Help me decide!

[AB Corals]

I'm buying a red sea reefer 170. I already have a huge sump in my basement thats hooked into my 93 gallon cube. Its also already hooked up to a dosing pump + the Trident. I would love to hook everything to one system, but then again I also worry about spreading things to the other tank (Bubble algae, aiptasia, snails etc)

What would you do? Would you go and buy another skimmer + pump to hook it into is own system? Plus I would have to buy another dosing pump... just sounds expensive! Or would you hook everything into the same system? I can't decide!

The new 170 reefer will be just a nem tank, no corals.

 

[Gungo]

It will save you a lot of time if you have only one system to take care about. What I don't understand is if you have the bubble algae, aptasia and snails on your own tank, or you're worried about connecting this new system to your own tank and may have this issues.

If its just a nem tank you should be all good with the reefer 170 sump running with pump and skimmer independently. Maybe later you can use it as a frag tank, maybe coral or fish QT or something like that.

If the reefer 170 has been running for a long time and you're not sure of what's inside of it I wouldn't connect it to my tank...

 

[AB Corals]

It will save you a lot of time if you have only one system to take care about. What I don't understand is if you have the bubble algae, aptasia and snails on your own tank, or you're worried about connecting this new system to your own tank and may have this issues.

If its just a nem tank you should be all good with the reefer 170 sump running with pump and skimmer independently. Maybe later you can use it as a frag tank, maybe coral or fish QT or something like that.

If the reefer 170 has been running for a long time and you're not sure of what's inside of it I wouldn't connect it to my tank...

I worry about spreading aiptasia because I have a bit of it in my current tank. (Just bought some nudibranchs so that should go away slowly ) And obviously if I throw in new frags that I buy in it if it comes with any snails or bubble algae since I don't have a QT frag tank hooked up at the moment.

 

[AB Corals]

Think it would be cool to hook a small drilled tank in the cabinet and add a overflow box on to for extra coral growth room instead of the sump that comes with the 170? Then add it all into my one system?

 

[AB Corals]

I ended up buying the red sea 170 and entire sump setup so it will be all on one closed system by itself. I'll put my rose bubble tips in my other tank. Going to make the 170 into a Black widow only tank with my 2 first ever clown fish from when I first started reefing. Should be a pretty cool setup! Might even youtube some videos is what I'm thinking of the entire journey!

 

[Silent]

I would only do seperate systems if they had different requirements mainly different dosing requirements. If both have sps then tie them together. If one is sps and the other is not then it will save you money to not unnecessarily dose another tank.

 

[AB Corals]

I would only do seperate systems if they had different requirements mainly different dosing requirements. If both have sps then tie them together. If one is sps and the other is not then it will save you money to not unnecessarily dose another tank.

Yep thats what I'm doing too, didn't even buy a dosing pump for the nem tank. I have a dos for my apex for auto water changes, so thinking that should supply it with enough calcium, mag, alk.

 

[FishTruck]

You have to pick your poison!

I like all the tanks on one system... they all thrive or fail together. Put all your effort into making one batch of water perfect with the best equipment you can afford and the least amount of elbow grease to sap your enthusiasm.