maintenance of a marine fish tank with the least amount of husbandry w

[big_ben102000]

i believe that everyone wants to spend as little time or $$ as possible and maintain a beautiful reef be it FOWLR or a full blown reef! , well at least that is my aim haha.. (low cost, no need to change water etc...)

just to talk abit about myself, i have been reefing since i was in poly when i was 17... then throughout NS.. and now i am in perth studying i am 23 now yea i have been doing it awhile, amazing how time flies.. and YES my tank is still living on back in singapore. because of issues with heat issue from the past i had a chiller for 3 months and decided to give it up, my tank runs without a chiller for most of my reefing years.. and no i do not keep corals (too much to do IMO). i started off with a small tank, 2ft (crash multiple times because didnt really understood reefing that much), 3x1.5x1.5(crash once in awhile when hand is itchy.. buy too many fishes), 3.5ftx1.5 x 2.5(tank stop crashing) then finally now a 3 x 2 x 2, change tanks a couple of times inbetween but i did not re-cycle the tank every time i change. the longest residents have been with me for nearly 4 years. for the record, my parents only feed my fishes, there is a auto top up which i will top up when i come back on the weekends from camp.

after i change my tank the 3.5ft tank, i started experimenting with different medias to reduce nitrates and nitrites( main problem i face because it was a FOWLR tank. mainly bioballs, DSB, coral chips, black sponges and LR are used in the filtration i did change media to compare results. i am also running a skimmer aquanuat N60 (not the best but it does the job). i stop changing water because it was getting messy and the cost was high for me at that time. so summary about water change haven done that for 3 yrs. only add new water when he previous tank was smaller than the new one. since the 3.5ft tank has the same vol as the 3ft tank now, i only top up in my memory not more than 20L because of some water lost during transfer. in newest tank i was still in NS. this the list on LS i have, newest resident was 5 months,

1X royal gamma (2yrs)

1X red cori wasse (1yr)

1X yellow belly blue damsel (still in my tank 2yrs still going strong)

1X emperor angel (0.5 yrs)

1X halfblack angel (2 yrs)

1X yellow tang (still in my tank 2yrs still going strong)

1X blue tang (still in my tank 4yrs still going strong)

1X black spot tang (1yrs)

1X powder blue tang (1yr)

3X perculas (still in my tank oldest ont is 4yrs still going strong)

6X chromis (still in my tank)

the rest of the fishes are sold or given to friends before i left for perth to reduce bioload. i was back in singapore 1 month ago, and the fishes that are left are still there. i was away for 4.5 months (feb - july) all my parents did was feed and top up water.

so what is in my sump you might be asking from about 9 months before i left...

combintion skimmer, 6 large pieces of black sponge ( i think this is the key) a bit of LR, maybe 2 kg.. and 0.5kg of biohome about 100pcs of bioball. the rest of the stuff are in my signature. parameters i last tested before i came backto perth .. everything was zero as far as i can remember. not using any high tech stuff for denitrator. the only problem i face once in a awhile is pH.. maybe because of fermentation from bacteria or decaying matter

FYI the LS here is perth is very exp as well... thats another reason why i started this topic.

1 cleaner shrimp here is 12 red notes (12x more than what we get in sg !@E#$#!$%$!)

1 emperor angel is 2 juv (around 1 - 2 blue notes depending on size)

1 false perc clown is 1 green note

1 two spot domino is 1.2 red notes

i would just hope for reefers be it FOWLR or REEF tank to maybe share their experience with successfully maintaining a tank with minimal maintenance, (ie maybe you have developed a method to cultivate super denitrifying bacteria or smth) for people who keep corals, maybe a way to have constant supply of food for your corals. i know that for reefing, Ca, Mg and other trace elements are necessary for maintaining a healthy reef, if you have cheaper alternatives to those sold on the shelves in LFS you can also share.

i was once told by a senior reefer " a hobby is smth that you can relax and enjoy after a tiring day at work or sch, not smth you have to worry about after ! and maintenance and cost of maintenance should be at the least ".

of course there are people that want to go that extra mile to make their reef as near perfect as possible, everyone has their own targets and spending power so i wont comment so much about that.

cheers

[Nitro]

There are alternatives to keeping successful reef tanks without spending much on the supplements (esp the expensive ones)... do regular water change (fortnightly or 20% once a month).

That's what I'm doing rite now for my upgraded tank. 20% water change but for me, I'm continuing using supplements to make it slightly better. My choice is Kent Marine.

[BFG]

To have minimal maintenance is to start correctly from the start.

[vipermako]

IMHO, things that need to be done have to be done.

the only means i think of to let us have more enjoyment is how we could "automate" all these necessary processes eg water changes, parameters checking etc etc.

the more we can automate, the more time we can spend enjoying, ya? but it also means more $$$$......

but of course, to some, doing all these necessary chores is a form of enjoyment too.

[big_ben102000]

yup couldnt agree more, what need to be done has be be done. for those keeping corals, probably dosing of elements is necessary unless dosing pumps are use because we can cultivate bacteria in our system to produce such compounds. i am probably talking more like water changes. for example, what is the purpose of changing water ? reduce nitrites and nitrates ? but arent out filters suppose to eliminate these compounds that will harm our fishes ? some reefers keep their life stock low, thats their way of maintenance. what about people with high LS count ?

because i dont keep corals, my LS count are always on the higher side, there is a cap no. of fish whereby after adding more fishes the filtration just cannot cope with the waste being produced due to the limited capacity of my sump. i ever thought of building a denitrator but didnt have the time to do so. denitrator works by cultivating anaerobic bacteria. i would say bacteria and other microbe are the fastest evolving single celled organisms in the world, they can evolve and adapt to any environments if given enough time to do so. with isolation comes evolution, just wondering if any one has successfully build smth in this case probably a denitrator or smth with a relatively small volume that is able to handle large bio loads, well those little buggers may have become so specialize after awhile they become more and more efficient.

[BFG]

FYI, marine set up do not use filter but protein skimmer to remove organic waste. Water change are mainly done to remove water that are 'dirty' due to high level of unwanted parameter and also to introduce needed elements into the water column. The protein skimmer do not remove unwanted compound such as nitrates n nitrites as these are in the water column itself and to extract these require something to consume it or to remove part of the water containing these compound in order to lower their percentage in the water. To prevent these compound from increasing in the tank, adequate water movement is needed in the display tank by the use of strong wavemaker in order to keep the organic waste suspended in the water which will then be moved to the overflow and down to the sump where it will be processed by the protein skimmer.

A good way to achieve this is to match the flow coming down from the display tank to the skimmer pump flow rate. A higher flow than what the skimmer can pull is not a good practise as the remaining water that pass the skimmer will return back to the display tank and feed the algae or let the organic waste to rot.

A denitrator is not the final solution to the problem of elevated unwanted compound level. It is not a set and forget type of equipment and could bring harm to the livestock if the owner are not well aware of their equipment function. Not monitoring this equipment from time to time will bite back the owner in the future.

Hope this helps!