Natural Filtration

[nicholc2]

1 hour ago, Nano sapiens said:

I think you'll find that over time the system will become more stable and the organisms will appear less stressed.

 

Now, what can really bend people's minds is that it's possible to go even simpler and forego the macro algae (just regular water changes with some detritus removal).  Either way, good results are possible and this just goes to show how adaptable a reef system can be if given stability and sufficient time to mature.

That’s what I’m hoping. My system has been running for years at this point so it’s mature. This is taking it to the next level. Also recently took my dosing a step further by doing many minute dosings over shorter periods of time so super small adds throughout the day and night to keep it super stable. Also with the new fuge I am running opposing light schedules which will also keep PH more stable.

 

I do think I’ll keep the macro though and will be adding to my pod population here soon too. Want to try and get that higher so more natural food is available for the fish and coral. 

 

I need to rename my thread “Chud’s Wholistic Reef” now. LOL

[jSully]

At what point are you able to stop feeding your tank as it becomes completely self-sufficient on zooplankton with phyto dosing to keep the zoops fed?

 

Are you able to dose phyto in your top off RO water?

 

extra credit: will cleaner shrimp eat zooplankton or are they strictly herbivores?

 

 

[Subsea]

On 6/30/2018 at 2:26 AM, xtra0t said:

At what point are you able to stop feeding your tank as it becomes completely self-sufficient on zooplankton with phyto dosing to keep the zoops fed?

 

Are you able to dose phyto in your top off RO water?

 

extra credit: will cleaner shrimp eat zooplankton or are they strictly herbivores?

 

 

Shrimp are opportunistic, leaning heavy toward carnivore.  

 

My tank makes its own phytoplankton.  

 

With respect to completely self sufficient,  aside from light and gas exchange, it could be done with difficulty, depending on what you want to look at.  For me, it is much easier to feed heavy then for nutrient export, frag and sell coral.

[Subsea]

On 6/19/2018 at 7:43 AM, Nano sapiens said:

GFO was originally marketed correctly as a substance to lower abnormally high phosphate conditions and it was not meant to be used continuously.  However, through effective marketing and backed by selective scientific articles, it became a 'must use' substance that many reef keepers incorrectly believed that their aquarium couldn't do without.  

 

As Subsea mentioned, corals are amazingly adaptable in regards to feeding strategies.  Natural methods of reef keeping are highly unlikely to strip a tank of enough nutrients to seriously effect coral health.  To know what it takes to actually do so in a naturally filtered reef aquarium, I can say from my own experiment a number of years back that one needs to remove all fish, severely limit the cleanup crew and don't feed the tank at all for about 4 months.  The corals then became quite pasty colored and growth nearly stopped, but even under these extreme conditions all the corals survived and rapidly recovered once the system was run normally again.

It is amazing to me that coral are so resilient.  If I had stressed an emerging tomato plant the way you stressed the corals in your experiment, it would have remained stunted.

[Nano sapiens]

7 minutes ago, Subsea said:

It is amazing to me that coral are so resilient.  If I had stressed an emerging tomato plant the way you stressed the corals in your experiment, it would have remained stunted.

Yes, that's true indeed.  Many plants will either stunt or give up when conditions aren't good, but many corals will just wait it out and then ramp up again rather quickly when things improve.

[Subsea]

http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/

 

 

Rereading this after many years, it is so much more clearer to me how important the sandbed is in a reef tank.  Micro fauna & fana in substrate process detritus and inorganic nutrients into live food for corals and fish thru complex food webs.

[Subsea]

http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/

 

Filtration in a reef tyank gets complicated fast when dealing with biochemistry.  Chuck gets deep into it in this series.

 

[ Another way to look at nutrients is found in the terms "import","recycle" and "export"]

[    As the word implies, anything that we put into the tank, all life forms and their food. Limit what is put into the tank, and you limit what has to be removed. Over stocking livestock and over feeding are the two biggest offenders. Limiting the types of food is also a good control method also. Dry prepared foods such as flakes and pellets are extremely high in nutrients (phosphates), The frozen foods are more ideal as they can be rinsed of any nutrient laden water/juices. 

 

    This is when what nutrients are present are used by "something" and then later released back into the system again. A good example would be the clean up crew, algae absorbs nutrients to grow, thus locking it up within it, a snail comes along and eats the algae, removes some of the nutrients for its own biological needs and then poops, which then rots back into nutrients, while not as much nutrients as the algae first encountered, there is still some of the original nutrients being recycled back into the tank as the snail's waste breaks down.

    This is where all the above mentioned filters come into play by either physically removing the nutrients both before and after they have broken down, or by locking them up within other plants which can be trimmed and thrown away, or by something so simple as just doing a water change or something more complicated as chemically attracting them (binding) or even by destroying them with oxidizers. ]

 

 

The above quote from the article outlines  my reef husbandry.

[FLARGUE]

On 6/29/2018 at 11:53 PM, nicholc2 said:

I have to say I was recently thinking of going all natural and I posed the question and thanks to Redsea I did. I took out my skimmer and replaced it with a HOB refugium with chaeto. 

 

It’s only been a week and already I’m seeing the positive effects. My RFA’s are opened more. So are my LPS. One of my SPS that was starting to STN has stopped and is coloring back up. 

 

Maybe it’s a coincidence, but so far I’m liking the change!

My tank is run the same way, all natural, and it's been a great experience. I love the simplicity. I run an aquaclear HOB refugium with chaeto.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

1 hour ago, FLARGUE said:

My tank is run the same way, all natural, and it's been a great experience. I love the simplicity. I run an aquaclear HOB refugium with chaeto.

Yeah same here on my 20g....fluval c3 hob with filter floss and chemipure blue. So far all life seems happy 

[BrentSA]

On Thu Apr 05 2018 at 2:51 PM, Subsea said:

  It tells me that many of the creatures in our marine tanks are opportunistic.  

 

Just a great thread in general , as for the quoted text , I think that rings true for any animal , don't think anything is truly and purely a "Herbivore" , even a horse will eat a fallen baby bird . 

[Subsea]

On 6/19/2018 at 7:43 AM, Nano sapiens said:

GFO was originally marketed correctly as a substance to lower abnormally high phosphate conditions and it was not meant to be used continuously.  However, through effective marketing and backed by selective scientific articles, it became a 'must use' substance that many reef keepers incorrectly believed that their aquarium couldn't do without.  

 

As Subsea mentioned, corals are amazingly adaptable in regards to feeding strategies.  Natural methods of reef keeping are highly unlikely to strip a tank of enough nutrients to seriously effect coral health.  To know what it takes to actually do so in a naturally filtered reef aquarium, I can say from my own experiment a number of years back that one needs to remove all fish, severely limit the cleanup crew and don't feed the tank at all for about 4 months.  The corals then became quite pasty colored and growth nearly stopped, but even under these extreme conditions all the corals survived and rapidly recovered once the system was run normally again.

After reading thru thread, I came to this post and realized how important in today’s “hi tech” culture the “instant fix” is.  Yes, I compared “quick fixes” with “faulty thinking”.  I understand that with nano & pico tanks it is easy to hit the reset button and sterilize clean the tank, then reintroduce the biological filter.  When you get into large systems, you can not manhandle the biological filter.  At that point, you better understand the biology of marine systems.  

 

Martin Moe said it at the first MACNA conference I went to.  In reference  to US moon landing, he said about the

reef keeping hobby, “It’s not rocket science, it is more complicated”.  Thirty years later, Randy Holmes Farley said this to me in reference to biochemistry, “We sent a man to the moon 50 years ago, yet we can’t cure cancer”.

[Subsea]

On 8/3/2018 at 7:18 AM, BrentSA said:

Just a great thread in general , as for the quoted text , I think that rings true for any animal , don't think anything is truly and purely a "Herbivore" , even a horse will eat a fallen baby bird . 

Brent,

Thank you for the observation of the horse and the bird, unusual.  For certain, with respect to generalizations there are usually more exceptions then the rule.

 

 

First tank was 55G with undergravel filter.  Substrate was crushed up oyster shells from the chicken feed store.  I collected peppermint shrimp and condalactis Anemone on the jetties in Galveston.  In the grass flats were ghost shrimp, green mollies, and Sheepshead minnows.  First live rock was an oyster cluster with numerous “fans a waving”.  Years later, I was bragging about the dark burgundy mat on my substrate.  This friend was an experienced reefer and he blurted out, “You mean the cynobacteria”.  I said what is cyno?

 

I have come a long way since those “ignorance is bliss” days.

[AlmightyJoshaeus]

Hi there! My mom gave me the go ahead for a refugium on my 10 gallon NPS garden, now that I have thoroughly researched the basics of setting one up ? of course, the basics ('how to avoid flooding your floor') is far from the complete refugium story. I wanted your input how to set up a cryptic refugium in a 5 gallon tank. Here go the questions;

1 - Does it need live sand? I was going to add live rock but wasn't sure whether live sand was necessary.

2 - On a related note, do I ever use a gravel vacuum on the refugium itself? Or do I limit water changes to the display tank? You talked about letting detritus accumulate in the refugium to feed the copepods and such.

3 - Can I make it a dual refugium? Perhaps with a divider...a macroalgae refugium on one side, a cryptic refugium on the other.

4 - I was thinking of using a 160 GPH return pump and either a 200 or 550 GPH HOB overflow. Would this work?

5 - What should I stock the refugium with? I know copepods are a good idea, but what about rotifers, mysis shrimp, or other ideas?

6 - Does it matter what kind of live sponge I use?

Thank you ?

[Subsea]

36 minutes ago, AlmightyJoshaeus said:

Hi there! My mom gave me the go ahead for a refugium on my 10 gallon NPS garden, now that I have thoroughly researched the basics of setting one up ? of course, the basics ('how to avoid flooding your floor') is far from the complete refugium story. I wanted your input how to set up a cryptic refugium in a 5 gallon tank. Here go the questions;

1 - Does it need live sand? I was going to add live rock but wasn't sure whether live sand was necessary.

2 - On a related note, do I ever use a gravel vacuum on the refugium itself? Or do I limit water changes to the display tank? You talked about letting detritus accumulate in the refugium to feed the copepods and such.

3 - Can I make it a dual refugium? Perhaps with a divider...a macroalgae refugium on one side, a cryptic refugium on the other.

4 - I was thinking of using a 160 GPH return pump and either a 200 or 550 GPH HOB overflow. Would this work?

5 - What should I stock the refugium with? I know copepods are a good idea, but what about rotifers, mysis shrimp, or other ideas?

6 - Does it matter what kind of live sponge I use?

Thank you ?

 

Thank you for your detailed comments/questions.  I will not answer all of your questions on this post, but I will address one question at a time and will refer to question number when I comment.  However, if you have more specific questions, ask them when you think of them, so they are ‘t lost.  In time I will answer them.  If I forgot, then remind me.  We can both learn this way.

 

1.  Cryptic refugium does not need any substrate or live rock.  Sponges will attach to anything.  To increase surface area, I suggest using eggcrate placed perpendicular to water flow.  Detritus will accumulate in first compartment.  In time, this will be a mud filter for  worms to proliferate.  

 

On my 120G  tank on top, I use a 40G breeder on bottom completely open with raw water entering on opposite end as return pump.  After 11 months, I see accumulating detritus in differrent places.  Because I used live rock in cryptic refugium, I set rock on eggcrate to keep up out of the detritus/mud.  I find live rock to be inefficient because it restricts flow through.  I am in process to use eggcrate stacked together perpendicular to water flow.

[Subsea]

@AlmightyJoshaeus

 

2.  Refugiums should never need gravel vac.  Janitors of micro fauna & fana should maintain refugiums as they proliferate.  For your situation, in your NPS display, I do recommend a sandbed that will require vacume management, depending on feeding and janitors.  IMO, you should remove your carnivore fish to allow profusion of pods which will feed your NPS cup corals.  With respect to substrate, I suggest a max of 2”.  This substrate will be a large contributor of live food webs in your  system.  In its own  sense, this will be a bacterium/plankton reactor with entirely differrent food than conventional live food.

 

3.  Dual refugium would work well.  Cryptic sponge refugium would be better with less flow.  So run them in parallel with less flow to cryptic refugium.  

 

4.  Those flow rates are good.  If money is not prohibitive, I suggest higher flow rate on surface skimmer HOB overflow.

 

5.  With respect to other micro inverts in refugium, I suggest you keep it simple without adding to many different micro inverts in same system.  Some will eat eac( other.    When feeding filter feeders, they can all eat smaller sized foods with little problem.  Research your food sizes that you are planning to grow.  That’s on you.  

 

I suggest you get three separate copepod species from AlgaeBarn and seed refugium.  Culture phytoplankton and feed refugium daily

 

6.  Try sponges on dark side of rocks from established reefers.  Yes, I think it matters.  There are > 50K species of sponges.  I am pretty sure there are more than a few species of cryptic sponge.

[AlmightyJoshaeus]

Know any commercial vendors with live rock I can turn to?

 

EDIT: Facepalm...talking to one...

[Subsea]

 

 

What does live rock mean to You?  

 

To me, real live rock with maxim biodiversity means uncured diver collected live rock collected in 30’ of water 30 miles west of Tampa Bay.  If you are serious about natural filtration, I suggest you get a single nice piece for your display tank.  Two good vendors that I have used are Tampa Bay Saltwater & Gulf Live Rock.

 

http://gulfliverock.com/premium-decorative-rock.html

 

[AlmightyJoshaeus]

That is exactly what I had in mind with 'live rock'...thanks 🙂

[Subsea]

On 10/21/2018 at 4:31 PM, AlmightyJoshaeus said:

That is exactly what I had in mind with 'live rock'...thanks 🙂

You are welcome.  Incidentally, the new  gorgonian looks great.