Nano-setup for non-photosynthetic corals?

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dendro982

New member
Need detailed help :confused: how to set a small nano-tank (5-6g) for a non-photosynthetic corals:
- red Diodogorgia nodulifera,
- 3 kinds of chili coral,
- white lemnalia (ID questionable, sclerites inside the body, but not dendronephthya),
- what was left from pink scleronephthya,
- and could be babies of a sun coral, Tubastrea, or even the big colony(Tubastrea presence in this tank is under question).

The basic requirements are:
- simple and inexpensive,
- occupying the least amount of the space,
- be not 2-tiered, undrilled (therefore no additional equipment),
- filtration and skimming should be located so, that could de turned on and off; be easily accessible for a media change.
- something for reducing nitrates and phosphates. So far am not impressed with chaeto refugium of the equal size to the main tank (now Nano-cube 6g), and PhosGuard chemical media - one of the chili doesn't like it (could be coincidence).
- I also don't have access to a NSW, artificial salt mix in tap water only. :(

I'm trying to make a reasonable setup for these corals for a months, what I have works, but is high maintenance and requires frequent massive water changes, what is not good.

The more fully your advice covers all aspects, including on what kind of filtration is worth to try and what skimmer will do the job (and how to make it work ;) ) - the better.

Most grateful mind waits for your input. :D
Any positive experience is welcome too.

P.S. At my disposal now are:

- Skimmers: ASM Mini, Visi-Jet, Lee's large CC.
- filtration: micron socks, filter floss, Purigen, PhosGuard, carbon, RowaPros is ordered, different sizes and brands of HOB power filters (no AC bigger than AC50, though), incl. Eheim Liberty for 50g.
- pumps and powerheads: Micro- , Mini- and Maxi-Jets (the lasts are least wanted - audible), AC20. Can move Eheim 300gph from another tank or use Ocean Runner, 600 gph, but now they seem to be big for a tank.
- small tanks and containers of different sizes (2.5-20g),
- IO salt, enriched by Ca and Mg.
 
Hey dendro, I hate to say it, but I think the best thing you could do would be to put a 55gal. RDSB right next to the tank. Maybe you could use it for a stand? :)

It would add water volume for stability and one heck of a deep sand bed for nitrate reduction. I run PhosBan and like it, but your mileage may vary.

Good luck and I want to see pictures!
 
Thanks!
This is, actually, the quest "How to do it in the best way". I'm planning this system, don't have it.

The corals, listed above, are in different tanks: 90g, 10g and 6g. The first two are with refugiums for several months, but all of them are not a sparsely fed tanks (for a reason), a lot of nitrates and phosphates are produced. From the last chaeto was removed - it keeps food from circulation and consumption (Nano-Cube6 back chambers).

Actually, refugiums receive the particles of mysis going through Maxi-Jet strainer, red slime starts, and they have to be thoroughly cleaned every 2 weeks. Thinking about supplying them by water from the sump, after 100 micron filter sock, but don't want to litter the sump with particles, coming from refugium.

If RDSB will receive the same mysis particles (and how it will be different?), it poisons all the tank in a short time. :(

The oldest non-photosynthetic coral I have may be for 11 months, trying to do my best.
 
The first two are with refugiums for several months
Click to expand...
OK. I wonder if your refugiums are still maturing and are not able to handle the bioload yet. It takes time for a refugium to mature. I found that my refugium took about 1 year to really start to work.

The same thing would apply to a sand bed. It takes time for the bacteria and invertibrate life to build up to a point where it can process a lot of food.

Fred
 
I agree with Fred. I started up really slowly and increased the food load slowly over time. Now it's to the point that I feed ~8 times/day. The sand bed critters that I have go to town on anything that makes it to the bottom.

FWIW, I use chaeto as a mechanical filter. Every morning or two, I shake it out heavily and allow the corals to feed a second time on all that heavily bacteria-laden detrius. The corals don't seem to mind. :)

BTW, I think the idea on the RDSB is to keep the flow so high above the sandbed and the water column above the bed so small that no detrius is able to settle there.
 
It seems, that I'm doing something wrong.
I'm almost 1 yr in SW, had 14 tanks total, most nano-size. Currently 6, the biggest is 90g with messy fish.
Successful in keeping fish, corals and filter-feeders so far, but unsuccessful with low maintenance tank setups.

Trying to reach anybody, who can help with advice.

Bear with me, please:

1. Incapable to keep sand in tanks - every time start with it, every time end with removing this detritus-filled dirt-accumulator. No live sand is available locally.

All my tanks are well-fed, most - without protein skimmer. Sand-sifters were unable to keep sand clean. Gravel and sand-washers are big and don't fit under the live rock, moving LR each time is not a viable option.

Mechanical filtration - HOB power filters, even oversized, mini-sump with 10x flow and 100 mk sock - don't remove floating detritus. Why? It should.

Ended with bare-bottom tanks, the same problem with mechanical filtration - detritus floats, but is not removed from the system. the big skimmer didn't helps.

2. Refugiums - they didn't have a chance to mature.

Always tried with the sand - same problems, as in the point 1.

Even BB refugiums, that receive unfiltered water, straight from the Maxi-Jet strainer, with too large pieces of mysis to be eaten by mysiids I have in chaeto, amphypods are in a small quantities.

In 2 weeks, sand or no, I have a lot of detritus in refugium and red slime. Have to clean and to change half of water, with washing chaeto. Or - tried to leave as is - the same will be in the main tank.

3. Before setting refugium for 90g, bought all what was necessary for a RDSB, but after seeing what is accumulates in the sand and refugium, just can't risk to set it. Nitrates (20-40ppm) are the problem, but not at cost of wiping all tank.

Unless I'll be able to keep refugium clean without cleaning, I have to wait.

Pointing me in the right direction will be appreciated. Only no more sand.
 
I'll tell you straight up, dendro, I'm a big fan of sand. But, I don't use sand at all in my little nano. It's mainly a QT tank, but I don't dose anything at all in there so let's call it what it is--a nano. Why don't I use sand in there? I feel that a sandbed would be a waste of time in there because there is too little volume for it to do much good. I would get waste accumulation without any benefit of nitrate reduction.

It sounds like you are dead-set against sand. That's fine, but you are also dead-set against protein-skimming. That's fine, too, but you like to feed a lot. I feed a lot, too, but how do you plan to get nutrients out of your water? How many water changes are you willing to do a week? If I went that way, I think I would start planning for 100% water changes (or as near as I could get) every week, all at once. Otherwise, nitrates will accumulate.

Just so you know, I started with 0% live sand. All of my sand bed life came from the live rock. That might not have been the best way to do it, diversity-wise, but that's how it happened. I've recently started adding some diversity-building products, but only just recently.

What were you using for sand-sifters? For me, I found that conchs and nassarius snails were what pulled my sandbed through the nasty-dirty stage. Now, the sandbed tubeworms don't let any detrius accumulate. But, you kind of have to tough it out until the population of sand life catches up with the amount of detrius in your system. There's some lag time.

I know that you are in Canada and it's hard to get shipments of live animals in (or I would send you a cup out of my sandbed), but do any of your LFS cure live rock? Could you get a cup of the nasty stuff on the bottom of their tanks to start a bed with (that's good stuff)?

As far as stuff floating in the water goes, that's supposed to be the appeal of the skimmerless systems. All the larvae, etc., can float around and develop as they need. I never have the pristine water that some people are able to achieve. But having small stuff floating around doesn't bug me so much--looks more like the ocean to me. But, if you are trying to get rid of it, let's work on it. Filter socks don't work unless the detrius gets sent through them. Where do your mechanical filters get their water? Do they surface skim (which takes out any floating detrius and surface scum)? Do they draw from under water (which would eventually get the larger floating debris)?

Anyway, let us know how things are going. I hope the tone of this didn't come off badly, 'cause that's not what I mean at all. I'd really like to help if I can.

Good luck!
 
I'm almost 1 yr in SW
Click to expand...

Key point. Only one year and you say your attempts at sandbeds have failed multiple times. Sandbeds, and tanks, take time to establish and ramp up to handle any sort of bioload.

It took my refugium and sandbed a year to really get established and get going. I had cyanobacteria and some hair algae come and go a number of times during that year. This is normal. I also had detritus acumulation (and still do in the refugium). Thing is, now I have enough macro to take up any disolved nutrients released by food and detritus and the system no longer has much in the way of cyano. I still get small dustings here and there, but that is normal in every tank.

Read this thread by Eric Borneman on cycling setting up and cycling tanks. It will explain what is going on when you first set up a tank.

Patience is a requirement in this hobby and is particularly important if you want to go skimmerless. It takes time for your system to establish.

Sandbeds in nanos may not work so well. This is Dr. Schimek's feeling. I had forgotten this.

Edit, some other thoughts:

I would not even attempt a non-photosynthetic coral in the first year a tank is set up.

My tank was set up with sand and rock for almost 3 months before I started adding anything else. Cycle, then start to add things and give your tank lots of time to ramp up between additions.

Patience, patience, patience...

Fred
 
No fight here: I'm not deadly set against anything, but one in a good mental health should make some conclusions after stepping 4 times on the same rake and receiving painful kick each time. :D

So, I would rather not to try sand or trachyphillias again (another subject where I failed).

Skimmers:
I love them, mu budget - don't. :D
I have 6 tanks right now (the thread is here), and only 4 skimmers; 2 of them for a deep tank, that now is not in use - too inconvenient to access.

Will try to remodel one of them to a short stout version, after possibly xenia refugium, before return to the tank. (Just found yesterday that white xenia can be 20x more efficient than chaeto, reefmonkey site, Refugium methodology thread).

Biodiversity:
Have a big problem here too. During this year any new live rock almost died in any of my systems, tried even gentle cure - all the same.

Suspecting my salt mix - IO, dated 09/03 (every bucket I saw in the city has the same date), low Ca, Mg, alkalinity around 15 dKH, and I'm using tap water (in my city it's good enough even for orchids and a carnivorous plants, as I had read). No amount of the Reef plus, Coral-Vite or Coral DNA helped.

After asking at Randy Holmes-Farley forums, started to add Ca and Mg to the new water - changes for the better were visible in 3 weeks. Also, stopped to use alkalinity supplements, replaced them the by water changes - water has too high alkalinity anyway.

Sand-sifters were: nassarius snails in one of the tanks (may be too few of them), 2 sand-sifting cucumbers (o of them was quite big). The time limit for my sand without removing for a cleaning is 2 months.
May be, I'll try one more time, in a specially set for this system, but after I solve urgent problems in the thanks I have right now (and may be reducing their quantity. Again, advice will be appreciated).

This post is becoming a mess:, sorry: I started tanking about all the tanks at once( the bigger tank problems are here, not just about how to make good filtration, turnable on and off for a nano-tank. BTW, suggestions? If the sump and refugium, they will be side by side, same water level as in the main tank (budget again). No permanent filtration there now, some filter floss at the night and water changes, no skimming yet.
Thought about joining these Diodogorgia gorgonian and a few chili, that I have in Nano-cube 6g, with other tank - either 10 or 90g, but food density will drop drastically, no re-flow food inside the system, until eaten, and it will accumulate inside the LR and pollute the water eventually. Both bigger tanks have oversized needle-wheel skimmers.
But: the fish in 90g most probably will chew worm-looking gorgonian, and I would like not to put all eggs in the same backet - all other chili are in this tank already.
Have spare 20g long and 20g extra-high tanks, can use them. The spare skimmers, I have, fit in the hight tank. Ideas?

Sorry, out of time now. Will answer Fred in the next post.
Thank you all!
 
Fred:
No attempts in sandbed were made, instead were attempts to keep certain inhabitants, that may be (may be not) require bare-bottom systems. Examples: spitting large filefish and a puffer; mandarin and scooter, that require food be present most of the time in the tank.

I had total 11 tanks (not counting FW feeders tank(s). Not all in the same time - trying to make systems, better suited for a particular groups of inhabitants. Have only 6 tanks (+1 FW) right now.

It's true, 4 of all tanks (that later were recombined and improved - what made 11 in total) were started as shallow bed community tanks - it sounds reasonable. Not everyone has a "green thumb"(using garden analogy) or even interest in particular kind of gardening. And I, particularly, am interested in keeping creatures, suitable for the system, not vice versa. ;)

Sand beds were removed, after I tried everything possible in my situation to keep them reasonably clean. After this, I was not willing to allow to tank to crash, just for the sake of sandbed keeping. Especially in nano-systems.

I know very well about cycling and the processes, taking place during this time. So far, all was successful, no ammonia and nitrites, reasonable nitrates (let us not to go any further from the topic of this thread). And the mainly one thing, that I have in unlimited quantity, is patience. And a reason.

I would like to have a skimmerless tanks (some have successful non-photosynthetic nano-tanks without skimmers), but it is not always possible with the animals of my choice. About skimmers, that I own now - in previous post.

The topic of this thread was:

Everybody's thoughts on how to make the reasonable good setup for keeping non-photosynthetic corals in the nano-tank, with special attention to the next features:
- tank of the 5-6g size for keeping food density high,
- flow working all the time,
- filtration - turnable on and off, preferably for the night (chili are fed in the early morning); main principles how to do that (for undrilled tank),
- what kind of filtration; washable, disposable media and easily accessible for a cleaning are a bonus,
- if this will be in the side sump - may be heater inside, when the sump with filtration will be turned off main tank for a day time,
- if refugium - where in this line; reasonable size for 6g tank; chaeto or white xenia inside (or xenia with anthelia AND with ochtodes - like it); how connected to the all other components of the this system,
- is protein skimmer necessary or desirable for this setup, especially in case of Xenia fuge; before or after the xenia (usually mentioned after). Will be carbon obligatory in this case, in other words - anything about negative chemical influence that xenia or anthelia may have on the other corals (listed above).

I finished my preliminary readings, and asking everybody, who is willing to help, to give their input on the subject.

My deepest apologies for the briskness of the answer. :cool:
 
Were I you, dendro, and I had your systems, I would mount the little nano up above the 90 and pump water up from the 90 and flow down. Toss your food into the nano and let the extra flow down and feed your fish. Then you can run your filtration on the 90.

Does that make sense?
 
I like andy's suggestion. For on off filtration, put the pump on a simple $5 timer. If you leave the pump off for and after feedings for a reasonable time, you will get good food density. Then you can flush the tank into your 90 gallon to maintain water quality.

Simple setup.

Fred
 
dendro982. Sorry for being a little terse in my earlier posting. I know you understand the basics of cycling a tank. What I learned from that link I posted was that there are many cycles that take place (succession ecology) in a new tank and they take place over a much longer period than we usually allow for cycling. 6 weeks just isn't enough.

I understand your focus is on keeping certain organisms, but like anything else, you need the proper infrastructure, in this case filtration. That filtration, if it happens to be a sandbed, needs the proper amount of time to establish and ramp up to handle the bioload. This is even more important if you are attempting to keep non-photosynthetic corals that need to be heavily fed.

When I wrote it took a year for my sandbed to establish, this was in a two tank (80 gallons) system with only three seahorses: not a very high bioload.

Now that my chosen filtration system is working I have started to add more things. I feed my refugium daily (about the same as 2 or 3 chromis) to grow pods, I feed my gorgonian and chilli daily (enough food volume for another couple of chromis) and the tank is able to handle this, unskimmed, without much in the way of nuisance algae.

Again, I did not just start feeding full bore. I ramped up the refugium feeding first, did that for about 4 months and then added the gorgonian and started to feed it.

My most recent addition is two feather dusters that I am feeding phyto on a 10 hour drip.

I added the gorgonian and the feather dusters within 6 weeks of each other. I am now seeing algae show up on my front glass much more quickly than before, a sign that I am getting ahead of my filters capacity.

Again, I apologise if this is repeating what you already know, but I think time is a very important component of any filtration system and the one thing most often overlooked by people setting up new systems or making changes to existing ones.

Fred
 
Andy:
Good idea about nano above 90g - I didn't think about it. Still, the fish in a big tank don't eat such small food, but filtration will be able to handle additional bioload.

And I'll need to buy silent overflow and flowing switch - if the water level is different in 2 tanks, right?
Do you know a good source for them and what roughly will it cost, what else will be necessary - my apologies for the absence of knowledge, I only read about all this, never did myself.

I was told, that will be required switch to turn pump off, to not run it dry if something happens, and something to protect upper tank from draining, but with ability to restore siphon itself.
And, if you can,
- what Maxi-Jet (or other) will be good there,
- what diameters tubing should be (I had read that it's better to make tubing larger diameter right after the pump, less restricted flow),
- what diameter and the names of connections are (again, sorry),
- what floating switch and silent overflow diameter should be,
- any other details, that are necessary?

Fred:
Can you add your opinion on all of the above, please?

Thank you for the input on the creating stable ecosystem, able to support non-photosynthetic organisms too.
Will in work in the small nanos - like 6g? From what I read, probably, not. And I can't risk the big tank, sorry.

May be in the future refugium for it with sand, started as a separate tank, set and developed slowly?

Can you give any advice on what tank is better to use (I have 20g HX, 20g L, and translucent rubbermaid containers of different sizes), what plumbing and pumps and own filtration they require, with names and diameters, if you can, please. My own trials were not good - even if gph was that was recommended generally.

I had there 20g extra-high, with 350 gph flow, including additional filtration - HOB AC 50 with filter floss, aragonite, LR rubble piles and chaeto, 54 W 6,500 K daylight ligh. Fed by unfiltered water from 90g tank - in become the place of debris collection and cyano bloom. Had to disassemble and replace it by easily cleanable 5g bucket, rubble and chaeto only.

Thanks again.
 
And I'll need to buy silent overflow and flowing switch - if the water level is different in 2 tanks, right?
Click to expand...

I don't know what a silent overflow is (mine sure aren't silent :(), but you do need to have an overflow on the 6 of some sort (hole near the top, please, not in the bottom of the tank unless you have a standpipe). You put the 6 gal. a little above the 90. Pump water from the 90 to the 6. (I'd put the pump near the top of the 90.) Once the 6 is full any additional water flows from the overflow down to the 90. Switches fail, but I (mostly) trust gravity to work. :) You just have to make sure that the pump isn't too big for your overflow to handle.

If you set it up like this, here are the worst-case scenarios: 1) Electricity cuts out/pump dies. The pump stops. The 6 drains down to the top of your overflow (that's why you either need a standpipe or a hole in the top of the tank). Your 90 can most likely handle whatever water was in the pipes as it drains down. No big deal. 2) Your overflow clogs. Water spills over on the 6. The pump keeps going until the level in the 90 is under the pump. Okay, you've lost a pump and the carpet's wet, but if the pump is high in the 90 then both tanks are still mostly full of water and your livestock are still okay. Not much fun, but not the most horrible thing in the world. If you use a siphon overflow, it'll fail eventually and it's failure will fall in this category, so be sure that the pump in the 90 is high in the tank.

As for specific recommendations, that all depends on your setup. How high will the 6 be above the 90? How far away? Honestly, it's safer to use a relatively small pump so that turnover won't be very fast (1x-2x/hour, maybe). Then use something else to get lots of water flow inside the nano. Remember, your goal is to keep the food in the water column as long as possible (lots of flow _inside_ the nano) and then to slowly move the nutrient-laden water to the 90 (slow flow _between_ the two tanks).
 
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