So I will try to keep this brief....
While I have been waiting for my main display tank to mature enough to support coral I have been maintaining a small completely isolated frag tank, which to date has shown a significant amount of success (as measured by coral growth). Details of this system are as follows:
15 gallon bare bottom tank (No rockwork, egg crate frag rack and some PVC pipe for the fish (1 clarkii 1 damsel to hide in)
No sump
Water Movement
2 Jebao PP-4
Lighting
OceanRevive 120W Chinese Black Box LED (http://oceanrevivellc.com/goods.php?id=21)
Protein Skimmer
HOB AquaC Remora
Filtration
Marineland Penguin Power Filter with Biowheel
So here is where my fear enters in. I know this system is far from what would be considered optimal... and every time I think "hey I would like to change this or that" I stop and say "but this is working why would I change anything. I've had thoughts of wanting to scale up to a large tank, drill add a sump, throw my spare cone skimmer in there, ditch the power filter/biowheel...but it comes back to this works....now I am sure that I could make an "upgraded system" work as well, but the questions is why would i do it, besides having some extra space, which I would like so that I had some space in the tank where some of the lower light loving corals would be a bit more happy...now I am not talking about much of a change, but maybe a 40 breeder or a 50 low boy....
Any way this brings me to my concern of the day, my maintenance schedule up until recently as consisted of water changes once a week to maintain balance (5 gallons a week initially which I have since upded to 10 g/week) . Occasionally I would add some Alk or CA manually based on what my testing told me was required, but it was far from what you would cal consistent. But again it worked, corals were happy and growing. I have recently added a doser to maintain my big 3, ALK, CA, Mg with more consistency. And I have started to question whether there is still the big need to do such large water changes at the frequency I have been doing them (they aren't a lot of work but salt and water cost money). So here's the question, if it was you would you keep up with the water changes, knowing the your major elements are being kept in check? Obviously I am significantly reducing the nutrient levels in my tank every time I do a water change, but ever time I test for Nitrate and phosphate they read as 0. Granted that was with weekly water changes and they my know longer read they same if I stopped doing them.
I would love to hear some peoples thoughts and opinions. Is everyone else as scared of changes as I currently am.
While I have been waiting for my main display tank to mature enough to support coral I have been maintaining a small completely isolated frag tank, which to date has shown a significant amount of success (as measured by coral growth). Details of this system are as follows:
15 gallon bare bottom tank (No rockwork, egg crate frag rack and some PVC pipe for the fish (1 clarkii 1 damsel to hide in)
No sump
Water Movement
2 Jebao PP-4
Lighting
OceanRevive 120W Chinese Black Box LED (http://oceanrevivellc.com/goods.php?id=21)
Protein Skimmer
HOB AquaC Remora
Filtration
Marineland Penguin Power Filter with Biowheel
So here is where my fear enters in. I know this system is far from what would be considered optimal... and every time I think "hey I would like to change this or that" I stop and say "but this is working why would I change anything. I've had thoughts of wanting to scale up to a large tank, drill add a sump, throw my spare cone skimmer in there, ditch the power filter/biowheel...but it comes back to this works....now I am sure that I could make an "upgraded system" work as well, but the questions is why would i do it, besides having some extra space, which I would like so that I had some space in the tank where some of the lower light loving corals would be a bit more happy...now I am not talking about much of a change, but maybe a 40 breeder or a 50 low boy....
Any way this brings me to my concern of the day, my maintenance schedule up until recently as consisted of water changes once a week to maintain balance (5 gallons a week initially which I have since upded to 10 g/week) . Occasionally I would add some Alk or CA manually based on what my testing told me was required, but it was far from what you would cal consistent. But again it worked, corals were happy and growing. I have recently added a doser to maintain my big 3, ALK, CA, Mg with more consistency. And I have started to question whether there is still the big need to do such large water changes at the frequency I have been doing them (they aren't a lot of work but salt and water cost money). So here's the question, if it was you would you keep up with the water changes, knowing the your major elements are being kept in check? Obviously I am significantly reducing the nutrient levels in my tank every time I do a water change, but ever time I test for Nitrate and phosphate they read as 0. Granted that was with weekly water changes and they my know longer read they same if I stopped doing them.
I would love to hear some peoples thoughts and opinions. Is everyone else as scared of changes as I currently am.
