non-photosynthetic tank? anyone have one?

[alexmir]

I was just thinking (

)that it would be really awesome to have a non-photosynthetic only connected to the tank that i am setting up in december. I am wanting to set up a 180-225 gallon tank in december. so with the sump, and refugium the whole system would be around 275-300 gallons. I was thinking that i could have a pump set in the sump that would send water into a 20 gallon tank that was set next to the DT.
The 20 gallon would have an overflow that would just run the water back into the sump. i could turn the pump off once a day, drop in some filter feeding food, let the PH churn it around for an hour or two, and then turn the pump back and the water with the food in it would just run into the DT feeding the coral, sponges, cocoworm etc........... The large Dt would be able to handle the extra bio-load, and i could keep difficult things like carnation, blueberry gorgonian, chili coral, sun coral, and a few sponges.

I think done right the non-photosynthetic tank would look really nice!! anyone done anything similar? i think i remember coralkeeper talking about doing something similar, but im not sure if he ever did.
I would either do it bare bottom, or with a DSB that was around 6 or 7 inches. I think the marine snow and other food would be too small to be able to see collect, so it would be pointless trying to siphon up the left over food from the bare bottom.........

 

[bronco300]

someone around here has a tank with lots of suncorals only...i was thinking viper, but i coud be wrong

 

[alix2.0]

on melevsreef there are some pics of marc's nonphoto tank. it is plumbed into his sump somwhow, im not sure if it is the same way youre talking about though. i think he only has suns and dendros, but it would look really cool if you had lots of different gorgs, sponges, corals, etc.
i got some major deja vu typing this.

 

[alexmir]

I would have a few sun coral in the tank, black and yellow/orange.
But it is going to be mostly coral that need an almost constant supply of tiny food.
carnation, blueberry gorgonia, chili coral, some of the difficult sponges.

 

[spiderwoman]

Here is one in process
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/320870/dedicated-non-photosynthetic-tank

 

[alexmir]

i have seen the sun coral tank on that site, it is going to run the exact same way as that one, just a pump into it with an overflow back into the sump.

 

[mx#28]

Originally Posted by alexmir
http:///forum/post/2645389
But it is going to be mostly coral that need an almost constant supply of tiny food.
carnation, blueberry gorgonia, chili coral, some of the difficult sponges.
But you said that you were going to just turn the pumps off and feed only one hour a day???

 

[alexmir]

I am going to drop a good amount of food, leeave the pump off for about 2 hrs, and let the powerheads in the non-photo tank churn the food around for 2 hrs. then i would turn the pump back on and the food would float through the DT feeding sponges, clams, coco worm. then a small amount of food would be floating in the system all day which would also flow a small amount through the 20 non-photo tank again. I would do this in the mid-day, and at night.