Help with water quality. Add fuge?
 

Hi all,

I have a somewhat newer reef. Its 5 months old and consists of a 9 gallon display, a 5 gallon sump, both without any sand, but about 14 lbs of live rock (split amongst the two tanks).

Ive still not yet reached 0 nitrates (ammonia and nitrites are 0 though), and am wondering what I can do to aid my water quality.

Here are options, what would you prefer?

• Should I add live sand to the sump? (I dont want sand in the display)
• Should I setup a fuge? (what are the benefits)
• Or, if i shouldn't set up a fuge, should I change anything with my sump setup? Perhaps different spectrum lighting? Bioballs? Suggestions?

Helpful info on my setup:

• Sump (5gal): Its basically bare bones except for live rock. All its got in it is my equipment: filter, heater, ato, and about 5lbs of live rock. Also has some weak-bones lights on it. Ikea LED's... mostly white, probably 5000k.
• Display (9gal): Has Nanocustoms par LED spotlights. These lights have only been on for about a 3 weeks - and I've currently hit an algae bloom.
• Livestock: LPS - (torch, octospawn, alveopora). Softties - a few zoa's. A couple gobies (clown, neon, another that i cant think of its name right now). Tailspot blenny. Cleanup crew consists of 2 turbos, 3 pretty active hermits. I think they're doing their job pretty well.

Opinions, comments?

What do you have in terms of livestock (and/or corals) in your 9 gallon display?
What are you lighting in your sump? You mentioned there is just live rock in there. Live rock doesn't need light unless you are trying to grow something? In my opinion Nitrates do not need to be zero to have a healthy and thriving saltwater system.

The magical product these days for reducing nitrates are "NP Bio Pellets". Do a search for them either in google or canreef search and you'll find lots of info. Your system would work well with a TLF phosban reactor with some NP Bio Pellets tumbling in there.

Your other options would be running a refugium with macro algae like Chaeto, and/or growing Mangroves. There's nothing wrong with these two methods, in fact they can work quite well, although I am not a huge fan of these approaches so I'll leave it to the proponents of those to chime in.

Thanks, I've updated the post to include my livestock.
I have a light in the sump because I have read a few places that having the sump light offest with the display tank helps keep a neutral ph level. I thought perhaps I could grow some micro-algae in the sump too... dunno.

I don't see any mention of a skimmer. Do you have one?

No skimmer. Ive had nano reefs in the past - some people stay they may actually hinder your environment. Thoughts?

How often are you doing water changes? Without a skimmer I would probably do 2-3 gal per week (15-20%) minimum. This is the best method I know of for reducing nitrates by physically removing them from the system and with only a couple of gallons it only takes 15min of your time. By all means you don't need a skimmer but IMHO with a small HOB model the benefits would far out weigh any negatives as the organic material in the water column is removed before it can break down into nitrates. With religeous water changes I don't think you need to worry about the amount of trace elements the skimmer removes (I'm assuming this is the negative part you are refering to). It sounds like you actually have your tank under control all ready and have a nice set up.

Indeed i have always been doing 2-3 gallon water changes per week.
If i were to add a skimmer, could I reduce my water change frequency? If so, how long could i go before my changes?

I would still do weekly water changes but you could probably get away with only 10% changes. Really though, I don't think the extra 1.5 gallons a week is going to save you a fortune or be any less of a chore. A skimmer would improve your water quality either way but it is really up to you. As long as bio load isn't great your current regime should be fine. The reason I advocate weekly water changes no matter the volume is that I find personally that I start losing interest in the tank if I start slacking off on the maintenance. Weekly changes go to bi-weekly to monthly, algae starts growing and the tank looks a mess and then people get fed up and get out of the hobby. I only have a 25 gal nano and I never need to put more than 2 hours a week into it for water change, cleaning glass and lights, clean skimmer, clean HOB filter and check parameters. On small volume tanks one extra week between maintenance can make a visible difference to your rock and live stock skimmer or no skimmer. I think you are striving for perfection which is great but I wouldn't stress over it and let your livestock tell you if they are happy or not.

My livestock appears to be thriving (minus alveopora - different issues - damned thing). I would like to aim towards growing a small amount of SPS in the future... therefore I'll have to resolve my nitrates issue - 5-10ppm at the moment.

I'm surprised nobody has gone with my suggestion of a fuge. I'm really leaning towards building a 5 gal one at the moment. Comments?

Although it is a "nice to have", zero nitrates are not a requirement for growing SPS. There are a lot of nice SPS tanks out there with low (non-zero) nitrate levels. I guess what I'm trying to get at is, don't beat yourself up for having a little bit of nitrates.

Now having said that, if you are set on trying to achieve zero nitrates then yes, building a 'fuge to grow macro algae is one approach which a lot of people employ and works well enough. Anyway, it sounds like you really want to do it so go do it :)