Starting a reef tank

For the skimmer collection container see
http://www.waynesallee.com/skimmer.jpg
There are 2 holes in the top, one for skimate in,
and one for air out. The carbon helps remove oders.

I recomend two power strips. One for lighting, and
the other for pumps and heater. That way you can
turn one or the other off quickly. Make sure that
they are easily accessible so that you can turn one
or the other off in a flash.

Purchase a submersiable heater, not only are they
better, but salt creap is hard on the nonsubmersable
heaters. and yes, place it in the sump at the bottom
horizontally. The heater might say not to, but do it
anyway. Of course you would not dare do this with a
non-submersable heater :-)

Wayne Sallee




Big Habeeb wrote on 10/1/2007 10:11 AM:
Hey gang, ok so here's where I stand after tshi weekend (unfortunatley
I did not make my goal of having it up and running with water and
substrate).
I have the tank setup in what will be its final
position...unfortunately I realized too late on Saturday that I didn't
have a good surge strip around to setup all the various bits and
pieces, so tonight I'll pick that up so I can actually get started.
The refugium is setup, all connected to the tank correctly (far as I
can tell, at any rate), so I now have 2 questions:
1. Where should I place the heater? The LFS recommended dropping it
either into the refugium or into hte overflow box...any opinions on
that?

2. Protein skimmer. I have one. It's put together and sitting in my
refugium. A couple things I'm unsure of: the 'waste' tube...where
should that be pointing? The guy at the store said just to stick it
into a soda bottle or something...agree on that? Other
question...where should the power pump go for the skimmer? I have the
pump for the overflow in the 'clean' side of the refugium, but was
unsure where to position the pump for the skimmer...Should it be in
the water in the ref.? Does it matter if it's on the dirty or clean
side?

Thanks again all for the wealth of great advice!
Mitch