Child's dream come true

[scrapz]

Like you, I dove into the sps game as soon as i started the hobby with no experience in fw or sw.. I killed a few things mainly due to panic and lack of exp that no amount of reading would have helped with. After a year or so, i was rocking a successful sps tank following the simple K.I.S.S. method and following the SPS rule (stability promote success).

I dont see why your method would not work, but as most have said, it will be more difficult then it has to be. Ether way, I wish you good luck and success in your sps journet.

 

[ClownNut]

How is that any different than the no water change SPS tanks we see on here all the time?

A planted discus tank - even one with mostly hardy plants - is no easy feat. Keeping those discus alive and it good health without water changes is harder than a reef tank for sure.

I'm interested to see where this goes, although I agree with other comments above expressing concern about how this goes against the "best practices" for SPS keeping.

because we added alk/ca/mag back to it. he didn't
what he/she did is like do a reef tank with no water change and dont add any additives back at all.
i had one time bought a frogspawn from a guy. which he claim no water change no additives for 3 years and yet the frogspawan grow to 1/2 of a 55g. hard to believed. when i went to pick up the frogspawn. it melted in my hands. the frogspawn start "melting" its own skeleton to grow more. when i took a look at the inside of the skeleton it's only a "+". i have never seen anything like that before.
we are here to give the animal the best condition for them to thrive, not just give them enough to survive.
as far as keeping discus happy are not hard at all. plus looks like he got some stendker discus. those i found handle the stress better than any discus.
keep the temp up and clean up the pop that's about it for discus.

 

[ostiato]

Sorry very much guys,

I forgot to tell you an important part of my conduction method.
One of the most important parameter that I learned to take in account is dissolved oxygen, that is often low in our tank.
I have an oxygen cylinder that supply two circuits: one is for the ozone generator and one is a pure flow; both end through a mainfold at the suction port of the pump, acting as a mixer for a better dissolution of the gases.
The sensor for the dissolved oxygen and for the redox, placed at the exit port of the tank, permit to dose correctly the two gases.
ClownNut, I never said that I don't dose anything, I said that I want to follow the Balling method for calcium, magnesium and alkalinity and plus I dose a source of organic carbon (sugar).

Luca

 

[ClownNut]

Sorry very much guys,

I forgot to tell you an important part of my conduction method.
One of the most important parameter that I learned to take in account is dissolved oxygen, that is often low in our tank.
I have an oxygen cylinder that supply two circuits: one is for the ozone generator and one is a pure flow; both end through a mainfold at the suction port of the pump, acting as a mixer for a better dissolution of the gases.
The sensor for the dissolved oxygen and for the redox, placed at the exit port of the tank, permit to dose correctly the two gases.
ClownNut, I never said that I don't dose anything, I said that I want to follow the Balling method for calcium, magnesium and alkalinity and plus I dose a source of organic carbon (sugar).

Luca

you said and i quote:"More than one year without water change, no fertilization, five discus and all the parameters (nitrogen, phoshorus, iron, etc) at zero." i cant tell what you will do in the future, but look at the past can give me an idea what the future maybe. you do know plant need all the things you listed at zero to grow. try to think of it this way, if somone cut ca/iron/protein out of your diet for a year.
white/blue led are bad pick to begin an sps tank. do more results.

 

[nemodan]

Hi guys and Luca

All very nice comments here, based on our own successes and disasters with our SPS tanks. Luca has something in mind that is a kind of "out of the box". Instead of repeating again the same comments, all valid, all based on our experiences, let start to ask questions on details of his system.

For example, I would like to know where Luca plan to grow bacterias, if there is no rocks, the polyurethane rocks will have enough porosity ? Or are you thinking of other method ? (Matrix or Siporax)

To keep phos and N03 low what are you going to do ? No fish in your tank to achieve that ? And how about the coral food ?

I am dying of curiosity to learn all your details and follow your thread.

All the best Luca !!!!!

BTW: can you explain me in more details the benefits of that closed loop with the tubes. Sorry, I didn't understand it from your previous postings.... Grrrr

Daniel

 

[GaG8tor]

It certainly is a beautiful tank. I look forward to your progress

 

[plyle02]

Hello Luca,
I will be following for sure. Yes you will face challenges ahead, that would be with any method, so cheers to you for trying something different. I wish you all the best in this journey, please take photos and post parameters and journal the events as they unfold in your aquarium.
Cheers,

 

[ostiato]

Hy guys,

in the end nothing really strange in this method of conduction.
Dissolved oxygen and organic carbon are the two major limiting factors in every tank.
100 gr of fish well fed can produce 50 mg/day of ammonia, corresponding to about 40 mg of nitrogen: is pure madness to think that an aquatic plant (in a freshwater aquarium for example) can manage this amount, because it means that should grow 100 grams in about a week (considering a composition of 2.5% of N on dry matter and a water content of about 90%).
Corals are not so many different, because they are symbiotic with zooxantelle, that are algae, but they have not the necessary growth rate to support the organic load of a populated tank.
Autotrophic bacteria transform ammonia in nitritis and nitrates thanks to the oxygen dissolved in water: if the nitrogen cycle ends at this stage, we can observe a continuos increase of the amount of nitrates, but if we administer a source of organic carbon (vodka, sucrose, glucose, etc), the heterotrophic bacteria, in a condition of low oxygen, may use it as fuel and nitrates as oxydizer, producing gaseous nitrogen that dissolves in the atmosphere.
During this process, heterotrophic bacteria may assume large amounts of phosphorus in a way called luxury uptake.
These bacteria may live adhese to a substrate or floating free in the water column under the form of microflakes: in every flake there are the necessary conditions to sustain the nitrogen cycle, because they have a surface in contact with a well oxygenated water and a nucleus where oxygen is lacking.
As corals are filters, these flakes may be used as nutrient.
I hope my english is better enough to explain you my point of wiew.
If you are interested, I may link some articles about this argument.

Luca

 

[ostiato]

BTW: can you explain me in more details the benefits of that closed loop with the tubes. Sorry, I didn't understand it from your previous postings.... Grrrr

Daniel

Daniel,

the benefits are a reduction of the water evaporation, a better oxygen dissolution and a minor risk to have 300 gallons of salty water on the floor :lmao:

 

[reefmutt]

Hy guys,

in the end nothing really strange in this method of conduction.
Dissolved oxygen and organic carbon are the two major limiting factors in every tank.
100 gr of fish well fed can produce 50 mg/day of ammonia, corresponding to about 40 mg of nitrogen: is pure madness to think that an aquatic plant (in a freshwater aquarium for example) can manage this amount, because it means that should grow 100 grams in about a week (considering a composition of 2.5% of N on dry matter and a water content of about 90%).
Corals are not so many different, because they are symbiotic with zooxantelle, that are algae, but they have not the necessary growth rate to support the organic load of a populated tank.
Autotrophic bacteria transform ammonia in nitritis and nitrates thanks to the oxygen dissolved in water: if the nitrogen cycle ends at this stage, we can observe a continuos increase of the amount of nitrates, but if we administer a source of organic carbon (vodka, sucrose, glucose, etc), the heterotrophic bacteria, in a condition of low oxygen, may use it as fuel and nitrates as oxydizer, producing gaseous nitrogen that dissolves in the atmosphere.
During this process, heterotrophic bacteria may assume large amounts of phosphorus in a way called luxury uptake.
These bacteria may live adhese to a substrate or floating free in the water column under the form of microflakes: in every flake there are the necessary conditions to sustain the nitrogen cycle, because they have a surface in contact with a well oxygenated water and a nucleus where oxygen is lacking.
As corals are filters, these flakes may be used as nutrient.
I hope my english is better enough to explain you my point of wiew.
If you are interested, I may link some articles about this argument.

Luca

This sure sounds good, in theory! I'm very interested to see it implemented, in practice.

Luca, when do you think you will have this aquarium up and running?

 

[ostiato]

Matt,

time passes quicker than my capacity to control it :furious:, but I hope to complete the rocks and the bottom for the beginning of June, ready to fill with water.
Three or four weeks to stabilize the parameters and to insert some fish...first coral in the middle of July.

Luca

 

[GSMclowns]

Hy guys,

in the end nothing really strange in this method of conduction.
Dissolved oxygen and organic carbon are the two major limiting factors in every tank.
100 gr of fish well fed can produce 50 mg/day of ammonia, corresponding to about 40 mg of nitrogen: is pure madness to think that an aquatic plant (in a freshwater aquarium for example) can manage this amount, because it means that should grow 100 grams in about a week (considering a composition of 2.5% of N on dry matter and a water content of about 90%).
Corals are not so many different, because they are symbiotic with zooxantelle, that are algae, but they have not the necessary growth rate to support the organic load of a populated tank.
Autotrophic bacteria transform ammonia in nitritis and nitrates thanks to the oxygen dissolved in water: if the nitrogen cycle ends at this stage, we can observe a continuos increase of the amount of nitrates, but if we administer a source of organic carbon (vodka, sucrose, glucose, etc), the heterotrophic bacteria, in a condition of low oxygen, may use it as fuel and nitrates as oxydizer, producing gaseous nitrogen that dissolves in the atmosphere.
During this process, heterotrophic bacteria may assume large amounts of phosphorus in a way called luxury uptake.
These bacteria may live adhese to a substrate or floating free in the water column under the form of microflakes: in every flake there are the necessary conditions to sustain the nitrogen cycle, because they have a surface in contact with a well oxygenated water and a nucleus where oxygen is lacking.
As corals are filters, these flakes may be used as nutrient.
I hope my english is better enough to explain you my point of wiew.
If you are interested, I may link some articles about this argument.

Luca

Very interesting theory. Honestly, my brain isn't big enough to understand all of that. But I am looking forward to see the result. Beautiful tank with awesome dimensions by the way.

 

[PatrikD]

Interesting indeed.

Can you please link to papers about bacteria laden micro flakes being food for corals. This makes me think about Faunamarins Coral Balance (or Reef vitality) and KZ's and aqua forests similar products. I don't know but perhaps FM and others come up with a way to administer food to corals this way and as side effect reduce N and P greatly.

The flake being calcium carbonate particles to grow bacteria on I guess.

 

[ostiato]

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/175/m175p067.pdf

http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_37/issue_4/0882.pdf

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00897778/document

http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/ista/ISTA7/RecircWorkshop/Workshop%20PP%20%20%26%20Misc%20Papers%20Adobe%202006/7%20Biofiltration/Microbial%20Floc%20Systems/2006%20Aquaculture%20Stoichiometry%20of%20photo-auto-hetero%20-%20Ebeling.pdf

Here are some of the articles I found on web.
PatrikD, I heard about fauna marin method, but I don't think it is similar, because it consist of the same integration of vitamins, amminoacids, trace elements,etc, I cannot see among the substances a source of organic carbon.
The flakes haven't a mineral matrix, they are composed exclusively by bacteria and proteinaceous glue.
In aquaculture these flakes can be a part of the total food intake of the fishes or the shrimps, my idea is that they can be food also for corals...but I have to search much informations about this.
By the way, the work in my tank is in progress

Luca

 

[ostiato]

http://dare.uva.nl/record/1/145737

here an interesting article about coral feeding with bacteria

Luca

 

[PatrikD]

PatrikD, I heard about fauna marin method, but I don't think it is similar, because it consist of the same integration of vitamins, amminoacids, trace elements,etc, I cannot see among the substances a source of organic carbon.

Luca

Well I know that carbon sources in the form of biopolymers are a major component in the Faunamarin method. The feeding of bacterias in the coral mucus and elsewhere is a big deal for them.

 

[ostiato]

Well, happy to read that there are other methods where dosing a source of organic carbon is considered a good practice.
Not so different of the classic vodka method.
I think that you can change the names, but the base is the same.
Maybe the oxygen is the only component not well considered, because bacterial growth need large amount of this gas (they can consume 4-5 mg/l in few minutes).

Luca

 

[PatrikD]

I suppose good water agitation and a good skimmer can help with the oxygen.
I notice some people are trying to address the problem with elevated carbon dioxide levels in reef tanks with carbon dioxide traps.

 

[ostiato]

completely in accord with you about agitation and skimmer.
Corals too, throught their photosyntetic activity, may add oxygen to the water.
Probably one of the major fault of the skimmer is that it eliminates a lot of potential food for corals.
Hypercarbia (a rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide) is not correlated to hypoxya (a fall in the concentration of oxygen), so reducing carbon dioxide with traps didn't mean that oxygen level rise, but may be useful to stabilize pH.

Luca

 

[PatrikD]

completely in accord with you about agitation and skimmer.
Corals too, throught their photosyntetic activity, may add oxygen to the water.
Probably one of the major fault of the skimmer is that it eliminates a lot of potential food for corals.
Hypercarbia (a rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide) is not correlated to hypoxya (a fall in the concentration of oxygen), so reducing carbon dioxide with traps didn't mean that oxygen level rise, but may be useful to stabilize pH.

Luca

Some people here reported great results in corals with these co2 traps. A little higher pH could be very beneficial I suppose especially with calcium reactors.