Is a self sustained reef tank possible?

[nanomania]

From reading all these posts I think there is a lot of confusion between "Self-sustaining" and "Not A Pain In the Butt". Self-sustaining a reef isn't going to happen because it's a growing environment and it needs to consume things to continue to grow. Sustaining the fish is not that difficult. I've been keeping salt tanks for over 3 decades and reef tanks for close to 3 decades.

My reef tanks have gone for years at a time with the fish fish population only getting live brine maybe twice a year. The rest of the time the fish survived off of what the tank produced. And I wasn't keeping just a fish or two. I'm talking about 100+ fish in 400g tank. And the fish were spawning and happy. I didn't start feeding my reef till I decided to try keeping anthias.

But even today as I feed the display tank. I have a frag tank in which the fish are flourishing without being fed by me. I have a 180g frag tank (8x4x1) The tank is bare botton and just as egg crate and tons of frags. The frag tank is part of my 1100g system. But currently the frag tank has a population of fish that includes a maturing imperator angel, Navarchus angel, Mis-Bar Red sea regal, pair of gold flake angels, pair of platinum clowns, chevron tang, 4 yellow tangs, barienee tang, juvenile sailfin and red mandarin. Now that's a pretty big fish population for a tank with no rock in it. But the fish are doing amazing. Amazing even by my standards of decades of experience. I am so impressed that these fish are fat and healthy with whats they pick off of aggcrate. And with that population in the tank you can still grab just about any frag and find a dense pod population.

My experience is lots and lots of live rock. Provides lots of surface area for filtration and for food growth.

I have a huge and diverse fish population. To deal with all the fish waste I have lots of corals, lots of chaeto, and literal square feet of xenia.

For mechanical filtration I have a 12+ year old Deltec skimmer.

For feeding the fish the system is self-sustaining (excluding the silly anthias). But for the corals it's not self-sustaining, but it's also not overwhelming. It's about making life simple. Currently my system is safe for about 3-4 weeks with zero human interaction. The 3-4 weeks is when I have to add more Kalkwasser to the Kalk reactor. My calcium reactor takes care of my trace elements. I get alerted when I'm out of CO2 or the reactor clogs. My skimmer has a self cleaning neck that I built, and all my RO waste water runs through the skimmer collection cup and then out to the sewer. My skimmer maintenance is down to cleaning the pumps (about every 3 years). My RO system replaces 20-55g of water a day depending on how hot the weather is. When the RO filters are shot I get an email. In the past 20 months I have done 1 water change of 80g.

I'm a litigation consultant, and when I go into trial I can walk away from my tank for a month at a time without any worries. My only tank time is to keep the algae off the front panels so I can check on the tank from the webcams. After a month of ignoring the tank I pull out a 5g bucket of chaeto, I add a couple of cups of Kalk, and I pull out maybe 200-300 heads of xenia. I run an Ultra Reef reactor with about 2 cups of carbon and I change that every couple of months.

That's not alot of time investment for a reef tank. It's not self-sustaining, but it's also not real time consuming.

And does this low maintenance system work.... It works for me... Does it work for the corals? Well I told you about harvesting hundreds of heads of xenia, but the other corals are thriving.

And how about those fish I'm not feeding. This past Tuesday Jake Adams of Reefbuilders was visiting and we watched a pair of Golden Angels initiate spawning behavior.... Golden angels - Super cool. And while we were watching them we spotted a frimandi pseudo chromis swimming with a dangling egg cluster. That was just Tuesday. In the last year we have had spawing bangai cardinals, spawning damsels, spawning red scooter blennies, spawning target mandarins, spawning flame back angels and spawning Bellus angels. I feel confident saying that this fish population is doing well.

But as we all know... Anyone can type a bunch of stuff and hit post and claim anything their imagination can think of.

So take a look and tell me how you think the low-maintenance system is doing

Display tank - www.o2manyfish.com/webcam - and the outside frag tank is at www.o2manyfish,com/fragtank

Keep an eye on the angels, try to find a skinny one

Dave B

Wow.. thats amazing.. somany angels? Dont they nip at corals? Yes a 0 maintenance system is completely different then a self sustained system. i have seen many successful canister only setups or ats only setups or skimmerless setups, etc. So i tried on this, however i cant call mine completely self sustainable, but im sure its 90% self sustained. Keeping jus softies and lps on a self sustained system would be possible i feel, so trying on it. So far no issues. Also i have 6fishes in 42g..

 

[nanomania]

The links not opening..

 

[Scarybo]

From reading all these posts I think there is a lot of confusion between "Self-sustaining" and "Not A Pain In the Butt". Self-sustaining a reef isn't going to happen because it's a growing environment and it needs to consume things to continue to grow. Sustaining the fish is not that difficult. I've been keeping salt tanks for over 3 decades and reef tanks for close to 3 decades.

My reef tanks have gone for years at a time with the fish fish population only getting live brine maybe twice a year. The rest of the time the fish survived off of what the tank produced. And I wasn't keeping just a fish or two. I'm talking about 100+ fish in 400g tank. And the fish were spawning and happy. I didn't start feeding my reef till I decided to try keeping anthias.

But even today as I feed the display tank. I have a frag tank in which the fish are flourishing without being fed by me. I have a 180g frag tank (8x4x1) The tank is bare botton and just as egg crate and tons of frags. The frag tank is part of my 1100g system. But currently the frag tank has a population of fish that includes a maturing imperator angel, Navarchus angel, Mis-Bar Red sea regal, pair of gold flake angels, pair of platinum clowns, chevron tang, 4 yellow tangs, barienee tang, juvenile sailfin and red mandarin. Now that's a pretty big fish population for a tank with no rock in it. But the fish are doing amazing. Amazing even by my standards of decades of experience. I am so impressed that these fish are fat and healthy with whats they pick off of aggcrate. And with that population in the tank you can still grab just about any frag and find a dense pod population.

My experience is lots and lots of live rock. Provides lots of surface area for filtration and for food growth.

I have a huge and diverse fish population. To deal with all the fish waste I have lots of corals, lots of chaeto, and literal square feet of xenia.

For mechanical filtration I have a 12+ year old Deltec skimmer.

For feeding the fish the system is self-sustaining (excluding the silly anthias). But for the corals it's not self-sustaining, but it's also not overwhelming. It's about making life simple. Currently my system is safe for about 3-4 weeks with zero human interaction. The 3-4 weeks is when I have to add more Kalkwasser to the Kalk reactor. My calcium reactor takes care of my trace elements. I get alerted when I'm out of CO2 or the reactor clogs. My skimmer has a self cleaning neck that I built, and all my RO waste water runs through the skimmer collection cup and then out to the sewer. My skimmer maintenance is down to cleaning the pumps (about every 3 years). My RO system replaces 20-55g of water a day depending on how hot the weather is. When the RO filters are shot I get an email. In the past 20 months I have done 1 water change of 80g.

I'm a litigation consultant, and when I go into trial I can walk away from my tank for a month at a time without any worries. My only tank time is to keep the algae off the front panels so I can check on the tank from the webcams. After a month of ignoring the tank I pull out a 5g bucket of chaeto, I add a couple of cups of Kalk, and I pull out maybe 200-300 heads of xenia. I run an Ultra Reef reactor with about 2 cups of carbon and I change that every couple of months.

That's not alot of time investment for a reef tank. It's not self-sustaining, but it's also not real time consuming.

And does this low maintenance system work.... It works for me... Does it work for the corals? Well I told you about harvesting hundreds of heads of xenia, but the other corals are thriving.

And how about those fish I'm not feeding. This past Tuesday Jake Adams of Reefbuilders was visiting and we watched a pair of Golden Angels initiate spawning behavior.... Golden angels - Super cool. And while we were watching them we spotted a frimandi pseudo chromis swimming with a dangling egg cluster. That was just Tuesday. In the last year we have had spawing bangai cardinals, spawning damsels, spawning red scooter blennies, spawning target mandarins, spawning flame back angels and spawning Bellus angels. I feel confident saying that this fish population is doing well.

But as we all know... Anyone can type a bunch of stuff and hit post and claim anything their imagination can think of.

So take a look and tell me how you think the low-maintenance system is doing

Display tank - www.o2manyfish.com/webcam - and the outside frag tank is at www.o2manyfish,com/fragtank

Keep an eye on the angels, try to find a skinny one

Dave B

I have seen this system is person. It is amazing. Dave has a ton of knowledge. He has forgotten more then I know about reef keeping. If you ever get the chance to see this system in person, jump on the opportunity.

 

[nanomania]

I have seen this system is person. It is amazing. Dave has a ton of knowledge. He has forgotten more then I know about reef keeping. If you ever get the chance to see this system in person, jump on the opportunity.

Yes, coming to usa next year to visit my sister.. gona try meeting a few hobbyists...[emoji4]

 

[SantaMonica]

Those are my kind of systems. Especially ponds that have no glass to clean.

 

[Sir Chris]

Im not referring to Nitrates, I'm referring to heavy metals and any other potential contaminants that exist in just about everything building up to toxic levels.

Use this on filter socks and will help in that area

 

[Sir Chris]

With tangs no way. They eat all day and a lot of algae or seaweeds like dragons breath so it wouldn't b self sustained but might allow longer vacations

 

[nanomania]

Use this on filter socks and will help in that area

Im from india, we dont get polyfilter here, but im using something similar in the top filter box right before the water enters the sump area.

 

[SantaMonica]

Algae consumes the heavy metals.

 

[nanomania]

Algae consumes the heavy metals.

Yup, so iv removed carbon also, the water is still very clear. 4 oc clowns 1 yellow mimic tang and 1 ywg. 42g. Cheato only and filter floss. Been 2 weeks. all seem to be ok so far.[emoji4]

 

[brandon429]

A reef tank must have been running ten years or longer to be rated against any form of self sustenance imo


Anyone can get three years on an all in one setup but too much hands off without true counterbalance planning gets them just about 3-4 yrs to algae or cyano takedown

Do something for ten I'd strongly consider it a new way discovered.
Under ten it's just everyone playing the dilution or automation game.

 

[brandon429]

I think Paul Bs tank represents the most self sustenance we can get in a long term reef tank. As I read his work between cleanings isn't hard at all, algae scrubbing doing a nice portion. His sandbed design is atypical, and still involves cleaning that all other comparable reef tanks not 40 yrs old still avoid. He is not work free or self sustaining at all, though his work load is lower compared to others

for large systems it's a pie in the sky if we're talking biological balance not automation balance. He has the oldest example and it's not self sustaining it's top engineered to require low sustenance.

Making a system self run through arrangements of bioload and active surface areas and redundancies for power outages etc takes a long time to prove in large setups. Eco spheres do it in small containers for 6-9 yrs some have said but that's tiny and not a reef.

 

[nanomania]

A reef tank must have been running ten years or longer to be rated against any form of self sustenance imo


Anyone can get three years on an all in one setup but too much hands off without true counterbalance planning gets them just about 3-4 yrs to algae or cyano takedown

Do something for ten I'd strongly consider it a new way discovered.
Under ten it's just everyone playing the dilution or automation game.

Yes, i dont k kw about 10yrs, but since i was plannin on 180g, i might for for a smaller tank and keep this current setup as it is. Not yet decided though. Lets see, hope this works and would be great if it does. had green algae before, not its completele gone. Just little diatoms on the sand, but that too is lowering pretty quick. Iv increased the feeding a little bit though.

 

[nanomania]

I think Paul Bs tank represents the most self sustenance we can get in a long term reef tank. As I read his work between cleanings isn't hard at all, algae scrubbing doing a nice portion. His sandbed design is atypical, and still involves cleaning that all other comparable reef tanks not 40 yrs old still avoid. He is not work free or self sustaining at all, though his work load is lower compared to others

for large systems it's a pie in the sky if we're talking biological balance not automation balance. He has the oldest example and it's not self sustaining it's top engineered to require low sustenance.

Making a system self run through arrangements of bioload and active surface areas and redundancies for power outages etc takes a long time to prove in large setups. Eco spheres do it in small containers for 6-9 yrs some have said but that's tiny and not a reef.

True, the only maintanance wud be tank glass cleaning and testing once a month. However iv already mentioned earlier that we can add only super hardy corals like softies and lps only.

 

[Paul B]

My tank is hardly self sustaining like Dave's. I do feed and feed heavily. Many of my fish could get along quite well with no food but not my copperband (that would eat me if he could) and the bangai cardinals as they consume large pieces of clam. I am surprised they are spawning in Dave's tank so he must have quite a bit of food in there.
I rarely change water and could probably fore go that but people would yell at me for cruelty.
I also have to clean the glass or in 5 days I would not see anything in the tank. Of course, that is not for the fishes health, but mine as there is no health reason for cleaning the glass. Also my reverse undergravel filter requires yearly stirrings or it would clog. I think anyway as I never let it go for longer than a year.
I don't really test anything but I do hand add some calcium and alk (when I remember)
If it were not for the copperband I could leave the tank for months and just add some sort of auto feeder for the larger fish. The copperband would not eat anything I could put in a feeder.
I also don't have very difficult corals as my goal is to have all my fish spawning and the corals are just there for me to cut my hands on when I put them in there for some silly reason.
I do agree with that 10 year thing though. I feel a tank less than 10 years old is very new and not nearly mature enough to really appreciate the cycles and little nuances that reef tanks go through.

 

[nanomania]

My tank is hardly self sustaining like Dave's. I do feed and feed heavily. Many of my fish could get along quite well with no food but not my copperband (that would eat me if he could) and the bangai cardinals as they consume large pieces of clam. I am surprised they are spawning in Dave's tank so he must have quite a bit of food in there.
I rarely change water and could probably fore go that but people would yell at me for cruelty.
I also have to clean the glass or in 5 days I would not see anything in the tank. Of course, that is not for the fishes health, but mine as there is no health reason for cleaning the glass. Also my reverse undergravel filter requires yearly stirrings or it would clog. I think anyway as I never let it go for longer than a year.
I don't really test anything but I do hand add some calcium and alk (when I remember)
If it were not for the copperband I could leave the tank for months and just add some sort of auto feeder for the larger fish. The copperband would not eat anything I could put in a feeder.
I also don't have very difficult corals as my goal is to have all my fish spawning and the corals are just there for me to cut my hands on when I put them in there for some silly reason.
I do agree with that 10 year thing though. I feel a tank less than 10 years old is very new and not nearly mature enough to really appreciate the cycles and little nuances that reef tanks go through.

Wow adding cal alk once in a while? What corals u got? Any sps lps? Currently i jus have softies and a sun coral that i feed every other day, and i dose seachem adv cal and reef builder once a week, half the recomended dose. The sun coral i bought was starving when i got, it was a gift from a friend, jus had 2 heads, now 4 heads though. Yes i too have some diatom issue, but green has almost all gone. However if started feeding heavily to see howmuch can i feed to balance out, without starving the fish.

 

[Paul B]

I have some SPS but nothing difficult. I like LPS and soft corals like gorgonians better. My nitrates are very high because I overfeed to keep all my paired fish spawning. If I wanted to keep more SPS I would have to lower my fish load.



This is a year or two ago.

 

[Christopher B Keyes]

From experience, there will always be an outside source. It is impossible from the strictest standards. You need light for one. A variable that automatically negates a true self sufficient tank. I believe water changes or supplements would be another negating factor. The nutrients have to come from somewhere. As far as not feeding fish and no water changes are concerned then yes, it is possible. Would need large quantities of water, light, macro algae and additional supplements to sustain as such. I had a 75gal that lost power for over a week. I didn't lose anything and rarely fed the fish then or otherwise but in the end it simply would not maintain itself under those conditions. Even the ocean gains nutrients through sunlight at the very beginning of the system...

 

[brandon429]

So far, every tank on here fits the bill of normal reef tank.

 

[Cherished Reefer]

Hey All,
I am new to this forum thing, so here's my plan:

- 90g Display
- R200
- 29g Display Refugium
- 7g ATO Resevoir

Display will have upwards of 100 lbs of live rock and sand up to 3".
Going to have fish and start with softies.
Sump will have Curve 5 and GFO Reactor if needed, Sicce 3.5, and Eheim 1700 to feed both displays.
Refugium will have more sand and rock with a variety of macro algae, pods, snails, and crabs.

My goal and plan is to have something highly self sufficient since I am gone often with work to make it easy for my wife.

We just moved in to our house, so just need time to get the roughly 7' stand built to house all the tanks, leak test, wet flow run, and cycle. Plan on making videos during the process too and Lord willing updates to follow after setup.

Cheers,
Steven