Technical Info 1

For those interested in such things, here is a summary of my tank's set-up:

1. Filtration

When I started with marines, I had more than 30 years experience in keeping fresh-water fish. I was also a firm believer in under gravel filters (UGF's). Soon afterwards, the nitrate level started to climb, and when it reached 50ppm I became really worried. I needed a better system, and started to "surf" the Net. I soon discovered the benefits of Natural Filtration (with live rock and a deep live sand bed, and became "converted". Today, I strongly believe in this method of filtration, and in the use of a good Protein Skimmer. This Natural Filtration makes use of both aerobic and anoxic bacteria, and is much superior to a Wet/Dry trickle filter, a Fluidized sand filter, a UGF, or a canister filter, which only uses aerobic bacteria.

Fish and other animals only utilize about 10% of the potential nutrients in their food - the rest goes to waste, and cause pollution in our tanks. If there is a good population of small animals living in the rock and sand substrate, they will eat the waste from the larger animals, again extracting ~ 10% of the nutritional value. With a sufficiently large, and diverse, population of "micro critters", this waste can be recycled many times, thus using up most of the potential pollutants.

To complete the natural cycle, the bacteria living in the rock and sand substrate convert the resulting "pollutants" excreted by the fish and other animals (i.e. ammonia, which is very toxic), into nitrite (still toxic), then into much less toxic nitrate, and ultimately into harmless nitrogen gas. This is called the nitrogen cycle.

2. Sump

I have a 100-litre (26g) sump in the cabinet below the tank. This sump is partitioned with glass, forming 4 chambers. The first two chambers are very narrow, and acts as "baffles" to remove the bubbles which are introduced by the water "falling" in from the tank. The third chamber is a "mini-refugium", containing a deep live sand bed, and lots of macro algae. Water flows over a glass "weir" into this refugium, over the top layer of "pebbles", and over a second "weir" into the last chamber. This "refugium" also houses "Fern" Caulerpa, which assists in exporting nutrients.

The last chamber houses the skimmer (a Berlin XL, and it's pump (an Eheim 1060), as well as the return pump, a Laguna 3000.

The sump also houses two heaters, the pH probe and the Kalkwasser dripper