Reef Tank which doesn't require to change water

[alanseah]

if he feed his fish only once every 2 day and about 2 brimeshrimp per feeding...nirtate should be fine!!

but dont forget about his bio balls and rings and no change of water..

that is the key to the n03 factor... unless u try me his fish dont have output..

[madmac]

hi alanseah, I'm trying to understand how is it that bio-rings and balls is key in contributing to NO3.? I heard phrases like 'nitrate factory' 100 times here. Especially when you're right about LS / food uneaten as providing the source of NO3 and not the filtration system... I'm trying to make friends here but I think if you were to see my tank, you'll come away thinking I have two nitrate factories... funny thing is my nitrate measures near 0, (tropic marine test kit).

Ps: I share your view that Microsoft sucks!... Big time!: )

"...but 1 million lemmings can't be wrong" ----

[pisces]

hi alanseah, I'm trying to understand how is it that bio-rings and balls is key in contributing to NO3.? I heard phrases like 'nitrate factory' 100 times here. Especially when you're right about LS / food uneaten as providing the source of NO3 and not the filtration system... I'm trying to make friends here but I think if you were to see my tank, you'll come away thinking I have two nitrate factories... funny thing is my nitrate measures near 0, (tropic marine test kit).

Ps: I share your view that Microsoft sucks!... Big time!: )

"...but 1 million lemmings can't be wrong" ----

Madmac , this is intresting. I think The purpose of bio-rings- balls is to harbour bacteria which will convert nitrites to nitrates. Then what happens to the nitrates ? We remove them with partial changes in water.

Madmac are u doing any regular water change or have any other mechanism to remove those nitrates ?

[untouchables]

marine keeping isn't exactly rocket science. whatever info you need is out there on the internet and solutions are plentiful, juz that it cost $$$ big time. im pretty sure that if given the opportunity, i can setup a maintenance free tank but the $ involve will depend on what you are keeping.

there is no magic involved here. juz time, effort and $.

[XPeriment 626]

hi alanseah, I'm trying to understand how is it that bio-rings and balls is key in contributing to NO3.? I heard phrases like 'nitrate factory' 100 times here. Especially when you're right about LS / food uneaten as providing the source of NO3 and not the filtration system... I'm trying to make friends here but I think if you were to see my tank, you'll come away thinking I have two nitrate factories... funny thing is my nitrate measures near 0, (tropic marine test kit).

Ps: I share your view that Microsoft sucks!... Big time!: )

"...but 1 million lemmings can't be wrong" ----

I think "nitrate factory" refers to how it traps little pieces of debris and waste as opposed to the stuff being skimmed out or siphoned off during water change. Because the organic matter is not removed at the early stage, it sits there trapped in the sump and just decomposes slowly. So unless you are diligent in taking the bio balls to wash once in a while, you are trapping debris there that generates ammonia.

This really applies to a skimmer-equipped system where the alternative to bioballs is to let the skimmer remove the organic wastes. If you don't even have a skimmer, like the standard Atlantis system, no point talking about bio balls being a nitrate factory - the entire Atlantis setup is basically a nitrate factory as there is no skimming and no water change. NO3 just builds and builds continuously, and you end up praying for algae to remove the NO3

[Marine Newbie]

HAHA, i will go check out his tank maybe in a week's time.. He uses very thin sand bed think less than even 1 inch... no nusiance algae growing on his rocks also.. all the corals are opening up well.. maybe it's his low bioload cos he said he just feed brime shrimps to his coral once every other week..

[mUAr_cHEe]

dun change water..... then change LS lohz....

okay now....

btw... the so called 'SP' guy....

ai yah... he full of bullshit one lah.... only lecturer which i did not hesitate to sleep in his class.... stay awake also no point.... most of the time not talking about class.... but his brave adventures in the sea.....

anyway.... the same lecturer only answer to females....

i can call and call him to ask a stupid question... he doesn't turn around....

all it takes is my female classmate to whisper a question to me....

he hears it... and he answer it to her on the spot.....

[madmac]

Madmac , this is intresting. I think The purpose of bio-rings- balls is to harbour bacteria which will convert nitrites to nitrates. Then what happens to the nitrates ? We remove them with partial changes in water.

Madmac are u doing any regular water change or have any other mechanism to remove those nitrates ?

Yeah thks pisces, I sorta know how th ANN works. Sorry, the reason why I asked is ... I would like to make a point relevant to this thread question.... I find it quite disturbing that questions of doubt are thrown about the intention of this sp person... if he goes to make a claim because he does something some way... and intends to make some money from it then... so be it...

Its terrible to throw in Qs like, "They change their LS every now and again..." or "ask them to keep SPS"... If he is salesman and makes a claim ... it is obvious that he is slanted towards that methodology of maintenance... whether you buy it or not, it is up to you... buyer beware. Throwing seeds of doubt does will not solve anything... especially if he doesn't cross your turf... it makes you look like "anyone-who-doesn't-follow-the-norm-is-a-an-outsider" sort of attitude...

I was hoping that someone would ask me a question not because I want to argue over bio-rings/balls or convert anyone(perhaps that can be another thread posted)... because that would be the sensible/rational thing to do and in a forum for this SP man's case... This thread q is so interesting and going into a discussion would benefit everyone... first establish the "case facts" as far as possible then discuss..... slimming him is just so juvenile...

To start... I think it truly amazing if that can be achieved... I have read somewhere in the forum of AT mentioning some reef Guru who lives in Ponggol who nver changes water at all for 1 year over... maybe AT can verify at least that there is such a person... don't think I read wrongly.

As to XPeriment, those are valid points you made, I would sure like expand on it, digressing abit here, but you made mention of a sump... now if that sump was a canister would it have made any difference, don't think so right, ... cause its the bio-ball/rings right? Just trying to narrow down the culprit... now if the bio-ball/rings in the sump were to be replaced with sand? Would that have reduced the detritus... quite unlikely as the sand would also trap the detritus in the sump... so you still stuck with detritus... so how/why is nitrates so low then, for those users of sump without bio-balls/rings? Well what removes nitrates? Whatever answers you provide here is probably correct..... skimming, bacteria in the sandbed/LRs, algae, partial water change, removing nitrates at source whatever...but what has that got to do bio/balls/rings/canister filters?... these are just [bold]tools/utilities[/bold] that help in one part of the conversion...

I think many ppl here confuse detritus with nitrates in the tank. They are not the same... one is DOC while the other is POC, the latter removed by mechanical filtration, the former is dissolve in the water column.

Peace to all.

[Marine Newbie]

Wow, so much debate about this... Actually the situation is that my gf mum wans to setup a tank in her house, so she ask me to help to look at the tanks on offer. Obviously i am not the one who is gonna maintain the tank (not my house), i suggest freshwater which is much easier. However she came across this brochure about Zero maintaince tank system and she asked me along to give my views..

Quite troubled as i really do not know whether the system will work, she seems to like the tank and system.. anyway for references this is the website...

The website

Hope bros out there can give me some feedback if u happen to come across ppl using this system, any success or failure stories...

[chrislwp]

Oh.. so he is a cheehong lecturer who claims of his success in reef keeping..

[alanseah]

ok madmac to ans all your question.

The bio-balls/rings why is add to n03 factor is because the uneaten food/output of your LS will be trap in it... dont believe look at your bio-balls/rings and u see all those "dirt" on it.. and what will remove these dirt. Let leave these "dirt" and bio-ball untouch for a yr and u will know why u need to remove them.

as many have already told u bio-balls/rings help reduce n02 to n03 only and what remove n03.. u will need another type of bacteria that reduce n03. Having bio-ball increase the load of those bacteria which explain why there is always a high n03 when u use bio-ball.

What skimmer do is remove all these "dirt" stuff out before they even got time to break down to become n03. Thats why we all say skimmer remove all these dissolve organic waste.

Infact NH4 to N02 to N03 happen everyday but in small amount whch u wont release it. That also explain why u need to cycle your tank when u first started. cause the die off in the start is too huge that's why u can see the chain process of NH4 to N02. and also allow the build up of population for the required bacteria.

Also madmac how old is your tank?? cause n03 wont come early for some when their tank is young but it is only after 6 months then we will be able to tell how good your system is.

3 yrs plus of reefing in my life, learning from those US and german guy I never came across an agreement that bio-ball is not the key to n03 factor.

As for tropic marine test kit, I never try before so I can't say how accute they r.

The result why I ask him to put SPS into his tank is to test and see if his tank is so gd as to what he has say. Cause if a tank is in so gd condition why SPS is not keep as we all know SPS are the most demaning coral and require gd tank parameter to survive.

As for water change, I also have come across pls who never change water for a yr. And nothing wrong with that. I never agree to getting the idea that water change help reduce n03 even they do remove but that is not the key to solution. Why ppls change water is to replace all those chemical content in the water that is been use up by your LS or coral or skimmer (if u r using powerful one).

U can compare your little vol of tank to a sea. Look at how big a vol of water the sea have. Even you shit in the sea it will not affect it that much. And also what inside the sea of ton of different LS which work to help keep the envirnoment good. But what LS in your tank is so limit which is missing this and that.

Lastly I also never agree to adding sand to sump. Sump is not for growing marco-algae or adding sand for harvesting stuff.. if u want to that u should have another big seprate tank or unless your sump is 20-30% as big as your tank water vol.

ok I have say what I need to say. Like I alway mention everyone got their own way building up the reef. If u r building up a reef for a short awhile and your way of doing work ok fine. but if you going to keep a reef for long, think far if not having a tank crash will happen when it come to the day when it just cant take it and that's it.

[Ekia]

With regards to bio-balls being nitrate factory, i think there's a lot of mis-conception by a lot of reefers. Alanseah has actually explained already. The main reason why bio-balls are called nitrate factory is their inability to house anaerobic baterias which convert NO3 to nitrogen. The anaerobic bacteria in LR and sandbed cannot keep up with the amount of NO3 produced by the bacteria in the bio-balls, hence resulting in an increase in NO3. Detrituous in the bioballs will play a part but IMHO, it plays a very small part as compared to the reason i mentioned above.

[madmac]

The bio-balls/rings why is add to n03 factor is because the uneaten food/output of your LS will be trap in it....as many have already told u bio-balls/rings help reduce n02 to n03 only

Yes, but some thing has to trap the uneaten food/waste from the LS.... whatever traps it will then convert the NO2 to NO3 (speaking about a cycled tank here)... why the special mention of bio-rings as key?...I meant to say if not bio-rings/sand then maybe filterwool, polyfilter,LRs, etc.... but something has to convert the NO2 to NO3 in everyone's tank. Lets call it "x". Unless you are saying that you can effectively bypass the x stage... but how and to what? So given the same amount of "output source" in anyone's tank, the same amount of NO3 is eventually produced... from NO2 from NH4, irrespective of what is used... remember NH4 is pretty toxic, NO2 slightly less toxic and No3 even less toxic than NO2.... so you want more NO3 than NO2... it is more better to have it than to have NO2.

...dont believe look at your bio-balls/rings and u see all those "dirt" on it.. and what will remove these dirt. Let leave these "dirt" and bio-ball untouch for a yr and u will know why u need to remove them

NO3 is in the water column... it is transparent to the eye... it is dissolve into the water. Those dirt you mentioned are not NO3... They are commonly referred to as detritus or POC... particulate organic compound and can be easily be removed by mechanical filtration. POC is everywhere in the tank, LRs, sandbed and filter..... you can have a super-clean looking water with not a spec of floating particle but toxic and dead at the same time, however the converse it true, water with plenty of floating particles can support abundant life forms, maybe not pretty to look at but there is life.

alanseah, I think you have a beautiful tank, having followed your tank thread... truly wonderful! I don't doubt your experience. My tank is no where as beautiful as yours. I have kept since Nov 03, it is 3 feet.... and I just love marine life...to me they remind me of the bountiful and endless beauty of God's creation and His love for us. I pointed out earlier the reason for the statement... it was hoped that Qs can be asked and from there hopefully something learnt.

Its is quite possible that SPSes can thrive in the SP guy's tank... but I think, and you know it is quite unlikely... reason is because he is just selling it as it is for $800+ with whatever he says will provide and there is nothing wrong with that as we know, certain systems are for certain tank types.. as MarineNewbie already pointed out the tank is not an SPS tank.

Ekia, your are absolutely correct!... it is not the fault of bio-ball or bio-rings because they aren't designed for such a purpose. They don't/can't produced any more NO3, than what is fed to them, i.e. NO2... let alone to expect them to convert NO3 to nitrogen. To summarize, if you wish to reduce NO3, you can EITHER reduce the source NO2, OR get or build-up more anaerobic bacteria to convert the NO3 to nitrogen... But please don't put the blame on the bio-rings or its container, the cannister/sump...

best to all

[gaga]

Anyone Lfs owner who tells me his tank no need to change water at all. I will walk out of the shop immediately

[Marine Newbie]

I somehow think that any LFS owner would not anyhow make such a claim becos people usually will gain knowledge first before setting up a marine tank and the claim might be seriously harming his business...

[alanseah]

1 word.. "I give up" u dont get the point that what we all trying to tell u..

go open your chemically book and read it maybe will explain more..

as for Marine Newbie... u bet I have see far too many newbie with no idea what marine is and just setup and see all LS kill and all sort of money gone to waste..and then they will finally give up once they r tired of it or run low in cash..

well sorry if I offend anything.. just thinking aloud only..

[XPeriment 626]

sorry for the late reply madmac, kinda forgot about this thread

yes, you are right, something will trap the detritus - if not bioballs, then filter wool etc. That's the point I'm trying to make. People have advised me to go "clean" in the sense that you don't use filter wool or other things at all, but just a skimmer to remove DOCs and even really small particles that are not dissolved. Everything gets skimmed out rather than remaining in your tank as one of the stages of the nitrogen cycle. I didn't say you should have sand in your sump either, that's not for filtration at all. If you want sand it should be in your tank as the DSB (where the amount of anaerobic bacteria can be large enough to effectively combat NO3). If its in your sump it should be a refugium and really should be after your skimmer in the loop.

And no, your POC/DOC distinction is not completely accurate. What alan seah was trying to say is that there are minute particles of organic matter, primarily uneaten food, which will continue to decompose in your tank over time, producing more ammonia and eventually becoming NO3. By allowing your skimmer to remove these minute particles (versus having them trapped on the surface of your bioballs) will cut down the eventual NO3 production significantly.

[Gouldian]

I have bought one of their system and have recently sold it off. I must say that their system is good for general reef keeping. But if you intend to keep SPS or some delicate fish, you will have some problem.

I used their tank initially just for SH and subsequently progresses to mixed reef and that's when I reach a obstacle - certain corals dun seems to preform well once you reach a certain trashhold in term of bio-load.

I personally will still recomend that shop if I got friends who wanted a easy system as a startup but will not recomend to used for intermdiate reefs.

[piglet]

Cool down...

Marine Newbie.. perhap.. you can buy the system and try it out. But > i really don't think that > this 800system can support sps. I am preparing to spend $10- 12k for my tank. If this bio-ball system alone''' > really works well on sps. I will> .

I don't want to add > more comments on bio-balls/rings. Any way, i will use AB nitrate reactor > together with DSB. I don't have > any bad opinion on bio-balls or the 'SP' system ..any way> these bio-balls helps us in certain ways. All systems > have their (+) points and (-) points.

Thus > a number of us may use different system > together...

However.. The most important things >> that we (reefers) have the responsibility'' to take good care of the animals > Due to us. these animals >> taken form their nature ''home'' and sold as items for $$. Well, we can't control our greed'' to own these animal.

Thus ,, let us shared information and knowledge together.. so as to improve our tanks for > these animals.

[Achilles Tang]

A fish tank that doesn't need to change water is either lacking in something or has too much of something, none of which is good for the inhabitants.

Things accumulate, things get depleted.

Cheap system with no water change?

Smoke in an aircon room without fresh air circulation and see how well you can live in it for a year.

Same theory, simple logic.

But if you smoke in a aircon room without fresh air circulation but you have an industrial grade air filtration system with micron filters which are changed out often with super ionizers & air fresheners inside the room and perhaps, just perhaps, life would be bearable.

Think about that!

My 2 cents,

AT

[XPeriment 626]

Hi all,

i just went to aquarium setup consultation place at tagore lane. He claim that his Advanced Biological Filtration System doesn't require changing of water. Furthermore top up with normal tap water can already. He is just using special bioballs and bio rings which he said no need to change forever. And wool also for the filtration system. His display tanks are doing very well and he claimed that he did not change water for 1 year 8 months already. How true can it be?

His corals are looking nice and well as well as the fishes. He said his system is capabale of reducing nitrate. He said they have done years of research on this and their idea is to have full control of the water parameters and not change water to make it stablize, DSB is not encouraged becos he say this will not enable him to control the water parameters completely.

The more I look at what the salesman said, the more ludicrous it sounds. And unfortunately they are exactly the same claims made by Atlantis.

Top up only with tap water repeatedly will give you endless phosphate and nitrate problems. "Years of research"?? Even huge marine biology institutes around the worlds have been trying to study seawater alone for years, and it is still not completely understood, much less the interplay between the chemicals taken in and excreted by the multitudes of undersea creatures. You could spend a lifetime studying it and you will still only know as much as the scientists around the world. To pretend to have "full control of parameters" shows that this guy knows nothing about how much must be controlled to have a mini-ocean in your tank. And we are talking about known parameters, don't say about what we haven't even learnt yet about the ocean.

Like I said earlier, if this system is so good, you only need to patent it and you will be filthy rich. You will put all the skimmer, FR, live sand, water supplement, UV, ozone, kal reactor etc manufacturers around the world out of business overnight and you will be the reef-tank supplier for the entire human race.

So personally, if you ask me if the thousands of people around the world for several decades who have been doing water change are wrong, or the guy in a little off-the-main-road fish shop with his miracle system is wrong, I say the fish shop guy is wrong.

It's your choice if you want to get a "maintenance-free" setup, but remember people will tell you anything in order to take your money. After you buy, see what kind of service you will get when your fish and corals start dying. Most likely they will bo-chap you and look for the next person to con.

[Gouldian]

I have bought one of their system and have recently sold it off. I must say that their system is good for general reef keeping. But if you intend to keep SPS or some delicate fish, you will have some problem.

I used their tank initially just for SH and subsequently progresses to mixed reef and that's when I reach a obstacle - certain corals dun seems to preform well once you reach a certain trashhold in term of bio-load.

I personally will still recomend that shop if I got friends who wanted a easy system as a startup but will not recomend to used for intermdiate reefs.

I would like to clarify that although I have used their systems, I have never heed their claims on never changing water!

I change 20% weekly.

Sorry if I have mislead anyone.

[Achilles Tang]

Its a no brainer guys... there is no such thing as a zero-water change system without compromising the health and well-being of your marine pets.

There's also a sucker born every minute.

[eques]

even AT said so. this is a very obvious con.

[Gouldian]

Its a no brainer guys... there is no such thing as a zero-water change system without compromising the health and well-being of your marine pets.

There's also a sucker born every minute.

No choice lah boss. Too many manufacturers with fantastical claims and people who do not how to take what they says with a pinch of salt.

Missed your quick respond for a long time.