What kind of filter system best for propagating corals?

[GaryP]

Allow me to jump in and clarify one fallacy here. A wet/dry will not cause your nitrate to jump up. The purpose of the wet/dry is to produce nitrates as part of how nitrogenous waste is cycled in an aquarium. But on the other hand, live rock produces nitrates too and I haven't seen anyone recommend removing it from a tank. Nitrate is produced from nitrites and ammonia which are far more toxic then nitrates.

The cause of high nitrate levels is not its production, but rather the lack of an environment and bacterial population to continue the nitrogen cycle to the final product in the nitrogen cycle which is nitrogen and nitrous oxide gases. Here is a simplified nitrogen cycle:

Organic nitrogenous waste >>> ammonia >>> nitrite >>> nitrate >>> nitrogen gases.

The finakl step, which is called denitrification occurs in a low oxygen environment such as a deep sand bed or in the deep pores of Live Rock. Its carried out by a bacteria called Nitrospira.

[bigdscobra]

You might want to look at your lighting too. I have noticed a big differnce when I switched from my dual 96w PC coralite to Metal Halide lights. You may want to go with two 250w MH XM 10k and some VHOs to add actinic. If you want good growth in the sps.

[thedude]

I'm going to add also that those mandarins may be doing ok but are probably slowly starving. They're too docile to feed on tank food even if they'll eat it usually. Take a look at Marc's page at www.melevsreef.com and make yourself a mandarin diner to see if they'll take to it.

[Tim Marvin]

Almost all natural! Rock, sand, refugium, skimmer (simulates surf) for O2 and protein removal, and water changes. There is a handful of other equipment that is good for maintaining levels like Kalk reactor, auto-top offs, calcium reactor, and so on. It all depends on how much time you want to spend working on it daily.

[hedgehog01]

I have had my Madarian for almost three years now. I have plenty of coco pods and I believe they are actually breeding inside my Aqua clear 300 hangons Foam. All I know is the've gotten huge since I first started the tank. Madarian supplements with brine,blood, and mysis that I feed my other fish but I always see him picking all over the place at other micro things and small coco pods. I also see huge coco pods in my substrate. I give that page a try.
thanks

[Tim Marvin]

Is your mandarin eating brine shrimp? I have a mated pair that are fat little pigs in an 80 gallon tank. They eat tons of frozen mysid, brine, and live stuff off the rocks. The tank is connected to a 200 gallon system though with 2 refugiums and plenty of copepods. You can greatly increase a pod population with piles or rubble and refugiums. I feed a little flake food to my refugiums now and then and you can almost watch the pod population grow.

[GaryP]

Richard pointed out a mistake I made in a previous post in this thread. Nitrobacter is thought to be involved in the nitrite step of the ntrogen cycle, not the nitrate step. Actually, Micrococcus, Pseudomonas, Denitrobacillas, and Bacillus are the bacteria thought to be responsible for dentrifcation.

In case anyone is interested in learning more about the nitrogen cycle, and filtration in general, here is a good link:

http://www.reef-aquarium.net/resourc...iltration.html

[hedgehog01]

Looking at the melevsreef page I was thinking I could build my own sump and refuigium. Have any of you built your own? If so any tips on what to use and what not. Whats a good size sump and refuigium for a 55 gallon.

[CD]

Whats a good size sump and refuigium for a 55 gallon.

Personally for that sized system, I wouldn't go any smaller than say 20-30Gs. There are lots of people that even have sumps and 'fuges with more water volume than the display tanks themselves! :o
Go with what you feel comfortable having, and as big as you can with the space you have availb. to you. ;)

W.