Tip of the Day – 10/13/2011

When planning out your aquarium build, it’s always recommended that you get equipment that is designed to handle a larger volume than your system may have. This allows hobbyists a bit more wiggle room when it comes to stocking the tank, and also provides a little added power to the system if a fish dies or something decides to spawn randomly. On the other side of that coin, you can go too big on certain items. Protein skimmers that are too big won’t skim properly all of the time. Additionally, things like calcium reactors and biopellet reactors can cause all sorts of trouble if they are used on much smaller systems than they are designed to handle. The calcium reactor can cause a constantly suppressed pH and the biopellet media can consume a great deal of dissolved oxygen. So, go a little bigger than recommended, but don’t go crazy with it.