How much LR?

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Hi Guys

This is just a little consensus im doing to find out 1.) how much kg LR is needed minimum for adiquite filtraision. eg. 20kg for a 4ft tank. and eg. 100kg on the same size would be over kill.

2.) on say a 4ft,how much LR would i need to make either a LR wall that covers the whole back of the tank and/or to make two small islands with LR.
Are their any pro's or con's RE the two differnt scaping ideas?

Thanx guys.
 
I'm not the pro here but with myne I worked on 1kg/10L. So for a 250L system you use 25 kg LR.
The thing with rock against the back is the build up of debri at the back, but if you can have flow there you can do that. With two islands you have nice flow all around the rock and through.

Please guys correct me if I'm wrong.
 
cool thanx.So did you go the wall or the 2 islands route?You dont perhaps have a pic or two of your scapeing?
 
I first went for one big centre island and moved to the two islands thing. I will send you a pic tomorrow because I'm at pilansberg at the moment. Is that fine?
 
That will be great thank you!
 
Hi there,

I'm quite new, but have done lotsa research on this...it also depends on what you gonna keep in the tank and how much... also what type of artificial filtration you have... if you have a sump system with protein skimmer etc, and a few fish, you can get away with less at the beginning... LR is expensive, so I'm proceeding with care :)
 
Here is two pics one with a big island and the two islands.
29-1.jpg


P7100078.jpg
 
Hi Guys

This is just a little consensus im doing to find out 1.) how much kg LR is needed minimum for adiquite filtraision. eg. 20kg for a 4ft tank. and eg. 100kg on the same size would be over kill.

2.) on say a 4ft,how much LR would i need to make either a LR wall that covers the whole back of the tank and/or to make two small islands with LR.
Are their any pro's or con's RE the two differnt scaping ideas?

Thanx guys.
the general consensus is that 1kg\10l rule of thumb but as you say there is more to the equation than a simple ratio.

one of the best advice i recall on the topic was weeman saying that often 'less is more' with LR whereby he went on to explain that a solid barier at the correct ratio will lead to detritus and that with LR being the 'lungs' of your filtration you really should get as good quality as possible for the filtration.

personally (and ive done this for a couple of reasons) ive started with almost 250 kg in an 800l tank. but that was just to cycle and cure. that lead to difficulties with flow and thus a poorly circulated tank (despite heavy internal flow) and thus water quality and stability problems. ive now thinnned that down to around 130kg in 800l which is still a BIG reef.

but i thinned that down by selling some off (reef funding) and by increasing overall water vollume (bigger sump and remote filtration) so i actually have around 170kg throughout the 1100l system.

Idealy i will weed the DT down some more later on (after i have introduced shy fish who need reef for protection) and i will go with around 90kg\800l water vollume in the tank. that way i have a reef thats easier to scape and i have better flow around the tank.

in all the simple rule of thumbs should be looked at as to what you want to achieve and how you want to go about it. Ive mapped my tank out and know roughly what i want to achieve, but for simplicities sake i started off by aiming at that 10kg\l rule of thumb.
 
Thanks guys for all your input!!!:thumbup:
 
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