Nano Reef Filtration Setup

[Samrggzy]

Hello everyone, I am new to the reefing hobby and have been running a biocube 32 for a little under a year now. I just finally got passed a long and frustrating battle with dinos. My tank got really bad for a few months and I unfortunately even lost two of my fish and my only frag. So after recently beating dinos and feeling reinvigorated to succeed in the hobby, I want to reconfigure my filtration setup. I am currently only running a reef glass nano skimmer and an intank media basket with filter floss and chemipure blue. I would also like to utilize the intank fuge basket and grow chaeto. I am just worried that the combination of the skimmer, the chemipure and refugium will deplete my nutrients which is how I got dinos in the first place. So does anyone think I can run the 3 successfully, or should I only run 2 and if so what 2. Thank you please let me know with any opinion you have. 

[Jakesaw]

59 minutes ago, Samrggzy said:

 I am just worried that the combination of the skimmer, the chemipure and refugium will deplete my nutrients which is how I got dinos in the first place. So does anyone think I can run the 3 successfully, or should I only run 2 and if so what 2. Thank you please let me know with any opinion you have. 

I'm learning too, but that would be my guess based on limited experience and dealing with a recent INO myself.  Have you been testing Nitrates & Phsophates / Alk. If not, you should start to get baseline feedback of your tank.  

 

My coral start was bumpy b/c 0 nitrates / 0 Phos.  I've gotten my Nitrates to trend up off the bottom by adding a fish.   Still working on getting a phos reading.  The few corals I have are all surviving and looking healthier than they have in past.  Currently have a candy cane frag that's very extended polyp and dividing in two.  

[Samrggzy]

I tested my water 2 days ago and my nitrates were at 1.95 and my phos was .07 so im happy about that. I just dont want to have too many filtration methods and deplete them again.

[mcarroll]

2 hours ago, Samrggzy said:

I am just worried that the combination of the skimmer, the chemipure and refugium will deplete my nutrients which is how I got dinos in the first place.

You said it.  You aren't wrong.  Now I said it. 😉 🙂

 

Why not run a natural system if a chemical approach got you into a mess before?

 

Out of all things you mentioned, the skimmer is all you would want at this early stage of the tank's development...and even that can be considered optional.  

 

With certainty I would axe the other two...someday they may be useful in the tank, but not at this stage.

[ubpr]

In my limited experience with dinos, looks like it's more nutrients, biodiversity and lack of competition issue. For this possible solutions are:

• Keeping higher nitrates (~5 ppm) and phosphates (0.03 ppm for acros, more for other corals). If increasing feeding is not enough, dose them to keep up with tank consumption rate. Start with phosphates, after that nitrates. There is a variety of additives for this, from bulk chemicals to aquarium specific like Brightwell NeoPhos and NeoNitro (specifically for reef ULNS), Seachem Flourish Phosphorus and Nitrogen (fertilizers for  freshwater planted tanks, I reserve them for a mixed reef and use Brightwell for sps tank).
• Increase biodiversity by any available means: if healthy LR is not available, bottled live cultures, starting with live phytoplankton like OceanMagic or any other, beginning of the food chain. Then pods and micro feather dusters appear on a glass, feed them and corals, things start going in desired directions. Chaeto, packed with goodies, and frags from established healthy tank (LFS of my choice happen to be like this). Feeding fish should be enough, in fishless system see if adding aminoacids (Reef Plus, AcroPower or others) would work for you.
• Biodiversity above should create competition for dinos. See Algae Barn article about using live phyto for dealing with dinos, read about Dr. Tim's ReFresh and WasteAway combo (bacterial cultures). Some even used growing diatoms for out-competing dinos, by dosing liquid glass. For them, after wave of diatoms was gone, dinos also were gone.

Filtration is up to you, regularly changed carbon is useful for any mild toxins and products of metabolism in the tank. When my tank had problems or bacterial treatment was done, filter floss was changed daily, you will see by its conditions if it can be kept longer. 50 micron filter pads collect finer suspended matter and they are washable, kind of replacement for filter socks in AIO tanks or HOBs.

[filefishfinatic]

i would remove all the filtration besides the skimmer. mabye you could add an ozonizer or some carbon. dinos thrive in low nutrient enviroments. the ocean never has low nutrients. my theroy behind that is because the ocean is massive but it dosent really filter, mabye everything lives in the same nutrient water and nutrients are pointless. the only thing high nutrients could mean is a large amount oof phytoplankton. i do not know many instances where coral or fish will do badly with high nutrients. i do not do water changes and i have an overstocked tank. I just dose and trim macro to keep my water clean and my green mint pavona has been turning even more green and its getting nice PE. my philosiphy is to keep your tank simple with a few species of coral and a few species of fish. you can keep more species if they have identical care to what you have already. if you keep creatures with almost identical care together, your tank will need not worry about nutrients or chemical warfare because you can have a lot of the same nutrients they need constantly being used up and you will not get other nutrients in your tank and it will balance itself. this can be compared to the legendary hornwort, channel catfish, bluegill, largemouth bass combo that most ponds use. the bluegill eat the microfauna in the hornwort, the bass eat the bluegill, the catfish scavenges, the hornwort uses the nutrients and the microfauna eat the hornwort. 

[Nano sapiens]

13 hours ago, Samrggzy said:

I am just worried that the combination of the skimmer, the chemipure and refugium will deplete my nutrients which is how I got dinos in the first place.

 

In short, you are right to be concerned as 'too much of a good thing can be bad'.

 

Typically, you'll find multiple methods of nutrient control on large reef aquaria where water changes and access to clean out areas are much reduced compared to nano aquaria.  Naturally, this methodology was transferred to the keeping of nano aquaria where it doesn't really apply UNLESS the nano is very heavily stocked and manual maintenance is lacking or non-existent.

 

Keeping a successful nano can be as simple as regular WCs (water changes) and manual detritus removal to prevent build-up.  All of the various filtration methods are not a requirement for success, but many seem to feel more secure using at least one (especially so if they aren't so diligent with WCs and regular maintenance).

 

 

[TheKleinReef]

to be honest, add one at at a time, if it's not enough to keep the nutrients at a low enough range add another form of filtration. I'd start with the fuge and go from there (add skimmer, then chemical next IMO).  After you add one, give the system enough time to adjust to it. Keep it simple, and remember nothing good happens fast.

[Jakesaw]

I think the mistake is common for the beginner.

 

I had my tank planned out with a weekly water change, Filter floss, and Chaeto fuge in an AC 70.  That plan got scrapped systematically as I started my tank and went through my individual learning process.  

 

I'm still a bit in the weeds regarding Dissolved organics vs Nitrates in the water, but I'll figure that one out eventually.  I know they are not the same and understand that, but the organics break down into to the Nitrates and maintaining the balance of the two has me still a bit perplexed. 

 

But at the moment I'm not worrying about that until it shows problematic in my growth process.  

[mcarroll]

9 hours ago, Jakesaw said:

I think the mistake is common for the beginner.

 

I had my tank planned out with a weekly water change, Filter floss, and Chaeto fuge in an AC 70.

I wish I knew why it was so common...it's a dang stereotype!! 🤷‍♂️

[Jakesaw]

On 12/2/2021 at 2:16 AM, mcarroll said:

I wish I knew why it was so common...it's a dang stereotype!! 🤷‍♂️

YOUTUBE... !

 

Find a successful nano tank on Youtube and do what they do, expect the same results.  It's a way to start a hobby you know nothing about.  I was following inappropriate reefer

 

[mcarroll]

Getting rich from his youtubes no doubt!   🤩

[mcarroll]

All the good info folks have "hidden" in books over the years will remain safely hidden.

[Jakesaw]

Just now, mcarroll said:

All the good info folks have "hidden" in books over the years will remain safely hidden.

What is this " book " thing you speak of.. 

 

Is it part of the " META "

[mcarroll]

I missed this earlier...

On 11/30/2021 at 11:23 AM, Jakesaw said:

I'm still a bit in the weeds regarding Dissolved organics vs Nitrates in the water, but I'll figure that one out eventually.  I know they are not the same and understand that, but the organics break down into to the Nitrates and maintaining the balance of the two has me still a bit perplexed. 

It's a complicated issue I'm still hazy on too....as a "breakdown endpoint" nitrates are hypothetically supposed to be a "marker" for these other breakdown products since there's no direct way to test for "everything".

 

"organics" in the literature seems to be generally referred to as "NOM" or natural organic material.  From what I can tell it's an umbrella term for "stuff that gets into the water while it's breaking down" and it includes a bunch of other fun acronyms.

 

Humid acid (as in Humic substance from Humus) is what researchers seem to use to simulate "NOM" in experiments, so it seems like that might be an interesting place to start.

 

Here's Wikipedia's article on the topic....and here's the first sentence after the intro:

Quote

The formation of humic substances in nature is one of the least understood aspects of humus chemistry and one of the most intriguing

 

We're intrigued!!!  🤪👍

 

You'll have to dig further to get into saltwater particulars on the matter.  All I can say so far in this vein is that this search looks like an interesting starting point:  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=dissolved+organics+reef  😁

[Nanoi]

So I had a similar journey for 4 years. I ran a 5gallon with hob. Only carbon, filter floss, and weekly water changes. Was able to grow chaeto in a hidden basket behind the rockwork. It ran wonderfully for years with frogspawn, monti, gsp, and xenia. Then I went on a trip and got busy. Once I used chemipure blue and very very tiny amounts of phosgaurd (each introduced over a period of 2 months) things went south. I think at a pico level, chemical and non-bio based removal methods are just too harsh and too difficult to get consistent parameters within a tank. I'm on the "consistency is number 1" group and quick changes are often not necessary. 

 

Been in planted freshwater for 15 years and the same concept applies.  

[emmysnewtank]

I’m pretty new to reefing, but we kicked off a fluval 16 about 4 months ago with just floss, purigen, carbon, and bio media from the get go, and I think the tank just adjusted to it.

 

we feed heavy, so figured a bit more filtration was good. We don’t really do water changes, except when we have added coral, and then it’s just like .5g to replace dipping water. We did one big 5g change and probably will do one big monthly moving forward…4-5g maybe? 
 

We change floss pad every few days and lps and fish all seem super happy - our coral growth has been great using reef energy ab couple times a week and bi weekly spot feeding of mysis. Carbon is replaced monthly. We kind of stopped testing too…as long as everyone looks happy I’m hands off. 
 

cuc handles algae…had some moments of concern… but ramped the crew up to match. Now everything seems pretty balanced. I’m clearly not into chasing ideal numbers but going w someone’s advice and focusing on happy looking livestock.