15g tall nps tank

fullmonti

fullmonti

now is the time
After some reading & help from Aquabacs & uhuru this is what I'm thinking about.

A 15g tall tank with strong self contained flow with a gallon or so a day of water pumped through via letermeter from my sps system to help maintain water quality, salinity etc. Excess water would overflow as waste. Thinking this is kinda like a 10% daily water change. I'm hoping a little iceprobe chiller will lower temp enough. No additional filtration.

Would want to keep gorgonians & some easier nps as well. I would like to be able to just feed some drops of liquid food twice a day. Could this be done with reef nutrition type prods or maybe some liquid mix of FM foods that could be made up once a week & kept in frig? Was thinking since there was no filter/skimmer the food would stay in the water & twice a day would be enough to keep gorgonians happy. Or is that just wishful thinking?

My sps system has 180 display, 65 sump, frag tank, large skimmer & lots of live rock. I really like the nps & this set up is all I have room for in the filter room. I thought if I have success with this maybe I could talk the wife into another tank in the living room.

Am I way off-base or do you think this will work?
 
One suggestion for the tank is to put a Orange Spotted Goby, to help keep the sand bed clean, and remove excess food in the water coloum/and rocks. The corals will still get the bulk of the food, he is just there to help keep the water par in check. I love mine, I have several large sun coral colonies and I feed almost everyday and he cleans up the excess, weekly 20% water changes.
 
Timeless1483 said:
One suggestion for the tank is to put a Orange Spotted Goby, to help keep the sand bed clean, and remove excess food in the water coloum/and rocks. The corals will still get the bulk of the food, he is just there to help keep the water par in check. I love mine, I have several large sun coral colonies and I feed almost everyday and he cleans up the excess, weekly 20% water changes.
Click to expand...

+1! I have a Diamond goby in my tank to keep my sandbed clean. :)
 
I have a large diamond goby in my 180 & he never stops. He is skinny & I try to spot feed him but other fish are much faster. I would have never thought of one in a tank this small but maybe with extra food one would be OK.

I am most interested in what you think about my water flow & feeding ideas?
 
Checking in :)

Let me make sure I understand this correctly, you will have a 15 gallon aquarium plumbed to your 180 only by a litermeter, correct?

So the liter meter would take 1 gallon of water from the 15 and put it into the 180 and 1 gallon from the 180 would go into the 15?

I would do something a little more radical if I wasn't going to use a skimmer. I would do 15 gallon water changes every day in that case. Feed the 15 heavy, exchange 15 gallons of water with your 180 slowly throughout the day. You would have to figure out how slow the water exchanges would be in order to use the iceprobe efficiently.

Mike
 
I was thinking of pumping 1 gallon or so (through out the day) from the 180 into the 15. The 15 would have small overflow & the additional water would raise the water level so excess water would just overflow into drain. I thought a 10% water change daily would be enough, is this idea insufficient to keep water quality up?
 
fullmonti said:
I was thinking of pumping 1 gallon or so (through out the day) from the 180 into the 15. The 15 would have small overflow & the additional water would raise the water level so excess water would just overflow into drain. I thought a 10% water change daily would be enough, is this idea insufficient to keep water quality up?
Click to expand...

The concept is good, without a skimmer on the aquarium I believe you would need a higher water exchange rate to keep the nutrients down.

Mike
 
OK guess I could add a HOB skimmer easy enough.

Is the liquid mix of FM foods twice a day a bad idea? The little I have used dry foods it didn't seem to work very well.

thanks Jim
 
With your aquarium, your feeding processes will all be based upon what you are going to keep.

Start with a few sun corals or other easy to maintain LPS non-photosynthetic corals first. They can manually be fed mysis & cyclopeeze. Work on your husbandry practices in keeping them. Have your water exchange system set up and see how the demands of the satellite system effect your main aquarium.
 
I think that is a very good suggestion. I tend to just in the deep end & work my way back if I need to. I'll start a build thread when I get water in glass.

again thank you Jim
 
I would say it is a good I idea. I don't think you will need to change you water everyday, you will be fine with every few days about 10-15%. I have a 10 gallon that I have several NPS, and I don't have a skimmer. I do about 10-15% water changes weekly, sometimes more ofter. I monitor the tank daily. I also feed daily. I have a Rena Smart filter 30 rated for a 30Gallon tank, It works great. My biggest help is an orange spotted goby, he cleans up everything. I have:
Rhizo, sun coral colonies 4 80-120+heads each, a few black sun coral colonies, a few heads of Dendro fista, chili sponge. A few zoa, Rics, GPS.

Timeless1483

Timeless1483

Timeless1483

http://s890.photobucket.com/albums/ac101/Timeless1483/
 
Thanks guys. I don't have a build thread, I have some pic on my computer. I will put up some build pics and let you know. Sorry to steal you thread. fullmonti.
 
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