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[moldrik]

Hey guys,

One of my books was talking about the plenum system, and I just visited GARF's website and they were talking about setting up tanks using a plenum system.

How does everyone feel about this? To the people that have setup their tank as a plenum system, can you see the plenum in the tank when looking at the tank normally? Does it stick high enough for you to be able to see the pipes and whatnot, or did you cover it with something?

Do you find that it does provide an extra level of stability that is considered beneficial enough to the tank to make the jump?

My tank is still cycling ( started it 10 days ago ), so I wouldn't mind taking the time to re-set it up if it means a substantial difference in my tanks future stability.
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[mike31154]

I don't have a plenum although like yourself have done some reading regarding their use & effectiveness. To me it just seems a little too complicated/risky. If something goes wrong you have to tear your whole system apart to get down there and fix it. IMO there are better ways to keep your system stable such as a sump and/or refugium. Both are easily accessible and monitored. You can add a DSB to your sump or refugium which will do much the same job as a plenum and you can keep an eye on it. Plenums are hidden under your rock work and additional sand... you never really know what's going on down there.

[Delphinus]

Wow, plenums. They were sort of on the tail-end of being in vogue when I got into the hobby about 10 years ago - people either had a plenum or a bare-bottom tank. It seems to me their usage sort of peaked in the mid-90's. I ran my first reef system on a plenum and it seemed to work out OK except for the 2 years or thereabouts that I had a jawfish who burrowed down to the plenum and rendered it ineffective. But when he wasn't in the picture that was a clean reef tank.

Anyhow it seems to me people realized that you could run a DSB instead of a plenum and have just as nice a system and then people realized you could run a shallow sandbed instead of a DSB and have just as nice a system and then people realized you could have BB tank instead of sand and have just as nice a system and that basically would take us full circle if it wasn't for that plenums don't seem to have made a huge comeback.

Anyhow I guess the point being is they are just another way to run a tank, there are others, the only thing that makes it wrong or right is how happy you are with the method you choose. :)

Oh to answer your question about the front panel, what I did was have the plenum have a sidewall and push it back from front glass so that I could fill the gap with sand. So it looked like a DSB instead of a plenum.

I wasn't unhappy with the method per se but I myself wouldn't bother going that way again. "Been there, done that" kind of thing.

[moldrik]

Thanks for the answer. I guess these questions arise from being an inexperienced reef aquarist. I am still trying to figure out if there are any "methods" that might superceed over the other. I guess in this hobby, this mentality seems to happen a lot. With the answer always being: there is no "best" method.
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