Bacteria driven, heavily fed, large bioload, low nutrient system experiences

[Piper27]

I am wondering what peoples experiences are with running large tanks that are carbon source bacteria driven systems which are fed heavy with heavy bioloads and keep low nutrients. Low being phosphates below .03 and nitrates below .05... If chipping in on the thread ease share your tank info that pertains to the thread. Like tank size, amount of fish, food input, filtration, ect...

My main question is, can you keep your tank running with a higher alkalinity since you are feeding so much food? Above 8.5 I would say would be high for carbon source tanks. Or do you experience problems from the higher alk no matter how much you feed? If you can raise your alk how are you doing it? How much are you dosing?

Also are you able to keep bright bold colors even with heavy amounts of food? A lot of people have dark unsaturated colors and can't brighten them without feeding less or blasting high light. How do you keep your corals from becoming dark and boring? Do you have to use zeolites? Dose something specific? Use a certain filtration device that helps?

 

[Piper27]

Or you can share about the main part of your system that keeps the tank running great. I think people will be interested in that.

 

[Paul B]

My tank doesn't meet all those requirements but only some. My tank is also run much differently than virtually all main stream tanks. It is 100 gallons and I do dose 1/4 teaspoon of sugar every other day. (I have only been doing this as an experiment for 2 months) I have about 25 adult fish and all of the paired fish are spawning so I overfeed. Mostly clams and live blackworms. My pH is 8.4-8.5 and always has been. I have never tweeked it. I would not be able to keep very colorful SPS because, due to heavy feeding, my nitrates are about 30 or 40. I know you asked for low nutrient systems but it is what it is. I am sure many people will have the type of system you mentioned.
I also add massive amounts of bacteria from the sea in the summer in the form of mud. (I said it was different)
I can keep some SPS but prefer LPS, gorgonians, sponges etc and as I said most SPS will have a hard time in my high nutrient low light system. It runs a reverse undergravel filter and dolomite.

 

[rovster]

My tank touches on some of what you are looking for. I have what I think is a pretty hefty bioload for my tank size, and although I am not ULNS, my nutrients are on the low side. My phos hovers around 0.01-0.03, and my nitrates I try to keep at less than 5 but not 0 via NaNO3 dosing. If I do not dose nitrate, they bottom out to 0 and that's bad. I carbon dose with a blend of Vodka/Vinegar.

I have learned that I cannot keep alk anywhere near 8 or I get burnt tips. I also noticed that although carbon dosing allows us to keep our numbers low, it also leads to more sensitive corals. By that I mean any kind of blip will usually result in some kind of negative effect. Like clockwork, if my alk touches 8 I get recession and burnt tips. Lately I've been keeping my alk in the 6's and my tank's looking great. I've been trying to creep it up to 7 but I'm going extra slow due to my alk issues in the past. It seems that low alk does not have any negative effects at all.

Tank is 102gallons, inhabitants are:
Powderblue Tang, yellow tang, melanurus, swallowtail angel, 2 basslets, 4 anthias, 1 blotched anthias, yellow goby + pistol, royal gramma, 1 firefish, 2 clowns, 2 fire shrimp, Not sure if I forgot someone....

Fitration is an SRO XP2000 skimmer, about 5L siporax, 1C GFO 4-6wks, Prodibio at recommended dose bimonthly, waterchanges 1-2 wks 10-20 gallons depending.....

Recent pics....




I feel like my colors still have a way to go, as I've seen them better, but I'm still recovering from high alk issues from this past summer. Anyway, that's my contribution.

 

[Piper27]

Paul, nice to see your trying a carbon source, what made you go with sugar?

Rovster, nice tank, nice diversity of corals. I like the way your running it. I am thinking most are going to agree with you and say they get burnt tips when alk gets raised.

I am asking everyone about the alk situation because I run a tank like I am asking about. Except I have never seen burnt tips or anything bad. I am wondering how high I can go but do not want to raise it farther than 8.5. If someone else has ran a tank similar to mine and done so I would like to try it if they had good results.

I also read zinc helps with burnt tips, I wonder if keeping a high zinc number would help saftley raise alk on a system like mine.

I mine as well share a little so you can understand what our tank is like (my wife is as passionate about the hobby as me).

I have about 400+ gallons of water, 150 gallons is a 3' sps cube tank. Mixed coral in the other tanks. Maybe almost 60 fish I can't count anymore. Close to 40 are in the 3' cube. I feed a huge amount of food. I can't feed the fish enough either. Some fish need to be revoked because they are to large. I feed maybe the equivalent of 15 cubes of frozen food a day, plus pellets and nori. Sometimes more on the weekends. I dump a ton of Amino's, coral foods, and other stuff along those lines in the tank as much as possible and i use a variety of different products all at once mostly. It all goes into my sps tank too so they really get the chance to use it all. I feed about half a cup of amino/coral food mix. Before lights out every day, sometimes I will cut it back a little for a day depending on the mixture.

I attribute being able to do this because I go through about a gallon of vodka and a gallon of vinegar together every two weeks. I dose the carbon source into a 40 gallon tank filled with live rock and lower flow. I run a massive skimmer on that tank alone. It's a euro reef and it's body is 12" wide and 4' tall. That tank is supplied by a drain from one of my 4 other tanks so it's not skimming every pass my return pump makes. I am thinking about running that skimmer off the sump so it gets 3/4 more of the flow than it does now. I use a bubble King 300 (I think) in the sump to skim the whole system.
Only bad thing is there are particulates in my water like crazy and cunks of detritus floating everywhere. I can't use socks because they clog up with bacteria within a day at most.

I run two 250w radium's with two modified large reflectors cut and rivited back together to fit the tank. I run 4 t5s and 36 3w blue LEDs for supplement. I need to find a better way to use the LEDs because the strip spotlights the tank in a section. I want to use 3 small but high powered spoghtlight fixtures to angle from the corners but I have not researched LEDs in a long time. I have not taken pictures yet because the frags were just glued in place last month and some are still on a rack. It's not much to look at but the colors I am getting are the best I have had in my 12 years in the hobby.

I am starting over from a horrible summer last year. Everything went wrong and I lost thousands of dollars and years and years worth of coral I have a good amount of frags and a few colonies to start with.

 

[Paul B]

Piper I am trying sugar just as an experiment like I do everything. My tank is and always has been an experiment. I tried some sugar and I clouded the water which is a good thing and told me it was doing something. So I cut down the dose and have been fooling around with it for a few weeks. My nitrates went down about 10 points. I also need to feed a lot to keep the fish spawning as I am more interested in that phase of the hobby than colorful corals. My interests change every few years.
People ask me about these things and I like to answer from my experiences rather than re-hashed information that I heard.

 

[rovster]

I feed what I think is a big amount as well. I don't measure just dump. Sometimes on the weekends I'll easily feed the tank 5-6 times a day, but a small amount at a time, maybe 1/4-1/2tsp of my frozen blend that I enrich with mysis, brine, and reef roids.

Out of curiosity, why do you want to raise your Alk? I know there are theories that you could potentially get higher growth but at what cost? There are plenty of lower alk tanks that grow just fine. In fact, I'm getting more growth now at 6.5 than when I was running it at 8.

I wish I could cram more fish in my tank, but at this point its a matter of territory, and I couldn't put more in there if I wanted to. I just need a bigger tank

 

[Piper27]

I am not wanting to raise my alk, just wondering what would happen. It's been up to 9.5 before with no problems. Also I keep going back to the blu coral method and being interested. No one for sure knows what makes those certain corals grow so big. At least that I have read.

Seems no one experiments with stuff like this or posts about it. So I figured I would ask the questions to see if anyone knew or had advice. Also I have seen a number of tanks running low nutrient and carbon sourced with a higher than normal alk. I have seen the best colors this time around and I have been doing a lot of new things that people say are not necessary or don't even make a difference to coral at all. I don't see why I should stop trying new things when I am getting great results. Especially because it's just what everyone else does. Referring to low alk and carbon dosed tanks.

Also I see a rise in growth when alk is higher. I let it lower and new growth slows. I figure it has something to do with the amount of food going in and out of the system.

 

[Piper27]

Yea Paul that's why I started this topic because I want to hear people's experiences instead of hearing rehashed info that my or may not be true. Also I like hearing about peoples tanks that are similar to mine

Keep them coming!

 

[djbon]

I'm dosing vodka but not on my display. I built twin tower 4" pvc bio denigrator and now running with 0, maybe 1 or 2 ppm nitrate. 9 fishes, 2 clams with mixed lps/sps. Sps growing and color is returning. Alk is high 14, ph 8.2 - 8.4 and 1420 magnesium.

 

[Piper27]

Is it a normal thing to keep alk low even when running a denitrator? Or do burnt tips not happen since it's all inside a reactor per say.

 

[Piper27]

Does anyone have a good way to get rid of particulates in the water column besides filter socks? Mine clog up way to quick. I was thinking about trying a cone tank before the sump, any experience with these being useful.

 

[Breadman03]

BRS sells something called the Rollermat. But it's $$$.


Not a Dalek

 

[Paul B]

I use a diatom filter for that.

 

[Piper27]

That diatom filter would clog quick for me. I am talking about massive detritus particles clumped together type stuff.

 

[Piper27]

Breadman, the rollermat I have never seen before thanks for the info. Looks cool for a small tank but I amigine it would get clogged as well. Would love to hear some experiences.

 

[Paul B]

That is true, but it is clogging because it is working. I use mine about once a year.

 

[gdemos]

120g + 175g sump
SRO 6000sss skimmer
RD 500 BIOPELLET currently dr tims pellets
57w UV (12 hrs/day)
Calcium reactor
GAC changed monthly
GFO as needed (rarely)
30 fat fish
Feed 3-4 x daily 2-3 frozen cubes per feeding, occasional pellets, nori
Various AA (rotate between a power, brightwells, pohls, fuel) each night w/phyto or zoo or oyster feast
Sump is large Rubbermaid 175g w LR and big hydor for internal sump flow
Socks.

7.7-8.5 dKh
0-2ppm no3
.02-.08 po4

I've been trending to lower alk

55g wc 2x monthly

Daily lugols
Occasional Fe, K

Mostly SPS

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gdemos]

Sorry my pics are terrible but stuff is looking good, not jaw drop but good. I've gone mostly the wild route as of late but do have several starting from frags. Color for me is the chase. So far as my approach it continues to be high nutrient in/export. Been trying to dial back a bit on the export side and much of my latest effort has been the balance of some Hint of no3 and phosphate. Most experience with BIOPELLET has been massive no3 reduction and trying to balance this out better. The dr tims pellets have been going for a few weeks and kicked in quickly. I had a bad experience with TLF brand due to a massive buildup of polymer sludge. Coloring the wild stuff is a wild game of genetics, and sweet spot that can come and go. I personally would not want to go higher on alk.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Piper27]

That is true, but it is clogging because it is working. I use mine about once a year.

I think pictures would be in order for everyone to understand the amount of bacteria slime and detritus that would fill filter socks or anything like it.no matter how many times I clean a filter sock the bacteria will keep filling it since I am dosing so much vodka and vinegar.