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Dedicated non-photosynthetic tank?

post #1 of 79
5/18/08 at 1:10am
Thread Starter 
Hello everyone! After my 2 gallon FW cherry shrimp tank crashed, I was thinking of devoting a little 2 gallon tank to ONLY non-photosynthetic corals with an actinic lighting so there wouldn't be any algae growth. I know its a bit small, but a 50% water change is only 1 gallon. What do you all think?
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post #2 of 79
5/18/08 at 1:12am
You could keep some sponges and gorgonias there... cool!
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post #3 of 79
5/18/08 at 1:13am
Thread Starter 
Originally Posted by SpiderWoman View Post
You could keep some sponges and gorgonias there... cool!
Yeah, and even maybe some carnation corals.
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post #4 of 79
5/18/08 at 10:50am
How exactly do you plan on setting it up? Have you considered making it a stream tank?

How do you intend to feed the tank?

Keep us posted.
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post #5 of 79
5/18/08 at 1:01pm
Thread Starter 
Ummm... Going to add some sand, and a little bit of LR, but not too much. What is a stream tank? Just by adding phytoplankton. Will do.
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post #6 of 79
5/18/08 at 1:09pm
Sounds like a cool project.
If you're getting gongorians then you should definitely get a blueberry gongorian.
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post #7 of 79
5/18/08 at 1:11pm
Thread Starter 
Originally Posted by Sooner_Reefer View Post
Sounds like a cool project.
If you're getting gongorians then you should definitely get a blueberry gongorian.
Yeah, PerfectDark is going to be shipping me some in a week or 2.
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post #8 of 79
5/18/08 at 1:13pm
Thread Starter 
Originally Posted by Sooner_Reefer View Post
Sounds like a cool project.
If you're getting gongorians then you should definitely get a blueberry gongorian.
Oh yeah, forgot to say that blueberry gongorians need some lighting. So it will be going in my biocube. Or I might just add some strong enough lights for the gorgonian in the 2 gall?
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post #9 of 79
5/18/08 at 1:42pm
Thread Starter 
Do you all think its a good and cool idea to make a dedicated non-photosynthetic coral tank?
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post #10 of 79
5/18/08 at 2:09pm
Originally Posted by Sooner_Reefer View Post
Sounds like a cool project.
If you're getting gongorians then you should definitely get a blueberry gongorian.
The blueberry gorgonian (Acalycigorgia sp) is a very poor choice as it is very rarely kept successfully by even the most advanced aquarists and marine biologists. It's husbandry requirements are really not known.
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post #11 of 79
5/18/08 at 2:11pm
Originally Posted by Coral Keeper View Post
Oh yeah, forgot to say that blueberry gongorians need some lighting. So it will be going in my biocube. Or I might just add some strong enough lights for the gorgonian in the 2 gall?
You're thinking of PD's Muriceopsis flavida - the Purple Brush Gorgonian. Very different from the Blueberry gorg.
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post #12 of 79
5/18/08 at 2:22pm
Originally Posted by Coral Keeper View Post
Ummm... Going to add some sand, and a little bit of LR, but not too much. What is a stream tank? Just by adding phytoplankton. Will do.
I mean what about filtration, flow, top off, etc ???

2 gallons of water is not much. It will make it difficult to keep your water quality up and your parameters stable. Daily evaporation will create a fairly significant change in the salinity - how do you plan to compensate for that? I would suggest an auto-top-off.

Different non-photo critters rely greatly on different rates of flow for their survival and well-being. You will need to choose your animals and then likely have to do research on their required flow rates. How do you intend to set up the flow? A stream tank is one way of doing this. Googel "delbeek stream tank".

What you feed should be based on what you want to keep, so maybe figure out a list first and then consider how you'll feed them. I don't intend to sound condescending, we;ve had this talk before, but there are a great deal of variables to address.
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post #13 of 79
5/18/08 at 2:27pm
Thread Starter 
Originally Posted by MX#28 View Post
You're thinking of PD's Muriceopsis flavida - the Purple Brush Gorgonian. Very different from the Blueberry gorg.
Oh, right. I forgot lol. Sorry about that.
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post #14 of 79
5/18/08 at 2:36pm
Thread Starter 
Originally Posted by MX#28 View Post
I mean what about filtration, flow, top off, etc ???

2 gallons of water is not much. It will make it difficult to keep your water quality up and your parameters stable. Daily evaporation will create a fairly significant change in the salinity - how do you plan to compensate for that? I would suggest an auto-top-off.

Different non-photo critters rely greatly on different rates of flow for their survival and well-being. You will need to choose your animals and then likely have to do research on their required flow rates. How do you intend to set up the flow? A stream tank is one way of doing this. Googel "delbeek stream tank".

What you feed should be based on what you want to keep, so maybe figure out a list first and then consider how you'll feed them. I don't intend to sound condescending, we;ve had this talk before, but there are a great deal of variables to address.
I don't think theres going to be any filtration. Just water changes. I'm thinking about building my own auto top off system. I'll draw a little diagram of the auto top off system and show it to you later on the day. I was thinking of just adding 1 strong pump and hooking up a lot of different diameters of tubes to the outlet of the pump and the ones that need higher flow with be getting thiner tubs pointing their way because higher pressure = stronger flow and the ones that need lower flow get wider tubes pointing their way because wider tubes = less pressure. I'll go look into what they all eat and start cultures of what they eat.
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post #15 of 79
5/18/08 at 9:10pm
Thread Starter 
How strong of a pump would you suggest? Will a 240 ghp pump work?
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post #16 of 79
5/18/08 at 9:47pm
Thread Starter 
Here is a video test I did with a 240 ghp pump.
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post #17 of 79
5/19/08 at 3:31pm
Thread Starter 
Bump.
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post #18 of 79
5/19/08 at 4:09pm
Youre going to need to be very careful with this tank if you go through with it. Nonphotosynthetic means youre going to need to spot feed, and if you overfeed by just a little, the nitrates will soar so high.

And if ya take too much water it, it might throw it into a cycle again
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post #19 of 79
5/19/08 at 4:17pm
I'm curious about water quality. How will you control the water quality in this tank? Small regular water changes will not control nutrient build-up IMO, especially with the almost constant drip that some of these corals require, and frequent, repeated, large scale water changes will be almost as detrimental. How will you prevent nutrient levels from building?
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post #20 of 79
5/19/08 at 4:46pm
Bad news if ya ask me. I know your excited, but the tank is just too prone for instability for such inhabitants as your intending.

Not poking at your reef-keeping abilities, it has bad news written all over it since you tech will NEVER be able to have stable tank conditions without a host of redundant equip. Auto top off would almost be manditory. Carefully measured and maintained constant feeding most likley through dosing pumps also to be in the list of manditory. On such small tank I would also say that Closed loop to displace volume would give more beifit and keep the DT space open.

Stability is what is paramount for such things as blue gorgs and carnations. They are both finiky and command stability. Even in larger tanks they can be full time jobs.

Your excitement is contagious, but I do think your barking at a project of headache and heartache. Money and effort in my oppinion at least would be better spend on a larger tank where stability would be far easier.
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