Share Your Sumpless Setup

[Kjmsmith]

Thanks for the new category, I’m hoping we can share setups and learn from each other. I guess I’ll get it started:

90 gallon mixed
Apx 50lbs live rock
1-2” CaribSea seafloor special
3 Koralia 1150 powerheads
Fluval FX6 with foam filters, Phos Bond in top tray, matrix in middle and bottom trays
Reef Octopus BH1000 HOB skimmer
Inkbird ITC 308 Thermometer Thermostat
250w Eheim Jager Heater
2 Ocean Revive T247 LED

Livestock:
-ocellaris 2
-bta 2
-foxface
-regal blue tang
-mandarin dragonet
-yellow tail damsel
-six line wrasse
-cuc
- 2 mangrove (just sprouting)

Corals:
-acro
-acan
-zoas
-torch
-frogspawn
-branching hammer
-colt
-gsp
-toadstool

H2O Parameters
- temp 78-79
- NaCl 1.025
- NO3 currently 25 (yes high - this is a downside to sumpless and using canister) I had been running around 50 but started vinegar carbon dosing to get this down
- PO4 currently 1 (also high I know due to a spike post aquarium move 4 weeks ago
- Kh 7 - occasionally dose soda ash to maintain
- Ca 420
- Mg 1290

Maintenance:
- biweekly 10g water change, clean of canister, vacuum and glass cleaning
- glass cleaning as needed between weeks

A few pics:

 

[Josh]

I would think your nutrient levels seem fine. Worldwide Corals runs their growth tanks at 20ppm nitrates and look at their corals. Phosphate is a bit high but not bad at all. There was this kick for everyone to go ULNS and suddenly everyone is pumping the brakes on that. If your corals are bright and growing well and not browning then I would think you are in a good spot. Ive found with personal experience that I had a much easier time keeping my nitrates up in a sumpless than my sumped aquariums, I dose nitrate in my frag system.

Thats 1 of the best looking sumpless tanks ive seen in a while by the way, keep up the good work!

I have the same HOB skimmer on my temp tank and love it.

 

[Big_Als_London]

Thanks for the new category, I’m hoping we can share setups and learn from each other. I guess I’ll get it started:

90 gallon mixed
Apx 50lbs live rock
1-2” CaribSea seafloor special
3 Koralia 1150 powerheads
Fluval FX6 with foam filters, Phos Bond in top tray, matrix in middle and bottom trays
Reef Octopus BH1000 HOB skimmer
Inkbird ITC 308 Thermometer Thermostat
250w Eheim Jager Heater
2 Ocean Revive T247 LED

Livestock:
-ocellaris 2
-bta 2
-foxface
-regal blue tang
-mandarin dragonet
-yellow tail damsel
-six line wrasse
-cuc
- 2 mangrove (just sprouting)

Corals:
-acro
-acan
-zoas
-torch
-frogspawn
-branching hammer
-colt
-gsp
-toadstool

H2O Parameters
- temp 78-79
- NaCl 1.025
- NO3 currently 25 (yes high - this is a downside to sumpless and using canister) I had been running around 50 but started vinegar carbon dosing to get this down
- PO4 currently 1 (also high I know due to a spike post aquarium move 4 weeks ago
- Kh 7 - occasionally dose soda ash to maintain
- Ca 420
- Mg 1290

Maintenance:
- biweekly 10g water change, clean of canister, vacuum and glass cleaning
- glass cleaning as needed between weeks

A few pics:
View attachment 19152

View attachment 19153
View attachment 19154
View attachment 19155

Nice looking tank

Here's mine at the store.
It is very simple.
90 gallon mixed reef
Eheim pro 2 canister
2 koralia evo 1950
Aquaticlife experts series led
90 lbs of life rock
Mushroom
Pulsing xenia
Torch
A few sps
Yellow pagoda cup
Water changes happen every couple weeks.
I havent tested in some time everything has always been really stable. Last check nitrates were non existent

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

 

[Matt1997]

Here was the one I recently took down

 

[Kjmsmith]

I would think your nutrient levels seem fine. Worldwide Corals runs their growth tanks at 20ppm nitrates and look at their corals. Phosphate is a bit high but not bad at all. There was this kick for everyone to go ULNS and suddenly everyone is pumping the brakes on that. If your corals are bright and growing well and not browning then I would think you are in a good spot. Ive found with personal experience that I had a much easier time keeping my nitrates up in a sumpless than my sumped aquariums, I dose nitrate in my frag system.

Thats 1 of the best looking sumpless tanks ive seen in a while by the way, keep up the good work!

I have the same HOB skimmer on my temp tank and love it.

Thx for the feedback. I never was too concerned about my NO3 levels either until around 6 months ago when everything was starting to look dull - you know what I mean? Water was looking off, coral colour not as vivid, some algae growth and I started losing some sps - first an orange monti cap frag that had been struggling for a few months and then my acro and now my acans aren't looking the greatest. The only thing I changed prior to this was my salt. I had been using AV Salinity since day one in this hobby and last year when I couldn't get it from my normal supplier I tried a different brand. After that I tried another and now I am going to find a new supplier of AV to get back on it. During all this, my NO3 seemed to be higher. I don't overfeed, Im not overstocked by any means, Im diligent about regular maintenance and so I started looking into carbon dosing to assist with increasing my denitrifying bacteria. I started the vinegar regime in January and things were starting to look better when I had to do a tear down this past April to move the aquarium onto the new stand you see in the pic. Now with PO4 high - it was at 2 so I started Phos Bond, things were looking worse so I am hoping that if I can get the PO4 down to .25 - .5 or so things will be happier. With the high NO3 and PO4 I also stopped feeding my corals other than mysis they happen to snag. I used to dose phytoplankton and zooplankton weekly and occasionally add some AV Fuel. Do you you think I should get back to dosing the tank despite the high nutrients?

 

[Josh]

A bunch of different factors go into coral coloration, different corals use different trace minerals. Its possible your salt mix change is more at fault than the water parameters.

I read a post about a guy who took his cannister filter and ran new salt water through it and tested the water that came out and found that the cannister was creating nitrates, would be a cool little experiment

Seems like you are doing all the right things, slow and steady