Fish-less SPS reef

I did this 5 years ago in a 65gal. The corals were healthy and grew fast but the colors were all pastel. It kind of looked like I overdosed the tank with vodka or a zeo additive. :)
What bio-filter are you talking about?
 
i just mean the biological filter we establish once we cycle the tank. When you did this (fishless reef) you had to add some kind of nutrient to the water right?
 
lucidheights said:
i just mean the biological filter we establish once we cycle the tank. When you did this (fishless reef) you had to add some kind of nutrient to the water right?
Click to expand...

Nope didn't add anything. The tank was sterile. No feeding, no aminos, no nothing. The bacteria was enough to keep things going I guess.
 
Znut Reefer said:
Why would you want to have a reef tank with no fish?
Click to expand...

This was a while back but the reason why I tried this was because I wanted to keep the nutrient level extremely low, like natural reefs. I didn't know about hanna meters or how to keep primo colors back then. The one thing I could tell you was in a two year period I didn't have ANY STN/RTN. I would take STN colonies from friends and they would stop in my fishless reef. Colors sucked though IMO.

PS My reef has fish today and I still have corals that i received from you 2 years ago :)
 
jackson6745 said:
This was a while back but the reason why I tried this was because I wanted to keep the nutrient level extremely low, like natural reefs. I didn't know about hanna meters or how to keep primo colors back then. The one thing I could tell you was in a two year period I didn't have ANY STN/RTN. I would take STN colonies from friends and they would stop in my fishless reef. Colors sucked though IMO.

PS My reef has fish today and I still have corals that i received from you 2 years ago :)
Click to expand...

Hi Richard,

I was wondering why lucid wanted to have a reef tank with no fish. My tank ran for 6 months with only a sailfin tang and a purple tang. I noticed i got better color and growth when I added several more fish. mainly wrasses.
Glad to hear the corals you got from me 2 yrs ago are doing well. :)
 
i love fish so i can't really see myself having a reef without fish, but i do wonder what type of maintance is reduced from having no fish, and by how much? I'd expect less water changes and more stable parameters but i could be wrong.
 
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