newbie to NPS, thoughts on setup?

[bues0022]

I've been doing reef tanks for a number of years. I've been able to manage a mised reef (softies, LPS, SPS, nems) just fine. About a year ago I took down my tank because my first son was born. I have the itch really bad to setup my tank again, but want to do something a little different. That might be NPS if I can wrap my head around it. I think it would be great to have the neon colors and interesting shapes that some of the gorgs, dendros, sponges, tunicates, and other filter feeders can provide.

Tank: 30 gallon Oceanic cube, 10 gallon sump.
Lights: TBD, but I don't think I'll be keeping anything photosynthetic. I have my prized open brain I might keep and just put an LED spotlight on it (if it works out).

I have a few questions regarding feeding and nutrient control. I don't want to be doing massive water changes, and want to make the most use out of the dosed food as possible. I'd hate to dose food then just skim it out. Are turf scrubbers an adequate way to control nutrient export while still allowing food particles to remain suspended for a long time in the tank?

In general, is an NPS tank going to be considerably more work than keeping up maintainance on an SPS dominated mixed reef? I've been doing some reading, but I'd appreciate any additional thoughts or links.

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Nps aquariums are probably the most difficult of all reef keeping. Even with major advances in filtration these corals are still stumping most of us, very few can keep the prized ones successfully ( dendronepthya, etc ).
The Factors are food, flow, low nutrients and the other ones are currently unknown. For food, each coral has different requirements for type of food, like size, meaty or veggie. Corals also need certain flow to capture their food/manipulate it right.

Flow is meant to be laminar, in deeper water and caves the current is laminar as it is not as much effected by waves, these corals will also enjoy slack periods, when they can recuperate from the harsh flow.
Low nutrients is probably the hardest one to accomplish. With all of the food added to the water, nutrients levels intern will raise, food must be added with dosing pumps as we can not keep up with their needs, for vendors/sun corals you must spot feed them large meat chunks at least once a day.
To keep nutrients down, we have food water changes will work but they are not very practical to keep up with, so we turn to nature.
Plants and algaes are a very popular choice but it must be on a large scale to remove enough nutrient ( refugium at least half the size of your tank or large algae turf scrubber ). Another great choice is carbon dosing, bio pellets are good but they are hard to control, so using liquids such as vinegar and vodka are better choices.

When it comes to bacteria using a nitrate reactor is your best option ( I mad my own ), the are very costy though. They use a biological media, sometimes sulphur, or ceramic beads. The bacteria on the media gets fed nutrients from the water but carbon dosing solutions as well, the carbon dosing helps expand the bacteria population which makes them consume more nutrient.

When it comes to these tanks it is personal experience which allows you to succeed, as some things may not work for others.

To cap it off a tank with a automatic feeder of several foods, laminar flow, nitrate reactor/refugium/scrubber ( maybe all together ), seems to work the best.

P.S since you have a small tank it will be a lot easier keep these corals, since you will not have to put as much food in.

 

[MarineSniper]

I would start with the larger polyp corals and see how it goes. With a smaller tank, it's fairly easy to feed them without waste. This is the one drawback I've found, moving to the larger tank as I did. If you turn off all pumps, return included, you should be able to practically place the food on each head

These corals are far less sensitive to nitrates, don't require much flow and you'll be able to see if it's a segment you want to delve deeper into

 

[bues0022]

Thank you for the responses. I'm sure the questions I've asked have been done before, but you summed up much of what I've been wrestling with in my thought processess.

I've done sun corals in the past, but I hate doing daily chores on my tanks. I ended up selling them once I realized I wasn't the type to spot feed my coral every day. Is there any good rule of thumb on what types of NPS corals are meaty/veggie lovers?

I didn't realize how sensative the NPS corals are to nitrates. I was hoping to have a setup where I could put together an automatic feeder, and the correct filtration where I do not have to tend to it daily for survival.

Unfortunately, I am limited in sump space by my stand - and my wife Everything must fit inside the stand. So, a 10 gallon sump is the best I can fit. I have it sectioned from my previous reef tank, so I was thinking of using most of it as a turf scrubber if that will be the most effective method of nutrient export rather than a skimmer.

Any more thoughts, opinions, links, ideas, or warnings are appreciated. I'm still at least 4-5 months away from setting up, so I'm trying to do my research and planning now so I can (hopefully) hit the ground running this summer.

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Thank you for the responses. I'm sure the questions I've asked have been done before, but you summed up much of what I've been wrestling with in my thought processess.

I've done sun corals in the past, but I hate doing daily chores on my tanks. I ended up selling them once I realized I wasn't the type to spot feed my coral every day. Is there any good rule of thumb on what types of NPS corals are meaty/veggie lovers?

I didn't realize how sensative the NPS corals are to nitrates. I was hoping to have a setup where I could put together an automatic feeder, and the correct filtration where I do not have to tend to it daily for survival.

Unfortunately, I am limited in sump space by my stand - and my wife Everything must fit inside the stand. So, a 10 gallon sump is the best I can fit. I have it sectioned from my previous reef tank, so I was thinking of using most of it as a turf scrubber if that will be the most effective method of nutrient export rather than a skimmer.

Any more thoughts, opinions, links, ideas, or warnings are appreciated. I'm still at least 4-5 months away from setting up, so I'm trying to do my research and planning now so I can (hopefully) hit the ground running this summer.

Sounds like a good plan, the automatic feeders are a must, so nutrients will rise and you must eliminate them, scrubbers are great to use as long as you have a large one with sufficent lighting.
Here is a great link on scrubbers http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1977420

 

[MarineSniper]

You can possibly sustain an auto feeder using a 10g sump but you'll definitely be limited on the number of corals; especially if using an auto feeder. Nitrates will build up quickly, unless you're looking to do frequent water changes, which you state you're looking to avoid

My sump system build is 425g with 2 huge turf scrubbers (~3k gph an hour) and a mysid propagation system linked that produces 4k a week; all in an attempt for long term success with this type of nps. Not trying to be negative, just making sure you know what you're getting into

 

[bues0022]

I do not take it negative at all. Thank you very much for the insight. I would much rather be prepared and know from the beginning the difficulty level and chance of success rather than crash and burn down the road.

I was doing some looking around, and I believe I could easily make a nitrate ractor to hang off the back of my sump (back of stand is wide open). This wouldn't take up any space then in the sump - leaving nearly the entire 10 gal (besides the return section) available for turf scrubbers.

Another question: is refrigeration of foods necessary for the health/integrity of the food?

I was almost thinking of redesigning/remaking a stand to fit over a minifridge, and custom make a sump to fit on top of the fridge but still in the stand. I think with proper venting of the stand, I could make sure to get rid of the heat the fridge produces, and keep the food cold, and still have room for a sump. One downside is that the sump will be fairly shallow, perhaps reducing the effect of a turf scrubber?

I might just be able to have my cake and eat it too! Thoughts?