My Nano all life tank with NWMS.

The latest tank and system build.

All life in this tank is from our aandtsociety.org.au collecting trips, except the ocelaris.




This system will be able to sustain 3 to 5 aquariums and is gravity fed using one 1800-litre power head to run every thing.
The stand is designed to take two aquariums to be viewed in the holes in the wall, one will do for the next few months, once the system is matured I mayl build the next one, cut the hole for it and connect it.

I use remote bio filtering; I never rely on the live rock for the bio media.

Tests carried out on live rock and under gravel filtration found near no bacteria running the aquariums biological filtration, it was found that the old termed creatures, protozoa-protozoan now called protists, these were present in abundance and they oxidise nearly all of the nitrite cycle, these run virtually all of the nitrite to nitrate in a matured aquarium it was found!

Since the first time this was found out i have never based a marine aquarium filter on starting the bacteria and i have a matured filter ready for all tank life in most times ten days to maturity!

But that's just me!

This my latest build.

Auto gear box oil works best for in the glass cutters reserve for me.




Make one run with near no pressure on the cutter, that puts a fine line of oil, thats very important, than a scoring line on the glass and never go back over the line, it will make the wheel pitted in the cutter and never work right again.




This way of snapping the line along the glass leaves a smother line rather than taping to start the break line.
Once you finish each piece of glass cutting, use some smooth to medium sand paper to take off the glasses sharp edge all around it for safety.




Tank stand timber going together once cut and the shelves glued together, dip your screws in vas before screwing in to help prevent rusting, or use the treated timber screws, that’s what I do.

Pine with out many knots is fine, thicker for heavier tanks, something like liquid nails has to be used as well to bond the timber.




Some of the conduit and piping used in the set up.




This form of scallop glass cutting is far simpler than you would think and can be very handy for tank over flows and vertical exits, my favourite way of cutting to suit.




I always put in a raised sloping floor to move the silt forward to the front for ease of removal or to be pushed out to the front and up through the first pre filter wool for twice a week cleaning.




This is onion bag netting used to stop life forms from getting to the pre filter that is glued with silicon over the scallop cuts.





Tank leak test.

This is done with freshwater and some detergent added to allow the water to make contact with the fresh glass and silicon or the potential leaks will show later once the surface attains the regular marine coating on the glass and silicon in the aquarium after a week or so.





Pipe bending with rope in pipe than use of a heat gun or flame, bend and put under tap water, pull out rope, its cheap but it works.

This is for cheap people like me to avoid purchasing many fittings.

I use an epoxy resin and fibre glass to attach fittings to glass for never any leaks, due to the strong acidic content of the epoxies to bond to glass sought of similar to acidic cure silicon, but far stronger!

When fittings are put on this way you have to break the glass to get them off.






Rollers, I call these (coralline) for the bio system.

Excellent surface area and breaks down easier to release strontium, calcium,etc.





Spray bar, for good over all strong current projecting surface water to the over flow.

This should be made to clip in and take a part easily for cleaning and angle adjustments.








Pre filter.

These two are before the rest of the natural waste management system, one leading to each part, to prevent any rubbish from ruining their longevity.

Once the tubes are slotted and finished ready for use, I wrap filter wool, Dacron around them and hold in place with rubber bands to stop any rubbish from getting past these sections.

They are designed for easy removal to clean them a few times a week or change the Dacron, mine are made into socks via gluing the edge and bottom with silicon and slide the sock up the slotted tube and wrap a rubber band around the top for easy removal or cleaning.

Once I have cleaned any dacron around two times used for the two pre filters, I put them in the washing machine and re use them while a spare i have made keeps on doing the job as a rotational thing.

I use the thin one hundred micron dacron that remains intact for on going use, not standard filter wool!






After the pre filtering built on section of the tank there are two pipes to the main part of the Natural Waste Management System.





Attaching two totally different types of plastic to avoid using bulkheads.



The finished tub.




From rectangular down pipes I made my own LED light fittings for photosynthetic life forms.













Than onto, one pipe to--
Cascaded waters.
Internal rubbish bin converted with a drip tray over rollers.

Do not use anything with any form of uv protection built in, it will release toxins into the water over time.













The other pipe to the---
Nitrite and nitrate oxidising environment.







That was all of the remote Natural Waste Management System.

The actual aquarium.

Glue coraline rollers to tanks floor with epoxy resins to allow life forms to inhabit the floor with no substrate.




Suspended marine meats and algae to start varied ammonias for the nitrite cycle.




A hand full of matured media from old nitrite oxidising area to seed the new system with mature protists.




14 year old nitrite oxidising unit that supplied the seeding.




First pre filter at rear of tank, no filter wool yet!
Pre filters-the Dacron (wadding) will become bio active if not cleaned in tap water,(not salt water),or replaced at least once a week, plus the detritus it is supposed to trap for removal is still in your water until it is cleaned or removed.

I clean it under the tap twice a week of the thinner and stronger type, I put it through the washing machine, residual soapsuds of tiny amounts, especially if there is a NWMS some where that will convert this, it will do no harm to your system at all!

This is available from haberdasheries as wadding in varied types, make sure you rinse it in hot water before use, it comes with anti bacterial and anti fungal chemicals added from the factory.





Hole in wall for tank.






Complete system and tank,from rear.





Front view of finished,un matured tank with cree 3 watt high out put blue and white LEDs over it.

All corals, shell grit, rollers in tank and in the system are boiled and bleached to get rid of all forms of life in and on it to start fresh for a quicker and pest free bio start.

This is the tank at July 16 as the nitrites, after peaking quite high as they should, have dropped back to zero.






The tank and system has been built over some months, the media seeding and ammonia producing meats were put in along with a half a can of dried food flakes.

The system is designed to achieve firstly, as the tank water exits out of the rear of the aquarium to a chamber and over flow, it has a barrier of Dacron.

The next area is the NWMS and does away with the need for a skimmer and converts all waste!

The water as it leaves the NWMS has to pass through more fine Dacron before it enters into the nitrite and nitrate oxidising sections.

Than onto the cascaded waters area!

From both lines the water is caught in the last tub, the sump where there is a 1,800 lire and hour power head where no detritus of any kind can get to it and prematurely wear out the impeller.
This is below every thing and from there the water is returned to the tank to a circulatory spray bar creating a rolling motion.

This part is up graded with a pic each month as to how the tank is going over time.

Some fish in the next pic waiting to go into the tank out of two tubes with( no substrate) with fish in them for the reef tank.

No substrate near no chance of the protist white spot!

This filter is so robust and easy to clean with out moving any media with no skimmer and is 14 years matured so that nothing ever gets sick in this system.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First life goes into tank.

Thirty peppermint shrimp and ten boxer shrimp and a few other life forms went in on the 25th of July.




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


These pics are taken on 16th of August,nearly one month from starting the tank.


The highest areas of the aquarium have macro algae there; I always have some thing like this in each tank I build to account for the co2 made by the NWMS when its lights are off.





The tanks corals are divided into thirds sought of, each third is dedicated to a form of coral, the left is acans and alike, the middle is for stags, plates, small and lage polyp corals and the other end is leathers, xenias and other soft corals.

For corals to coexist well they can not be with in 20 mil of a completely different type or close down current as they can sense the others existence and will stress to death over time, thats why I create a rolling current and algae to remove and convert toxins to defuse this problem.

Coral aggression is a common issue in reef tanks, if close enough they will sting each other and devour the polyps if you are not careful.
Some corals can exist against each other, just not the wrong ones.


This is the acan corner during a water change, this will have to be done until algae have achieved 2 to 3 months of growth, once they need trimming they are cancelling out water changes.





The front of the tank as of 16 of August.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These pics are as of the 18th of August.


This is the algae on the higher areas of the tank, the pic is from out side the rear of the tank.



This is three eighth mono netting that is easily removable to stop the latezonatus clowns and wrasse from jumping out, plus to allow the light and gases to do their bit.



The is the floor of the tank, my preference is more so tube worms,coralines with other life forms and more to come, never would I have the curse of marine aquariums as they become over time, a substrate in the tank!



This is the tank finished more or less, just a few green zoas and one or two more small polyps including stags to add and that’s it, maybe?

There will be the need for trimming of algae as things go along, but thats the plan to help keep water quality at a high level and some small life forms I will add here and there if they fit,mostly some more varied tube worms, sponges along the bottom.

Feeding the tank

I use a mix of cunjevoi, marinara blend, sushi wrapp, frozen krill, frozen miscues shrimp, high quality wardleys freshwater flake food and some lobster tossed in in a squirt bottle for regular feeds.

These ingredients, I put through the blender and add a lot of good quality salt to the blended mess and than freeze into ice cube trays for on going use, a mix normally lasts me a year.

For actual feeding I mostly fill a small squeeze bottle with the tank water and crush up one cube of food, shake the bottle for each feed until all is mixed and than over a day or so I put in squirts here and there and this sustains everything, corals included.




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tank finished and completely stable as of 29th August.

Corals feeding well.




The aquarium 99percent full.

Tank life other than corals and algae.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


These pics are as of 21-September-2011

My new wrasse from one of our collecting trips, one to replace the banana wrasse that jumped out and when I put it back in it went into a bubble anemone, than I found it dead the next day and the other is just to finish the fish I was after for my tank.

Needless to say no anemones again for me, I should have remembered, poor wrasse I had it in the tube for months waiting for me to build the new tanks.

The new south seas (femininus) wrasse, getting fat and doing well.




A leopard wrasse, a little shy to begin with, that didn't last long, it eats well and gets on well with all in the tank.





The tank with all the life forms I want in it, some inverts have been changed and or added as i change my mind, most corals have attached now so i can't change my mind and move much any more, that’s pretty much it for them, though I am adding moave and bright green zoanthids from a patch of lovely zoas we found on a trip a while back here and there.

There is no substrate so the likely hood of white spot is near to none, the fish are not stressed at all due to excellent water and 24 hour light some where in the tank.

Fish do not sleep, they just lay there and are scared to near death all night, so if there is light 24 hours a day, they stress far less!

The corals grow at roughly 3 mill per month, the xenia is spreading and onto the glass,the stoney corals,stags are all spreading out,algaes are growing fine, pretty much every thing is doing as good as it did, if not better than in the ocean.

I add iodide, and calcium and both will stop being added soon,as the iodide will not be needed after a couple algae trims.

From now on I collect corallines/algae and run hot water over them than cut them up into small pieces and add them to the system to break down to release their valuable trace elements along with what the algae converts to!

I do not do water changes, except a half bucket of water once a fortnight, this needs to go back in as I siphon out the pre filter chambers for cleaning and put back any algae in the algae area, if found in them.

Any changes with in this type of aquarium is not an issue due to the system running it is external/remote, so any thing moved in the tank has nothing to do with the bio media so it is of no health concern to the tank at all!!

One of the new zoas we found on the trip up the coast.





Stoney coral was smooth,lots of new growth.





Stag acroporas are doing very well with lots of new growth.

The brown/red colour ting is the polyps feeding, these lights and filter combined are bringing out some wonderful colour contrasts in the polyops to the actual coral.

They are becoming far prettier than upon collection from the ocean!





Things are really heating up in the tank with the colours of the acros and zoas.

My little favourite stag at the top of the hard coral area is rediculas,purple,blue and green on one coral,i love it!

This one is my favourite.



This is stag central.



It was funny,the way i make my filters based on the oceans natural processes was condemed on another forum and the guy reckons i just change the corals regularly,becuase i collect,what a wanker,he works at a shop so he has to say that,i suppose to justify shop bought only gear to keep corals.


These are the zoas,the pruple and pink colours are taking over a bit with in the flesh of them.

Zoa up close



zoa and corals



My poor little tubastrea has a hard life, it gets fish lay on it, rubbish gets dropped on it, the current takes rubbish algae bits onto it,the poor thing.

Yet it has multiple new polyps, four that I can see and has taken on feeding in full light now, which they do not like to do!

It went in while the bleach I used for the corals had not fully been removed, so it had it tough, but as you can see, just like all the other corals that should not exist this good in these conditions from advice from a renowned site, are powering, what a surprise!

I feel for the ones that follow their advice fully, that can’t really afford the propping up that live rock bio filtering requires.

The tech that is being pushed on to lots of net users, if you can afford it easily is great, but what about those that do not have the money to keep going and fail or do not get the results they hoped for, it is so easy to do it cheap and far better than most are advised of.

The entire filtration, every bit of it that runs my tank cost not much under $300,including the power head and heater.

The ones that use tricle/natural means to control their tank water, do not go on the net and talk of this, it inspires arguments in defence of egos,money and who knows what else.

The ones out there that are quietly laughing in the faces of those that will lead many astray, as they do, good on you!!


This is my little coral,getting bigger.


Algae bits and fish sitting on it and swim close to it,plus its nearly always covered in crap.



The tang regularly,virtually lays on it.




This is my little sunburst coral I got while chasing crays up the coast months back, now feeding on the mix they all love.

You would be amazed where we find this coral variety at times!!

So shallow and so discusting places at times.



A milestone has been reached, the first coralline out break,lol.
Shame it was in the original algae area, I put on a new one I made and found this coralline on the old one.





The new chromis from the 22-10-2011 trip settling in nicely.





One of the peppermint shrimps shed shell on my favourite coral and one in the back ground.




One of three-feather starfish I put in the tank just days after the nitrites hit 0.

They are powering, these went in at around 25 mil across,now they are around 60 mil across and the feather tip parts show the growth rate and over all health.

The less angled parts to the end of each feather,the stronger their health is,in the ocean they average 2 to 4,when sick but still growing they have 4 to 5,mine have 2.

A part from my second favourite sea creature,I use them for their nitrate sensitivity, if there are nitrates, they fall a part!


This the tank at night, fish don’t sleep so the LED lighting for algae part of the NWMS is on when the tank lights are off.
They stress far less that way.





Two wrasse that the clown killed ,now that the clown is gone are replaced with new collected ones.




The collected fish in tank, the starkiis are still hiding, I put two in out of the ones I collected.




Collected starkii,my favourite damsel, very pretty and gets on with everything!




Another collected lysmata shrimp to replace the one the clown killed.



The starkis are doing well the next morning after collection, feeding and swimming with the others.




This up to the 05-11-2011
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This is the tank as of 16 of August.




This is the tank as of the 29th of August 2011





This the tank as of the 21st of September 2011




This is the tank as of the 13th of October 2011




This is the tank as off the 6th of November 2011.

 

Wow!
Love the way you setup the filters to mimic the ocean.
Also, why do you think sand promotes ich?

 

Wow,that is very informative. Ilearned something new today. Thank you. Welcome to 3reef as well.

 

Well white spot for starters is a form of protist and these life forms do not exist as a freeswimming life form, normally, unless fresh from an egg laden blister or encouraged to breed or search out a vulnerable host.

They exist with in their relatives (protist) community but not overly well above the substrate as others will feed upon them as most protists graze upon each other and especially any available oxidising bacteria that originally starts the oxidising bio filtering side of the aquarium.

Its not a generally known or recognised fact that white spot has the ability to remain dormant for many months only to be brought out to feed and reproduce via excitation that fish give off by their own personal electromotive field as all life forms with any sized nervous system have.

These communities we have found exist in the more secure and environmentally friendly depths of the substrate, twice we have looked closely at the substrate and surface of live rock on a microbe level and found whits spot protists and many others of course, but in the matured systems, near no bacteria exists.

On a personal level I have used substrates in the past and with every one of those tanks there has been white spot, whether it be bad out breaks and lead to other parasitic attacks that the white spot encourages by extra stress or a spot or two on the blue surgeons every now and than.

I haven’t seen any white spot and subsequent velvet in my systems for nearly ten years now and have used only one shop bought fish in 4 years.

In systems that I make to have naturally 100 percent balanced Ph with no home for white spot, nothing ever gets parasite attacks, slight or full on, nothing at all!

One thing though, over time the fish that have not had parasites to cope with become non parasite resistant and if a shop bought fish is introduced into the non NWMS system I treat them for 10 days, no matter what, out of the 10 days over all,2 of these are for the protists life span and the rest of the 10 days is for the velvets life span.

I used to always use copper sulphate but now use copper chloride when needed, once in 4 years now, its weaker so I use it at many times the recommended amounts but it does not bond at all to everything as the sulphate does or diminish the fishes mucus coating leaving them worse off by more susceptible once out of treatment.

Substrates hold rubbish and unwanted life forms as they always block and more!!

There have been issues with the tank.

I was silly enough to put in a clarkii I caught in a small tank,it made the first banana wrasse jump out and subsequently die, killed the first femininus wrasse, ate one of my lysmata redlined shrimp once it had shed and every one was terrified of it,so I caught it out with a fishing line, replaced it with a shop bought ocelaris and went out and caught what was killed and they are happy with everyone in the tank.

Plus I trim the soft corals in the tank as they get a bit out of hand and for up to two days the toxins from these trims up set all the tank and than its fine, not if the NWMS wasn’t there, that would kill the tank doing that!.

 

This is very impressive,I love it

 

Thanks for that.

Its a good hobby and sport combo these days,the system is easy to look after,costs very little to set up,though there is a lot of work building it,i mean a lot of work-time to put in all fail safes.

The most important part of all of it in some ways is prefiltering,even with a live rock bio filtered tank,there should be serious pre filtering to make it last with on going high quality results.

That doesnt normally happen with peopels tanks,any way all is good.

 

Where have you been hiding this tank? One read through is not enough..

Welcome to 3reef, stunning tank.

 

Its just a small tank these days, the first one I built was two in half’s to make a ten foot tank, that was rediculas, never again, than a six footer, than a mate gave me a pile of half inch plate glass and as I always do with thick glass, break most of it,but made a five foot tank out of what I didn’t break, they were always 2 by 2 and they got smaller over the years until now I prefer a small tank with lots of smaller life forms.

Very few people use remote combination filtering of a quality that actual works very well these days and the past trickle filters were mainly bad designs and failures because of not enough pre filtering.

You see with out an over kill of prefiltering in place, (because no one really knows how much pre filtering is enough), there is no way any marine aquarium will ever reach its true potential, ever!!!!

There is nothing better for marine aquarium longevity than well made remote filtering, the potential of this is massive, so its all about tech support and propping up the unstable live rock bio mass for the hobby and that’s a bit sad,oh and expensive.

To copy the functions of the ocean at home gets far better results than any other ways of sustaining a marine/reef aquarium, its just very complex to get it to work with all the small functions complementing each part along the way and fail safes in place.

Most of the internet is all about promoting buying something, especially here in Aus on the biggest forum, the guy that started it has his own line of marine aquarium products and to pay fro the forum they rely and let dominate it,(sponsorship), the other off shoot from it, the two that started that forum have marine aquarium products for sale as well, that’s where the hobby is now!!

The internet has the information most believe and the internet is a lot about making money the ones that give the advice are wanting make money or have opinion that is semi useless, it takes a lot of experience to sieve through all irrelevant stuff to find valuable stuff and by than its cost you a fortune, you do get good results from some of this stuff, but many fall through the cracks in relation to the costs, understanding it all.

The way I do my hobby I have had so many issues with others on the net, than find out they are associated with a shop anyway or just have ego issues, but than again we all have a little of those!

 

after reading this , i agree with fish don't sleep i had a power outage and the total darkness flipped the fish out. luckily i had a led flash light i could lay shinning on the tank all night. it seemed to make them more at ease. I'm now rethinking my very small moon light. maybe it needs to be larger. so they will be at ease more.

great right up, i really enjoyed reading about your way of fish and coral keeping. a lot of food for thought in there.

 

Thanks for that, everything I do has come from over thirty years of reef keeping and a little longer of collecting marine fish and inverts while studying them and the oceans mechanisms in the wild.

I base all of my systems on pretty much how the ocean does it and go totally against live rock skimmers and reactors, been there done that and they have no where near the results that a NWMS can produce and at a fraction of the cost as well.