[charlie]

Cool, did you get a male, or just 4 females?

[weez1959]

they said they are only 2" so it's hard to tell. He (J&L Aquatics) also said in a group one will turn into a male, is this right? anyone know more about these fish? Should I have only gotten 3 instead of 4, I can still call them cuz they ship today...

[charlie]

I have had them change for me. It is quite the impressive happening for sure. Took mine about a month to complete the change. Get your camera out, for sure.
I have a bunch of running around to do today, but I will look for the pics of my lyretail changing.
Maybe Lee could give you a bit more insight into this too?

[weez1959]

Yes Lee, that would be nice, I haven't bugged you in quite a while!

[Reefland]

Drop Lee a thread in his forum.

[weez1959]

I bought my sump today, kind of a strange choice of tank but I got a good deal. It's a 36 gallon bowfront, I got it for the same price as a 25 gallon regular. I'll be putting in my baffles on the weekend so I'm showing you how I'm planning on doing it, any comments?

[Reefland]

I would make the section for the return pump large, Keep in mind that this is the partition that the evaporation will occur in. If you could make it 9-12" I think you'll be in good shape.

[jsheffel]

I am in the process of setting up a 180 gal and have been giving a lot of thought to sump configurations recently. The problem with doing a linear setup as you have drawn, is that 100% of the flow through the sump has to go through the refugium section. If you split the drain line so that part goes in one end (where you have your skimmer) and part into the other end (where you have your refugium) then return from the middle, you can have the best of both worlds. For your bowfront setup you would get the added benefit of using the deepest section where you will be dealing with evaporation.

[weez1959]

I'm having a hard time picturing it, can you draw up a sketch or something?

[jsheffel]

Take a look at this one. It's a plumbing thing as much as a sump design. In the top picture, the skimmer section is on the right, the refugium section on the left and the return section in the middle. The refugium will always be full nearly to the top, the skimmer section about half to two thirds with the last third of the majority of the sump available to handle backflow in the event of a power outage. For the plumbing, you would put a diverter on your drain line with a valve that controlled the flow into the refugium section. Once you adjusted the flow to the refugium section, whatever didn't go there would flow into the skimmer section.

Melev's Reef - Sump Model G