BIG reef secret for filtration.

[sporazoa]

So I have been in & out of the reef hobby a few times now. The last two times something interesting happened & I did not piece it together until the same thing happened the last time. I hold this information as one of the biggest secrets & things that I have learned from the hobby.


Basically what would happen is that I start a reef with Live Rock bought from various LFS & reefers with life on it. I always bought nuisance free rock & what looked most promising, but just a few pieces & the rest dead base rock. My Deltec AP600 skimmer would skim & produce some very good dark gunk, but about the 6-8 month mark something happened. The first time around my skimmer stopped producing as much gunk as it used to & I thought the skimmer pump was at fault or the entire skimmer was just not working properly. I was considering replacing the skimmer, but got out of the hobby temporarily instead.


The 2nd time around I bought a significantly less amount of live rock & I added the very same skimmer. It actually produced once again a very good & dark skimmate & I was glad I did not sell it. By about the 6-8 month mark again, it just did not perform as it did in the beginning, even when I cleaned it with vinegar baths. At times I overfed the tank & then it produced some more skimmate, but still not like how it was producing at the start of the reef.


The MAGIC that was happening was that I had all sorts of barnacles (white dots) & some fleshy growth in my overflow....in the dark places & my sump. During both times I started the tanks I was doing bare bottom & my sump was sterile with no sand, no fuge, & no macro algae.


It makes sense that these things growing on the overflow, PVC pipes, & sump glass walls grow in the dark & are filter feeders that filter nutrients from the water column & the more there are of these the less the skimmer will produce.


I am back in the hobby again & this time I will go sumpless, bare bottom, with even less rocks for a minimalistic look. I have a a few ideas to incorporate this type of filtration, which I think will be better than macro algae or algae scrubbers for most people & I will share this on my next post.

For the veteran & experienced reefers, what do you think?

 

[KafudaFish]

Ok.

 

[e048]

They help filter out particle food but not necessarily phosphates and nitrates they might be helping to get rid of the food particles before they turn into po4 and nitrates but I don't think they are solely to blame.

 

[PhaneSoul]

Everything that consumes poops. Your rock is purging itself for the first several months, being bb helps alot, this will account for your hefty skimmate during these months, bacterial floc. Once the rocks are reletively free of nutrients the bacteria slow down (now the lack of bacteria rich skimmate) and the tank stabilizes.

 

[karimwassef]

I may have missed it, but what's the secret filtration method? That some animals living in the dark areas will filter some of the water, so use less rock and sand?

 

[AUFishGuy]

I think you may be extrapolating your findings a bit here. That is just a small piece of the puzzle

 

[sporazoa]

Well, lets break it down.

1) It might not be the water column itself, since both times the tanks were started in a smaller size tank for a few weeks & then migrated to a larger (29g to 90g & 30g to 75g). So water was well established.

2) Can't attribute it to sand, since I had no sand in the DT & sump.

3) Can't attribute it to algae, because I did not grow any macros & all my snails & tangs kept DT algae under control & none visible.

4) Can't attribute it to the wall of rocks, since on the 2nd round I used only about 1/3 of original rocks as I did the first time. This time I carefully selected base rock & shelve rocks that sit on top of them. I also do recall during both times there was a lot of growth on the underside of the rocks where they were not exposed to lights, which basically grew the same thing as I described above including sponges of sorts.

I can see how someone can blame the rocks for originally leeching nutrients, but the rocks were dead base Marco rock originally for 75-80% of them, which I am sure it is possible can still hold nutrients. And on the 2nd round I bleached all rocks for days, then exposed to air for days, then baked in RODI water for days, then brew in salt water for days.

I am not saying don't use rocks or sand, but if you choose to do bb & don't want excessive rocks, or a fuge with macro, or an algae scrubber & want to keep it minimalistic & as simple as possible then if you add surface area in the dark ( glass, acrylic, PVC, or rocks), then this will assist in nutrient export by way of those creatures that sprout in the dark & filter feed.

I also noticed that I always had poop in the sump & especially in the back of my overflow, but those organisms must have been extracting it DISSOLVED from the water column. I did not clean the back of the overflow often as I should have, maybe 1 or 2 times during the life of the tank. Here I was with more poop in the tank, but the skimmer was not pulling out much, since these creatures would do that job.

One way to add more surface area in the dark is for example add more panes of glass or acyrlic in parallel & allow the water to flow over it in the sump or overflow. Another way is for example to take a Maxijet 1200 & run it through flexible hose 1' high & the coil the hose & gradually allow it to re-enter the sump.

Personally, I think THIS IS BIG & if you guys experimented with this concept, you too will realize how much power it holds. I would imagine with enough surface area one can even go skimerless with good reefing practices.


Of course though, if I find something going astray I would always flurry to new ideas, such as adding more rock or adding a fuge or algae scrubber, but that has not been necessary from my past experiences.

 

[CStrickland]

Try googling "cryptic zone" and "dark sump"
I think Steve Tyree was doing a lot of work in this area like 10 years ago, there might even be a book. Lots of reefers use some form of the method too, as part of their whole system.

Mined base rock can pick up a lot of phosphate from the dirt that it is buried in, your observations are right on track with the experiences of people who don't cook their rock before they use it. Bleaching, drying, sun, a few days in water isn't going to make any difference on that issue.

A really easy way to add surface area to a sump is rock. People like to say that if you flattened out the rock in a reef tank it would cover a football field.

Plenty of bb tanks run fine with empty sumps and no macro or anything

Just be careful looking for magic bullets. It can take a year for a tank to stabilize, and most reefers try a few things before they hit the sweet spot. IMO you are more likely to get where to want to be with a combo of diff methods that are tweaked during the first couple years until you find what works for your tank, if you tear it down every 8 months that's harder to draw any conclusions from. Good luck!

 

[TangingOut]

All tanks are different and will go through cycles, but will eventually level off if no changes are made. I will always employ a sump as they're a good place to hide equipment and to have other lifeforms that may be preyed on in the DT or that may harm something in the DT.

I wouldn't care if my skimmer started producing a lot less skimmate as long as my nutrient levels were in checked and nothing suffered. That to me that is a win-win with me having to clean it less often.

 

[karimwassef]

if you want surface area in the dark, use a wet dry filter with bioballs. Plenty of surface area.

In my old reefs from the early 90s, all the bioballs would get covered in sponges and featherdusters.

 

[Wonton Soup]

None of this is a secret and is actually well known and utilized throughout the hobby. The more micro fauna you can get to colonize the system the more that the system filters itself. I'd remove my skimmer before I removed my sump.

Regardless, it's great to hear that you're having success. Just wait until you're a few years in and your tank can handle most anything you throw at it.

 

[d2mini]

none of this is a secret and is actually well known and utilized throughout the hobby. The more micro fauna you can get to colonize the system the more that the system filters itself. I'd remove my skimmer before i removed my sump.

Regardless, it's great to hear that you're having success. Just wait until you're a few years in and your tank can handle most anything you throw at it.

+1

 

[SantaMonica]

I can see how someone can blame the rocks for originally leeching nutrients, but the rocks were dead base Marco rock originally for 75-80% of them, which I am sure it is possible can still hold nutrients. And on the 2nd round I bleached all rocks for days, then exposed to air for days, then baked in RODI water for days, then brew in salt water for days.

Unfortunately bleaching just kills the life in the rock; it does not remove the nutrients. Exposing to air does the same. A few days in RODI does the same. The life in the rock is dead, but it takes months for it to decompose (remineralize) into nutrients, and while it's doing so it's feeding new life on the surface of the rock.

Only a strong acid bath can remove all life *and* nutrients from the rock. And then, it will take a few years for it to re-grow.

 

[ca1ore]

The MAGIC that was happening was that I had all sorts of barnacles (white dots) & some fleshy growth in my overflow....in the dark places & my sump.

Wow, you've apparently discovered something that the rest of us have missed ..... congratulations :lol: Or, maybe not .....

Little white dots are not barnacles, they're tube worms. The whole point of a live rock-based reef tank is to cultivate all the small organisms to, at least in part, develop a mini ecosystem. The sponges, alga, tube worms, bristle worms, mini/micro stars et al are all part of that ecosystem. With a diverse enough system, it ought to be possible to manage nutrients to the vanishing point without resorting to filtration equipment. The reality though, for the vast majority of systems, is that filters (including skimmers) are needed because end-product nutrients do accumulate otherwise.

Tanks go through many different kinds of cycles - bacterial, algal, etc. That you note decreased performance from your skimmer could be a result of any number of things, including maturing of the micro-fauna; however, it's also dependent upon the degree to which your rocks are contributing to nitrification.

FWIW, I have kept dozens of reef tanks over almost 30 years, most of them with higher-than-recommended fish stocking levels, and have never seen a dramatic reduction in skimmer performance over time on any of them. YYMV.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

So let me get this straight, you don't have any or at least very low nitrates and phosphates because of the barnacles filtering your water? How many barnacles do you actually have? A guesstimate will be fine. I find this a very interesting concept.

 

[sporazoa]

Thanks for the info & I will look into cz & ds. Thank you for all the input & responses.

I would never run a minimalistic tank without a skimmer. In case there is ever an issue coral, fish or invertebrate dies then the skimmer is on hand to do its job. I have run a skimmerless tank in the past, but it had sand & only a few rocks with only 4-5 fish & curtailed feedings and it worked find, but there had to have been at least the sand in large quantities for it to have worked. Incidentally the back wall of this tank also had those tube worms or barnacles & I never scraped or cleaned it off.

Every time I bleached rock, which I have also done mid-way during tank setup & on smaller tanks in between the main tanks, it has always worked for me when seeded with small amounts of LR.

This is a BIG REEF secret FOR ME & remains the basis of being able to keep a successful reef given my requirements; of LR to a minimal & no sand. I am sure others must have seen the same thing & that is why I ask. Other secrets to keeping a successful reef are DSB, good amount of LR, algae , running a skimmer, carbon or a phosphate remover. I am simply bringing what I see as a major benefit to the hobby into the spotlight. No body talks about this, yet there are many questions & threads on the other benefits to reefs. But lets not play stupid on word game play either.

I had also wondered about bioballs & good to know that feather dusters & sponges grew on them. I did not realize they grew in trickle filtered system, although one of my options is bio balls or other media in full submerged water & enough water flow through it.

I am willing to bet that one can simply have a successful reef without even any LR in the display tank, but the system will need to get seeded with LR initially & you will need large amounts of surface area in the dark (overflow or sump). Many panes of glass or acrylic stacked with space in between. The stack can be vertical, horizontal, through layers of egg crate, through large quantities of live rock in the sump, bioballs, or other media. Water can also be run through several feet of PVC pipe or tube, so basically any which way as long as the water column passes through large amounts of surface area IN THE DARK. Furthermore sections of whatever you use can be traded & sold to other reefers to make it easier for them to kick start their reefs.

I don't know how to quantify the amount that I have seen, but I can take a pic of a basket that I used to run carbon & phosban & which can give you an idea. The basket will only show the white dots, but not the fleshy looking creatures that I saw.

I also bought a tank from this one guy & he happened to have the most creatures that I ever saw on his overflow & PVC, but they were all dead & dried when he broke down his tank. I asked him about his tank & he said it was very successful & had many fish & was able to feed them anything.

 

[karimwassef]

Ok. I think it's a language thing. By "secret", you mean a "good method".

The pain with filters in general is that their own waste needs export. Nothing can run indefinitely unless it's a complete cycle.

Bio balls went out of favor when they were characterized as nitrate pumps and that created another need for export. Without regular water changes, they were unable to maintain some corals.

 

[sporazoa]

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word secret, but it is really HUGE for me & for me to have realized this, which only took a few years & I want to make others (who may not know) alert to it.

I hear you on the nitrate factory & I had thought about bio balls before this post, but I did not want to interject that taboo word. But what if we used a filter sock before the bioballs , or other media, or tons of rocks & prevented the detritus build up?

I think for ease of maintenance purposes I would prefer to do it through layered glass or acrylic, or through long stretches of PVC pipes or Vinyl tubing, as they can be setup so that when you do a water change you can also simultaneously remove detritus build up on the sump floor. All these last methods would go through a filter sock before hitting the sump floor.

From my experience it also did not matter whether I had detritus at the bottom of my overflow, which I always had & it built up over time. The dark creatures (I will call them that from now on for ease) & the skimmer as backup took care of build up in the water column (as solids dissolved into the water column).

I would though vacuum up all detritus from my barron & desolate sump & my bb DT tank whenever I did my water changes...about once every 1-2 months, with subsequent less water changes needed as the system matured. One thing that I noticed was that the rock in the DT would get trapped with detritus over time & cause build up & my desire was to put in less & less rock in the DT.

 

[sporazoa]

Do we know of any reefer or LFS that does not use any sand or any rock, other than the rock or plugs that the corals came on & that have a very successful reef?

I am sure they may utilize other nutrient transport methods, such as carbon, phosban, or skimmer though.

 

[polaravic]

Nitrate Reducer

Nitrate Reducer

I use Seachem? Kent? Nitrate Reducer in my filter sock which is really only a bag of small volcanic(I think) stones that house nitrifying bacteria. At first I was skeptacle that it would work because I have a lot of live rock that also house nitrifying bacteria. However, my Vertex Omega 130 Protein Skimmer started producing somewhat smaller bubbles right away.

After approx 3 months, I can now feed my Anthias 3 or more times a day without an algae break out and my skimmer is not producing any extra dirty skim.

polaravic