fishless reef?

[reefhope]

Anybody keeping reef aquarium with few or no fish?

Just curious as to how much the feeding of fish and the fish waste add to the maintenance burden; including necessary water changes.

Would a reef tank with just a couple fish, or no fish at all, require fewer water changes and lower volume WC's than a reef tank moderately stocked with fish.

Would the balancing of nutrient import/export be easier to maintain without a fish load?

I am looking for opinions to consider when setting up my next tank. Honestly I never really focused on the fish, not much anyhow. I enjoyed viewing the pretty pink and purple encrusted rock and the flowing soft corals and the colorful inverts just as much or more than the fish. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[sharkdude]

IMO, I think one of the benefits of fish in a reef is the excess food and nutrients not consumed/produced by the fish become available to the inverts in sand bed and live rock.
Without fish, a regular effort would have to be made to feed the supporting inverts and infauna.
Also, fish grazing and breakdown of algae makes it available to the lower fauna and bacteria to utilize.
Think of food chains and ecosystem webs with primary producers and consumers conevrting food sources into forms that other links can utilize.

so, IMO, less fish ok but no fish and your sandbed may starve.

when I was first introduced to reef aquariums by my uncle many years ago, the emphasis was on nutrient poor systems with little food input and tightly recycled food systems. Later studies have shown that wild reefs are nutrient poor because the nutrients get locked up very quickly by the various levels of organisms.

[ December 19, 2001: Message edited by: sharkdude ]</p>

 

[McReef1]

I agree with Shark. I would go with a few small fish instead of none. The benefits of a few small fish outweigh the cost of not having any, in my opinion.

Do you know how large of a system you will afford?

Good luck,

McReef

 

[reefhope]

Thanks for the responses. I will be dealing with a 46gal bowfront.

I did consider the sandbed and LR critters needing fed.

In your opinion what would you consider a light fish stock for a 46gal reef? 2 or 3 two inch fish? More, less? Thanks in advance.

 

[SPC]

Reefhope, I also agree with Skark on this.
As for your question about a light fish load in a tank I have a 180 reef with 2 - perculas, 2 - banggai cardinals and 1 - royal gramma.
Steve

 

[Plato1]

One of the other benefits I've seen in my tank from having fish is the currents they can produce around the corals. Every now and then a fish will get right next to a coral and then take off giving the coral a brisk random water movement. I've found that with a few fish in my tank that have different swimming styles complements the whole system. I only have 6 fish in my 110 and there is a lot of swimming room for the fish.

I had previously run this tank fishless for a few months, and the addition of a few fish makes all the difference to the system in my opinion.

 

[McReef1]

As far as a light load? I would say that SPC's load in the 180 gal is SUPER-light.

How many gallons is your sump? How much LR and LS do you plan on having? I assume around 50# of LR and 2-5 inch live sand bed. (I know, I shouldn't assume). Given that, I would say that 3 small fish is a light load. Of course, you could overfeed these three and create a heavy load!

To confuse the issue more, if nutrient export is your concern, you could quite inexpensively add a refugium for macroalgae growth.

You should also be skimming as much as possible.

FYI, I run a 225gal bowfront with an 18gal refugium and 20 gal sump. I have 15 fish (mostly small) and no nutrient problems. I also plan on adding approximately 5 more fish assuming my nitrates don't go up with each new addition. We'll see!

Good luck,

McReef

[ December 19, 2001: Message edited by: McReef ]</p>

 

[chris_h]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by sharkdude:
<strong>IMO, I think one of the benefits of fish in a reef is the excess food and nutrients not consumed/produced by the fish become available to the inverts in sand bed and live rock.
Without fish, a regular effort would have to be made to feed the supporting inverts and infauna.
Also, fish grazing and breakdown of algae makes it available to the lower fauna and bacteria to utilize.
Think of food chains and ecosystem webs with primary producers and consumers conevrting food sources into forms that other links can utilize.

so, IMO, less fish ok but no fish and your sandbed may starve.

[ December 19, 2001: Message edited by: sharkdude ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Isnt the purpose of a DSB to deal with the fish's waste? So if you had no fish, you would not need a DSB, so you would not need to feed to support the sand bed.

I remember seeing a system with just one small rock, no fish, no sand, and a huge acro that was thriving.

 

[danmhippo]

Andrew, I think you meant to say NO3 - Nitrate, instead of NO2 - Nitrite?

 

[2poor2reef]

I keep no fish in my sps tank. I run 60 turns per hour and I know of no fish that appreciates that much water movement. I think there are certain biotopes, like reef crests, where you are trying to run high energy super low nutrient sps environments where fish just get in the way.

Aesthetically, there is something that doesn't strike me right about larger fish in a small tank either. Just looks wrong to me. Larger tanks is a differemt story. But to me, fish must scale to a smaller system or it doesn't look right. Not to mention it isn't nice to cramp your animals.

 

[Andrew_Adrian]

Now that i look back at last semester, I seem to remember thet corals need co2 and most also need some no2. If you want thriving clams, xenia,acro, monti,ect I suggest a few, if not many fish. I have a 5inch gobie and a lil clown in one on my 10gall nano setups. the xenia (which has gone crazy) keeps the no2 down to nothing. I would suggest that you have at least a few fish.

 

[Paul A. Ifkovits]

I consider the fish in my 120 to be invited quests. I really do not like fish in a reef tank. I do not believe they are Aesthetically pleasing.

I think we can do a better then average job simulating the look of a natural reef with inverts. However in our small systems, you cannot add fish and expect them to behave naturally. They do not exhibit normal schooling/schoaling behavior and for this I think they make the tank look awkward and unatural.

As for starving your sand bed, it is easy to target feed the bed to ensure its good health.
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