Thinking of starting 10 gal nano with natural filtration only

[Steve L]

So I've had a bug to start a nano over the last few weeks. My 75 gallon reef is progressing nicely and the urge to start something different is strong.

So I'm browsing Google images the other day and I came across this.



The write-up on the tank can be found here.

http://www.nano-reef.com/featured/_/2013/nano-sapiens-r75

I find the simplicity of the design incredible to look at. On top of that it's all natural filtration. No skimmer or mechanical filtration of any kind. Just the live rock/sand with a small power head. The best part is that I already have everything. I have a 30 gallon quarantine tank which never gets used, but the glass is too scratched up for a decent display tank. I have a standard 10 gallon tank I used for mixing, and I can transfer some of the sand bed and all of the live rock from my quarantine tank to set up the nano.

I really like the ricordia used in the pictured tank, and I'm thinking of starting with 4-5 of those and adding a couple very colorful rock flower nems to the mix. Probably no fish to keep the water parameters in check and doing weekly water changes.

Anybody tried something like this with success?

 

[reefle]

That is super impressive! Def. following along if you do this!

 

[whippetguy]

I say go for it! I'll be following along.

 

[reefer gladness]

Noticed the tank in the original thread is getting water changes 2 times a week. I'm sure a nice tank can be had without a protein skimmer, etc. but it seems at the expense of more maintenance. Times like this I'm reminded it's possible to keep a shark in a swimming pool if willing to keep up with the water changes.

 

[Steve L]

Noticed the tank in the original thread is getting water changes 2 times a week. I'm sure a nice tank can be had without a protein skimmer, etc. but it seems at the expense of more maintenance. Times like this I'm reminded it's possible to keep a shark in a swimming pool if willing to keep up with the water changes.

That's true, but he said that he does a 5% water change twice a week. If I make a 10 gallon tank that would only be one gallon per week (or less if you figure actual water volume). A bucket of salt makes something like 200 gallons of SW, so a $60 bucket would last me like 4 years. I can live with that.

 

[PSU4ME]

I say you give it a shot. I've read many things about how people do tanks and wether you use bacteria, Liverock, skimmer, algae or water changes, it's all a form of maintenance in some form. If you add live rock to a low bio load tank and do twice weekly water changes I would think you could keep a nice tank.

Give it a shot and start a chronicle, I'd love to follow along!

 

[JoeCanada11]

I am thinking of doing something very similar. I also came across this tank when searching low tech nanos.

 

[DaveK]

That is a very nice tank, and it does show what can be done in a small system. As you can see it's a real gem. It has also been setup for several years and not something put together on the spur of the moment.

When you keep a system like this, you do have to maintain a very delicate balance. It may be worth using a small hang on the tank filter for mechanical filtration. That can collect a lot of stuff, especially during the initial few months.

Tanks using a natural method like this do require constant attention. Note the water change schedule, and that it's vacuumed often. Be sure you want to keep up with all that work. It doesn't sound like much, but it's got to be done.

Good luck with you project.

 

[BigAl07]

One of my favorite tanks was my 10g tank. It was my first SW tank and the one I learned MANY lessons from. Ultimately it became a dedicated FRAG tank because my main tank grew into my 90g system.

Once I found my "Balance Point" with bioload and set-up it was a thriving tank. I think the key was keeping the bioload LOW. I did add a HOB fuge to the back but this was mainly for PODs etc. I found that my tank thrived for years with almost no water changes (maybe a gallon a month at one point) but for a long time it only had a single fish and a robust clean up crew along with lots of coral. Unfortunately I never maintained it to look as clean and neat as the one pictured above simply because it was indeed a frag tank and not my Show tank.

 

[nivek]

You may even try a fishless tank and you won't need to water change that frequent.

 

[Steve L]

You may even try a fishless tank and you won't need to water change that frequent.

That's my intent. That way, my bioload will be only from what I feed the corals, and I should be able to get away with less live rock as well which will leave more room for corals.

It will all be a big learning experience and I will chronicle everything once I get started.

 

[BigAl07]

I have found that even a small fish added to a coral tank really helps the coral. I have done it both ways and I much prefer to have a small fish and clean up crew than without. Just my 2 cents though.

 

[JoeCanada11]

There are a lot of beautiful small gobies. That's my plan for my nano is 1 or 2 small gobies.

 

[goma]

I really like this plan and looking forward to seeing it come to life.

 

[gbose]

Noticed the tank in the original thread is getting water changes 2 times a week. I'm sure a nice tank can be had without a protein skimmer, etc. but it seems at the expense of more maintenance. Times like this I'm reminded it's possible to keep a shark in a swimming pool if willing to keep up with the water changes.

You have to change the swimmers every week, too :goofy:

 

[Steve L]

I've heard that some people spot feed their corals with skimate. I wonder if I could do that with the skimate from my other two tanks. Just enough to feed the coral without adding much to the bioload.

 

[BigAl07]

What coral are you planning to have? Over the years I've found I do more HARM feeding most coral (acans etc not included in this statement) than allowing the tank to be set up in a way that the coral are fed by the fish waste and any suspended small particle fish food. Unless you're adding exactly and only what the coral needs to feed on you're adding Algae producing Rocket Fuel to your system.

I've known of some very successful tanks ran long-term with re-introducing skimmate to the tanks in very small and controlled amounts. Of the ones I'm familiar with, all of them were running robust and over-sized skimmers. I have accidentally re-introduced skimmate to a tank and caused a major "bloom" in my tank that took a few weeks to correct.

When you're dealing with only 10g of volume you need to be on your "A" game in regards to water parameters or you'll be fighting a battle day in and day out. The more self sustaining you can make it with less "additives" from your end the better off the system will be in the long run.

 

[Steve L]

That sounds like great advice BigAl. I'd hate to kill my critters by dumping too much skimate from another tank.

My primary focus on corals will be very similar to the picture in my original post. Mostly ricordia types, and I want to add some colorful rock flower nems. Both types are very hardy and I figure that when I spot feed the nems the nutrients they expel will feed the ricordia. Sounds good in theory anyway.

I'm leaning more toward using my 30 gallon quarantine tank instead of setting up a new 10 gallon. The 30 has been set up for 2 years with only a small blower and a HOB filter. I checked the parameters this morning just to see what it was like after no water changes in over two months. The PH was 8.2, trates and amonia were zero. It has tons of coraline growth, a half dozen hermits, pods crawling all over the glass and is a very stable tank, so it's not quite a nano but should be much more stable for my experiment than a 10 gallon.

 

[BigAl07]

Steve that sounds like a GREAT idea so long as you can function w/o a dedicated quarantine system (I don't currently have one so I can't preach to you on that need LOL). 30g is a great water volume and it's still easily managed with small partial water changes.

 

[Steve L]

It's difficult to justify the added expense of keeping a separate tank running full time with absolutely nothing in it. We get a new fish maybe once every 3-4 months (if we're lucky) and in the mean time I'm running lights, heater and a filter for a quarantine tank sitting empty 90% of the time. Not to mention regular maintenance and water changes. I'd rather fresh water dip new arrivals on those rare occasions we buy a new fish, and keep the spare tank with something beautiful to look at in it. Plus if I only add a single reef safe fish I can still use this tank as a quarantine if I have to. Honestly the last several fish we've added were healthy from the get-go and didn't really need the 4 weeks in quarantine. I know it's a gamble, but isn't everything in this hobby? I FW dip every fish I get and even then ich can be buried in their tissue and come out just about any time, even after quarantine.