New Reef Tank Help

[Scubarooo]

New to the form and need some basic advice. I have had marine tanks in the past but it has been awhile...I have stayed current for the most part though. I am an engineer and I am in the process of designing an acrylic sump right now. -I have experience with this and access to a CNC laser. I have room for a large sump and want it to be able to accommodate a larger tank in the future. I have 3 reactors available and could accommodate space for them. Questions:

1. Carbon dosing seems to be going out of style. I understand adding carbon in the first year is not a good idea while you are naturally colonizing your live rock. How about after that? Is the consensus to never use biopellets these days? -Same benefit from just being patient and not treating the water column?

2. Any reason not to use GFO from day 1? Seems good to stay on top of phosphates from dry rock and such.

3. Planning on having a refugium to help propagate pods for a mandarin (eventually). Is having a fuge still good practice?

4. Any need for an algae reactor (pax bellum or equivalent) or are you then basically starving the bacteria you want in your tank?

I tend to over design things but want to do it right this time. ​

Thanks in advance! - Jason

 

[Ranjib]

Welcome to reef2reef. Whats the tank volume?
1/2. Lots of folks still use biopellets and GFO. I would not recommend any of these, unless you have experience with it. Tuning in biopellete is some work, and GFO can strive the corals phosphate, its best to employ these if and when you need and run out of other simpler options
3. Fuge are still hugely popular. For all the good reasons.. go for it
4. Not if you have fuge. Start the tank and see if you have nutrient export issue or ph issue. Scrubbers are effective for those...

Godspeed

 

[jda]

I would not carbon dose unless you are trying to solve a very specific problem and your tank cannot support a good ecosystem. Most of the time, this is high nitrates, but if you have any sand and some rock and you let nature take over, you should have enough anoxic bacteria to process the nitrate into nitrogen gas. 3 inches of sand is enough to make sure that you never have any nitrate (once the population of bacteria establishes). Barebottom tanks, minimal rockscape tanks and systems where people are using chemicals and media can have issues controlling nitrate since the bacteria either has no place to live, or is growth limited by something.

The bacteria and creatures need phosphate to grow and repair. Also, you need the aragonite to bind up some phosphate so that you can keep just a little bit in the tank. Sand from the ocean is usually very much phosphate free and will bind up a bunch when the tank is very young. Let it. You need to have at least .01 to not be growth limiting. You will be messing the nature if you use GFO from day one. Just like carbon dosing, I would only use it for the acute purpose of lowering phosphate only after they start to become a problem and after the tank is super mature. Everybody has phosphate ups/downs in tanks less than a year.

Dry rock is different. This stuff is full of phosphates most of the time. The best way to combat this is the acid wash it first to remove the outer layer and then spend a few months treating the phosphates - Lanthanum Chloride is probably more cost effective here than GFO.

Fuges are still cool. Great compliment to a protein skimmer to keep the water clean and building blocks manageable.

Algae reactor is going to do the same thing as a fuge with macro in it. They are basically a fuge with only macro (no critters and sponges beyond pods).

 

[SPR1968]

Hi Jason and welcome to R2R it’s great to have you with us!

I would get the tank up and running and in the meantime research the individual elements and monitor the system for the first month or so. There are some very good articles on R2R about different subjects to research

Once it’s up and running you can then implement the control measures if and when required. Although you want to keep phosphate very low at around 0.03ppm, you don’t want 0 nitrates really, and when the tank is new you may well hit 0 and then could run into all sorts of unwanted issues.

I personally use Nopox (carbon dosing) for nitrate control, and rhowaphos for phosphate and I also have 6 litres of Seachem Matrix as part of the biological filtration in the tank. But I have a massive bioload so I need all this. At the moment you probably don’t.

Basically once up and running, as nutrients for example increase, decide whatever method you want to use to keep levels under control wether that be carbon dosing, algae reactor etc or a combination of various methods