Ok Alex T what is it you recommend for a reef tank?
Thanks
I'm no expert, so I can't recommend one methodology over another. All I can do is tell you how I arrived where I am now...
I had a 24/7 lit refugium on my first 29 gallon mixed reef. I did however have a skimmer. It had a Caribsea Mud substrate and chaetomorpha. Everything did ho-hum, but SPS in such a small water volume were hit or miss. I attributed much of that to being a newbie, alkalinity swings (didn't know how important stability was) and inferior lighting for SPS (150 watt 14k halide).
In my second tank, I set it up very similar, but my focus was on SPS and clams. This is when I got into carbon dosing. My chaeto slowly melted away as nutrients were consumed by the bacteria driven system. It was my first big tank (72x18x27) 150 gallons), and SPS corals started to grow very rapidly. Slowly, over time, I ran into recession from the base of many corals, cyanobacteria outbreaks and phosphate creeping up over time while nitrates were never even measured. Aside from this, I realized my clams did not like being in a ULNS system. I came to learn that vodka/vinegar dosing handles nitrates very well, but phosphates tended to creep up. By the time I installed a GFO reactor, my SPS were suffering, and hair algae became a losing battle. I learned a lot from that tank. The first thing I learned was that my corals did best as nitrates were falling and chaeto was dying out. The second thing I learned is that once I hit undetectable nitrates, my corals got pale, and I had to feed more, or add amino acids. This became a balancing act, as the more I fed, the faster cyanobacteria crept up. I also learned that liverock can only bind so much phosphate before it leeches it back into your system and causes all sorts of problems. GFO stressed corals even further, and I just lost the will to battle it after 3 years. I tried and combined so many methods that I confused myself...let alone my tank.
I promised myself that on my current tank, patience and adherence to one methodology would be my mantra. I tend to over think things and change my mind too many times once something doesn't seem like it's working. I chose to go with much less rock than most would recommend. I have under 100 pounds in a 197 gallon tank, with 80 pounds of sand. In a six foot tank, my aquascape only occupies the middle four feet of the tank, with two small islands. I expect (hope) my SPS will grow into these spaces, as I've provided them with ample room for growth, with much more water volume available with less rock. All my rock is from my previous tank, but was purged of phosphate bound to its' surfaces with a 10:1 muriatic acid bath solution. This was the best move I ever made. The tank took a long time to cycle, as I had dead, dry rock and dry sand. I have no pods, and no life other than what I've introduced. Some might say the biodiversity is missing in my system, but I don't notice it at all. I just let it naturally take its' time with a raw shrimp that slowly rotted. I didn't want a lot of fish in the system, and I believe I'm on the moderate side of fish stocking for my water volume. I chose fish that interest me, and one that has been with me a long time (Achilles Tang, Copperband Butterfly, Bipartitus Leopard Wrasse, Tomato Clownfish, 1 Dispar Anthias, 1 Lyretail Anthias, a Fiji Blue Devil Damselfish and a Bellus Angelfish). Everyone appears to be doing well after 6 months, and I expect to add no more fish. I also feed these fish very well.
I currently run a modified Berlin System with a powerful skimmer (Bubble King Supermarin 200), GFO and Carbon in a reactor, tons of flow (4 Vortech MP40's and a Tunze 6105) and do a 30 gallon water change with natural seawater every 2 weeks that I collect from a local jetty on an incoming high tide. I don't chase numbers in parameters, but rather keep them pretty low and stable...especially for an SPS system. My calcium hovers between 400-420, Magnesium between 1200 - 1250, and dKH between 7-8. Some would say these are low nutrient or Zeovit parameters, but they also happen to be natural seawater's parameters in my area. I can handle the demand right now with a kalk reactor, and being that I run 400 watt Radiums, the evaporation rate is enough for now until my calcium reactor needs to be brought online. I keep my nitrates between 2-5, and phosphates around .02 on my Hannah Checker. My SPS are growing slow and steady, which is fine by me as long as they're happy and coloring up. Having some nutrients in the water has proven to be a good thing for my system...within reason. I think too many SPS keepers feel less skilled if they can't achieve 0 nitrates and phosphates. This level of sterility never worked for me, so I'm not interested in trying it again.
If I had a more mixed reef, I may have run a refugium, and wouldn't have been averse to adding a mud substrate, as it has worked for me before. However, for a predominately SPS and Clam system, I didn't see the need to add one, and it wouldn't have gone with my simplistic approach. I want to be able to control my system easily, and if it has too many moving parts and things to check, I may wind up screwing with it more than I should. Right now I just change a filter sock, scrape the glass, stir the sandbed, turkey baste the rocks, empty the skimmer cup once a week, feed the fish twice per day, add kalk to my kalk reactor once per month and do 2 water changes per month. That's enough for me. If I had to worry about how my refugium was doing, it's just one more spoke in the wheel that I don't see I need or want to introduce.
Basically, I think you just have to decide what type of system you want to have, mimic a setup that successfully achieved those goals and go with it. Instability and change in methodologies isn't a great thing in this hobby. These forums are a great resource, but sometimes they can fuel an unnecessary call to action instead of staying the course. There are so many ways to run a reef tank that it can get confusing. I think changing too many things and experimenting on delicate animals is a recipe for disaster. If you really want to run a refugium (which you are), then mimic one that's easy to run and maintain. There are great SPS tanks out there that are bare bottom, vodka dosed, run a refugium, have mud, have sand, differ in lighting, or any combination of these. They obviously all work. Find what interests you, and is easy to maintain, and exercise a degree of patience to let it happen.
. Though for how simply you state he uses MM, I'd have to respond simply with, I'm sure you've seen the filtration system he uses
I wouldn't attribute his system to the miraculous use of what is called Miracle MUD before I would to his impressive (understatement) filtration
