Intelligent Design / Natural Filtration

[Subsea]

I also moved stuff from two ornamental seaweed mixed garden lagoons into 5yr mature 120G display.

Both 75G & 120G displays have reverse flow undergravel filters and cryptic refugiums. The ornamental seaweed lagoons are now dedicated to seaweed growout.

PS: I was most concerned about how 5yr old resident tangs would tolerate other tangs.

In the 75G display, the Hippo tang resident has tolerated Yellow Mimic Tang intrusion into his world as “king of the mountain”.

The large Yellow Tang in 120G was much more complicated. Forty pounds of GSP covered rock was removed and a very large 40lb Texas “holy rock” was placed in right back corner and then completely aquascaped the display. At this point I caught 5 orange Ocellarius clownfish, 10 yellow tail blue damsels and 1 medium blue tang. With all the changes, aggression from resident fish was diffused. It was not until the next day that I realized how feisty the smaller blue tang was in relations with resident yellow tang. Though no injuries were sustained, both fish recognise each other as equals to share the display.

 

[Subsea]

I have had much fun with a major redo of both of my display tanks at the same time. Because they are on different timers, lights overlap for 2 hours only.

 

[JohnL]

I have had much fun with a major redo of both of my display tanks at the same time. Because they are on different timers, lights overlap for 2 hours only.

Beautiful tanks!

 

[Misled]

Very nice Patrick!

 

[kedar301]

hi all,
this is what i am planning as a staring point....

180cm Long x 75cm wide x 65cm tall tank (roughly 6ft L x 2.5ft W x 2ft T) with a Bean Animal overflow system. with a sump tank (multiple sumps possible) underneath being 160cm Long x 60cm wide x 65cm tall (roughly 5ft L x 2ft W x 2ft T).

if everyone suggest then i would like to start a new thread but then it will for along time only be an information gathering thread.

What I would also like suggestions on is....What should this setup contain as a self sufficient reef tank. I would love to make the sumps to be a display as well.

List of equipments would also be nice to have.

 

[JohnL]

if everyone suggest then i would like to start a new thread

That's a good idea

 

[griss]

That's a good idea

Agreed

 

[kedar301]

hi all you experts

please provide the helping advise and suggestions on thread link below

First Tank with Intelligent Design / Natural Filtration

INSPIRED from: Intelligent Design / Natural Filtration : All Natural self sufficient tank hi all, this is what i am planning as a staring point.... 180cm Long x 75cm wide x 65cm tall tank (roughly 6ft L x 2.5ft W x 2ft T) with a Bean Animal overflow system. with a sump tank (multiple sumps...

forums.reefcentral.com

 

[Subsea]

I was reading this interesting thread recently:

"the secret to colorful,healthy corals....obvious to some,elusive to many"

the secret to colorful,healthy corals....obvious to some,elusive to many - Page 17 - Reef Central Online Community

and the oft quoted "one should have at least barely detectable NO3 and P04 to have colorful corals' came up and it got me thinking since I very rarely have any detectable nitrate or inorganic phosphate readings (ELOS, Salifert). Yet. coloration is quite okay, me thinks:

So I sent a water sample to Triton and they gave my the big 'Yellow' warning sign that PO4 was only at 0.0015, so half of the 'desired' level.

Since my system falls outside the current 'norm', the obvious thing to do was look at what was different between a typical reef tank of today (skimmer, GAC, GFO, etc.) and a system that doesn't use all these filtration products.

I think the main important difference is that the free-living bacterial count in an unskimmed/no GAC tank is much higher (~10X according to Ken Felderman's research as well as POM and DOM are around 2-3x higher). In my mind, the relative abundance of these nutrient sources in a 'naturally filtered' tank could explain why untectable NO3 and PO4 levels can still produce nicely colored corals.

Because of the large diversity of live food in the microbial loop, inorganic nitrogen & inorganic phosphate concentrations are not the only source of nutrients to grow coral.