3 year old skimmerless 40G.

[Aquabucket]

On Dec 7th my 40G. skimmerless, sumpless LPS and softie tank will be 3 years old. Here are a few pics:

Filtration is mainly biological. The only mechanical filter is an HOB with carbon in it and nothing else.

Here is the original start up thread.

I will be posting some more pics tomorrow.

 

[TomRep]

Beautiful tank! keep up the good work.
tom

 

[trippkid]

Looks awesome, keep doing what you're doing. It definitely seems to work for you. Are you doing water changes or just topping off? Thanks for sharing, again pretty sweet reef. Have a good weekend.
Matt

 

[ARIANNA]

That's just awsome. Its amazing what you can do when you don't follow conventional wisdom. How often and what % water changes do you do? Fred

 

[crvz]

Wonderful setup, thanks for sharing the pictures. Proof that all kinds of filtration can be successfully employed. Kudos!

 

[Aquabucket]

Thanks for the kind words! I just did a 9 gallon water change last week. The last wc before that was in June. After the tank hit the year and a half mark I cut down on the water changes. Before that I did them once a month or more.

Top offs are done everyday with distilled water. I also dose 2 part every day or every other day. Magnesium, strontium and trace elements are also added once and awhile. The tank also goes dark for 3 days every 2 months or so.

The key is most of the corals I stocked the tank with can adapt well to this type of set-up. Macro algae is hidden behind the rockwork and helps to keep phosphate/nitrate levels low. The tank has never tested over 3ppm nitrates and typically reads 0. I have never tested for phosphate.

 

[Tangweed]

That's an awesome looking tank and you make it look very easy to keep. Great job:thumbsup:

 

[spleify]

Gorgeous tank!!

 

[tkeracer619]

Awesome tank! How many fish do you have?

 

[Don-Coraleone]

very beautiful. unbelievable colors.

 

[Electrobes]

I have always loved your setup Aquabucket, TBH I am just sorry I didn't vote in the TOTM... I would have voted for yours in the category. Great job!

 

[Jadams]

Very nice!

 

[vietcu]

Are the glass always that clean? or how often do you have to scrape it? And how do you get to the back glass if you do have to scrape it of algae? Nice looking tank by the way.

 

[SLODEN53]

Awwww, it such a pleasure to see your beautiful reef tank again! :rollface: Since I began reading your original thread about a year ago, I have had a 20 gallon and 50 gallon skimmerless reef tank and they both just flourished! And now we have a 125 gallon that has all of things that were in the 20 and 50 combined together along with a 30 gallon sump and a Berlin skimmer.

It has only been set up for about 2 weeks now, but we used allof the sand, rock and water that were in the two smaller tanks. It is doing very well with the exception of my pumping zenias (sp?). At first they were doing great, fully opened, waving around in the current and pumping regularly. But in the past several days, they have closed up, shrunk down and appear to be upset about something. This is the only thing in the 125 that has taken a turn for the worse. They look very much alive, just not as tall or open, waving about or pumping.

Any ideas as to what they might not be liking? I am doing all the same things that were done prior to adding the sump/refugium and skimmer.

Your pictures are as always, gorgeous!

Susie

 

[OceanDweller]

I also noticed your stocking levels are nice, not 10 fish swimming around in there. Thanks for helping me to inspire a skimmerless 50 cube thought I will be running a refugium.

 

[MazdaSPD3]

Looks like just 1 chromis, so very very lightly stocked.

 

[JustinReef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13709788#post13709788 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MazdaSPD3
Looks like just 1 chromis, so very very lightly stocked.

There are at least 3 fish in the first pic

Looks AMAZING!

 

[Dave VG]

Wow jam packed. Very very nice Aquabucket!! Is there any warfare going on in there? Have you had to move corals around because of it? Do you have to run carbon? I have often thought about starting a softy tank. Hummm.

 

[Capt_Cully]

Simplicity at it's finest. Truly inspiring tank!!!

 

[an411]

ver nice tank and coral colors amazing that you dont use a skimmer and just carbon and hob filter really does go to show that you don't need fancy equipment to maintain a healthy reef