Poll: Any self sustaining long term tanks ot there? No frequent water changes, etc
- Thread starter fantastic4
- Start date
Here is an update. I pulled my skimmer on Oct. 10 and replaced the skimmer with a second cheato chamber. The cheato works well as a bubble trap too. I tested water parameters and they are all in line before the skimmer was pulled. I still do a 2 gal wc per week just to remove detritus in the sump. I do have a small amount of film in the return section but not too worried. I have not had algae outbreaks etc. so I feel like things have stable. I will add a few smaller fish over the next several months. I will update again.
This is amazing to me. This goes against everything I have learned about reefkeeping. I can say however that I do not feel so guilty for only doing once a month WCs. What I have found is that when I do a WC my glass stays cleaner for about three weeks and then the glass gets algae on it much quicker.
RobbyG
Active member
If you think about it, it's not all that amazing! Break it down the way a Zoo keeper would and it all becomes very clear.
If you want to raise a self sustaining population of anything you have to make sure that there is food replenishment growing at the same rate than the Animals can eat it and the waste material can be naturally broken down before it becomes unhealthy to the inhabitants.
So it all boils down to balancing the amount of space for a given Bio load. All the extra equipment that we add to a tank as well as water changes are all used to shift the balance so that one can add more bio load with less space. It is very dangerous for someone who is exceeded the natural balance to suddenly remove a device that was artificially keeping the system stable, you may get away with it if your just slightly over the line but if your way over the line like most people, you will crash your tank.
BTW do you notice a common theme in most of these tanks? Very low fish load.
If you want to raise a self sustaining population of anything you have to make sure that there is food replenishment growing at the same rate than the Animals can eat it and the waste material can be naturally broken down before it becomes unhealthy to the inhabitants.
So it all boils down to balancing the amount of space for a given Bio load. All the extra equipment that we add to a tank as well as water changes are all used to shift the balance so that one can add more bio load with less space. It is very dangerous for someone who is exceeded the natural balance to suddenly remove a device that was artificially keeping the system stable, you may get away with it if your just slightly over the line but if your way over the line like most people, you will crash your tank.
BTW do you notice a common theme in most of these tanks? Very low fish load.
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Tigger240
New member
just nit picking at something i saw, eric borneman has a speech at imac.org and reefvideos.com about 02 consumption and production. i am no expert, but think its unecessary to light the macro 24/7 for o2 purposes unless you are doing so to prevent it going a sexual.
he too prefers to go skimmerless. you can talk to him on marinedepot.com
he too prefers to go skimmerless. you can talk to him on marinedepot.com
Frankysreef
Active member
I can change my water in 20 mins... It works... its easy...
rcole33856
New member
very interesting thread, I have not seen any long term research in this area.
danieljames
New member
If there is no imbalance, you cannot have balance. You cannot have one without the other. If you can look at it that way, it opens other doors. We are all different...that makes us the same.
Instant Stability or Gradual Progresssion
Instant Stability or Gradual Progresssion
It is easy to see that setting up an instantly stable, mature system is possible. This is true simply by virtue of the fact that stable, mature systems exist. So, if I take everything from one 55 gal tank and move it to the same positions in another 55 gal tank, transfer the water, lights, etc. it is instantly mature and stable! Now there would be complications if you moved something inherently unstable like anaerobic sand, but gravel with lots of burrowing creatures can be safely transferred.
If I am setting up a new tank I will use mostly new substrate and just seed it with maybe 5% to 10% “living†substrate. I will also reduce costs by starting most of the tank with tufa, lava rock, or some similar porous rock and seeding the tank with a small number of live rocks from a mature tank. If this is done and more plant mass is added than animal mass, the tank will be stable chemically from day one.
This can be done with bare-bottom tanks for a short time as well. Earlier this year I experimented with the technique for a fish only hospital tank. I kept a bicolor angel, flame angel (these particular fish are friends), a percula clown, an orchid dottyback, and a yellow tang in a 20 gal bare-bottom tank for a month while treating them for ich with half salt (1.012). A single, initially 10 inch long strand of grape caluerpa provided filtration using a 65W 10,000K PC light. I protected the caluerpa from the fish with a plastic mesh. Don’t let them eat the filter! The calerupa grew to about 14 inches. If it had taken longer for all the ich to die some maintenance may have been required, but as it was daily testing did not indicate heightened ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate.
If you are setting up a new tank and cannot provide mature live rock, substrate, and live plants, or do not balance the mini ecosystem perfectly you will see the algae cycle to some degree. However my experience is that it is not to hard to avoid it because you just have to overkill on the number of plants. If you do it right the chemistry should be ok for corals on the first day.
If you fill up with dead “live†rock you just bought, don’t include any plants, and use wimpy lights, then all the normal rules apply. It will take a long time for chemistry to stabilize. And unless you have significant plant/algae growth that you allow somewhere the chemistry will never stabilize. This is because bacteria populations are never stable. Thus, with unstable chemistry you will be forced to skim and/or water change to fix it.
For those contemplating changing to a skimmerless or water changeless system that are unsure if they have enough plants I say just try it for a while and test your water. If you have trouble you can always turn on your skimmer and do a water change, which is what you would have been doing anyway!
Instant Stability or Gradual Progresssion
It is easy to see that setting up an instantly stable, mature system is possible. This is true simply by virtue of the fact that stable, mature systems exist. So, if I take everything from one 55 gal tank and move it to the same positions in another 55 gal tank, transfer the water, lights, etc. it is instantly mature and stable! Now there would be complications if you moved something inherently unstable like anaerobic sand, but gravel with lots of burrowing creatures can be safely transferred.
If I am setting up a new tank I will use mostly new substrate and just seed it with maybe 5% to 10% “living†substrate. I will also reduce costs by starting most of the tank with tufa, lava rock, or some similar porous rock and seeding the tank with a small number of live rocks from a mature tank. If this is done and more plant mass is added than animal mass, the tank will be stable chemically from day one.
This can be done with bare-bottom tanks for a short time as well. Earlier this year I experimented with the technique for a fish only hospital tank. I kept a bicolor angel, flame angel (these particular fish are friends), a percula clown, an orchid dottyback, and a yellow tang in a 20 gal bare-bottom tank for a month while treating them for ich with half salt (1.012). A single, initially 10 inch long strand of grape caluerpa provided filtration using a 65W 10,000K PC light. I protected the caluerpa from the fish with a plastic mesh. Don’t let them eat the filter! The calerupa grew to about 14 inches. If it had taken longer for all the ich to die some maintenance may have been required, but as it was daily testing did not indicate heightened ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate.
If you are setting up a new tank and cannot provide mature live rock, substrate, and live plants, or do not balance the mini ecosystem perfectly you will see the algae cycle to some degree. However my experience is that it is not to hard to avoid it because you just have to overkill on the number of plants. If you do it right the chemistry should be ok for corals on the first day.
If you fill up with dead “live†rock you just bought, don’t include any plants, and use wimpy lights, then all the normal rules apply. It will take a long time for chemistry to stabilize. And unless you have significant plant/algae growth that you allow somewhere the chemistry will never stabilize. This is because bacteria populations are never stable. Thus, with unstable chemistry you will be forced to skim and/or water change to fix it.
For those contemplating changing to a skimmerless or water changeless system that are unsure if they have enough plants I say just try it for a while and test your water. If you have trouble you can always turn on your skimmer and do a water change, which is what you would have been doing anyway!
Dragonet keepers in self-sustaining tanks: what is minimal size of the tank to supply food for it?
I mistakingly bought 2 male scooter blennies, had to remove the weaker, now the 10g tank (was 20g recently) is under constant risk of crash because of the amount of the food for dragonet in the skimmerless tank. The only other fish is chromis.
Can you post the critical details of setup?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Another thought: same for a 7" scolymia, cynarina, welsophyllia - they expel something into the water, it becomes viscous, bubbles and the red slime. Someone said that he had kept open brains for years on phytoplankton, to lower bioload. Any additional info on this?
I mistakingly bought 2 male scooter blennies, had to remove the weaker, now the 10g tank (was 20g recently) is under constant risk of crash because of the amount of the food for dragonet in the skimmerless tank. The only other fish is chromis.
Can you post the critical details of setup?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Another thought: same for a 7" scolymia, cynarina, welsophyllia - they expel something into the water, it becomes viscous, bubbles and the red slime. Someone said that he had kept open brains for years on phytoplankton, to lower bioload. Any additional info on this?
This is wrong on several levels.
1. Mature implies that there are established populations a fauna from bacteria on up, occupying available niches and that these populations are no longer changing rapidly either in population size or type. You cannot instantly go from unpopulated to mature. Bacterial and other populations need time to establish.
2. Much of what takes place in a maturing tank is not measurable by your average hobbyist. The nitrogen cycle is the only really easy evidence of cycling and changing communities. I posted a link to a thread by Eric Borneman that explains this well.
3. Moving an established tank is no setting up an instantly balanced system, it is moving a formerly established and balanced system.
4. Throwing macro algae into a new tank that has been seeded with live rock/sand does not instantly create a mature or balanced system, it creates a maturing system where nitrate/nitrite and phosphate are absorbed more rapidly. Lack of nitrate/nitrite is not an indicator of either a mature system, it is an indication of a system low in these two nutrients (not a bad thing).
5. "ballanced" is a misnomer. All our systems are dynamic and constantly changing. The difference between a new and a mature system is that there are fewer and less rapid changes taking place in a mature system.
It took my system 1.5 to 2 years to really mature. Over that time, I saw cyanobacteria come and go. I had several major blooms. I also had other microalgae blooms come and go.
Galilean. I am glad you had no problems in that 20 gallon hospital tank for the month you rant it with such a high bioload, but it would be a streach to go from that to suggesting that all you need is water a little live rock/sand seeding and you have an intantly stable mature system th which you can add whatever you want.
Fred
My 125g Berlin-style reef tank has zero nitrates and phosphates, and I haven't done a water change in more than a year. I have a lot of fish, and I feed them daily.
I think the key is macroalgae--I have ton of feather caulerpa in my tank. Every month, I pull out as much as I can, but it grows back with a vengance. I have a good skimmer (PM bullet), but it never skims much.
If I weren't lazy (or if I had measurable nitrate or phosphates), I'd do monthly water changes. Currently, I add calcium/alkalinity and strontium to my water, and my corals, fish, and clams are doing very well.
I think the key is macroalgae--I have ton of feather caulerpa in my tank. Every month, I pull out as much as I can, but it grows back with a vengance. I have a good skimmer (PM bullet), but it never skims much.
If I weren't lazy (or if I had measurable nitrate or phosphates), I'd do monthly water changes. Currently, I add calcium/alkalinity and strontium to my water, and my corals, fish, and clams are doing very well.
dzhuo
Active member
for those who haven't change water in a year or longer, what is the growth rate of the corals? assuming everything grows normally, where are the corals getting their calcium and other trace elements and minerals from? i would assume that with a limited amount of those things available, a couple of years is long enough for the corals to use them all up right? after that, what happen?
thanks!
thanks!
I do not currently have any stony corals in my tank so this is not an issue for me but...
Calcium would be added in any of the conventional ways
Pretty much any other elements required can be introduced through regular feeding. Elements such as strontium are not required despite what manufacturers such as Kent may say.
Fred
Calcium would be added in any of the conventional ways
Pretty much any other elements required can be introduced through regular feeding. Elements such as strontium are not required despite what manufacturers such as Kent may say.
Fred
I think I actually did monthly water changes for about the first year. The last water change I did was about 5 gallons when I had an issue with hydrogen sulphate forming at the bottom of my refugium. That was interesting.
The tank now seems very stable. I pull a big hand full of algae out of my refugium weekly and also pull from my main tank when it starts to overgrow too much of the tank.
It amazes me how stable the water seems to be. I have a little hair algae here and there, but its an easy to remove variety. I pull a couple of small clumps every 3 months or so. I also get a light dusting of cyano here and there (no solid mats any more), but it never seems to stay more than a week at a time.
The big down side for some people would be yellowing of the water, but I have started to use carbon and will change it regularly.
Fred
The tank now seems very stable. I pull a big hand full of algae out of my refugium weekly and also pull from my main tank when it starts to overgrow too much of the tank.
It amazes me how stable the water seems to be. I have a little hair algae here and there, but its an easy to remove variety. I pull a couple of small clumps every 3 months or so. I also get a light dusting of cyano here and there (no solid mats any more), but it never seems to stay more than a week at a time.
The big down side for some people would be yellowing of the water, but I have started to use carbon and will change it regularly.
Fred
In ideal conditions hard coral will use up the readily available calcium carbonate very quickly. They can continue to grow indefinitely at the rate live rock and substrate dissolves, but for fast growth you need to replace it. In my experience the best way to do this is with kalkwasser, but many other products also work well. In the book Dynamic Aquaria, the Dr. Addey documents how hard coral growth rates in the aquarium can be triple normal growth rates in the ocean under the right conditions. I replace top-off water with kalkwasser and RO to maintain calcium and alkalinity levels, pH is strongly buffered by the live rock and photosynthesis so that is never a concern. Daily pH fluctuation will typically be 8.3 at the end of night and 8.5 at the end of day (refugium on reverse or 24/7 lighting).
Coral growth rate also strongly depends on feeding and lighting. If you have only soft coral, they can grow quickly without adding any supplements but Iodine. I’ve never had to add any other trace elements. It may be that enough of other elements are absorbed in food. I always have some fish in reef tanks even though I may not feed coral directly and many microscopic creatures edible to coral are also abundant.
How fast is fast in ideal conditions? It depends on the coral. Here are some rough estimates. For something like Xenias, button polyps, or star polyps the number of polyps could double in a month. Zooanthids tend to grow a little slower, maybe doubling in two months. Leather coral can add two or three cm of growth around the edges in a month. For something like Acropora each branch might grow a cm or two per month. Montipora leaves might also expand by about a cm or so per month. More massive branching corals like hammer coral or frogspawn would take two months or more to add a cm to each branch. Something like a brain or cup coral is harder to quantify without taking it out to weigh it. They probably add about the same amount of calcium carbonate mass, but they will appear to grow a lot slower because of the shape. I’ve actually never kept a plate coral (fungia) myself, but judging by my dad’s tanks they can expand by almost a cm per month as well.
Anyway, just like algae… Once you have a tank half-full of pulsing Xenia, you will soon have a tank completely full of pulsing Xenia. If soft corals are really growing as fast as they can under ideal conditions they will become a weed.
Stoney Mahony
New member
I have watched my pink frogspawn grow from 1-2 heads to about 12-14 in a little over a year and I don't add nothin. Clams grow good too, Gigas has grown about 3", Maxima almost 2", and croceas about 1.5". The key for me is stability 
I have a 110 that hasn't had a water change in about 18-24 months. Only has 3 small fish, (tang, clown and damsel) and mushrooms. No real clean up crew to speak of. Its my dads tank and he feeds it pretty heavily and is not consistent with the b-ionic ( probably a couple times a month). Haven't lost any fish. Have struggled with hair algae in the past, but the last 8-10 months the tank has been really clean. I am surprised it has done as well as it has. Especially the amount of coralline algae that it has.
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