In-wall skimmerless tank from Sydney

PranK · Jun 7, 2018

Hi Folks,

I am from Sydney and I have a kind of large in-wall tank.

The display is 60x24x28 in the wall, in the room behind the tank I have a 2 foot cube that houses 3 Crispa anemones, a big brittle star and a little ******* lemon peel damsel. The sump is a 48x18x18 (i think) which sits outside the room behind.

To give an idea, the fish room is a converted garage, the first 2 metres of the garage remain and after those 2 metres there is the fish room with a wall separating them. So, the sump is in this little 2m "garage" which means I'm not concerned about spillages.

I've taken a semi unique approach to the sump. It has no baffles at all. On the left half is a lot of live rock, maybe 20 - 30 kgs (44 - 66lbs) and a heap of Caulerpa macro. The whole sump has a 4 - 5" sand bed. On the right hand side is a dual-pump skimmer (I can't remember the model, but it's very big) as well as the return for the cube, the return for the display, a few heaters and a bio pellet reactor.

The display has another heap of live rock. Maybe 50kgs (110lbs) with a DSB (4 - 6"). Some livestock includes;

Corals

4 x Euphyillias
5 x SPS (3 acros, 1 monti, 1 poci)
****loads of Paly's (killing them slowly, I want them out - spent a week in hospital from these jerks)
a few colonies of Zoas
a few groups of Rhodactis
Some morphs

Fish

Powder Blue Tang
Purple Tang
Bristletooth Tang
Foxface
4 x Chromis
1 x Fairy wrasse
1 x Coral beauty
1 x Bicolour blenny
2 x ******* Clowns (super territorial, bite me every time I put my hand in)

Inverts

Pair of coral banded shrimp
A heap of hermits
A heap of various snails

My lights are 3 x Chinese black boxes and 2 x T8 supplements. The middle of the boxes has the SB reeflights retro fit. I'm watching closely before I retro fit the others too.

Current Params

pH 8.3 - 8.4 daily swing
Salinity 1.026
Phosphates < 0.2
Nitrates undetectable
Alk 9.5 (super stable)
Ca 460
Mg ~1500 (was over 1600 due to over dosing caused by inaccurate test kit, bringing down to ~1350)

My approach to reef keeping has always been simple. I don't want lots of equipment. For the most part I want to give the tank the support it needs to look after its own problems itself.

PranK · Jun 7, 2018

So, I'm trying to keep SPS for the first time in many years. I'm finding I can keep some, but not all, despite my tank being stable with good flow.

I had an epiphany last night after feeding my reefroids. What if I didn't turn my skimmer back on? I have such a large, successful refugium with crap loads of pods and serious algae growth, the skimmer is probably taking out the last of the nutrition that the corals probably need. Considering undetectable nitrates, this makes sense to me.

I'm really lucky to be able to have such a large sump/fuge and not many others have this as an option. Skimming and a big fuge are probably doing the same thing. All my display tank water goes through the fuge. I'd prefer to have a big, functional fuge than have a skimmer.

Am I missing anything? In my 15 years of reef keeping I've never not had a skimmer but then I've never been able to so successfully remove nutrients.

Adele · Jun 8, 2018

If there are no pictures it’s not real.
Sounds great though.

Fudsey · Jun 8, 2018

Pics.....we NEED pics

jsker · Jun 8, 2018

Wow, sounds like a great system!!

PranK · Jun 11, 2018

Ok, so, I'm pretty critical of my system. I feel like pictures never do it justice and I also feel like it *should* look better than it does.

Here's an average FTS taken on Saturday.

The right hand pane is almost impossible to clean easily so I just leave it.

Interesting observation over the weekend was a drop in my pH. Likely due to lack of aeration from no skimmer. I tried to turn it on with one pump and not collect but it seemed a bit counter intuitive. Considering the pH is still over 8.15 with it off, I'll just leave it.

I found a crap load of eggs and nudibranchs on my monti on the weekend. I've never had any bad hitch hikers besides majano so I can consider myself lucky. Believe it or not I threw out a full bottle of 2LF coral cleaner last week cause it was out of date. I took this monti our and hit it with my tank tooth brush. I have some more 2LF dip coming in the mail, I have no time to go to the shop. The other SPS seem totally unaffected. All of them are new and not encrusted so I may get them out and dip anyway.

Here's the monti, you can see the buggers all over the bottom.

Thought I'd include a shot of my current fave. A nice orange Rhodactis.

PranK · Jun 14, 2018

In the tank shot above, you can see the filter foam I put over my overflow about a month ago. I did this to stop my Blennie and my old coral goby (RIP) from getting into the overflow. I thought I was a genius for thinking of doing this....

But, two days ago I noticed the tank was a little cloudy and initially I thought it was because of turning off my skimmer. But then yesterday I noticed that I didn't really have much in the way of surface skimming anymore and lots of stuff was hanging on the surface. I realised it was my geniusness that was to blame and I removed the filter foam. When I did there was *so* much detritus that came out and the surface crud was all gone in minutes. Woops.

We're at day 8 now with no skimmer and nothing looks unhappy. Tested numbers on Tuesday and had 1ppm Nitrate and 0.2 Phosphate. Both pretty similar to previous tests.

PranK · Jun 15, 2018

Here's some pics of my sump and refugium. As you can see it's extremely simple and now that the skimmer is off its even more so.

The filter foam barrier is to slow the flow of water and keep water movement low which it does well. It's also perfect for pods to hang out in.

I'm trying this refugium light and it seems to do well. It is replacing two 50w flood lights which were very white. I also have an led rope which I have taped against the sump below the surface to maximise light exposure.

I know it's not very tidy but this is definitely function>form.

My ph is still a little low (for me) fluctuating between 8.1 and 8.3. I haven't decided if I'll try to get it to 8.2 to 8.4 like it was.

A week since the skimmer was turned off and nitrates are slightly elevated to 1 - 3 (too light to be 3 and too dark to be 1) but I was expecting them to be higher.

Phosphates are slightly higher as expected at .29.

Rest of the numbers are ok.
Mg 1500
Ca 496
Alk 9.4
Salinity 1.027 (it crept up to 1.029 a week ago and slowly dropping it.)

I also removed my egg crate cover. It was just eating into my lights too much.

I'm tossing up whether to remove the sand from the sump this weekend. Although that's probably too many changes in one week.

PranK · Jun 20, 2018

Ok, so tomorrow is 2 weeks since I turned my skimmer off.

My Nylos test shows 1 - 3ppm for Nitrate. I tried an old API test to try and verify the Nylos and got 5 - 10ppm. My phosphate is at 0.35.

That said, I don't really want to number-chase. Thats what got my tank to its current condition and I want it to be better than what it currently is.

I noticed tips of some SPS going white and getting algae on them. My alk is at 9.4 and I don't think its ever been above 10, so I was pretty sure it wasn't alk burn. I had recently ditched the egg crate cover over my tank because it ate into my lights too much and I realised that I probably had too much light. I used my Seneye to test a few areas and was getting > 400 par at these locations (right around my SPS). I know the black boxes are quite harsh and while 400 might be ok with a decent light, its too much for the black boxes. Then another realisation, I am supplementing the black boxes with 2 x T8's. I killed the T8's and turned down the LED's and now the acros have a softer light around 280 - 300 par. The tank looks much nicer too.

My goal now is to just monitor.