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Help with Lighting and Skimmer


yrevanth

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Hi,

 

I have a 29 Gallon aquarium and I set up a new sump (15G) just today!! :D

 

I had a question with regard to my Protein skimmer and lighting..

 

I have a CPR hang on the back skimmer, which I transferred to my sump, but it is not functioning as it did on my aquarium, the water level is just enough to cover the intake pump for the skimmer, I dont know if this should be at some minimum depth for it to function properly...and if I should just transfer it back to my aquarium, where it was working well, which brings me to the second question

 

My second question is this:

 

I bought a Cadlights 150W HQI MH with 2 T5HO fixtures with inbuilt ballast!! :D

awesome piece of lighting (thanks to Issac), but the thing is it weighs nearly 20 lbs,

I dont know if I can just buy some legs for the light and put it directly on top of my aquarium, as I dont know if the glass will be able to bear the weight!! please help!

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Hmm.. ok.. will the tank be able to bear the weight of a hang on the back protein skimmer as well? I am really apprehensive about the weight that I will be putting on it... the protein skimmer itself weighs about 8 lbs when it is filled with water...so thats a total of 28+ pounds on the glass tank!!

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glass is surprisingly strong...if it's a standard 29, I wouldn't worry. the skimmer's intake probably does have a minimum water height that is higher than the intake because it has to pull a suction to get started and the pump can only do so much. you can probably modify it to sit in the sump to decrease that problem, raise the sump's water level or put it on the display...but what's the point in a sump if the skimmer's hanging on the display? just to make water changes easier? to make your system 44 gallons instead of 39 for stability of water quality?

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Do I need to have some overhead space in the sump fr return water if the pump fails? Or just fill her up to the brim? I actually consdered doing tht. . .:-P just needed to hear it from someone else. . ;-)

 

You will need extra space. Otherwise you will end up with a couple of gallons of water on the floor when you loose power or shut off the pumps for servicing.

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You will need extra space. Otherwise you will end up with a couple of gallons of water on the floor when you loose power or shut off the pumps for servicing.

 

Noob's right. you can do a test: get it all running with about 10 gallons in the sump and put a little pen mark or tape or something at the water level. then pull the plug on the return pump (and skimmer if you want to check it) and wait for all the water to stop moving (draining) in the sump. note the height difference between the mark you made running and the new water level. you need a minumum of that much room between the operating water level and the 'brim' of the sump. it's probably going to be about 2 gallons...that's my guess, could be 1 gallon. but you'll want to check it with a low water level first.

 

make sense?

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