Coral grow out tank tips?

[beyarbrough]

Hello everybody. Over the past several months I have been building a plan for my future reef. Many hours have been spent researching and considering nearly every method that has ever been used in this hobby for the best outcome possible. I finally decided it was time to directly recruit some tips and the experience of others who have maybe sought a similar goal as myself. I will layout my current setup as well as my short term and long term goals. This may be a lengthy post so thanks in advanced for reading.

My current setup consist of a basement "fish room" of sorts. I have a 100 gallon stock tank which has been cycling 100 pounds of dry rock for about eight months. Above the stock tank is a 40 breeder tank drilled for overflow. I have a few maxi jet 1200s for various purposes as well as a Rio 26 for possible return pump. For lighting I have a single 250 metal halide and a 150 watt HPS grow light for chaeto or maybe mangroves. If I don't use either of those I might place a plant near the tank for some extra oxygen in the room being stuffy basement. The circulation pumps have not been purchased yet because I have not decided exactly what I need. A few months ago I added a brs carbon reactor to use with rox carbon. I also have a simple auto top off made up.

Now for my goals. Like everybody my long term goal is an awesome and thriving reef tank. I am not new to this hobby and as a result have learned that the instant satisfaction of having every coral and fish that I think I want will not get me a great reef right away. So I decided to take my time to plan and build this one slowly. My ideal future tank will be an SPS only that will mimick what I have seen in nature, almost like a snap shot of a section a natural reef. What I see in my mind is a tank filled with coral but restricted to less than ten species in a tank. I think having half the tank in just a single coral species would look amazing, rather 60 different species stacked in together. I'm in no hurry so hopefully this will be fairly easy to accomplish as well, starting with a 40 breeder to grow a few colonies to a decent size.

My short term goals, meaning over the next year or two, is to grow a few of my favorite colonies. It is very apparent there are more than a thousand ways to skin a cat in reefing, so I'll finally get to the reason for my post. Please comment, critique, and advise on anything as I am open to any and all help. As I stated earlier my lighting is a single 250 metal halide. Hopefully this is sufficient. I'm not opposed to supplemental t5 if necessary. I am thinking about 4000 gph flow in the tank from powerheads, with two or three powerheads alternating. The newest koralias look nice due to price but nothing has been decided yet. I don't have a skimmer and don't plan on adding one unless absolutely necessary. At the moment I don't intend on adding any fish. It's this a good idea? I'm not anti skimmer but I really don't want to spend a lot of money on a skimmer, and the cheaper options I have used in the past were very finicky. I'm not sure how to handle nitrate reduction or if that will even be an issue with no fish, but I will have to feed to coral with something I believe. If having some fish in the tank is a good idea I think maybe a few mollies would be the most I would want. The two most attractive plans for nitrates right now are chaeto and a remote deep sand bed. I also considered running something like purigen along with the carbon, or maybe ozone. Any thoughts?

One more thing I'm unsure about is coral feeding. I have some reef chili and plan to use something like acropower. Good or bad idea? I'm not sure if SPS can utilize reef chili or not, but it has helped cycle the rock.

Thanks again for reading. Please share if anybody has experience with this type of tank and what did or did not work for you. I'm in no big hurry and with everything being in the basement space and noise are no issue. If all goes well then hopefully within the next year or two I'll start a build thread for my new reef!

 

[maroun.c]

Fishkess setups do exist but they struggle more with feeding the corals. With your plan you need to find an equilibrium that works with amount of food you need to feed to keep ur corals from fading and the filtration you have. Any change in the tank (fish addition, increased filtration, change in water change protocol... Will break that equilibrium and you need to observe and make changes accordingly. I'd rather go to the final setup in one go tank fish, corals and filtration and get that initial balance and only have to make small changes when I add more fish that disturb the balance. Running a setup fishkess and skimerless for a year or two means a load of changes when u decide to add fish or a skimmer. I'd prefer not to make that change when I have a collection of corals that are used to certain conditions for a year or two. Would be very interesting to see ur progress if u decide to go ahead with your project as well as how corals react pre and post skimmer and fish additions.... So do start a build thread and document If u go ahead with ur plan.

 

[fabutahoun]

I agree with Maroun, setup the coral tank completely from the start with skimmer and filtration. I recommend adding a few fish specially the "melanurus wrasse" as it will eats many worms and pests that may come with corals, and if there are a space for a small tang to eat the algae.

I Had A fishless Frag and coral grow out tank for about a year before moving everything to display tank. the tank only got some snails, as my tank was too shallow for fish the snails provided the extra bio load. it had a skimmer and wave maker and radion LED. I was target feeding reef frenzy every 2 days and tiny amount of flake food to feed the snails.

 

[beyarbrough]

Thanks for the advice. Is the exclusion of fish really a detriment to the health of coral or does it simply create a more delicate balancing act for nutrients? maroun.c, if I understand you correctly you believe the coral would be negatively affected when the final tank is set up, but if slow and methodical changes are made, such as adding fish, in the eventual display tank could this be avoided? Very few changes will be made once a balance is found in the grow out tank, provided a balance can be found.

I plan to follow a strict dipping and observation procedure for every new coral introduced, and had hoped this would alleviate the need for pest control fish. fabutahoun, was your fishless setup sps only? I only ask because you said you would target feed the coral. Did you feel the exclusion of fish negatively impacted the health and growth of you coral? It's hard to conceive a few snails would contribute much to a bioload that wouldn't be there already from simply feeding the coral, but please correct me if I am wrong. I may add snails as well if algae becomes an issue. You recommended adding fish although you operated a tank without fish for a year. Could you please elaborate further on difficulties you encountered?

I am not opposed completely to adding fish, but having fish adds another level of complexity that if unnecessary I would like to avoid. The tank is in the basement where I can't enjoy viewing the fish anyways. The main goal is robust and healthy coral at this time. If adding fish will help the coral grow faster and healthier then I'm on board, but otherwise I would like to explore alternatives.

 

[beyarbrough]

One more question I forgot to add for fabutahoun. Did your skimmer produce much on your frag tank with such a low bioload? Thanks

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

Not adding fish would only be detrimental to your biological filter.. there won't be a large bio load to support a stable sized bacteria population.. if anything happened to the few bacteria in the tank, you'll start getting an ammonia spike similar to if you were first cycling the tank. As long as you can ensure the stability of your bio filter, then you have no absolute need for fish... although I would prefer having a few for a nice movement in the tank...
I highly recommend getting some sort of wrasse (melanarus and 6 line being most likely to eat pests) and a foxface/rabbit fish (which will eat green algaes including bubble algae) also any kind of bristle tooth tang will be great algae eaters along with blennys. You may also want to consider getting sand sifting gobies if you're planning on having a clean sandbed

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

IMO, the pros of having a lightly fish stocked tank outweigh the cons of having them

 

[fabutahoun]

It Was a Mixed Reef mostly sps with some LPS, Hammer, goniopora , Acan and blasto. those lps i was target feeding.
My frag Tank was too shallow to have any fish in it, every fish I had in it was stressed and removed. so I compensated the lack of fish bio load with snails. There were many snails and they kept reproducing.

For the melanarus and 6 line wrasses they are great option , keep in mind that dips only kills and stuns the worms, however the eggs will not be harmed so those wrasses will be come a handy tool to get rid of them.

Fadi ~

 

[beyarbrough]

Ok I added a few mollies today. I also made a section in my sump for chaeto so hopefully that will handle the bioload for a while. If nitrates start to rise I'll get a skimmer. I'm running the 150 watt HPS light over it. I settled on two koralia Evo 1500 powerheads for flow. Right now I have five frags and two black mollies. The fish don't seem to like the flow much so I hope they settle in and do fine.