Bio-filtration

[pecan2phat]

Wanted some opinions on whether a small isolated grow out tank for SPS needed a normal bio-filtration media load like if you had a display setup.
Being that this has no fish and just cerith snails, no live rock just some sand, do I need a bio-media other then some ceramic noodles?
By just adding frags, does it increase the bio-load in relations to ammonia and nitrite in the longterm?

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Diesel]

If this is a stand alone frag tank you need the whole nine yards to be successful in growing your frags in there.
If you have a possibility to have it plumb in your existing system you have done 50% of the work already.
No bio-load means low nutrients and starving your SPS frags as results.

 

[pecan2phat]

Thanks Diesel.
I’ve been adding potassium nitrate to keep it between 5~10 ppm and the P04 is naturally @ .06 ppm.
Tank has been running for 1 year now and initially yes, it was starved for nutrients and I had a lot of color loss.
Besides calcium and alkalinity, I only dose minor trace elements and amino acid 1x a week and the potassium nitrate as needed.
I use to exchange some water from my LPS/softie tank every so often since that water had 50 ppm of N03 but it was hard to calculate the right amount of exchange so I eventually changed over to the potassium nitrate solution.
Since the beginning, I’ll add frags and it’s gotten to the point where I took out all the ceramic frag station holders and ended up with a large acrylic frag rack. My concern was if I depleted the vessel of bacteria surface area (ceramic frag structures) and if SPS in particular, excrete ammonia that needed the full function of a bio-filtration for the nitrogen cycle.