non photosynthetic tank

[photokid]

tank update sense the great flood of 08 the tank is cycling and levels should be back down within a week and a bit. i guess i better get started on phyto farming.

 

[wbholwell]

Have you added the chiller yet? What type of skimmer do you plan on running?

I'm looking forward to following this build!

 

[photokid]

no chiller dont really need one, its not going to be a cold water non photo. as for skimmer a coral life 65 mesh mod, i might have to upgrade down the road but time will tell.

 

[sammy33]

photokid;137319 wrote: tank update sense the great flood of 08 the tank is cycling and levels should be back down within a week and a bit. i guess i better get started on phyto farming.

I have been reading more about the use of phtoplankton cultures as a method of supporting the daily phyto consumption of an NPS tank. I am starting to see that it may be more work than I am prepared to do. The use of live phyto cultures works well for feeding photosynthetic corals. Typical feeding schedules are weekly or even 3 times a week but rarely daily. The quantities are something like a teaspoon per 100 gallons.

With Dendronephthya and Scleronephthya corals the dosing rates that have been working are 140ml/180g every 24 hours but using a highly concentrated commercial phyto preparation - Shellfish Diet from Reef Nutrition. This is a blend of Isochrysis 25%, Pavlova 20%, Tetraselmis 20%, Thalassiosira weissflogii (TW) 30%, Nannochloropsis 5% in a concentrate form with only trace amounts of the culture medium</em>, with a dry weight of 9%. This is a dense processed mix so 140ml of this stuff has the nutritional equivalent of almost 50 gallons of "live phytoplankton culture"!

You would need to be able farm a lot of different strains of phyto and then be able to condense it down to primarily just the phyto with minimal culture medium. The culture medium is basically liquid NPK (Miracle Grow?) so I would want to limit the amount going in the tank along with the phyto which will likely end up producing more N and P.

Are you planning on keeping any Neptheids? Tubastrea?

 

[photokid]

i plan on keep both neptheids and tubastra tho the tubstrea require a different diet. i am trying to get away from having to spot feed the tank. as for phyto dosing i am thinking that if i use concentrate a half teaspoon on a drip should work well enough. when i use my own culture i sort of have to just wing it. with regards to the high N and P levels have no light in the display should help alot as well as a weekly sugar dosing.

 

[FutureInterest]

Good info sammy... That's a helluva lot of phyto.

 

[photokid]

i know it is i might cut it back depending on demand.

 

[photokid]

the tank finished its mini cycle a few days ago. while cycling i turned the heat up to 85F and dosed sugar every other day. i think it helped speed things up a little bit. started growing phyto to feed the tank. first i tried an experiment to see if i could get a better culture from Dts or phyto feast. i am not sure if the phytofeast was the live solution so the DTs won. now i am growing a larger batch.
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