Is there a wrong way?

[dr_vinnie_boombatz]

Went to my LFS to see what they have, which was pest riddled. I was describing my tank and the confusion on the owners face gave me a good laugh.

My tank is 1 years old. I tried sand. I tried rock. I tried fish. I tried GHA.

Ended up with a bare bottom, fish-less, coral on large 3" disks. My astraea snails are happy. My coral are happy. I'm happy. It's clean (no known pests), super easy to maintain. Easier to learn as I'm a beginner. I can dip and pickup to inspect if I want. I can easily relocate. I can always add rock and sand in the future.

To anyone getting started, you don't need to go with the norm!

Snails keep it clean

My LFS

 

[blecki]

Your way is definitely a little odd. IMO tank is too sterile to support coral long term and I've never seen an LFS without aiptasia - I'd hardly call a single specimen 'pest riddled'.

Your picture looks more like a coral display tank at a frag swap. Fine if you like the corals and hate fish but most of us keep mixed reefs where that spotless bottom and bone white disc is somewhere between odd and impossible.

And no rock? I guess... if there's no fish... there's minimal bioload... but if you had fish and had no rock I understand why the fish failed.

 

[Lavey29]

So you have a frag tank instead of a reef tank. That's fine if it's working out how you want.

 

[bakbay]

Be interested to see your aquarium size and filtration. It appears to be a pico tank (less than 10g) with 2 LPS corals? Unless you’re changing 100% of the water and scrubbing those 3” discs everyday, I don’t see how this is even possible. Also, I didn’t see any coralline algae if the tank is more than a year old.

 

[dr_vinnie_boombatz]

Your way is definitely a little odd. IMO tank is too sterile to support coral long term and I've never seen an LFS without aiptasia - I'd hardly call a single specimen 'pest riddled'.

Your picture looks more like a coral display tank at a frag swap. Fine if you like the corals and hate fish but most of us keep mixed reefs where that spotless bottom and bone white disc is somewhere between odd and impossible.

And no rock? I guess... if there's no fish... there's minimal bioload... but if you had fish and had no rock I understand why the fish failed.

I was worried about this when I set this up too but the coral are growing fine. I have good NO3 and decent PO4 (0.15+). I do have bio-balls in AIO media.

 

[dr_vinnie_boombatz]

Be interested to see your aquarium size and filtration. It appears to be a pico tank (less than 10g) with 2 LPS corals? Unless you’re changing 100% of the water and scrubbing those 3” discs everyday, I don’t see how this is even possible. Also, I didn’t see any coralline algae if the tank is more than a year old.

It's a Fluval 13.5g. I do plan to upgrade to a IM 40L soon. I do have more coral; a torch, some more acans, and duncan and plan to add more soon. The other side of the tank under the return pump is more dirty. I do have ten astrea snails. I have a Nero 3 on the opposite wall of the return.

I feel like I'm on 60 minutes being questioned by Dan Rather lol

 

[Luckki]

interesting. I wonder if you will be able to grow those out in to large colonies. I look forward to seeing your build as it grows.

 

[twentyleagues]

There was a guy I got some corals from years ago that had a strange set up. He had a 180g with a few pieces of rock I think mostly to hold down his huge pvc pipe structure that all his corals were on. He had a couple fish and tons of coral, mostly sps, a couple euphillia, and some chalice. Everything was covered in coraline. It looked great not for me but with all the huge colonies you barely noticed the pipes.

I was watching you tube and saw a vendor cant remember which that had coral tanks set up kind of the same way.

If you like it and it works for you go for it.

 

[fishyjoes]

I like the fact that you're doing it the way you like.

That's part of the fun - experiment with things and see how it goes. If you like it and it works, then keep going.

 

[Kfactor]

on my new build from day one i put a dragon soul torch in and it still happy almost a year later

 

[dr_vinnie_boombatz]

interesting. I wonder if you will be able to grow those out in to large colonies. I look forward to seeing your build as it grows.

same here!

I like the fact that you're doing it the way you like.

That's part of the fun - experiment with things and see how it goes. If you like it and it works, then keep going.

thank you! hopefully I spark some new thoughts - those considering entering or those close to quitting, fighting GHA, turf algae, or some pest

Also, I didn’t see any coralline algae if the tank is more than a year old.

any recommendations? Maybe I should try a coralline booster? It's still on my snail shells. For what its worth I do have a lot of copepods and ostracods, my CA and MG look okay too

 

[Luckki]

any recommendations? Maybe I should try a coralline booster? It's still on my snail shells. For what its worth I do have a lot of copepods and ostracods

If your snails have Coralline algae on their shells, you already if a "seed" in your tank, however it might take really long time to develop in to small spots in your tank. I think Arc Reef says it can tank up to 8 weeks to show up in the tank with their bottles.

"While many people report seeing results in 2-4 weeks, the average time for coralline spots to show up is in 8 weeks for tanks that run at a temperature of 78-81 degrees. If you are running your tank at a lower temperature than 78 or higher than 81 the spots can take a few additional weeks to show up. We recommend a PH between 8.1 and 8.4. If your PH is at 7.8 it can also take longer for the spots to show up." ---- Arc Reef FAQ

 

[Lavey29]

Your tank does appear to be to sterile so success may be limited. If you go into any good coral vendor shop and look at their frag tanks, they have that weathered reef look even with bare bottom and egg crate frag racks. There is some algae here and there, some coralline, snails, few algae and pest eating fish, etc... it's just a balanced biome in their frag tanks which is the same think you strive for in a full reef tank. You don't want things looking spotless clean like it just came out of the box which is why the pic of your LFS tank is not bad at all in the big scheme of reefing.

 

[ptrick21186]

My tank is 1 years old. I tried sand. I tried rock. I tried fish. I tried GHA.

I'd have to say the most concerning part for me is this sentence right here. Tank is only a year old and you've already gone through all this? Seems to me you're quick to make drastic changes when something goes awry. Patience is key in this hobby. Nothing good happens fast. The 1st year of a tanks life is chaos. You're gonna go through many many many different "problems" as your tank is only beginning to mature during this time. I would suggest doing research of each problem and working a solution as to tearing down the whole tank every few months.

As for your current setup....yes it's working now but for how long? You're gonna need that surface area of rock and sand for all the different life that keeps your tank going.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

“Is there a wrong way?”

There are many right ways and many wrong ways to try to keep a reef tank.

 

[Cthulukelele]

I'd argue a frag holding tank caked in coralline with a single aiptasia is orders of magnitude healthier than a tank that doesn't have a drop of algae on sterile white plugs.

People here aren't knocking your way because they think it's silly. Most people commenting just see sterile white frag disks at a year and know something is drastically wrong unless you're manually scrubbing them twice a day

 

[Brandont21]

In my tank i would have to scrape coraline algae literally daily. Would be impossible to keep up with it. A frag disk would have something growing on it within hours.

 

[dr_vinnie_boombatz]

Your tank does appear to be to sterile so success may be limited. If you go into any good coral vendor shop and look at their frag tanks, they have that weathered reef look even with bare bottom and egg crate frag racks. There is some algae here and there, some coralline, snails, few algae and pest eating fish, etc... it's just a balanced biome in their frag tanks which is the same think you strive for in a full reef tank. You don't want things looking spotless clean like it just came out of the box which is why the pic of your LFS tank is not bad at all in the big scheme of reefing.

My NO3 is 9.3ppm and PO4 0.18ppm with stable dKH per Hanna this morning. The snails eat the algae growing on the floor and disks. I run around 130-150par per PARwise reader. I have tons of copepods, ostracods, and my coral are quickly growing. I'm not disagreeing with everyone, but it's working for now and I see no reason why it cannot continue.

 

[Lavey29]

My NO3 is 9.3ppm and PO4 0.18ppm with stable dKH per Hanna this morning. The snails eat the algae growing on the floor and disks. I run around 130-150par per PARwise reader. I have tons of copepods, ostracods, and my coral are quickly growing. I'm not disagreeing with everyone, but it's working for now and I see no reason why it cannot continue.

Absolutely no reason to keep trying it if it makes you happy and you're getting the results you want however I think the consensus of opinion from people on here that have way more experience then you or I indicates your overall chances of success are not that great. This may be a mute point though because you said you are going to upgrade to IM 40 and perhaps your set up there may be different then current. I'm assuming you would want more of a reef set up with fish and corals maybe bare bottom or sand if you prefer. You will still go through a rough first year, it's just part of the hobby.

 

[dr_vinnie_boombatz]

Absolutely no reason to keep trying it if it makes you happy and you're getting the results you want however I think the consensus of opinion from people on here that have way more experience then you or I indicates your overall chances of success are not that great. This may be a mute point though because you said you are going to upgrade to IM 40 and perhaps your set up there may be different then current. I'm assuming you would want more of a reef set up with fish and corals maybe bare bottom or sand if you prefer. You will still go through a rough first year, it's just part of the hobby.

I understand. I'm asking why? Why are the chances of success not great? It seems a lot of people are going based on aesthetic preferences.

How many have tried this setup to say it won't work long-term?

I was planning to keep the same setup when going to the 40L.

I'm not going out of my way to clean the tank, the snails are doing it themselves. I only clean the sides of the glass using my Mag Float. Heck, even my snails have grown in size since I've got them.