Sump Setup?

[wannabeeareefkeeper]

I'm considering placing polyester filler material in a new sump that I want to setup for a reef tank. The polyester will be the first stop once the water leaves the main aquarium would be the polyester filler material and then into the matrix area of the sump.

1.) What are you thoughts on this setup?

2.) Where do you purchase your polyester material from?

3.) If you have/had used polyester in a saltwater tank; I would like to hear about your experiences with polyester within the filtering stage of your reef tank.


Wannabee

 

[jdavid]

This is totally fine, buy large quantities of it in the craft section of Walmart or hobby lobby or Michaels (wherever you want to shop). It is sold as synthetic pillow/quilt stuffing, usually called polyfil or similar. I would avoid the flat stuff and go for the fluffy stuff, but that's your call. So long as it's 100% polyester it's completely safe and a fine alternative to filter socks since you can just trash it and replace it once a week due to the low cost.

 

[hnguyen]

I used it for years and love it. Its a shame I can't use it with my new tank since it doesn't stop micro bubbles like filter socks do so I ended up with socks now. I still have about 200' of that stuff in my fish room begging to be used.


Sent from my Nokia Lumia 1020 using Tapatalk

 

[wannabeeareefkeeper]

Hnguyen;943358 wrote: I used it for years and love it. Its a shame I can't use it with my new tank since it doesn't stop micro bubbles like filter socks do so I ended up with socks now. I still have about 200' of that stuff in my fish room begging to be used.


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First, thanks for your responses JDavid and Hnguyen. Hnguyen is there any other ways to prevent the micro bubbles beside the filter socks?

I've never had a sump or refugium setup, so I am now investigating my options.


Wannabee

 

[hnguyen]

WannabeeaReefKeeper;943415 wrote: First, thanks for your responses JDavid and Hnguyen. Hnguyen is there any other ways to prevent the micro bubbles beside the filter socks?

I've never had a sump or refugium setup, so I am now investigating my options.


Wannabee

I've tried everything I could think of to prevent micro bubbles in my new 90 but I was stumped. I stacked layers and layers of the filter floss and I couldn't stop it. It was maninly due to my return pump being way to strong. My return pump was pushing 1300 gph and amazingly my overflow could handle it but it was producing way too much bubbles in my sump which turned into micro bubbles once my return pump ate it up. The only way I could stop the bubbles was to turn my return pump to around 500 gph which was way too low for my liking. I put in a 4" filter sock and it helped greatly until it started to overflow due to it's small size. Now I'm running 7" filter socks and no micro bubbles even with my return pump pushing about 1000 gph now. The 7" socks also don't clog as quickly and should be able to last me about a week before it wants to overflow.

I'm not sure how your set up will be like and how your sump is set up but it filter floss may work depending on your set up.

 

[darren24]

My drain goes directly in to a filter sock also and no bubbles at all.

 

[sewer urchin]

If you choose to use the polyester filler make sure hat it hasn't been treated with any type of flame retardant. I'm not even sure if they do any more, but would hate to see a "tank crash" thread. I'm sure that it would be listed on the label.