the microbubbles float to the surface and pop. Here's a beautiful illustration to illuminate my point.

So back to my schematic. So the water flows in through the yellow input drainage. The water gets cycled through the protein skimmer, travels the bubble trap and overflows into the output chamber. As you can see due to the actual size of my skimmer/return pump I have no room for a refugium which is also sad. I could get an external pump but that'd be more expensive and I'd still only leave me a 7.5'' x 7.5'' space for a refugium which still isnt very good. Realistically I'm not increasing my water volume much because my skimmer/pump are displacing a large volume of water by being inside my sump. What a pain in my ass. This plan is quickly going to hell. Now what do I do?

Day 2

Cost- 260$ in aquarium supplies

Total Cost Supplies- 300$
Total Cost Tools = 80$

My Custom Sump

Okay so I'm hoping at this point you're following along. I've explained the basics of a sump and now it's time to GET a sump. Most of you are probably thinking "cool, lets go to the fish store and buy one." Sure you can do that. Maybe. Sumps are made in certain sizes and shape to fit under certain aquariums. They are also fairly expensive. You could custom order one and it'd cost a few hundred followed by a few hundred more to ship it. I decided to take a different route. I've decided to build my own sump!

Okay so you may be thinking yeah right good luck. Am I the handiest man in the world? No. Have I ever done anything like this before? No. But still, I have a lot of free time and I want to try my hand at it, so cut me some slack! I mean hell, I know more about it that you do, boob.

So remember back a few posts ago I said...

"Well there are a couple different parts that come together to make a successful tank...

1- the tank
2- filtration
3- lighting
4- water chemistry
5- decor
6- fish!"

...well now it's time to focus on #1 the tank. Most all tanks are made of glass. They're more abundant and cheaper typically. But there is another options it's called acrylic. Acrylic is a type of plastic so it has very different properties than glass. For starters is MUCH stronger. Like 20 times stronger than glass. A good quality to have in a tank I'd say. It's also lighter which is good for handling and movement. On the downside acrylic is very prone to scratching. In fact, most anything will scratch acrylic whereas glass is very hard and resistant. Then again you wont have to see my sump the whole time so a few scratches won't make a big difference. Acrylic is also easier to cut- you can just use a table saw and chop it up yourself. I'm not sure how to cut glass but I really don't want to mess around trying to do it. For all these reasons I've decided to build my sump out of acrylic.

Another thing to keep in mind is a sump should take as the maximum space possible. You see, with a fish tank the more water the better. More water = more space for your pollutants to be diluted in and therefore are less likely to kill your fish. I'm going on the principle more is better and will make my sump the maximum size. So lets see how big I can make this thing..

So first problem. Remember my tank? It's a weird shaped pentagon. So in order to use the maximum volume I need to make an odd shaped tank. A rectangle just won't use sufficient volume. Here's a view of the interior of my stand to give you an idea. So I decided to go with an "L" shaped sump that will fit underneath my stand with a length and width of 15'' of the two long axis. Keep in mind my tank is TALL so if I want to use maximal volume I need to build my sump up, not long. Most sumps are just typical short rectangles. So far I've decided to build a 15x15 "L" shaped tall sump. Straight off the bat this is a weird project. I measured out my maximal height space and I have 22'' to work with upward. So I've decided to build my sump 16'' tall So I have a few inches to reach my hand in and work on the sump if I so need. So far sounds like an okay plan, right? Here's a schematic.

Below-tank sump schematic (click for larger view)

So as you can see nothing too complex. In theory. Now the only issue is I have no measuring instruments, no acrylic, and no table saw to cut it with, and nothing to glue to together with! First thing first I checked the local yellow pages under "plastic" and found an acrylic supplier. Took a trip to the store and bought about 40$ worth of 3/16'' thick acrylic. That wasn't too bad. A quick look on craigslist yielded me a small table saw for 40$ as well! After an afternoon of putting the saw together and doing some research online I learned I was going to need a blade with approximate 80 teeth on it. My current blade only had about 40. Supposedly too few teeth and the cut won't be fine and clean enough to weld properly in the end. A trip to the hardware store and another 40$ and I had a new blade. Somehow I even figured out how to install it. Certainly not professional work but it'll do the trick. Oh and don't worry- I eventually got the blade's guard to stay on.

Not gunna lie, I was a bit terrified the first time I used the saw. I had to assemble it myself and change the blade and I figured if I did anything wrong this blade was going to fly out at me and slice me with like 10000 rpm's of evil. At least it'd be a quick death. But no issues. The acrylic was easy to cut and the blade worked fine. The biggest issue was I was covered in plastic shards at the end and my neighbors probably didn't appreciate the noise (boo hoo).

I sliced up all my pieces and I was ready to begin forming the sump! Here's something I didn't know about acrylic until I started working with it. You don't actually glue acrylic together, you weld it. You use a plastic adhesive (its the consistency of water) and apply it between the two pieces. The liquid actually "melts" the two pieces of plastic together on a molecular level so it's more like welding than gluing. Here's a fun video (Tap. Tap plastics!) on how to properly weld acrylic. Sadly I didn't find this video until 1/2 way through my sump. Oh, and for any of you who might actually care about the specifics, the guys at the plastics store told me to use Weldon #3. So that's the solvent I used.

So I welded the box! I must admit I didn't really have all the tools and that's kinda a bummer. I didn't have a T-square or really anything to lean my pieces against to ensure they were at 90 degree angles so for anyone who's going to try something like this ensure you can do perfect right angles! The seams were far from perfect and I had some blotches (if the solvent drips anywhere it leaves a stain) but theoretically it is a functional sump. Take a look!

Ain't she pretty?

After about 10-30 minutes the tank is solid but it is highly recommended you let the solvent cure and the joints to weld for at minimum 24 hours. Many people give weeks to months to allow for a strong seal before using in an aquarium.

So that was day 1! Not too bad over all had a lot to learn and was some good practice!

Day 1
Cost- 40$ materials
80$ tools

Time- Approximately 6 hours

Sump Details

Okay, how about some meat and potatoes? Welcome to sumps. Shit's about to get crazy.

So as you recall a sump is the fish tank underneath your display tank which performs filtration for you. It's time to go into all the nitty gritty so you know what the eff I'm talking about. Filtration occurs in an aquarium in one of three ways

1- Mechanical
2- Chemical
3- Biological

Lets start with the basic one which is mechanical. This type of filtration simply means you use a physical device to remove bad shit from the water. Example- in most hang on filters there is a little pad inside. The water runs across the pad and anything too big to pass through it (such as fish poop) gets stuck. It mechanically filters out poop, algae, anything too big to wash through. It's a very simple form of filtration that just gets rid of the big stuff.

Chemical filtration involves adding chemicals to your tank or washing your water with a chemical to remove pollutants. An example- chlorine is toxic to fish. You may or may not know that chlorine is added to tap water to keep it "pure" and not growing bacteria etc. It's the same reason you put it in your pool. So if you tank your tap water and throw a fish in it they may die from chlorine toxicity. You can add a chemical to the water which will remove the chlorine rendering the water safe for fish.

Biological filtration is arguably the most important form of filtration and is rather simple actually. You have a whole bunch of "bad" stuff dissolved in your water. A living creature (lets say algae) takes that bad stuff and uses it to grow. So instead of having dirty water you now just have algae growing and turning the bad stuff into food.

Not too bad right? So now lets discuss how we actually do that. You achieve this by using your sump. A sump really is just a fish tank that is divided into a bunch of smaller segments. Each segment has a specific job so lets take a look at a sump!

A fairly basic sump.

Looks kinda complicated huh? I know, it takes a bit to understand what you're looking at. So lets talk about the basics of a sump. There are three main parts..

1- Intake
2- Refugium (often called a "fuge" for short)
3- Output

So follow along in the photo above. On the left side of the image is the intake. This is where water is drained from the display tank. The water travels down a pipe and fills the first chamber. Often at the end of the intake pipe there is a filter sock. The sock simply catches any big stuff before it goes into the rest of the sump (mechanical filtration!) Often a protein skimmer (the big tube-like device on the left of the photo above) is placed in the intake chamber to help clean the water. You may be asking "wtf is a protein skimmer?" Good question. It's a device which takes in salt water and removed organic pollutants from it. Organic molecules don't like water. Why? Well that's complicated just trust me 'kay? But a protein skimmer takes advantage of the "air-water" interface and uses bubbles to suck all the bad organic molecules from the water. It's a vital part of a healthy salt water aquarium. In other words it uses a mechanical device to perform chemical filtration!

Water flows from the intake to the middle chamber the refugium. The section of the sump where living organisms are allowed to grow. In other words its a refuge for these creatures, get it? Small creatures and algae live in here and eat some of the pollutants out of your water and help to clean it up (biological filtration)!

The final chamber on the right is the output chamber. Water flows here where a pump pushes the clean water up a pipe back to the display tank.

And the cycle is complete... your fishies swim in their fresh clean water, poop all over the place, it gets drained to the sump, cleaned, and pumped back up to the display tank. Nifty huh?

Keep in mind this is a BASIC sump. There is a lot more you can add to a sump. Heaters, chillers, calcium reactors, UV sterilizers, external skimmers, the list goes on. These are just the basic requirements. If you want to check out a complicated sump try to figure this puppy out for a bit...

Saltwater Basics

Welcome to Saltwater Aquariums 101. I figured it'd help to give you a basic understanding of what is involved in a saltwater fish tank before I start explaining what I did and blow your mind.

So where to begin. Well there are a couple different parts that come together to make a successful tank...

1- the tank
2- filtration
3- lighting
4- water chemistry
5- decor
6- fish!

Some of these are obvious I know and I'll eventually touch on all of these but for now I'll expand on the ones the average joe knows the least about. Lets start with filtration.

Most of you are probably used to freshwater tanks where you just have a little box hanging off the back of the tank to filter out fish poop. Nothing wrong with that! But most successful saltwater tanks (and some freshwater) use what is called a sump. A sump is an aquarium that sits underneath the main aquarium and is used for filtration purposes. Sound a bit weird? It kinda is. Here's a picture.

A saltwater sump

So as you can see it's literally a fish tank underneath your fish tank. So from now on when I refer to my "main aquarium" or "display tank" I'm referring to the top aquarium. The big one with all the pretty fish. NOT the smaller one which does filtration (that's the sump).

So what exactly does the sump do? Well, what happens is water gets drained from the display tank and flows into your sump. Once there, the water is filtered and cleaned and then gets pumped back to the display tank. It's a never-ending cycle of water draining, cleaning and pumping.


Okay that's a good basic description of a sump. Lets move on to lighting. You may think "Uhh Ross dude, it's an effing light. Stfu mate." Well yeah man, it is just a light but what does that light do?! In most tanks lights are just there to illuminate your fishies. Well, sadly that's not really just it. Lighting will determine what algae grows in your tank. Poor lighting = bad algae. And believe it or not there is such a thing as good algae! Lets say you want to go fancy and have some Sea Anemones in your tank for your clownfish to swim around in. Well, sea anemones have little photosynthetic bacteria in them which convert light to food. Wrong type of light = no food = dead sea anemone = two sad clownfish. Same thing goes for coral. They have photosynthetic bacteria so if your lighting is wrong the coral will starve and die. And those fuckers are expensive.


So as you can see lighting is actually important. As for water chemistry- really water chemistry is ultimately the most important aspect of a fish tank. But honestly water chemistry is so complicated I'm going to save it for it's own blog some time. Probably before my tank is ready for fish. Lets talk about decor quick though!

So- freshwater fish tank. You're probably thinking this....

Some gravel rock, some plastic plants, maybe a piece of wood or two and an air bubbler. Very typical for a run-of-the-mill freshwater tank. Lets compare to a saltwater...

First thing you probably noticed is no plants. It's all rock. The rock is very important and will be covered further soon but remember- rock is very important! Often you'll see a saltwater tank using sand not gravel. This too has it's reasons but you can realistically do either sand or gravel. I prefer sand personally. Lastly you'll notice corals in this photo but this is not a given. Corals are an advanced "decor" and may or may not be present. Really the biggest difference is the lack of plant life and the rocks.

Confused yet? I hope not. It's going to get hella more confusing than this. I'm going to hold off on discussing fish which is probably the only thing you guys care about. Too bad, go cry to your mommies and wait a few weeks.