Coral only tank

[Adam15]

This maybe a stupid question but does a reef tank stay cleaner and involve less water changes rather than a reef tank with fish? The reason I ask is because I'm thinking of moving my clowns out of my biocube and just have coral and clean up crew only.

 

[Monte26]

You'd still need to do water changes to replenish nutrients, right? Unless you're dosing. I would imagine a no fish tank would mean easier to control phosphates for example, because of the lack of feeding fish.

 

[Adam15]

Yes absolutely still do water changes. I guess what I'm asking is would it be a lot easier to maintain without any fish? I know smaller tanks are a little more maintenance and have to keep up on them a little more so I'm always looking for an easier way and definitely a cheaper way along with everyone in this hobby

 

[joshky]

Corals need to be fed, might as well have fish. I don't see fishless tanks as being any easier, just more boring.

 

[Monte26]

I've never tried a no fish tank, but I'd imagine it would be easier. Not sure how much bio load two clowns would really have on your tank though.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Corals eat fish poop, you would still have the same amount of cleaning and wc's with or without fish. Like was stated would be boring without fish. Also in the wild a reef without fish is usually a dead reef.

 

[nuxx]

Our 150 gallon personal frag tank is coral only.

We haven't done a water change and dose. Have a huge skimmer on it as well.

Tank acts an invert / coral QT and grow out tank.

We feed rod's coral food, coral frenzy, rod's original and nori for the snails.

Also run GFO.

0 Nitrates
0 PO4
8 Alk
8.2 PH
490 Cal (High...)

Everything seems fins, SPS, LPS, Zoas.

Some meteor showers got a bit too much light and lot bleached...

 

[joshky]

Our 150 gallon personal frag tank is coral only.

We haven't done a water change and dose. Have a huge skimmer on it as well.

Tank acts an invert / coral QT and grow out tank.

We feed rod's coral food, coral frenzy, rod's original and nori for the snails.

Also run GFO.

0 Nitrates
0 PO4
8 Alk
8.2 PH
490 Cal (High...)

Everything seems fins, SPS, LPS, Zoas.

Some meteor showers got a bit too much light and lot bleached...

Right, but at the end of the day you're still feeding the tank. Taking the pair of clownfish out won't be a huge benefit, it could actually adversely affect the tank if the OP doesn't feed the corals enough. At any rate a pair of clowns don't make a huge bioload so I see no point at all.

I would be careful about doing zero water changes, dosing the big three isn't enough.

 

[nuxx]

I know I'm lazy...

Will probably do a 50 gallon change right before adding new additions / resetting the 3 month clock.