NOT WHAT I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE.

[Bryce Peterson]

I'm about 14 months into reef keeping now. Part of the appeal was to have a little ecosystem in my home. I read all the articles about the "natural" way to create a reef aquarium; deep sand beds, refugiums, using macro algea, skimming, micro fauna, etc, etc. Much of the appeal was in using thes "natural" methods. If you told me that, a little over a year in, I would be contemplating dumping stump remover into my tank, I'm not sure I would have started a reef tank. I just have an aversion to putting something that seems so unnatural in my little ecosystem. It's not just the stump remover, its the peroxide, vodka, vinnegar, etc. Does anyone else feel like me? Are there any examples of a more natural approach out there? Please, somebody help restore my faith.

 

[xellos88]

I run mine currently with just a HOB filter, some carbon, biomedia (seachem denitrate) and some macroalgae in the display and I use natural sea water. All this, because of the high cost of running a reef in my country. Also, my reef is small. I do have to dose 2 part now for alk and ca and some product(fuel) to help with zoa colors.

 

[3dees]

my 120 gal. is full of coral. no sps. I don't dose anything. bi-weekly wc's. 2 1/2 years and all is well. never any nitrates but trying to reduce phosphates which I think are causing some diatoms on my sand and glass. I cringe when I read about what people dose with. not saying there is anything wrong with it. just not for me. if I had to even think about dosing vinegar, stump remover, etc. I would go back to fw. may not be the best looking tank, but for the easy maintenance and simple set up, I'm happy.

 

[tanklife3]

My 90gal is sps dominated and I rarely do water changes (I only do them to remove detritus) run no skimmer, media, or filter of any kind except the occasional filter sock to remove detritus. It's been running well over a year now with next to no issues

Edit. The only thing I dose is A and B for calcium and alkalinity. As well as some essential elements from time to time

 

[rayn]

To me it all comes down to the persons ease of maintenance. If I wantnto do water changes three times a week to keep levels low I can. Otherwise I can dose vodka to help export the nutrients.

All comes down to how HARD one wants to work at keeping it clean. Comes that way to anything pertaining to the hobby really. IMO

 

[duromega]

So you basically saying you want to give up reefing because you have to add some chemicals to your tank?

 

[Lionfish Lair]

I wouldn't be able to do it. I'd have to figure out another way around it.

 

[Oceansize]

I've been reading some fascinating posts/articles about the role that carbon plays in our quest to create a beneficial environment for coral without creating a beneficial environment for algae. Essentially, keeping excess carbon (detritus) low as opposed to fretting about nitrate & phosphate is a good way to limit algae growth without stripping the coral of the nutrients it needs. I've been experimenting with this approach, letting nitrates get to 2-5 ppm or so and really not worrying about phosphates until they're around 0.15 or so, and instead being much more vigilant about carbon & detritus removal=weekly sand stirring, mechanical filtration cleaned weekly, GAC 24/7 refreshed monthly, UV sterilizer, & skimming. So far I'm happy with the results, even with phosphates at 0.16ppm and nitrates at 2-5ppm, I've got very little algae, only need to scrape about once a week if that, and coral is flourishing. If anything, I think my nitrates might still be too low so I'm considering taking the skimmer offline and see what happens.

Or, you might just try more frequent water changes.

 

[ddrueckh]

I would not add stump remover either. I would feed more to get my nitrates up and use a little GFO in a reactor if my phosphates increase too much.

 

[Salt Creep]

You don't need to add anything except the water changes. I add 2 part (Ca, Alk, Mag) only because I have an SPS dominated tank, but if you want to keep softies your setup could be even more simple. IMO algae issues, or other things are usually because of overfeeding, or too high of a bio-load, or both. I hardly do water changes and don't really siphon my sandbed except maybe once every 3 months and even then it is just skimming the top in the areas I know detritus accumulates, but that is because I only have 5 small fish in my 40 breeder and am really careful about feedings. Doing stuff like adding stump remover or anything like that is more of a Band-Aid to cover up the problem than a solution by changing habits and can cause some major issues if done incorrectly.

 

[Wiz]

40b overstocked with every type of coral, 12 fish, and a bunch of inverts. 30l dsb macro fuge, 20l sump with skimmer and small carbon bag. Dose brs 2 part and some iron for macros. Tank is a bit over a year old. Nitrate and phos have been undetectable since fuge was installed. and I feed fairly often broadcast a frozen slurry, live brine, live blackworms, reef chilli, and seafood chunks to nems and large lps.

 

[3dees]

So you basically saying you want to give up reefing because you have to add some chemicals to your tank?

if I HAD to add chemicals, then yes I would. what I'm getting at is there are ways to keep a reef without adding chems. again. I am not knocking anyone who doses this or that. I know there are many reasons to dose. it's just that I think it's one of the reasons some people will not get into sw. it makes it seem harder that what it is.
I went thru the same thing a few years ago with discus. for years I read and heard nothing but how hard they are to keep. for experts only, nearly impossible to keep, etc, etc. I decided to try it a kept wilds for three years. a lot of maintenance but not any harder to keep than any other fish.

 

[MOPAR]

Chemicals are used to make peoples lives easier while maintaining the best water quality for their livestock and no you don't need to use them. Additives can be beneficial, but I prefer a simpler tank. Use kalk in ATO and standard reef equipment. If people think the hobby is to hard then it's not for them. Only the true and serious should take reefs on as we are dealing with animals not model planes.

 

[DanConnor]

Skimming, chaeto, and filter socks are all you need to remove nutrients. That said, just because something is a chemical doesn't necessarily mean its bad or unnatural.

 

[erk]

I don't understand the aversion to adding the necessary chemicals to a reef tank. If you don't want to dose nitrate, then get more fish and feed more. How do you think the organisms in the wild get these same nutrients/minerals? Sure, the way we add these chemicals isn't "natural", but I don't want to simulate rain runoff the land into rivers to carry dissolved limestone and other dissolved nutrients to my corals. I don't want to simulate the dust clouds that blow out over the Atlantic to feed phytoplankton to feed my small ecosystem. As MOPAR stated, if the little you have to do is difficult, then this hobby isn't for you.

I, personally, love the difficulty of keeping a reef tank. For the first year, I killed countless amounts of coral(cheap coral frags) trying to learn how to effectively keep them. I crashed the tank twice with a bacterial bloom. I now run a 25 gal grow out tub and the only filtration I have is a DIY air powered skimmer. I dose vodka and feed the fish well. I can grow anything I want. LPS, SPS, gorgs, softies, they all grow very well. But only because I embraced the difficulty of maintaining a reef tank. I'll move everything to a 40B with 55g sump setup I have designed once I get the custom parts I had made. Can't wait.

 

[Bryce Peterson]

So you basically saying you want to give up reefing because you have to add some chemicals to your tank?

No, I'm saying I might not have started a Reef tank. It seems like people are doing so much to force color and growth from their corals that it is border-line genetic engineering. That never seems to get mentioned to the beginner reefer. I got into this to have a little slice of nature in my home.

 

[McMullen]

This is a fascinating hobby for many reasons but one is there are many many ways to achieve success! Chemicals or no chems, totally up to your preference and goals!

 

[Bryce Peterson]

I expect to replenish natural elements used up by my critters. I just prefer a more natural appraoch. When I had a gha problem, I got a sea hare, aiptasia...peppermint shrimp. I'm not lazy with my tank. I put in hours a day on cleaning and maintenance. I am also not cheap.

 

[Epicreefster]

The tank I'm running right now is a custom shallow 50g 16x16x48. I'm running about as bare bones a system as possible and have some great growth so far, it's only had coral about two months. I run a return pump, 4 bulb t5 Hamilton fixture, small skimz skimmer, 4" body probably rated75-100g, and really it's almost just an ozone reactor for my $100 spa ozone generator. And an algae turf scrubber. Now I do run a m1 vectors return and run about 15x tank vol through the sump, and have two mp10 vortechs, and two tunze nano streams. So it's about $2k in the setup. And then an apex.

Yea it's a bit overkill for a 50g but I run <1ppm no3 and 0.03 po4. It runs on an auto feeder and if it weren't for adding water I could walk away from it for two weeks and it will be fine, in fact I already have gone on two week long trips. Now I do build large custom tanks for a living so the whole idea was to not deal with all these additives adjustments and what not because the last thing I want to do when I get home is more tank work... So I run no gfo, no carbon and only dose Randy's 2 part, and still haven't done a single water change. It's setup a bit complex and it's taken 8 years experience to get back to a natural reef, but I find it much more relaxing when I dose as few additives as possible and go more au naturale.

 

[AlexG]

I have never used chemicals like stump remover, peroxide, or vodka. Normally it is a skimmer, refuge tank with macro algae, and supplements for calcium/ALK/Magnesium. On occasion I would use some activated carbon if something died and might release toxins. I believe in trying to have a more natural balance through biological filtration. As I build my new system I am taking the same approach.