Filter Concept

[zacharytrimble]

I've always happened to get a plethora of tubeworms on my glass behind rocks as well as those white pineapple sponges...so a few months ago I created dark zones in my overflow box and in my sump to foster their growth. I also purposefully asked for aptasia from an lfs and threw them in the overflow (don't worry, they have a whole lotta equipment to go through before hitting main display...including a 25 watt uv sterilizer...haven't seen one in display yet). I did this because I saw a sump design on reefvideos.com where the idea was to let creatures like these do some of the filtering for you. My question is...how good are aptasia and white pineapple sponges at filtering the water...was this just a waste? I haven't had an awesome tank turnaround where I'll never need a skimmer again or anything like that...but do you think it will make a difference in the long run? I'll try to post pics soon.

 

[Indermark]

There are two threads in another forum about this

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=969713

Ryan

 

[Frick-n-Frags]

a good reefer buddy of mine put in an entire 75gal cryptic zone tank onto his reef system. It seemed that it would have had to been really heavily stocked to be effective and the animals were too touchy. He took it apart after whatever a year.

I went to S. Tyrees cryptic zone lecture -waaay out of the realm of practicality for most people.

My take on larger animal filters is that you can't really have enough to actually do something significant. Also you risk population crashes (like the Xenia filter folks)

Bacteria is still your best friend in these little fako waterboxes we run, and maybe a big old wad of chaeto in a lit sump somewhere.

Also, the chaeto is easier to harvest and actually complete the nutrient removal from the system. How do you remove the nutrients bound in Aiptasia? You would have to remove them.

IMO, enjoy your pineapples as a testament to your healthy tank and don't worry beyond that.