Who's running without mechanical filtration?

[dfwjr1973]

I am seeing more and more people seemingly running systems with no dedicated mechanical filtration and relying on things like a blacked out sump with lots of rocks (eventually covered with sponges) and something like a Algae Scrubber (like a Santa Monica) or a macro algae reactor for lowering phosphates/nitrates...

The idea being that the stuff we filter out is actually food for things (small and "large") living in our tanks...

How many people are doing this, and assuming it is successful, any tips and tricks or things you learned (good or bad) that you can share?

 

[Spare time]

I've seen tanks with this and the sumps were a total mess. If anything got moved around, the display would be filled with crud.

 

[VintageReefer]

I suspect your talking about me
Very successful. Very clean tank

 

[dfwjr1973]

I suspect your talking about me
Very successful. Very clean tank

Yes, you are one of them.

 

[Garf]

I am seeing more and more people seemingly running systems with no dedicated mechanical filtration and relying on things like a blacked out sump with lots of rocks (eventually covered with sponges) and something like a Algae Scrubber (like a Santa Monica) or a macro algae reactor for lowering phosphates/nitrates...

The idea being that the stuff we filter out is actually food for things (small and "large") living in our tanks...

How many people are doing this, and assuming it is successful, any tips and tricks or things you learned (good or bad) that you can share?

Just a bag of sand in the sump and small frequent waterchanges for me.
The wife has a tank with skimmer and socks and small waterchanges, mine is a lot less hassle.

 

[Red_Beard]

That is how I roll. I usually clean mine once every year or so. And yes, when stuff gets moved i get a "crud" cloud. The corals seem to like it as long as it is a small one. But things dont just get moved, someone has to do the moving, so that is a rare event. My tank has ridiculous amounts of pods and i have to dose nitrate (ammonia) to keep it detectable.
I used to run socks, but they were more work than they were worth. My sump is lit and i grow chaeto and caulerpa in the chamber next to the skimmer, but i have been thinking about switching to a scrubber and trying for some cryptic areas for sponges though.

 

[VintageReefer]

the stuff you filter out is food for corals of various sizes. It’s excess food that can be physically recirculated giving corals and fish a second or third attempt to grab it, or it can settle in the sump and break down into nitrates and phosphates which is also a form of nutrition for corals. Same for fish waste - one of the best coral foods is fish poop in the water

The problems happen when you have either too much, or too little. So something has to be done

Skimmers do not remove nitrates or phosphates. Ok they do but it’s an extremely small amount, almost negligent. They remove particulate matter before it has a chance to become nitrates and phosphates, but they don’t actually remove them. They help prevent them from accumulating.

Water changes are good for reducing nitrates but poor for phosphates

Algae scrubbers, refugiums, macro reactors work different. They directly consume nitrate and phosphate from the water. Which means for those that don’t run mech filtration, this stuff that ends up settling somewhere, eventually breaks down into nitrates and phosphates in the water column, and then it is available for the corals and macro to work together to consume.

Cryptic zones with rock and sponge allow Clean areas for doc reduction, and clean live rock for biological filtration.

I do have a 1/2-3/4” layer of mulm in certain chambers of my sump, if you read up on it, it’s a natural and important part of filtration for some reefs in nature. I leave it alone.

 

[BryanM]

I am moving this direction, largely due to chats w/Vintage. Ultimately probably will only run the ATS.

 

[Pod_01]

I run on skimmer and GAC only, not sure if that counts. But I do like when things float in water column as long as possible.

I do have some rocks in the sump, I keep them there just in case I want to re-scape or set up another tank. Nice to have some type of rock ready to go that doesn’t become algae magnet.

 

[GARRIGA]

I prefer mechanical capture where detritus is allowed to decompose. Test tank as well as every other tank I've had both fresh and salt seemed to go that route. Current design of main going that route. Early on was due to laziness. Past decade because I've now come to better grasp decomposition beyond the basics learned in biology early 70s.

Seems silly to me to chase the eviction of detritus with socks, floss, skimmers or the latest rage of roller mats that have now evolved to roller mat/skimmer combos. Lots of profits trying to prevent nature which did make sense when nitrates were unmanageable but no longer the case and even in the 80s knew plumbed tub of caulerpa solved that.

Life lives amongst detritus and although I'm not sure what that is there's always been this belief in fresh that fry benefited from it. Known that since early 70s when it was called mulm. Have heard uronema live there too. Who knows. Can't worry about everything therefore best avoid that or keep healthy fish that can fend it off.

Although I get the unpleasantness of seeing detritus interrupt clear water but that's solved by finer capture incorporating several layers from coarse to fine and if large enough volume allows time for each section to decompose further until final step is what today I believe we call mulm which can also be captured and then thrown away, if needed. That next to last step in decomposition which I'm told can take decades or centuries to mineralalize and release goodies such as calcium and magnesium. Best I've researched. At this point it is inert and contributes nothing further to inorganic loads.

One perhaps should question anything with dollars driving it. No dollars in cultivating detritus. Same with canisters and undergravel filters and for the life of me can't figure out why one must pay close to $500 to hang a dollars worth of plastic netting to utilize pest algae. Can't see the lights used being that expensive and do they really need to be made of acrylic? Yeah it looks better on YouTube and Instagram so there's that but seriously why do we need acrylic cylinders vs cheap manufactured out of some plastic that is cheaper. Like aren't canisters made that way and undergravel filters which now cost over $50 for a piece of plastic with holes in it

 

[Saltfishlover]

I don't use much either. I have a 200 gallon set up of 10- 20 gallon tanks . They all drop into one 30gal tall sump with rock then into another 50 gallon sump with more rock and heaters. Then into another that has rock and return. I clean it about every 6 months. No lights, no macro alge. I do have a skimmer that runs 2 hours a day.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I've seen tanks with this and the sumps were a total mess. If anything got moved around, the display would be filled with crud.

No mechanical filtration and have not vacuumed sump in a decade or more... I used to stir it up and suck some out when I used to do water changes (a decade ago maybe).

My understanding is that most of the mulm is basically inert... akin to "ash" if you will. Just filler, a place of organisms to live.

If I remember correctly, Sanjay's tank at Penn State U was built with the rock on an elevated platform with a few inches under for circulation. There was easily an inch or more of mulm collected there over the years. I am not sure if that has changed or not, we have not discussed it in a decade either

 

[BeanAnimal]

I will add that this is not really a goal oriented situation.

1. I dislike maintenance

2. I designed a few recirculation type filters setups over the years (canister filter, power head recirculating into a filter sock, etc.) to do the vacuuming without doing a water change, but all were a PITA in one fashion or another.

3. I assume that I will be vacuuming out tons of pods and other benthic fauna.

So ... here we are.

 

[mythesis]

That is how I roll. I usually clean mine once every year or so. And yes, when stuff gets moved i get a "crud" cloud. The corals seem to like it as long as it is a small one. But things dont just get moved, someone has to do the moving, so that is a rare event. My tank has ridiculous amounts of pods and i have to dose nitrate (ammonia) to keep it detectable.
I used to run socks, but they were more work than they were worth. My sump is lit and i grow chaeto and caulerpa in the chamber next to the skimmer, but i have been thinking about switching to a scrubber and trying for some cryptic areas for sponges though.

how do you keep the chaeto from going "downstream"?

 

[Ancient Mariner]

I use no mechanical filtration, and never have as I am an old school reefer (since the 1990's). My sump is empty and no detritus ever builds up in it.

The display tank has only a thin layer of crushed aragonite I used to cover up a few pounds of old muck I transferred from my old reef to restart the reef in 2019. The muck was simply build up of eroded live rock and sediment from degraded coral and scraped coralline algae and possibly calcium carbonate precipitation (it started as a bare bottom tank). Using this muck caused a good deal of distress to some on this forum, but I now have a very successful SPS tank. I feel the detritus does help build up and maintain the proper ecological environment for corals to thrive in. I have not siphoned or cleaned the bottom of my tank for the past few years ever since my cyano problem faded.

I feel old school reefing techniques are still valid and a lot of the new approaches are not necessary, and this includes using socks or rollers.

 

[Cliff717]

No mechanical filtration here

 

[mrpontiac80]

I started my new 180 gallon about 2 years ago with a filter roller. After several months, I decided to get a sock holder and try that because my nitrates and phosphates were near zero and sometimes my filter roller would bind up or the replacement rolls were out of stock. After a month of using a large sock I remembered how much I hate them and decided to skip all mechanical filtration other than my large skimmer.

I ran it this way for about a year and just recently started using the sock again in order to help decrease my rising phosphates.

Once I get numbers back where I am happy I will likely remove the filtration again.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

No mechanical filtration and have not vacuumed sump in a decade or more... I used to stir it up and suck some out when I used to do water changes (a decade ago maybe).

My understanding is that most of the mulm is basically inert... akin to "ash" if you will. Just filler, a place of organisms to live.

If I remember correctly, Sanjay's tank at Penn State U was built with the rock on an elevated platform with a few inches under for circulation. There was easily an inch or more of mulm collected there over the years. I am not sure if that has changed or not, we have not discussed it in a decade either

That's not correct at all. Mulm is not inert. Bacteria continues to break it down into ammonia and other nutrients. Slowly over time.

 

[Saltfishlover]

No mechanical filtration and have not vacuumed sump in a decade or more... I used to stir it up and suck some out when I used to do water changes (a decade ago maybe).

My understanding is that most of the mulm is basically inert... akin to "ash" if you will. Just filler, a place of organisms to live.

If I remember correctly, Sanjay's tank at Penn State U was built with the rock on an elevated platform with a few inches under for circulation. There was easily an inch or more of mulm collected there over the years. I am not sure if that has changed or not, we have not discussed it in a decade either

Yup the "mulm" becomes inert after breakdown. Old-school reefing still.has it's place. I will clean it up once in a while, but it's never my priority. If I get high nutrients, I'll add macro in an upper tank, but sumps will always stay dark

 

[ninjamyst]

Why even have a sump at all then if you don't want to remove waste...