Is a self sustained reef tank possible?

[Lasse]

Can you share the link??

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/2/aafeature

By the way - the aim with my new aquaria build is to do it so near a player piano as possible. In the long run I hope that the daily additives I have to put into the aquarium is some food for the fishes and nitrate. Now and when fill up my RDSB with new coral sand. My RDSB has a reversed flow of water and I hope that the bacteria activity in the deeper layer in the long run will produce carbon dioxide enough to lower the pH below 7.5 in the sand bed. In the start I run Balling. I test for calcium, magnesium and alkalinity. There is places in the interior design for cryptic zones. I run a sponge filter in order to cultivate bacteria in order to squeeze out them for food for filtrates on a daily basis.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[nanomania]

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/2/aafeature

By the way - the aim with my new aquaria build is to do it so near a player piano as possible. In the long run I hope that the daily additives I have to put into the aquarium is some food for the fishes and nitrate. Now and when fill up my RDSB with new coral sand. My RDSB has a reversed flow of water and I hope that the bacteria activity in the deeper layer in the long run will produce carbon dioxide enough to lower the pH below 7.5 in the sand bed. In the start I run Balling. I test for calcium, magnesium and alkalinity. There is places in the interior design for cryptic zones. I run a sponge filter in order to cultivate bacteria in order to squeeze out them for food for filtrates on a daily basis.

Sincerely Lasse

Wow, thats some science, however looks a bit complexed to me. But looks intresting. I too guess a dsb or marine pure blocks with loads of cheato mangroves and some more macro with medium to low bioload would be enough. there are a few old hobbyists here who still use only a ugf with dsb and the systems are more then 10yrs old fowlr.

 

[jerseypete]

They would still dose Cal, Alk, Mag and Str. The self-sustaining part just meant self-feeding via the filter.

A completely closed biosphere is different, of course.



But it is replenished via light and photosynthesis. So it's really not totally closed; that would require a blackout shield. And to get picky, EMF signals would still excite molecules inside, adding even more energy; so complete enclosure would require shunting of EMF around the tank.

But we'll just setting for no feeding, no cleaning :)



Glad you like the SURF models. This guideline should help:
http://www.santa-monica.cc/Which-one_p_63.html

In or to grow algea. You should know this requires light and nutrients. So light comes in. But nutrients dont. So no matter what, after they are all used up. No more algea grows. This could take years depending on how much it started with. Meaning how many fish shrimp plants etc it started with. If you put a scrubber in a tank with 10 fish and turned it on. As the fish slowly starved you have nutrients for the scrubber. Algea grows. If you never cleaned it. After all fish die off. How long do you think the algea would last. As it died off it would put some nutrients back in the tank and sustain it self. You could easily try this with a 20g and a scrubber and a few dead shrimp. If your correct it would sustain itself. But I think you would find out quickly this wouldn't work.

 

[jerseypete]

Iv seen many ATS only tanks, wouldnt that be called a selfsustained tank? As no other filters used. Yes but weekly scraping the algae. Also iv seen many dont do a wc, still maintain a healthy tank. Maybe in future someone invents an ats with self scraper, hopefully its not as expensive as the new tissue paper roll technology instead of filtersock...lol..

this is my tank it's 100g. I run a skimmer, ats, a fuge (for pods). It has doser, skimmer neck cleaner, skimmate collector. Apex and a 40g top off that's plumbed to rodi. I do a 40 g.water change every 3 months. And clean ats every 2 weeks. . Besides feeding daily(live brine and frozen mysis) I clean the glass 3min. Every 3 days. This is as minimal as I can get it. Was planning auto waterchange just to see if I could do it. But quit after I really thought about it. Since I only change every 3 months. To me this is minimal maintenance. But far from self sustainable.

 

[nanomania]

This is my skimmerless 42g. Cant say 100% self sustained.

 

[jerseypete]

here are some pic of equip. Some are older when I was setting up tank. Tank is 2.5 yrs old now. Coral pic are recent.

it's a mixed tank. No3 always 2.5 and po4 is 0.02

 

[nanomania]

In or to grow algea. You should know this requires light and nutrients. So light comes in. But nutrients dont. So no matter what, after they are all used up. No more algea grows. This could take years depending on how much it started with. Meaning how many fish shrimp plants etc it started with. If you put a scrubber in a tank with 10 fish and turned it on. As the fish slowly starved you have nutrients for the scrubber. Algea grows. If you never cleaned it. After all fish die off. How long do you think the algea would last. As it died off it would put some nutrients back in the tank and sustain it self. You could easily try this with a 20g and a scrubber and a few dead shrimp. If your correct it would sustain itself. But I think you would find out quickly this wouldn't work.

Yes, thats the reason cheato and macro like feather caulerpa and some mangroves should do the trick.

 

[jerseypete]

Yes, thats the reason cheato and macro like feather caulerpa and some mangroves should do the trick.

No matter what Cheato and macro and mangroves all need nutrients. I don't know if we're both thinking the same thing. To me self sustainable means adding nothing. No food at all.

 

[jerseypete]

This is my skimmerless 42g. Cant say 100% self sustained.

this is a link to video of my tank. It has all the bells and whistles. Cause I'm a chronic overfeeder.

 

[nanomania]

No matter what Cheato and macro and mangroves all need nutrients. I don't know if we're both thinking the same thing. To me self sustainable means adding nothing. No food at all.

Yes i guess, i did mention the only maintanance would be feeding, unless we only keep a pair of mandarin or a pair of seahorse in a 200g, with initially feeding the tank with plankton and then let pods multiply for a few months and keep the cheato light on for 20hrs everyday for plnkton and pods to multiply.

 

[nanomania]

here are some pic of equip. Some are older when I was setting up tank. Tank is 2.5 yrs old now. Coral pic are recent.

it's a mixed tank. No3 always 2.5 and po4 is 0.02

Nice setup..

 

[jerseypete]

Yes i guess, i did mention the only maintanance would be feeding, unless we only keep a pair of mandarin or a pair of seahorse in a 200g, with initially feeding the tank with plankton and then let pods multiply for a few months and keep the cheato light on for 20hrs everyday for plnkton and pods to multiply.

Actually my tank I have 1 mandarin and 1 red dragnet. The mandarin eats frozen. The red dragnet wont. But the pod population is crazy. I assume cause of the amount I feed and the waste generated. I also have 2 wrasse that I assume eat pods also.

pic of red dragnet is old. Just got him he's a little skinny. But he's fattened up now.

 

[jerseypete]

Nice setup..

Thanks. I got into this hobby by stumbling onto this site while surfing the net. I fell in love with the pictures of some of these tanks. But the maintenence quickly overwhelmed me in the beginning. I was spending over an hour a day feeding playing with skimmer testing changing water etc. Almost gave up. Now I spend less then an hour a week working on tank. More time sitting on couch watching it.

 

[nanomania]

Actually my tank I have 1 mandarin and 1 red dragnet. The mandarin eats frozen. The red dragnet wont. But the pod population is crazy. I assume cause of the amount I feed and the waste generated. I also have 2 wrasse that I assume eat pods also.

pic of red dragnet is old. Just got him he's a little skinny. But he's fattened up now.

Cute...

 

[nanomania]

Thanks. I got into this hobby by stumbling onto this site while surfing the net. I fell in love with the pictures of some of these tanks. But the maintenence quickly overwhelmed me in the beginning. I was spending over an hour a day feeding playing with skimmer testing changing water etc. Almost gave up. Now I spend less then an hour a week working on tank. More time sitting on couch watching it.

I started with turtles, then got into planted tanks then came across reefing, now i have all 3 types.. lol.. also tried newts, crawdads and crabs, but they were a bit boring.. however im selling off all my planted tanks, and will be going for reefing only now.. [emoji12]

 

[jerseypete]

this is my 2.5g pico. Planted. It has 2 small fish. Rainbow Tetras. This I feed every other day. A pinch of flake. I don't trim anything at all. It has a mangrove in the center that grew into the light. It's 3yrs old. I only top off water. I never got rid of it cause I really don't need to do anything to it.

 

[nanomania]

this is my 2.5g pico. Planted. It has 2 small fish. Rainbow Tetras. This I feed every other day. A pinch of flake. I don't trim anything at all. It has a mangrove in the center that grew into the light. It's 3yrs old. I only top off water. I never got rid of it cause I really don't need to do anything to it.

Didnt know mangroves can grow in fw also..

 

[jerseypete]

Didnt know mangroves can grow in fw also..

If I'm not mistaken, they can grow in either. But have to start when their small. This started at 3 in. It's probably 13 now. But I don't think I'm buying another light. And it's at its highest now. So we'll see what happens

 

[brandon429]

I did not know they could grow in fw new one on me, nice!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think is so interesting, www.dymico.com, i have seen live two aquariums, easy setup, eco, low cost maintainance

I have concerns about its ability to keep up with demand for alkalinity, but regardless, one issue is that it adds calcium and alkalinty independent of demand. It is instead tied to organic degradation rates. So keeping alk at a particular value seems tricky.