Start up guidance

[CeresReef]

Hi Reefers,

I am currently in the planning stages of my set up, and am just looking to siphon some knowledge from you.

A quick summary first, my goal is to have a tank with as much natural process as possible.

The plan is as follows: a 62 gallon DT, 36x20x20, bean animal into a 30x18x12 sump, with as much of that dedicated to a fuge as possible. The only critical tank mates are a pair of gladiator clowns, a pair of mandarins, and a pair of yasha gobies with a randals shrimp partner. I will also include a blood shrimp for cleaning. I am perfectly content if these are the only tankmates, although I will probably keep a peppermint shrimp in the fuge to bring up in times of an Aispatea (spelt wrong I know) outbreak. I will have an ATO set up as well with RODI.

There are 3 things I really want to avoid, a skimmer, water changes, and dosing. I know that sounds OUTRAGEOUS, but I just want people to help me come up with theoretical solutions instead of straight up no. As a disclaimer, I will not be doing this if it isn't viable, I just really want to brainstorm here.

I plan to have about 100lbs of live rock in display, and maybe 20ish pounds in the fuge. With a bit of sand in both.

So now the hard part: Skimmer! this collects excess waste, which I assume the easy solution would be to increase the CUC. What am I missing, why can't I just throw in stars and worms and what have you and not worry about skimming?

Next up, water changes. This removes excess stuff from the water, almost like a mini reset. Is there any natural alternatives? I will have macroalgae in the fuge, but would having it in the display help as well?

And lastly... dosing.... What elements are going to get out of whack the quickest, and what THEORETICAL ideas would naturally keep these in balance?

Please discuss with me! I would love to at least attempt something, even if i bought all the dosing and skimmer stuff to have on standby if the experiment doesn't work.

Thanks
-Ceres

 

[CeresReef]

Ok, I will get the ball rolling on the skimmer issue. I googled what I could about increasing the CUC, and the only drawback I can find is they will die off if I cannot support them. If I were to very slowly add to the crew, and found a way to make sure they were eating well but my tank was fairly clean, I could in Theory reach a happy medium.

Again if I am missing something painfully obvious, please point it out and I will work towards that.

I will actually give people time to read my thread now.

-Ceres

 

[Sk8r]

62 gallons is too small to feed 2 mandarins. You can manage with ONE if you have a fully-functional mature fuge with cheato moss and a lot of pods going on. Shrimp don't clean, actually: in a smallish tank they can pick a fish raw. You need a sump and skimmer, honestly, because water quality is an issue. A cleanup crew is just there to eat dead fish, NOT to clean up algae, which is a function of too much phosphate: a ro/di filter will keep phosphate out. A skimmer will keep nitrate down. If we could succeed without these items, we'd be on it like chickens on a bug, but unfortunately, they're how the tanks work. You don't need a doser: simple timers and tests can handle that, but the rest you do really need for anything more complicated than some algaed rocks and mushrooms and a single hardy fish. The water changes aren't really to eliminate waste, though they help a tiny bit; the real purpose is to replace the micro-nutrients from fresh salt mix.

 

[CeresReef]

Thanks Sk8r, been doing a ton of research on mandarins, so they won't be added to the tank until much later, and I will probably need to create a second small tank with POd condos and whatnot, which I will be fine with doing.

Don't hermit crabs clean, I read they eat algae, as well as snails and stars and bristle worms, and lettuce nudibranch... Doesnt macro algae help keep nitrates down? I know someone had a mangrove tank, don't want to go that far though.

Excellent news about the doser. Thanks for all the input

 

[RobZilla04]

The CUC will clean, but they will also create waste. I think everyone's goal would be to reduce the amount of equipment but I don't know that skimmerless, no water changes, and a full bio load is possible without serious time and effort to achieve a balance. You may spend significant time battling one issue only to have another follow. It would be interesting to try, but you may quit before you see success.

 

[Ron Reefman]

IMHO, if cleaning a skimmer, doing water changes and dosing are more than you are willing to do, sorry to say this, then a marine aquarium probably isn't a good fit for you. You are going to be keeping live animals and you don't want to do the basic work to keep the tank and water clean and healthy.

 

[homer1475]

Plenty of people do tanks with no skimmers, but they also do regular large water changes. I don't think you could do away with one without doing the other.

No skimmer = large regular water changes

no water changes = large skimmer

Not saying it can't be done, but I think you'll end up with more headaches then it's worth.

 

[CeresReef]

Hi Rob, do you know what waste they would produce? and what would in turn eat that? I thought the CUC waste was broken down enough for the bacteria to take over. I do really want to try it, but quitting will just mean suck it up and getting a skimmer.

Ron Reefman, I was waiting for a response like that, dreading it really. I am not afraid of the maintenance, in fact I assumed achieving what I want would require a bit more manual maintenance until my tank settles down. As I tried to stress, I will definitely incorporate a skimmer and water changes and what not if I am not keeping a healthy tank. Glad to see a responsible reefer coming forward, and I want to reassure you, I too am going to be responsible, my objective is more scientific driven and not laziness driven.

And ya homer, the more I read. the more it seems I can either do both, or do 1 more to compensate for not doing the other, and doing neither may be impossible. I think to me it will be worth the headache, we are driven by different things.

Thanks everyone for the ideas so far, keep the ideas flowing!

-Ceres

 

[stelliofleondis]

u could do an algae scrubber and then use the rest of the sump for frag racks

 

[CeresReef]

Thanks Stellio,

I will probably be manually scrubbing algae, and upping my critters to give me a chance to watch them work. The sump will be mostly macroalgae refugium, as my ultimate goal of having mandarins will need all the natural pods i can produce. Also, my coral most likely won't be growing as quickly due to me experimenting with the conditions, so a frag rack may not be necessary. I will probably need a pod only tank off the system with some pod condos, perhaps that tank can serve as a frag rack tank as well.

-Ceres

 

[CeresReef]

A quick update, it is a bit overreaching to strive for no skimmer and no water changes, I can dial back the frequency of water changes later once I have an idea how my system is working. For now lets assume I will be doing regular water changes.

I mentioned earlier I would rather not dose. A big thing I keep seeing is Calcium gets used and needs to be added. Is there any natural methods of creating calcium in a tank?

Thanks peoples,
-Ceres

 

[RobZilla04]

Hi Rob, do you know what waste they would produce? and what would in turn eat that? I thought the CUC waste was broken down enough for the bacteria to take over. I do really want to try it, but quitting will just mean suck it up and getting a skimmer. That's true but doubling the size of the CUC would double the amount of waste. Tripling would triple. You get the idea.

Ron Reefman, I was waiting for a response like that, dreading it really. I am not afraid of the maintenance, in fact I assumed achieving what I want would require a bit more manual maintenance until my tank settles down. As I tried to stress, I will definitely incorporate a skimmer and water changes and what not if I am not keeping a healthy tank. Glad to see a responsible reefer coming forward, and I want to reassure you, I too am going to be responsible, my objective is more scientific driven and not laziness driven.

And ya homer, the more I read. the more it seems I can either do both, or do 1 more to compensate for not doing the other, and doing neither may be impossible. I think to me it will be worth the headache, we are driven by different things.

Thanks everyone for the ideas so far, keep the ideas flowing!

-Ceres

Bite the bullet and get a skimmer. One rated for twice the size of your total volume. That one time cost will allow you to do minimal water changes once your system reaches a stable equilibrium. I've got to admit that I ran chemiclean three weeks ago. Did the 20% WC 48 hours after and haven't done a WC since. My wife dreads helping me do a WC. Thus I'm stretching them out as far as I can.

 

[RobZilla04]

A quick update, it is a bit overreaching to strive for no skimmer and no water changes, I can dial back the frequency of water changes later once I have an idea how my system is working. For now lets assume I will be doing regular water changes.

I mentioned earlier I would rather not dose. A big thing I keep seeing is Calcium gets used and needs to be added. Is there any natural methods of creating calcium in a tank?

Thanks peoples,
-Ceres

The natural method is the water change. When you mix a new batch of salt water (NSW) to the desired salinity you're adding in new mixed values of Ca, Mag, Alk, etc. Diff brands have diff mix values for each (charts avail online).

Dosing is simply adding those nutrients between water changes. You wouldn't necessarily need to dose. Dosing would based on the needs of the system. If you have a ton of corraline and corals they are going to consume the Ca, Alk, and Mag at much higher rates that a lightly stocked or mostly soft coral system.

Without doing one of these you cannot keep levels stable.

 

[rjjr1963]

No skimmer = more water changes. I had a 40 breeder with a HOB filter and no sump/skimmer. Worked well without a ton of algae but I did weekly water changes and no dosing.

 

[CeresReef]

Ok, so to set up my Sump, it is a 30x18x12... without a skimmer, how do I break it down? I was thinking the DT overflow goes into a chamber with a ball of chaeto, then another chamber holding some red macroalgae and live rock rubble and stuff, and then the last chamber with the return pump. Do you think I need 3 chambers, what is the purpose of all the baffles?

Thanks in advance

-Ceres

 

[Sk8r]

The size of the sump is pretty well dictated by the size of the skimmer you want to run, which is dictated by the complexity of your reef/fish load/etc. The skimmer just needs a space to sit down in the water and work.

Understand that the CUC really has very little to do with maintenance: it's there to scarf up stray food pellets so they don't rot and to eat any fish or snails that die so that they won't rot. As algae cleanup and as waste disposal, they're pretty limp. Algae cleanup is done by having a ro/di filter and waste is handled by the rock and sand bacteria.