Reefing the wrong or right way

[airbikebill]

Hi. New to the forum. I would like to share my experience with you. 35 years ago I had a 150 gal with a 30 gal wide open sump. No filtration what so ever except lots of real Figi live rock. No skimmer, no nothing. Not even a heater, I had 2 400w 20k mh which kept the water 80 and only lost 1 degree at night. Lots of soft corals and 5 big tangs the size of your hand. I fed the tank only frozen brine shrimp for 15 years and the fish were happy and lived long and the corals loved the shrimp juice. I had 2 toadstools that were 12" in diameter and finger leather growing out of the tank and massive LPS. I had a little cyano on the sand that got siphoned every 2 weeks with a 10% water change and no other algae except on the glass. Also had lots of coraline. The only test kits I had was HK and calcium and I didn't use those, maybe once a month I threw in some baking soda and calcium chloride and yes I did make it snow sometimes. I did almost everything wrong. The point here is the tank looked great with big happy corals and big happy fish. I think the live rock does more than we think. Lets fast forward to today. I'm retired with more time. I have a 50 gal and 20 gal sump. Again lots of live rock. I have filter socks, skimmer, ac canister, algae scrubber, dosing pumps, ato. I use 4 stage ro with 3 stage resin, coral pro salt. I keep all my numbers by the book and match the salt numbers except I keep no3 at 5 and po4 at .05 for the soft corals. I dose all the foundations 6 times a day and water change 10% a week and I feed my fish a good variety of food and give the corals reef roids once a week, have lots of coraline, and guess what, my corals hate it. My toadstools and other softies stay open for 2 days a week and then close and moult the rest of the time, the ones in the other tank close maybe 2 times a year. I tried other things with no help. So I do think there is something to corals and dirty water. My new plan is to slowly get rid of the AC, skimmer and filter socks but keep the algae scrubber and the dosing pumps and ato. I'll see if the corals like dirty water again and I'll let you know how it goes. Sorry for the long post.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Welcome! I used the same 'Live Rock/Live Sand' in systems going back some 35 years, too. Easy, cheap and worked. When I set up a small nano I carried on with the 'old-school' methodology. 14 years later, seems to be working out just fine.

Many of the extra/multiple filtration methods came about when people started to keep SPS (Acropora) dominant aquaria. However, many other coral types can have difficulties with the high flow/high light/low nutrient environment.

Sometimes 'less is more'