Scooterman
Well-known member
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Water Changes
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Krish
RF STAFF
One of my setups Scooty I used a H.O.T Magnum canister filter with a polishing cartridge in it and would just recycle water through it as I vacuumed the tank. Dirty water in filter and clean water out. This was done mostly on my 75 gal as the sump use to collect a lot of detritus in the center chamber. The tank itself, it would collect in one small spot. I'd usually just grab a small powerhead in my hand to blow off the rocks a bit and let the canister filter run for a few hours then remove it. When I went to the 38 gal, I didn't have to do any of this. Rocks were kept clean from all of the flow and so did the high flow sump and tank bottom. Water change meant simply replenishing water. By far my favorite setup I had. 
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This is part of my clean up crew, these large amphipods re produce all year and are great scavengers.
I collected these today along with some mud that I use for the bacteria.
I also added this bottle that co incidently had a baby eel in it but I let that go.
I believe in the natural approach, and I also believe added bacteria from the sea is beneficial and may be the reason I don't have to change much water to control nitrates, but don't quote me on that, it is just a theory.
I collected these today along with some mud that I use for the bacteria.
I also added this bottle that co incidently had a baby eel in it but I let that go.
I believe in the natural approach, and I also believe added bacteria from the sea is beneficial and may be the reason I don't have to change much water to control nitrates, but don't quote me on that, it is just a theory.
Krish
RF STAFF
Any reason why you continue to add bacteria to your tank Paul? From what I understand about beneficial bacteria is once your tank has matured and has found it's balance, you would have all the necessary beneficial bacteria needed by your tank to biologically filter your tank. No more or no less than what is needed to keep things stable. If you were to add more bioload to your tank than the present bacterial colonies could handle, then there is usually a shift in these colonies where they would increase in size to help accomodate the new increased bioload. If you reduced your bioload then I'd imagine the opposite would happen as there may be a reduction in these bacterial colonies as you wouldn't have enough "food' to support them all anymore so couldn't adding too much bacteria just not do anything for you?
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loohunter
Fish lover
so how come things from the asw get built up in the tank and over time become a problem when it is going into the tank in the form of a liquid. wouldn't it also come out in the form of water changes keeping everything in balance?.... I think i know the answer to this but i'm surprised no one else asked. also if dillution is the solution to pollution then why do we load our tanks to the top with rock so only 75 gallons fits in a 180 gallon tank
Krish my theory is that if you just continue forever with the bacteria you started the tank with, eventually one stronger type of bacteria will prevail taking up all the available space, these bacteria are like weeds in a garden and maybe can grow great but may not be the best type of bacteria to convert nitrate. Plenty of bacteria can grow but not all of them will help us with nitrate removal.
Again, this is only a theory of mine but my tank is very old, I do little water changes, my nitrates stay under five and the animals are healthy, growing and spawning.
It could be that this added bacteria is a detriment to my tank but it does not seem to be. So many tanks are plagued with having to change water to reduce nitrates and I don't have to so I can only "assume" that this theory is valid.
I have always done this and the tank was initially set up with NSW right from New York with no treatment.
I also don't have to worry about paracites, but I still am not sure why.
Don't forget that if you are an inland aquarist and you use all ASW, all of the bacteria in your tank came from the tanks in a LFS, do you think that would be a better source than the sea?
Again, this is only a theory of mine but my tank is very old, I do little water changes, my nitrates stay under five and the animals are healthy, growing and spawning.
It could be that this added bacteria is a detriment to my tank but it does not seem to be. So many tanks are plagued with having to change water to reduce nitrates and I don't have to so I can only "assume" that this theory is valid.
I have always done this and the tank was initially set up with NSW right from New York with no treatment.
I also don't have to worry about paracites, but I still am not sure why.
Don't forget that if you are an inland aquarist and you use all ASW, all of the bacteria in your tank came from the tanks in a LFS, do you think that would be a better source than the sea?
I don't agree 100% with this. Dilution is great, but bacteria "along" with dillution is better.
DeviantReefer
Member
lol, interesting read.. most people have their own opinion on WC's.. I changed water once a week just to have fun with my tanks..
Scooterman
Well-known member
I think adding new bacteria as in the way you do it is great. One thing you differ than most is your tank is derived mostly from your NY waters, It may be an issue If you went meet Krish and took back some of his LR or bottles etc. and dumped them in your tank. Rather get LR from a LFS you can get direct drop from suppliers or LFS that get it direct and then bring it to you, the benefits are no different then what you do. Bacteria can live days on the rock, along with all of the critters on it, as long as you keep it reasonably wet, covered somewhat. It is a matter of finding a good supplier not just a large chain store etc.
Scooterman
Well-known member
You can always separate salt from water, when it evaporates it leaves the salt, that is just part of the build up as all of the food you put in your tank, fish poop and additives you put in, siphoning it out is the way to remove it or as I mentioned in my above post. If you had the space of an ocean then dilution would work because of the vast size. In a glass cage this isn't necessary true, If you don't remove detritus and particulates then your going to get more build up over time. Why people use so much LR I don't know, maybe for space to mount corals etc. but is it necessary?
Paul's doing it right. Adding bacteria on a regular basis prevents what I was talking about with one strain dominating another. It's also why his reef lasted so many years I bet.
Curious to here mojo's take on this.
Frank
Curious to here mojo's take on this.
Frank
Krish
RF STAFF
Thanks for the feedback. Kinda makes sense there a bit to an extent. Still have to grasp the concept a bit more though because I've honestly never heard of anyone adding bacteria to an established tank so I will have to give it some more thought.
I live by the sea (island is only 21 miles long by 7 wide), my buddy imported my liverock so it's not from here, corals came from here, and my water never consisted of NSW because of a few reasons. One is I don't want to take the chance of accidentally adding something bad into my tank through the water. Two it could be inconsistant depending on where I collect it from, it if rained recently ect also some times of year, the water is muddy from ground swells and lastly it is just too much hassle to lug all that water home. I rather have ro/di delivered. Don't get me wrong, NSW is the best, but these little tanks don't have the volume of water to protect itself against inconsistencies. A gas spill of a few gallons for eg wouldn't affect anything in the ocean. I collect some of it un-knowingly, add it to my tank and I have a problem. So I keep it simple. Use ro/di a good salt mix and call it a day. Works for me even with wild caught fish and corals local to me as well as using rock not local to me.
I agree the two go hand in hand well, depending on what you are talking about. Pollution can come in many forms though and is used loosly. Take for example a calcium reactor going haywire and dumping loads of calcium into the tank. You catch it in time and what do you do? A big water change to dilute the problem. Bacteria will have no role here. Considered to the ocean, we run very small volumes of water so in many cases, dilution sometimes is the key method some people use to get by on. Take a tank with very minimal liverock (because they want more swimming space for their fish), no fuge or sand bed and a nice sized bioload. In a case like this, unless you want to battle algae problems, then dilution will be your best friend in the form of water changes. As I mentioned before, The water column itself doesn't carry much beneficial bacteria which we all know. You can do a 100% water change on your tank and not cause a problem if all parameters match up including temp. So I agree the two go hand in hand, but it all depends on the tank and what you are after.
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Wow this thread has gained some legs. Forgive me If I havent read everything and double post some stuff.
Ok yes and no, sorta lol. Yes Paul dead on with the dominate bacteria, BUT their is reason for this? a bacteria will become dominant because the enviroment in your tank dictates that, So you can toss in every strain in the world and within a short period of time you will be back to the same. Another thing, their are many forms of bacteria that grow in our tanks and each one provides a required purpose. Look at it like an assembly line where one bacteria hands of a product to the next bacteria in the process, reducing nitrates is only one process in the line and even then material needs to be reduced from somehting else before it can become nitrates. If all we had was bacteria that reduced nitrates, no one would have a tank.
Here is the way to look at bacteria. A chunk of crap floats to the bottom or on to a rock or whatever. Multiple bacterial strains will attack it, they will consume a portion of that craps and use it for respiration. From here two things happen (keeping it simple) they will create another product that will then be taken up by another strain of bacteria that will bind that product to their matrix and then produce another product for the next one in line, and so on and so on, this is what we refer to as cycling. The second thing is that they leave the crap which they have reduced to a point and the balance of that product goes to the next bacteria that can use it. Sooo we know that the stuff we put in our tanks (food and so on) and the stuff that comes out of our fish and critters is made up of seeral properties, nitrogen based, phosphate based and so on. Each of these elements has a series of bacteria that will reduce (take what it needs and send it down the line) and bind it (take a portion of the material and bind it to itself in the form of tissue)
So in know that what is adding bacteria going to do?? Its going to speed up the process from balanced to excellerated. So cool right? But what happens when the bacteria (now at an elevated level) consume what the tank has to offer?? they starve and die and then all the material they have bound or made part of their matrix goes back into solution, unless you can find a method to remove dead bacteria? good luck.
So basically we just keep going around in circles when truly that lump of crap/detritus/food/waste is where all the problems arise from?? it makes it pretty simple at that point to say, just get it out of the system and call it a day. In scotties earlier post he mentioned how he does his WC's by sucking out detritus piles and blowing off the rock. Sounds like the best means to deal with the problem directly. Locking products into biological processes in the tank is a novel concept, but it has two big flaws, one is that it is never removed just stored and when the biological dies (and everything dies) the products are simply put back into the tank. The second is that not all products get reduced biologically, these are called end product and simply remain in the system and build up (and that brings it all back to nasty things in your ASW mixes)
anyway I need more coffie, sorry if I muddied up the water more
Mike
Good question! First thing is to remember that even though it is what we see as a liquid, does not mean that the elements are not in the SW, they are still their just in microscopic forms as Ions. Second thing, goes back to the marble concept. In NSW in say the indo area (anywhere really but lets use that since most corals come from their) Ions from each element that make up SW are in their in specific ammounts (ex:400ppm for cal, 1290 for mag and so on) thetotal of these element parts equals the salinity (so 34, 35 or whatever you run your salintiy at) So if you just add say more mag ions to your SW only two things can happen. One is that the salinity will go up. and second (which happens more often) something will push out of the mix and the salinity wil stay the same.
Ok yes and no, sorta lol. Yes Paul dead on with the dominate bacteria, BUT their is reason for this? a bacteria will become dominant because the enviroment in your tank dictates that, So you can toss in every strain in the world and within a short period of time you will be back to the same. Another thing, their are many forms of bacteria that grow in our tanks and each one provides a required purpose. Look at it like an assembly line where one bacteria hands of a product to the next bacteria in the process, reducing nitrates is only one process in the line and even then material needs to be reduced from somehting else before it can become nitrates. If all we had was bacteria that reduced nitrates, no one would have a tank.
Because bacteria will populate rock/sand and so on way more then they would the water itself. So with rock and so on we get more bacteria, the true solution to polution is to remove the pollution, period. Sucking out a cup full of detritus would be the equal to doing many many WC's. So is it effective, yes to a point but nothing close to simply removing the source to begin with. If that makes sence.
Here is the way to look at bacteria. A chunk of crap floats to the bottom or on to a rock or whatever. Multiple bacterial strains will attack it, they will consume a portion of that craps and use it for respiration. From here two things happen (keeping it simple) they will create another product that will then be taken up by another strain of bacteria that will bind that product to their matrix and then produce another product for the next one in line, and so on and so on, this is what we refer to as cycling. The second thing is that they leave the crap which they have reduced to a point and the balance of that product goes to the next bacteria that can use it. Sooo we know that the stuff we put in our tanks (food and so on) and the stuff that comes out of our fish and critters is made up of seeral properties, nitrogen based, phosphate based and so on. Each of these elements has a series of bacteria that will reduce (take what it needs and send it down the line) and bind it (take a portion of the material and bind it to itself in the form of tissue)
So in know that what is adding bacteria going to do?? Its going to speed up the process from balanced to excellerated. So cool right? But what happens when the bacteria (now at an elevated level) consume what the tank has to offer?? they starve and die and then all the material they have bound or made part of their matrix goes back into solution, unless you can find a method to remove dead bacteria? good luck.
So basically we just keep going around in circles when truly that lump of crap/detritus/food/waste is where all the problems arise from?? it makes it pretty simple at that point to say, just get it out of the system and call it a day. In scotties earlier post he mentioned how he does his WC's by sucking out detritus piles and blowing off the rock. Sounds like the best means to deal with the problem directly. Locking products into biological processes in the tank is a novel concept, but it has two big flaws, one is that it is never removed just stored and when the biological dies (and everything dies) the products are simply put back into the tank. The second is that not all products get reduced biologically, these are called end product and simply remain in the system and build up (and that brings it all back to nasty things in your ASW mixes)
anyway I need more coffie, sorry if I muddied up the water more
Mike
Krish
RF STAFF
Great info Mike!
Your last section of your post may be the reason why my tanks (especially the 38 gal with all the flow) did so well for me. What I always shot for was no waste period, thus the reason for the regular weekly water changes to aid in this. In the 38 gal though, it was my first tank with corals. I didn't use a sand bed because I didn't want the hassle of keeping it clean because I knew from previous experiences that a lot of crap can get lost in it and would need vacuuming and so I got rid of the sand so I could see what I was up against in real time. Secondly, the kind of flow I wanted to run (and ran - 100+x turnover rate) to keep everything in suspension, sand would never stay put in there period. I didn't use a fuge with an "algae" to aid in nutrient export, because quite honestly, it would starve itself. All I had was high flow, a skimmer, phosban reactor (if it did anything-not sure), carbon changed regularily and weekly water changes. The tank never had any detritus piles settled anywhere, the sump didn't either because it was a really small sump with a lot of flow whizzing through it so what the corals didn't use, I guess the skimmer got because I didn't even use any other means of mechanical filtration in the form of filter socks, sponges etc and didn't have any excess nutirent problems. A water change for me meant just replacing water in this tank. I kept what Paul would call a sterile tank. The 75gal, took a different approach. I tried the high flow thing with Tunze streams, a small over the top closed loop and a sea swirl, but I had one problem spot in the tank that detritus would settle. Same thing with my sump. The sump was a good sized sump with slow flow so the center chamber every week had a pile of detritus in it. So on this tank, a weekly water change consisted of sucking all of this out and not letting it sit and accumilate for the bacteria to have to breakdown in a sense. Every tank is different and it's all how you want to approach things. I never added bacteria in my tank. I figured what the tank required, would form on it's own. I just provided the environment for it to grow (liverock). I also felt that, my tank would only have enough bacteria to support the bioload and would adjust accordingly from any shifts in it. As mentioned, always ASW (never a drop of NSW), rock not native to me, corals all native to me, fish a mixture of both at times (some local and wild caught and some I got through the back door kinda which were tank raised and not wild caught) and had no issues. Just the way you go about things I guess.
Anyway, just my thoughts on it.
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Your last section of your post may be the reason why my tanks (especially the 38 gal with all the flow) did so well for me. What I always shot for was no waste period, thus the reason for the regular weekly water changes to aid in this. In the 38 gal though, it was my first tank with corals. I didn't use a sand bed because I didn't want the hassle of keeping it clean because I knew from previous experiences that a lot of crap can get lost in it and would need vacuuming and so I got rid of the sand so I could see what I was up against in real time. Secondly, the kind of flow I wanted to run (and ran - 100+x turnover rate) to keep everything in suspension, sand would never stay put in there period. I didn't use a fuge with an "algae" to aid in nutrient export, because quite honestly, it would starve itself. All I had was high flow, a skimmer, phosban reactor (if it did anything-not sure), carbon changed regularily and weekly water changes. The tank never had any detritus piles settled anywhere, the sump didn't either because it was a really small sump with a lot of flow whizzing through it so what the corals didn't use, I guess the skimmer got because I didn't even use any other means of mechanical filtration in the form of filter socks, sponges etc and didn't have any excess nutirent problems. A water change for me meant just replacing water in this tank. I kept what Paul would call a sterile tank. The 75gal, took a different approach. I tried the high flow thing with Tunze streams, a small over the top closed loop and a sea swirl, but I had one problem spot in the tank that detritus would settle. Same thing with my sump. The sump was a good sized sump with slow flow so the center chamber every week had a pile of detritus in it. So on this tank, a weekly water change consisted of sucking all of this out and not letting it sit and accumilate for the bacteria to have to breakdown in a sense. Every tank is different and it's all how you want to approach things. I never added bacteria in my tank. I figured what the tank required, would form on it's own. I just provided the environment for it to grow (liverock). I also felt that, my tank would only have enough bacteria to support the bioload and would adjust accordingly from any shifts in it. As mentioned, always ASW (never a drop of NSW), rock not native to me, corals all native to me, fish a mixture of both at times (some local and wild caught and some I got through the back door kinda
which were tank raised and not wild caught) and had no issues. Just the way you go about things I guess.Anyway, just my thoughts on it.
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Krish I think alot of peoples tanks do well for a lot of differing reasons. One of the most common terms on our board and many others is that their are many ways to get success. I agree with this but prefer to state it a different way.
Biology and biological process are carved in stone. Now we can manipulate these processes but everything we do has a cause and affect. So when you take this subject (wc's) you can easily say that doing daily, weekly, monthly wc's will work, and in the same breathe you can say that not doing wc's will also work. If one does the changes it will have both positive and negative effects, same with the other methods. So for me folks should not just say I do this and it works for me so bla bla bla, or the opposite. What would be a better approach would be to say I do X and because I do X I know that Y and Z will become issues and thus I do A B and C to compensate. This way you have a much more rounded concept of what is going on in your tank and you can relay that to folks that have not gotten that far yet.
Mojo
Biology and biological process are carved in stone. Now we can manipulate these processes but everything we do has a cause and affect. So when you take this subject (wc's) you can easily say that doing daily, weekly, monthly wc's will work, and in the same breathe you can say that not doing wc's will also work. If one does the changes it will have both positive and negative effects, same with the other methods. So for me folks should not just say I do this and it works for me so bla bla bla, or the opposite. What would be a better approach would be to say I do X and because I do X I know that Y and Z will become issues and thus I do A B and C to compensate. This way you have a much more rounded concept of what is going on in your tank and you can relay that to folks that have not gotten that far yet.
Mojo
Krish
RF STAFF
Makes sense Mojo. A lot of the time, people do certain things because it was what they were fed and what they were told is the way it is supposed to be done. This is seen a lot in newbies. I used sand when starting out in the hobby because I was told to use it and thought it was needed. Crushed corals was what I was suggested. I figured out, sand is not needed. You will have your disadvantages, but I accepted those as they don't apply to me and fit my goal in keeping a reef. I don't need sand to help buffer my ph, I can do that another way. I don't care for fish and inverts that require sand so I don't obtain them. Just like sump flow... I hear a lot of people swear that slow flow through a sump is better than fast flow more often than the other, but quite honestly, I don't see much of a difference and actually prefer fast flow if I had to decide one. Why, simply because I've noticed I get less waste settling in my sump which means less work for me to have to siphon it up or rely on bacteria to deal with it. I may lose a lot of contact time the water has with my skimmer by using fast flow, but I'm not sure I totally buy into that thought either because the water circulating in my high flow sump passes through the sump more times per hour than it would with the slower flow rate so as I see it, it has just as much opportunity. "It misses something this time, maybe it will catch it next time" is my thoughts. I don't let people dictate to me how I should run my tank. I know why I do what I do and try to explain that when offering advice. My last post pretty much stated what I do and why I do it. Why I don't use sand, why I use high flow, why I do water changes and how I do water changes on one tank, but differently on another. Then I've previously posted in this thread I tested my water regularily to dose accordingly. Why I use ASW and why I don't use NSW. So you can see where I am coming from with my approach. I know why my system works for me. I also know what would happen to me if I got lazy. I miss a few water changes back to back on the 75gal I had, I would have probably have massive algae growth. I've also stated many times here that I don't over stock or over feed. Even explained how I feed to minimize wasting food and prevent adding too much waste to the tank. I think Paul did pretty much the same in his posts to a degree. Why he does what he does because it suits him. He has also stated at times as well that he doesn't know why certain things work for him, but it does. Probably doesn't care once his tank isn't crashing and he's accomplishing what he wants out of his tank.
With that said, I agree with you Mike 110% of instead of just saying we do this and do that. Maybe explain why we do it a bit more in depth (more often) giving the disadvantages or compensations that may be needed to be put in place if someone chose your methods. Newbies will be the ones things will affect more because they don't understand whey we do some things we do and just do it because they hear people say to do it or a poll may suggest that majority choose one route more than another so they go with that not understanding why. I'm not convinced that certain things mentioned here need to be done a certain why even it it comes from say Boomer, Mojo, Paul or whomever just because they said so. Some things you can't get around as mentioned like the "biological processes" involved with the hobby. However some thing's, I rather search in depth for myself to understand it a bit more to understand why it is as it is which a has become my new approach to the hobby rather than taking Joe Blow's word for it. Not so much ok because Mojo said this is the way it ought to be then that is right. Nope...I want to understand for myself and draw my own conclusions.
Anyways, hope I didn't kill my own thread with that post. I want to post a picture in a sec to show you'lll something I mentioned. Give me a few.
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Mike, of course you did.
Exactly. I once read in an aquarium chemistry book that Mojo probably remembers, but the chemist said there is this chemist term called Ex Juvinus (I am sure I spelled that wrong) where you do something and depending on what happens, you come to a conclusion. It may be what you are looking for or not, but you try the cure to figure out the problem.
I try out all sorts of things and after a very long time I have figured out "in my tank anyway" that sterility is bad, biodiversity is good. Yes I know it is a simple approach but it seems to work and work well. My tank does not seem to have the same problems that plague many tanks in regard to nitrates, paracites or unknown deaths.
I am not sure if it is the NY water, NY mud, bacteria, or what I watch on TV.
I think if you want to change water every day that is fine, but if you are changing water every day and your nitrates are high and your animals are dying, you need to look further.
Of course, don't do what I do, people will just think you are nuts. :der:
Krish
RF STAFF
k...I'm sure you guys may have seen some of these pictures before. Some may not have especially the back of the tank. Here is the high flow sump I used on the 38 gal tank. You will hardly ever see a sump like this with just 2 chambers...An input and and output seperated by just a bubble trap. This sump is small and only 20 inches long. You can see how big that skimmer looks sitting in there and I had about 950 gph of flow (minus headloss) passing through this thing. My thoughts, keep waste in suspension (rather than settling on the sump floor like my old sump) to be used up by the corals or filtered out. Less work for me
The back of the tank. First time plumbing the tank. Red arrow is suction for the single closed loop at the time, aqua arrow is outputs for the closed loop (4), and purple arrow is drain to sump from a coast to coast overflow. Pump rated at 1506 gph for closed loop.
This didn't do what I wanted it to do. Flow was weak, waste piles settled in the tank, I was un-happy and so I added another matching pump and moved the pumps closer to the tank for less headloss. Didn't want to re-plumb the whole thing (well I did, but time was an issue - I was a new daddy) so I tried to re-use as much of the old plumbing as I could and cap off what I didn't need. Red again points to suctions for each closed loop pump, aqua for return for each side of the tank for that particular closed loop pump (2 outputs per pump). Purple, coast to coast sump drain.
Flow in the tank. 4 nozzles up top and 4 down low (which you can't see in this shot). Tank bare bottom. Also, the return pump was used for surface aggitation and did help direct flow to the coast to coast overflow. You can see it out front without the lockline flare nozzle on it at the time of testing the closed loop. This pointed slightly back towards the overflow.
This is what made this setup work for me. No detritus settled anywhere. Quite possibly I could have not done water changes hardly ever and just dosed for lost trace elements and the tank may have done just as good because as I mentioned, a water change only meant changing water and not vacuuming the tank (detritus piles). At the time, I thought/was told that a tank had to have weekely water changes to replish trace elements. Now I know it can be done differently. This tank may have been one of those that could have taken care of itself. A bit of OCD loving to clean everything and lack of knowledge had me doing water changes weekly on a tank that had nothing settling in the tank to vacuum. Wish I still had it up and running to stop water changes and observed what would happen.
Just some food for thought.
Oh and the tank...
All native wild corals I obtained myself (so they were use to NSW and optimum conditions in the ocean), used ASW, imported liverock and fish not native to me (shhhhh).
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The back of the tank. First time plumbing the tank. Red arrow is suction for the single closed loop at the time, aqua arrow is outputs for the closed loop (4), and purple arrow is drain to sump from a coast to coast overflow. Pump rated at 1506 gph for closed loop.
This didn't do what I wanted it to do. Flow was weak, waste piles settled in the tank, I was un-happy and so I added another matching pump and moved the pumps closer to the tank for less headloss. Didn't want to re-plumb the whole thing (well I did, but time was an issue - I was a new daddy) so I tried to re-use as much of the old plumbing as I could and cap off what I didn't need. Red again points to suctions for each closed loop pump, aqua for return for each side of the tank for that particular closed loop pump (2 outputs per pump). Purple, coast to coast sump drain.
Flow in the tank. 4 nozzles up top and 4 down low (which you can't see in this shot). Tank bare bottom. Also, the return pump was used for surface aggitation and did help direct flow to the coast to coast overflow. You can see it out front without the lockline flare nozzle on it at the time of testing the closed loop. This pointed slightly back towards the overflow.
This is what made this setup work for me. No detritus settled anywhere. Quite possibly I could have not done water changes hardly ever and just dosed for lost trace elements and the tank may have done just as good because as I mentioned, a water change only meant changing water and not vacuuming the tank (detritus piles). At the time, I thought/was told that a tank had to have weekely water changes to replish trace elements. Now I know it can be done differently. This tank may have been one of those that could have taken care of itself. A bit of OCD loving to clean everything and lack of knowledge had me doing water changes weekly on a tank that had nothing settling in the tank to vacuum. Wish I still had it up and running to stop water changes and observed what would happen.
Just some food for thought.
Oh and the tank...
All native wild corals I obtained myself (so they were use to NSW and optimum conditions in the ocean), used ASW, imported liverock and fish not native to me (shhhhh).
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Scooterman
Well-known member
That last picture of the tank is awesome, you should of never gotten rid of it.
Krish
RF STAFF
Thanks Scooty..I know! A few things got me to taking it down. The two closed loop pumps just got too hot and the chiller kept cutting in which sat next to the entertainment center and my wife kept complaining about it saying it was annoying and she couldn't hear the TV. So eventually I said instead of changing the pump and re-plumbing again, I'd just by an all-in-one (24 gal Aquapod) which would avoid a lot of these issues and equipment. Plus you know me...I just like to mess with stuff. Busy body. Should have kept the tank though and just stored it. Regret it everytime I look at the pics. All it needed was a better closed loop pump compared to those Quiet One heaters.
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