Aqua clear fuge

BurgerKing wrote:I love live aquaria's site, I read up on fish for kicks. I heard that the snails need a really deep bed(like 3"), I wasnt planning on going that deep but will if I dont like the look of the shallow bed. And for stars, I doubt I'd be able to keep them for long, maybe grow them out for a little while then down the road put them in a larger setup. I'm nagging my parents to let me get a 55g, It's not working too well.

As tempting as it might be, I urge you to rethink the 3" sandbed idea. It can be difficult to maintain. I speak from experience. If you want to go deeper than a shallow sandbed (SSB 1" or less) go full out to a deep sandbed (DSB > 5") that should not need to be touched. There are however some risks associated with a DSB.

Oh sorry, I wasnt planning on haveing a deep sand bed, I tried i with my africans and it sucked. I was planning on around 1" of sand.

Perfect!

the snails do not need a very deep sandbed at all, mine is an 1" to 1.5" (USA remember ) and they do fine

Ok, so I dont think I'm going to mod my filter. It doesnt really seem like its worth it. I'm getting the Prizm protein skimmer that is for tanks up to 90g, it's the smallest one my LFS sells(and gives me the option of getting a larger tank), except for one that's for up to 20g. I'm also getting live sand and rock and in my readings today I've learned that people have been successful keeping fish without filters, just having live sand and rock, then doing regular water changes.

You got it BurgerKing. the filters are just detrius traps and cause the nitrates to spike, causing Phosphates to spike, hence causing algae growth and lots of work.

I had a biowheel in mine when I first started, had massive Hair Algae, couldn't figure out why,,,, removed the biowheel and much much better!!!

Lol, its so odd going from cichlids to SW, filtration is too different for me to keep up. Anyways thanks for your input and time.