am i doing something wrong with this set up?

[Sea monkey]

As kinda discussed in another thread i want to set up two tanks with the same set up side by side. I am going to feed one tank stuff like phyto and cyclop eeze, the other tank gets nothing but a small bit of mysis for the one or two fish i keep in there . I want to see what the differences will be at 6 months , year , two years .... the reef aquarium V3 says you can get 40% better growth rates with feedings like this. I hope its true : )

anyways the key for me here is to do this as cheap as i can. that means no skimmer, CA RX, fancy pumps, expensive sand.... i do have some stuff laying around like the lights that i can use : )

because i will be feeding as heavily as i can without running into nutrient/algae issues and i won't have a skimmer i thought a fuge DSB might be a good idea. I don't want to spend a grip on LFS sand and southdown seems to be a pipe dream so i am going to use the $5 a bag quikrete "fine" sand. there seems to be some debate about silica sand but it seems more and more people are doing it and not having any problems. If i am successful at building them id like to use maxi-streams for circulation and mag 5's for the returns. in the fuges i want to keep cheato with 2X 54w t5's (6500k) lights.

Id appreciate any and all advice on this, keeping in mind that cheap is one of the most important factors : )

please excuse the crude drawing...

[trodder]

Not running a skimmer would make it more expensive in the long run IMO... you would need to do far more water changes especially with doing the heavy feeding on the one tank For that one you would need to do at least a 5 gallon water change every week to keep from having a nutrient overload.

[JnS]

if you are going to run cheap, why not just not have a sump and use HOB filters with water changes?

are you going to run this test on SPS? if not why the MH? you could use T5 or VHO for cheaper.

just a few thoughts

[Sea monkey]

if you are going to run cheap, why not just not have a sump and use HOB filters with water changes?

are you going to run this test on SPS? if not why the MH? you could use T5 or VHO for cheaper.

just a few thoughts

yes i want to test it with various types of corals including sps, lps, clams, polyps .... and i already have the MH set up just sitting here doing nothing : ) I also have an extra 8x54 T5 but it seems that the MH is just more reliable and a wider range of corals will thrive under them .

at first i was going to use some biowheel filters that i also have sitting around but i thought the combination of the DSB and cheato would remove a substantial amount of nitrate that the HoB filters would not . The fuge/dsb didn't seem to add an enormous expense either. I have never used a fuge DSB before but from my limited readings, the major issues with it are in the long term. i will prolly shut down this experiment before the DSB has these issues. again my knowledge in this area is very limited , that's why i am asking you guys, please feel free to tell me if this line of thinking is wrong : ) ID much rather hear it now than after i set it up.

Not running a skimmer would make it more expensive in the long run IMO... you would need to do far more water changes especially with doing the heavy feeding on the one tank For that one you would need to do at least a 5 gallon water change every week to keep from having a nutrient overload.

keep in mind that i would need to buy two skimmers so the experiment is the same. comparatively 2 years of salt is rather cheep. I prolly have 60-70 gallons water between the tanks and fuge after the sand and rock is in. so 10% weekly is only 6-7 gallons and two buckets of salt could last almost a year at that rate. I almost always have a 55 gallon drum with salt water in it so its not a large pain to do the changes. I think i was misleading when i said i wanted to feed as heavily as i can without issues, that doesn't mean i going to dump food in like crazy and hope for the best. ID like to start with what the average reefer might use and scale it up as the parameters allow.

the main reason id like to do this cheap is for my wallet of coarse but id also like to see what a limited budget can do rather than what an unlimited budget can pull off because most reefers don't have all of expensive equipment . I want to see the results in the average persons tank rather than than the ideal tank .

[Loverotties]

I'd rather have two skimmer without a sump!

[mtfatwork]

Originally Posted by Loverotties

I'd rather have two skimmer without a sump!

agreed. If you have a good skimmer, you dont really need any other filter

[Sea monkey]

I of coarse agree that if possible everyone should have a skimmer, my issue is cost. Two skimmers will prolly double or triple the cost of this project. the dsb/fuge was just what i came up with as a cheaper alternative. what are my options as far as cheap skimmers go ? the only sump skimmer I've used is a reef mania and i obviously cant afford two of them : )

maybe someone in the club who has used a dsb can chime in on how effective they think they are are at removing nitrate. from what i have read they seem to be pretty effective at keeping nitrate levels at zero even with lots of fish and heavy feedings.

what do you guys think of the raceway type nutrient scrubbers that use cheato?

[trodder]

You can get two used red sea prizm skimmers pretty cheap. IF you look at 5 gallons a week for each tank that brings you to 10 gallons a week for 52 weeks a year for 2 years means 1040 gallons of water being changed in your two year study. Now salt is about $38 a bucket give or take for 160 gallon buckets. It would take you 6.5 buckets to fill your salt needs. At that rate you are spending about $247 for your experiment for two years. Not to mention the 6.5 buckets is WAY on the low side since the 160 gallons the bucket claims to give you is if you run your salinity rock bottom... much lower than what most would recommend. Now if you did 10 gallon water changes a month between the 2 tanks because you have a skimmer... then you would be spending about $57 in salt for 1.5 buckets over the course of two years. I garuntee you can get 2 Red Sea Prizm skimmers for under $100 for both. Take a Prizm and do a little $2 mod from home depot and they are actually pretty decent little skimmers.

[David Grigor]

Skilter 250s would probably do an okay job as a skimmer on such a little system. I'm sure there are some people in the club with some in their storage closest. I have 1 you could use but it needs a replacement impeller as the magnet seperated.

Depending on the heat issues, you could probably ditch the sump with one on each tank as well....

[Sea monkey]

Originally Posted by trodder

You can get two used red sea prizm skimmers pretty cheap. IF you look at 5 gallons a week for each tank that brings you to 10 gallons a week for 52 weeks a year for 2 years means 1040 gallons of water being changed in your two year study. Now salt is about $38 a bucket give or take for 160 gallon buckets. It would take you 6.5 buckets to fill your salt needs. At that rate you are spending about $247 for your experiment for two years. Not to mention the 6.5 buckets is WAY on the low side since the 160 gallons the bucket claims to give you is if you run your salinity rock bottom... much lower than what most would recommend. Now if you did 10 gallon water changes a month between the 2 tanks because you have a skimmer... then you would be spending about $57 in salt for 1.5 buckets over the course of two years. I guarantee you can get 2 Red Sea Prizm skimmers for under $100 for both. Take a Prizm and do a little $2 mod from home depot and they are actually pretty decent little skimmers.

i owned a red sea prism pro and it required allot of tweaking and it also frequently flooded my floor. I never tried the mod that you spoke of but i was so unhappy with the performance before i dont think id want to buy two more of them to try it. the more i think about it i am not totally opposed to a skimmer, it's just finding one that is both cheap and effective. I really am not a fan of the cheaper hang ons. I suppose a skimmer can also always be added on later if the fuge/dsb isn't effective at removing the nutrients.

far as the salt costs go , you have to assume id use half that much with just normal water changes so it would really be about around $120 in extra salt. 5 gallon changes would prolly be closer to 15% weekly changes. I am really not opposed to doing extra water changes to replace calcium and other elements. i don't want to dose calcium or other elements because it could mess with the experiment if i don't keep the levels the exact same in each tank and i am unwilling to attempt to do that : ) so fresh saltwater and kalk top off water will be pretty much the only things i add.

[Sea monkey]

Originally Posted by David Grigor

Skilter 250s would probably do an okay job as a skimmer on such a little system. I'm sure there are some people in the club with some in their storage closest. I have 1 you could use but it needs a replacement impeller as the magnet seperated.

Depending on the heat issues, you could probably ditch the sump with one on each tank as well....

i am worried about the heat. i don't want to use fans on the surface water because i have enough evaporation as it is. the tanks will be in my basement which is pretty cool year round. do you think the MH's will cause large heat fluctuations in a 29 ? if not i guess i could totaly skip the sump and just use LR or the hang biowheels i already have and a cheaper skimmer.

I have never seen a skilter 250 before i'll take a look at them, thanks : )


thanks for your input everyone, it is helpfull.

[JnS]

I have a skilter 250 you can look at in action. it is on my live rock curing bin.

[thegrimreefer]

Let me see if I remember this correctly? You want to set up identical twin systems, and feed them differently, and evaluate the results after a certain period of time for differences in some parameters ie. growth/color/mortality/etc.

My concern with this plan is twofold:
1) How do you determine equivalent amounts of differing food substances so that you don't feed one tank more than the other? Do you shoot for adding the same weight of food to each? The same volume? The same grams of protein and other substances? How do you know if your results were due to the food used, or due to how heavily the tank was fed?

2) Even if you precisely measure the foods administered in some way, different feeding regimes and materials will pollute the tanks differently, and over time, with equivalent filtration systems, your water quality will vary in ways that you can measure, and likely in ways you won't think to / be able to measure. At that point, are the corals responses due to feeding differences or water quality differences? If one tank's water quality starts to slide, does that tank get extra water changes to bring it back in line? What effect does doing more maintenance on one of the tanks than the other have on the measurements you're taking on the corals?

As any of you know that have seen or read about my system, I don't always do things in the simplest manner. If I were going to undertake this task, and didn't have access to a continuous supply of NSW like commercial aquariums on the coasts do, I'd think hard about how to have a common water supply between the tanks, and how to filter out the uneaten unprocessed foods from crossing between the tanks. And it's likely that will mean some mechanical filtration that will require regular maintenance. Just off the top of my head, instead of using regular return pumps, what if you returned water to each tank with a magnum 350 style cannister with a filter in it, and used whatever in the tanks for additional circulation. Just do your best to ensure similar flow patterns in the tanks, because that can also have an effect.

OK, this is already way to long. Id' just hate to see this experiment happen and find there were actual differences, and still be unable to tell why. There are other issues that pop up as well, but I think these'd need attention in the design, or other things won't matter.

Ron

[Sea monkey]

Originally Posted by thegrimreefer

Let me see if I remember this correctly? You want to set up identical twin systems, and feed them differently, and evaluate the results after a certain period of time for differences in some parameters ie. growth/color/mortality/etc.

My concern with this plan is twofold:
1) How do you determine equivalent amounts of differing food substances so that you don't feed one tank more than the other? Do you shoot for adding the same weight of food to each? The same volume? The same grams of protein and other substances? How do you know if your results were due to the food used, or due to how heavily the tank was fed?

2) Even if you precisely measure the foods administered in some way, different feeding regimes and materials will pollute the tanks differently, and over time, with equivalent filtration systems, your water quality will vary in ways that you can measure, and likely in ways you won't think to / be able to measure. At that point, are the corals responses due to feeding differences or water quality differences? If one tank's water quality starts to slide, does that tank get extra water changes to bring it back in line? What effect does doing more maintenance on one of the tanks than the other have on the measurements you're taking on the corals?

As any of you know that have seen or read about my system, I don't always do things in the simplest manner. If I were going to undertake this task, and didn't have access to a continuous supply of NSW like commercial aquariums on the coasts do, I'd think hard about how to have a common water supply between the tanks, and how to filter out the uneaten unprocessed foods from crossing between the tanks. And it's likely that will mean some mechanical filtration that will require regular maintenance. Just off the top of my head, instead of using regular return pumps, what if you returned water to each tank with a magnum 350 style cannister with a filter in it, and used whatever in the tanks for additional circulation. Just do your best to ensure similar flow patterns in the tanks, because that can also have an effect.

OK, this is already way to long. Id' just hate to see this experiment happen and find there were actual differences, and still be unable to tell why. There are other issues that pop up as well, but I think these'd need attention in the design, or other things won't matter.

Ron

i agree , the way i am doing it isn't extremely scientific but that doesn't mean there isn't something to be learned from it. that said i really appreciate input like this that can help me make it a better experiment without making it impossible to do.

to address your points

1) one tank will not be given anything other than a small bit of mysis to feed the one or two fish that will be kept in the tank . i will weigh it out so each tank gets the same amount of mysis. the other tank will be fed a mixture of some of the cheaper invertebrate foods like freeze dried cyclop eeze and phyto.

2) I agree that there will be inevitable differences between the two tanks . I will keep the water changes and stuff like that on the same schedule. Even if the one that only gets mysis doesn't need the changes it will get them at the same time as the other tank. I plan on starting out slow with the invertebrate foods and build up as the tank/filtration allows so that neither tank has pollution problems to begin with.

keep in mind that my goal isn't to achieve the fastest growth rates possible or win an award for my irrefutable research : )
This is a test to see if the common aquarist can utilize inexpensive coral foods and realize results that make it worth while. The reef aquarium V3 says you can achieve up to 40% faster growth rates with feedings but can it be done by the average aquarist? More importantly should the average Joe leave these products alone and leave it to the people who want to use the most expensive products(or filtration equipment) or culture their own. Basically i thought a good way to find this out would be to set up two tanks , make them as similar as possible and put frags of the same coral in each tank and and feed only one tank these products. seems to me this is an OK way to find out how the average Joe's tank would perform if he decided to start using these products VS not using them at all and continuing along normally. I am completely open to any and all ideas on a different way to achieve this goal and make sure it is more accurate, both on the set up of the tanks and the way the study is done. i like the idea of sharing the same water but I'm not sure how it could be best implemented so none of the foods get to the other tank. I am also worried it wouldn't actually produce the same results as if someone decided to start using these products because you are using mechanical filtration to remove a lot of it. My guess is a small percentage of aquarists use canister filters. maybe i could have the tanks share water for 3-4 months so they are pretty stabilized and have very similar conditions and then separate them and then start the feedings ? kinda set it up as the day the common Joe decided to start using the products VS the tank had he left it alone ? i know the tanks wont be exactly the same but it might be a step closer. any thoughts are helpful : )


few other questions, should i use live rock in the tank because that's what most reefers use for filtration or should i have an empty tank with eggcrate so i can insure the corals are getting similar flow and distance from light. maybe smaller pieces of LR under the eggcrate ? what really is the best affordable filtration for this project , live rock, biowheels , DSB, macro algae .....

[JnS]

just make sure you keep a log of everything you do to the tanks, so the info will be useful