I recently bought a Hydor Koralia 3 from Drs. Foster and Smith a couple of weeks ago. I had heard a lot of good comments on this reef pump and wanted to try one for a while now. I needed a couple of things for my reef aquarium anyway so I decided to buy a Hydor Koralia 3 while I was at it.
My first impression on this pump was not a good one, It’s huge, The measurement on this pump is a little over five inches long not to mention that it was as round as my fist. So after finding a suitable place in my 46gallon that would hide the pump I plugged it into my wave maker. My red sea wavemaster pro kicks that pump on and “click click”, I knew right away that it was the new Koralia pump so I left the pump on and whenever the wavemaker would click it on the Koralia 3 would click. This wasn’t just a little click either it almost sounded like a mantis shrimp tapping on the shell of an unsuspecting snail.
I found a “quick” fix on Reefcentral that involves placing a small piece of airline tubing on the propeller shaft. It still clicked when the wavemaker clicked on but not as loud. Unfortunatly for me it was not good enough as my tank is right next to my bedroom and I absolutely need it to be dead quiet at nite. So i unplug the Koralia pump from the wavemaker and I plug it into the wall outlet.
I quickly learned after plugging it into the wall outlet how little the pump actually pushed water. I was surprised that the pump was hardly moving my green sinularia just a few inches away. I put my hand in front of the pump and it seemed that the flow was about right 850 gph as it was going to replace a pump that did about the same rate. The Koralia however is designed to disperse flow instead of giving it a “stream” flow.
I gave up on this pump and i sent it back to Drs. foster and smith. Not only was I disappointed that I couldn’t use it with my Red Sea wavemaker, I was disappointed in the size and the poor performance.
With all the new innovative lighting and skimmer designs this year I cant wait to get my hands on some new equipment. Its been years since I set up my 46gallon bow-front and my lighting needs to be replaced and Ive been very unhappy with my current skimmer.
I am currently using an Aqua C Remora Pro as my skimmer and when I fist set up my aquarium it did a decent job, however I was always envious of what other reefkeepers where pulling out of their skimmers. This year Bermuda aquatics really have my eye, not because my Lfs, Something Fishy (also a huge online saltwater fish and reef supplier)uses them exclusively but because I haven’t heard one bad thing about them yet. Keep in mind they are just breaking out into the marine reef aquarium world, but there products, are more then promising.
My lighting is horrible for what I keep under it, believe it or not I am keeping soft leathers, a carpet anemone and some LPS under 192watts of pc lighting. I haven’t changed the bulbs in two years, mainly because each bulb costs nearly $40 and i just cant seem to justify spending that for one bulb every six months. So this year I made a vow to myself to get a nice T5 setup and luckily for me and hundreds of other reefers, Current released there new model the Extreme Pro. The Extreme Pro Uses a six bulb set up instead of the usual four bulbs that older models had. Each of the six bulbs has an individual reflector and replacement bulbs go for nearly half of what pc bulbs go for and T5 bulbs don’t need to be changed nearly as much. Its like a dream all those concentrated watts without the heat of metal halides. This is going to be a good year for reef tanks.
Finding a easy start up guide for marine reef aquriums is hard to come by. When I first started I did not have a clue about reef aquariums. Thankfully there were sites like reefcentral that I could ask a ton of questions, but one thing was still missing, a beginner guide. So I decided to take a few hours tonight and write up a step by step guide for setting up a marine reef aquarium.
Keep in mind this is very basic and should be used as an outline when setting up a tank. The reasearch involed in many diffrent aspects of the marine aquaria such as lighting, flow and water chemisistry are generally based on one’s setup and tank, as there are no two tanks a like. So the beginner guide is just to show the beginner where to start and how to go about doing it. You can find this article on the right hand side of this page under the tab “pages”.
With all the new innovative lighting and skimmer designs this year I cant wait to get my hands on some new equipment. Its been years since I set up my 46gallon bow-front and my lighting needs to be replaced and Ive been very unhappy with my current skimmer. 
four bulbs that older models had. Each of the six bulbs has an individual reflector and replacement bulbs go for nearly half of what pc bulbs go for and T5 bulbs don’t need to be changed nearly as much. Its like a dream all those concentrated watts without the heat of metal halides. This is going to be a good year for reef tanks.