Can someone please explain this tank to me?

[Anonymous]

Can someone please explain what is going on in this tank? No skimmer.

To start the discussion...Here's my thought - the corals are large enough that a skimmer is not necessary. They are able to strip the water clean by themselves.

http://haaga.aqua-web.org/082006/index.htm

 

[Ben1]

He started out with a large skimmer, kalkreactor, fuge with DSB etc..

Water flows from the aquarium overflow directly to the refugium and from there through overflow to the sump. As a return pump there is Ocean Runner 3500. Water movement in the aquarium is achieved with Tunze Stream 12000 on a Singlecontroller, Tunze 7410 pump and with Tunze Wavebox. Wavebox produces about 1 cm high wave in my tank in the daytime. Balling method is used to maintain calcium and alkalinity. Calcium chloride and sodium carbonate liquids are added with GroTech TEC III NG dosing pump. Sodium chloride free salt mix is not used at the time to test its influence on my reef. Water level is maintained with DIY mechanical level switch connected to pressurized RO–DI water containers. Salinity is of the aquarium water is kept at about 35 ppt measured with refractometer.

Activated carbon (0.5 l, changed once a month) is used continually in passive circulation. 120 l water change is done every week with RO-DI water using mainly Tropic Marin Pro-Reef or hw Meersalz Professional. Some trace elements, mainly iron, strontium and Tropic Marin Lugol's solution are added irregularly. Fish are fed usually once every day with small amount of frozen (mainly artemia and mysis mixed with small amount of Cyclop- eeze) or flake/granular food.

He feeds light and has a fuge, if he can export as much as he is importing then this works for him. I saw your tank build, I think you know these basics lol.

He still has sandbeds for reducing nitrates and I am sure the large coral load does help a bit, along with the fuge and weekly water changes.

 

[Anonymous]

It's interesting though - you see so many tanks that have similar coral growth, color, etc and the owners often say the skimmer is the heart of the system. This keeper has a food input that is similar to many other reefers too. In addition, it doesn't look like he's using his fuge for export. It's for these reasons I find his tank so interesting and worthy of discussion.

Does anyone know if an update of this tank is out there on the web anywhere? I've looked but can't find any. I found a few on the zeo boards but the most recent one was right around the time of his latest website update. IIRC, he's not doing zeo anymore.

My build. Ugh. I need to update that thread. My tank is currently experiencing a nasty spat of STN and I haven't been able to pinpoint the cause yet. All of the standard parameters are near or at NSW. I've never been through anything like this before - it is extremely frustrating to follow a few years of explosive growth/colors with a bout with STN. I broke 100+ tips off last night and threw them in the trash. Se la vi. That's all for a different thread anyways - nothing to do with this one.

 

[Ben1]

Maybe in the pics he just harvested his fuge back a ton. If you look at older pics the fuge had a deeper bed and is full of macros. I dunno but he must be exporting somehow other then the corals themselfs. I am not much for conversions either so dont know how many gal 120L per w/c is lol.

 

[Anonymous]

3.8 liters per gallon. I usually just divide by four in my head and round up a touch. 30ish gallons/change. That's a meaningful amount of export.

I missed the older photos of the fuge. You're right.

 

[Concrete]

Daily Water Changes? Maybe he has his equipment in a different room, I don't see a Calcium Reactor, dosing pumps, etc anywhere.

 

[Ben1]

He removed his kalkreactors and CA rx to go with the balling method.

the original page http://haaga.aqua-web.org/ has more info

 

[Anonymous]

You're right Ben. Super simple. A tank largely maintained by the filtration capacity of corals? Is that what we are looking at? Yes, it has a fuge but not a very large one relative to the tank itself.