Natural Reef Aquarium Method
Update: I am doing water changes. There are two main reasons. 1 – You can keep nutrients under control and dose Ca, Alk, and Mg, but the trace elements are more challenging. Red Sea has a great system, but by the time you actually do the tests (more complicated than Ca, Alk, and Mg), and dose, it would have been easier to just do a water change, except you would have also gotten all the other benefits or a water change. 2 – Nothing can replace the benefits of water changes. They remove nutrients, heavy metals, resupply every trace element, and generally help to keep the tank on track. At the end of the day, I don’t want to find out the hard way that my system wasn’t ready for a super-low maintenance schedule. Even things are going well, I think a reef will do even better with a good water change schedule. I do 10% weekly water changes. The good thing about this method, as the video shows, is that it is a lot easier than most people realize to create a stable, balanced system without going high tech, and the system can handle things when life happens and you may have to neglect it more than you should.
Old Description:
This is a 75 gallon reef display on a 185 gallon. There is no mechanical media (no filter sock, foam block filter pad, etc.). There is no chemical media (no GFO, carbon, Purigen, etc.). There is no other nutrient export (carbon dosing, biopellets, deep sandbed, etc.). I don’t even have to do water changes anymore.
All mechanical filtration is carried out by the filter feeders in the tank.
All nutrient export is carried out by the protein skimmer and very strongly lit refugium with chaetomorpha macroalgae (lit by a 300 watt hydroponic LED grow light with all pink bulbs).
You don’t need a deep sand bed, plenum, carbon dosing, biopellets, Caulerpa, or any other riskier methods. I feed well, too well, and still don’t have enough free nutrients. I have had to cut back the refugium light from 24 hours daily to just on at night in hopes of getting the nutrients back up a little.
That’s all you need for a thriving reef tank: live rock, flow, great light, strong protein skimmer, and a strongly lit chaeto refugium.
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