Quote:
Originally Posted by shie305
hi, im brand new to the whole aquarium thing and need some opinions on filtration before i start up. i have a 55gal corner aquarium, about 26 inches deep. its going to be fish-only to start... ... i think i can use just live rock with a skimmer and couple of powerheads...
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Never be intimidated about asking questions here, we would all rather see you ask the same questions over and over again (we know they are new to you) before just going ahead with what you might
think would be appropriate and torturing a specimen...
As far as filtration with live rock, the rock will take a little while to ramp up to your bioload (the number of waste producers in the tank) as the populations and diversity of bacteria that make live rock "live" ramp up to meet the supply of ammonia, etc. produced as fish wastes. In addition, there will be a max level and rate of deammonification that live rock will be capable of handling, so the use of a skimmer, frequent water changes (once a week after "blasting"--see below), and limiting feeding, while removing any solid wastes via siphoning that settle out in the tank or sump (DETRITUS) as well as once a week "blasting" of the rock with either current from a powerhead or by using a turkey baster to remove accumulated detritus from cracks and crevasses in and under the live rock will suffice without any extra filtration.
The husbandry for heavy fish populations is often quite different from that of coral reef systems, and the goals of these two very different biotopes is totally different as well. In reef systems, for the most part, success is the ability to maintain oligotropic (nutrient-poor) water condtions in closed systems. Systems that exist primarily for the curation of fishes may and can operate quite well with little reguard to the presence of dissolved nutrients (up to a point), so long as ammonia and nitr
ite are kept to a bare minimum or are totally absent. Your approach to filtration will vary depending on what your ultimate goal for the tank will be in terms of what you want to keep in the system, what biotope you want to ultimately emulate, how many specimens you want to keep, and what your total system volume will be. Some types of corals are quite tolerant of excessive levels of dissolved nutrients (usually corals from lagoonal biotopes, often referred to as
soft corals, or Octocorals and corallimorpharians as classes). Others have evolved over millions of years to occupy low-nutrient "deserts" of the Ocean, and utilize inorganic sources of carbon present throughout the seas (carbonate, bicarbonate and carbon dioxide) and are capable of deriving nitrate, phosphate and other nutrients they need for synthesis of biomass at very low concentratons or through predation, such that excesses of these nutrients may inhibit the success of these corals. Systems that mix these sets of conditions may certainly produce results, but to be truly successful and have a system where there are not sets of compromises in conditions for some if not all of the inhabitants, you'll need to make a decision about what will be the most important single specimen that you want to keep, then build the conditions of your tank around the needs of the biotope that this creature(s) comes from to see them truly thrive, not just survive.
Some "Fish-Only" (FO) systems will run most efficiently with bioballs, as this artificially allows for a large number of bacteria to act as biofilters for the wastes that the fish produce, and although they create large amounts of nitr
ate as a result of the oxidative conversion of ammonia to nitrate, water changes will remove the excess nitrate, and the presence of high nitrate concentrations (> 5O PPM) will have no corals to adversely affect. This changes 180 degrees once we consider systems with corals as coinhabitants...
...So most of what you'll need to get/use will depend on the direction you want to take with your tank. For all closed systems, you will need to have the mantra: "Maximize your exports, minimize your imports."
Where do you want to go today?
