Sustainable aquarium keeping?

[Skimmy]

I'm going 'low tech' with a good ol' fashioned undergravel filter with airstones and airlifts, which works well for most things.

i would definately say that "works well for most things" is at best debatable...
high nitrates, detritus impacting the bottom of the gravel, unsightly air risers in the main display... and the gravel is a completely inferior biological filter when you compare it to running a system with a pound per gallon of live rock, a couple inches of sand, and enough flow via powerheads to provide appropriate transport of wastes to the bacteria colonies on/within the live rock. which is also vastly easier to do maintenance on then cleaning out the UG filter every 9-12 months...

so basically, if you plan on having live rock, sand, and good flow, then you dont need a UG filter. and, i would emplore you to invest in an inexpensive hang on skimmer for your tank, if your unwilling to provide the system with a sump, which would be much better, and give you many more options, as well as a place to hide all the filtration of the system.

IMO, a big part of being "green" is providing the tank inhabitants with exactly what they need, and designing a system with long term stability and homeostasis in mind. that, coupled with low power consumption, and consuming propagated corals and fish, ensures that your system has as little impact as possible on the reefs/environment.

 

[khaosinc]

Solar panels are pretty durable. I generate somewhere between 2000-3000 kW-hours per year, for which the City pays me $300-400 (it would've been more if I had WA-made panels, which don't exist yet as far as I know). There's also some sort of federal tax credit I can get now for installing more panels.

Not sure what 'solar tubes' mentioned are, but I have several nifty 'Solatubes' which are sort of like skylights to let in more daylight through the roof.

I think solatubes are one of the brands of them. Theres a few people using them on tanks. I'm thinking it might be one of next years projects. I don't think they would be a whole lot more than replacing the T-5's on a couple of my fixtures.

 

[spiffluk]

i would definately say that "works well for most things" is at best debatable...
high nitrates, detritus impacting the bottom of the gravel, unsightly air risers in the main display... and the gravel is a completely inferior biological filter when you compare it to running a system with a pound per gallon of live rock, a couple inches of sand, and enough flow via powerheads to provide appropriate transport of wastes to the bacteria colonies on/within the live rock. which is also vastly easier to do maintenance on then cleaning out the UG filter every 9-12 months...

so basically, if you plan on having live rock, sand, and good flow, then you dont need a UG filter. and, i would emplore you to invest in an inexpensive hang on skimmer for your tank, if your unwilling to provide the system with a sump, which would be much better, and give you many more options, as well as a place to hide all the filtration of the system.

IMO, a big part of being "green" is providing the tank inhabitants with exactly what they need, and designing a system with long term stability and homeostasis in mind. that, coupled with low power consumption, and consuming propagated corals and fish, ensures that your system has as little impact as possible on the reefs/environment.

Thanks for your input. What I meant by 'works well for most things' is 'for most things I'm interested in keeping', which are mostly hardy & low-maintenance organisms. For instance, I'm only planning on keeping a pair of spinecheek clowns, several bubbletip anemones, and a few small scavengers (e.g. hermit crabs) in a ~70 gallon hexagonal tank. In addition I'm going to try to grow Caulerpa and/or another macroalgae, with the idea that they'll utilize the abundant natural light plus artificial light to grow and soak up the excess nitrogen and phosphorus, then I'll just harvest and compost them periodically. That way I'm hoping to forgo much of the add'l paraphernalia that's in vogue, and go back the old fashioned 'semi-natural' system (i.e. undergravel filter) that has worked pretty well for me in the past. Of course, I'll also do partial water changes regularly too. In this high-tech era, it's easy to forget that people used to keep reef aquariums with little more than an airstone to provide water movement, provided that the inhabitants were chosen carefully and that abundant light, usually sunlight, was available (ref: R.A.Riseley's excellent 1971 book 'Tropical Marine Aquaria - The Natural System'). In general, I think our society can stand to move away from some of our energy-intensive, high-tech ways of doing things, and go back to traditional methods that worked well for hundreds or thousands of years.