live vrs. artificial

[ssweet1]

I have been reading this sight for awhile trying to decide what kind of tank to get. I am getting a beautiful 240 gallon tank, but I am scared off by all the problems I have read about. I have alot of nice artificial corals, enough for the whole tank. What is easier, a tank that you can copper in case of illness? or a tank that almost totally cleans itself but can get bad real fast? Is an artificial tank much harder to keep clean? The more I read the more I get sooooo confused, help, Carrie

 

[saltymist]

Originally posted by SSweet1
I have been reading this sight for awhile trying to decide what kind of tank to get. I am getting a beautiful 240 gallon tank, but I am scared off by all the problems I have read about. I have alot of nice artificial corals, enough for the whole tank. What is easier, a tank that you can copper in case of illness? or a tank that almost totally cleans itself but can get bad real fast? Is an artificial tank much harder to keep clean? The more I read the more I get sooooo confused, help, Carrie
If you can afford a 240 gallong tank, then you can afford a 10 or 20 gallon tank to pour copper in when needed to cure something.
An all artificial tank that has no snails or hermits etc, can get green real quick. Even when you have snails or hermits etc, the algae an get to be a bit of work every now and then. I've yet to see a tank with artificial corals, that look nice, but thats in the eye of the beholder.
Personally I would just do the tank the way you want it and dont dose it with copper for curing anything, but rather put things into a QT tank and dose them in there.
Goodluck,

 

[ssweet1]

Thanks, I will be getting a 55 gallon for quarantine and a refugium also. I like the reef but I already have the dead and fake corals which arent too bad looking actually. I am wondering though if I should get the live sand and live rock or just use the art. stuff. I wasnt thinking about the cleaners being affected by the copper so thanks for telling me, Carrie

 

[mujtba]

nothing duplicates nature.. goodluck whichever u do..

 

[saltymist]

I assumed you would be putting in livesand and liverock to begin with. Certainly you can do a tank with no liverock or livesand, but then you have to provide the biological filtration through mechanical means.
I believe that liverock is better in that it will provide all the biological filtration that you should need, then just a couple powerheads for circulation, a good skimmer and a heater and your all set, assuming you get enough liverock in the tank for the bioload that you place in it.
General rule of thumb on the liverock is 1.5 to 2 lbs of liverock per gallon of tank, so for your 250 gallon tank that would be roughly 375lbs to 500 lbs of liverock. 500lbs of liverock locally here to me would cost aproximately $1500 to $2000, ouch!
If it were me, I'd put in the liverock then if you want to make it pretty, put in your fake corals for color and whatnot.
Have fun.

 

[ocellaris_keeper]

If you plan on being a minimalist (I sure am) when it comes to maintaining a takn there are few more things you need to think about.
1. what happens when your nitrates begin to rise?
2. How do you irradicate parasitical infestations with a tank and it's inhabitants of this magnitude?
3. How can you place an sick animal into a quarantine tank that is not capable of surviving in a small environment for the time required to cure it's ailments (knowing that it can take up to 6 to 12 months to completely irradicate illnesses such as ICK)?
My answers:
1. Utilize some form of a plenum system that allows dentrification to occur.
2. if your creating a fish only environment (no corals) then copper based medications into the dispay tank are your best bet.Hermits, live rock and love sand don't really have a problem with copper medications, so you can add them to the tank. Copper medications should only be used during stressful times and then slowly removed through water changes.
3. you simply cannot expect it to survive - sometimes you need to get help from your LFS to house a sick animal in one of their tanks.

 

[ssweet1]

Thanks, I definately am a minimalist I suppose. Also the live rock as was said earlier is quite an expense on top of the tank so I basically wanted to know if the live rock,sand and corals did such a fantastic job of self cleaning that it would be worth the effort it appears to be to keep them all happy.:thinking: My main concern is the fish and how healthy I can keep them without making this monster tank a full time job. Is this possible? Or am I avoiding the truth that tank keeping is quite a chore-rewarding yes, but still a chore? Thanks, Carrie

 

[saltymist]

Originally posted by SSweet1
Thanks, I definately am a minimalist I suppose. Also the live rock as was said earlier is quite an expense on top of the tank so I basically wanted to know if the live rock,sand and corals did such a fantastic job of self cleaning that it would be worth the effort it appears to be to keep them all happy.:thinking: My main concern is the fish and how healthy I can keep them without making this monster tank a full time job. Is this possible? Or am I avoiding the truth that tank keeping is quite a chore-rewarding yes, but still a chore? Thanks, Carrie
Certainly tank cleaning can be a chore, but I dont clean my liverock at all. It's in the tank and my lawnmower blenny and my snails keep it trimmed neat and clear of algae. Most of my noticible algae now is on my glass which the snails and blenny dont do near enough to clean it, so a magnet across it once or twice a week keeps it clean.
I've seen fish only tanks that have only a couple fish, a wet/dry filter under the stand with *heavens, should I say it?* bioballs and only play sand in the tank. Tank looked super, but it wasn't overstocked, and he had to pull out the dead skelleton corals that he used for decoration once or so a month and either bleach them clean, or scrub them down with a dish brush to keep the algae off of them.
If you think about it, liverock is a maintenance free filter. Once it's cured in your tank the necessary bacteria levels grow in it to filter your water (up to a point, if its overloaded, well.....), so by going with liverock, you could be a real minimalist, as I said, liverock, livesand, a cleanup crew of hermits and snails, heater, good skimmer and your done. Pretty minimalist considering I dont include any other filters or sumps in that equation.
My LFS owner recommended that I read up on the "Berlin" method, as he explained it to me really basically, it's liverock, livesand and a really good skimmer, couple powerheads for circulation and a heater. All the filtration is taken care of by the livesand, liverock and skimmer.