Tank Questions

[KyleV]

I resently went skimmerless due to bubbles and space requirments for a fuge. All is going well with 0 on the trates an phos.

Now I want to tackle adding 1-2 gallons a day of water.

So the question is with a mixed reef and a 24" high tank can pure t-5's do the trick over my (2) 250 watt MH and 2 39 watt t-5?

Heat is not an issue temp wise but I'm assuming is a large contributer to evaporation.

Please comment freely.

[RayAllen]

So you are asking if you switched to T5's from a combo of MH and T5s would it cut down on evap? It may help a little but not drastically to take away the benefits of your MH. I run 4 48" NO bulbs over my FOWLR and have at least 2 gallons a day evap; with that said MH or not you are going to loose water to evaporation. Add a 10-20g tank to your system to use as a top off and you will be good to go.

[KyleV]

Mine is a 70 gallon with a 20 sump and I was thinking about going with 6 39 watt HO. If that isn't going to do any good on water evap then I guess ATO is the answer that I didn't want to hear.

Experience vs cost is why this site works!

[hobogato]

yep, the only automated way to keep from adding water constantly is some form of auto top off.

[RayAllen]

Heres a link to a affordable system, I too have a tight budget so its always nice to save.

http://www.top-off.com/

[KyleV]

Thanks! The t-5's were going to cost a bounch bought in the long run I was hoping it would save based on time. Is the JBJ ATO just as good as the one on the link? Aqua Dome has one in stock....