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[vitz]

I know it is hard to believe for people who have to have the industry equipment to maintain their tanks.

If by "industry equipment" you mean decades of experience in this hobby with a greater diversity of fish species with vastly different requirements, or common sense, or the wisdom to refute the inane ramblings of someone who can only manage to post a picture of a cesspool sometime last year, and hasn't posted anything since, then I these people all agree.

well said

[beaslbob]

I speak of your tank Bob.

I'm glad you agree Cal's and Osboy's tanks are not cesspools. Even though they followed my advice.

[JimM]

[midgetwaiter]

Both positions on this issue have some validity.

I currently run a 40 gal breeder divided via egg crate. One one side lives a brown puffer and on the other an arrowhead puffer. The tank has play sand substrate,driftwood pretty much covered in java moss, some java ferns and some small swords in pots filled with potting soil. It's lit by 4x15w CF bulbs in a DIY eavstrough fixture. The tank is filtered with 2 air driven sponge filters, one on each side. I do 20ish percent water changes every 3 weeks or so with a little substrate cleaning at the same time.

There are 3 reasons I went with the filters all of which have been mentioned already. These fish are big polluters so I felt the extra security they give was prudent. These fish would suffer from reduced oxygen levels faster than most as they are from rather fast moving rivers in the wild and are quite large (I wouldn't worry about this as much with tetras) so the areation at night is good. Lastly water movement, again if I wasn't using the filters anyway I would have just added a small powerhead.

This tank has been running for just about a year with no problems, I haven't changed anything from the initial setup. I throw away a lot of moss though. I don't test on a regular basis, just nitrate once a month. I have a lot of experience both with aquariums and with these fish particularly so if something was off I'd notice but I do not advise people to take this approach, testing is good. I have never had a measurable nitrate level. I can't tell you how much nicer this tank is to keep than any other in my house, it just works. I have not had similar experiences with any other FW system. Keeping these fish before was a lot of work always messing with filters, carbon, doing 50% water changes every week. Yuk. Whole thing cost me about $150 to setup and $70 of that was the heater.

Now to contrast beaslbob's posts:

I do have a little tank I am going to setup on my desk without a filter in it just to try but I think for most people this is a tricky proposition. If nothing else some kind of filter can save you if you do something dumb. Most of the fancy stuff out there is pointless, I think a little air driven sponge or a non cartridge HOB like the Aquaclear is all 95% of the people out there really need.

I don't have to worry about pH swings as my tap water is very hard, I won't get a pH drop unless I do something really stupid. Others may have to monitor this as disolved organics build.

The CO2 / O2 thing is a difficult discussion. You get a lot of gas exchange even with a still surface, it's just the nature of gases. However you need to strike and maintain a balance that is compatible with your fish and different species have different requirements. Livebearers have evolved the ability to deal with this becuase of thier natural history. Try it with discus, not so good. It also is the type of thing that can change over time and there are few tools available to the hobbiest to monitor things. Throw an airstone in there, ain't gonna hurt anything.

So I guess in summary, I would not say beaslbob's experience is a good model but don't completely ignore it either. There's some solid information to be taken from this and if more people tried a low tech approach I think you would find you liked it. The ideas behind these systems are simple and time tested. People have been using veggie filters for a long time, where do you think the idea of SW refugiums came from?

[vitz]

hey,

i'm managing a fw fish room of 517 aquariums split to 15 (one third of the room) and 30 breeders-using ONLY sponge filters.

we go through about 6500 gallons of wc's DAILY

it's extremely work intensive, and leaves NO ROOM for overcrowding/ overfeeding, antibiotic treatment without relying on large frequent water changes to break ammonia down rapidly (a sponge filter cannot response quickly to ammonia surges/spikes-whether it would like to or not )

so- we're installing fluidized beds via central sump systems, which give LOTS more room for error

the above is just a point about sponge filtration-might be fine for a well maintained non overcrowded tank in someone's house, but most noobs do not have that-they overcrowd, AND overfeed

[midgetwaiter]

hey,

i'm managing a fw fish room of 517 aquariums split to 15 (one third of the room) and 30 breeders-using ONLY sponge filters.

we go through about 6500 gallons of wc's DAILY

it's extremely work intensive, and leaves NO ROOM for overcrowding/ overfeeding, antibiotic treatment without relying on large frequent water changes to break ammonia down rapidly (a sponge filter cannot response quickly to ammonia surges/spikes-whether it would like to or not )

so- we're installing fluidized beds via central sump systems, which give LOTS more room for error

the above is just a point about sponge filtration-might be fine for a well maintained non overcrowded tank in someone's house, but most noobs do not have that-they overcrowd, AND overfeed

I've been responsible for a similar system in the past of about 300 tanks.

If you centralize that setup you are in for some hurt, bigtime. I imagine you have some stuff comming and going on a regular basis, one bad batch of fish and you'll have some nasty stuff tearing through the whole place. What you need to do is centralize your waer changes, with the system my boss put together I can change all 300 tanks in 20 minutes.

I can explain the setup in detail if you're interested. Really easy to build too.

[vitz]

er- ever hear of uv's?

and the entire room isn't going to be one system-there are sections, each will have it's own sump

the existing room was just poorly designed-my job is to fix it and make it better

i've worked in multiple large retail stores with this kind ofsetup-all the return water goes through uv's before it goes back to a tank-virtually no transmission from one tank to the next, and each tank can still be isolated if there's a problem w/a specific tank/specie group

99% of all high volume wholesalers use central systems that way with no worries whatsoever, and have for years and years

and even with a 'centralized water change system'-you still need to siphon out individual tanks, regardless-plenty of poop stays in each tank.

given that i've been doing high volume large scale systems on and off for a few decades, including commercial aquaculture, you may want to take lessons from me, and not the other way around

sponge filters need weekly cleanings btw-under even mildly high loads-they clog and trap particulate too quickly for their own good.

[beaslbob]

Update 27 dec 2006


Cal just let moss overtank the tank and presto baby guppies.

All other fish are fine in fact he has rescued a fish from a family member who had all the other fish in their "normal" tank die.

He now has about 6 fry in a breeder's net and harvested the moss yesterday. Tank is not currently"pretty" so he will have to keep harvesting until it looks nice again. And the fry growup.

Still no water changes and he has not touched the inside of the glass. Water is clear.

[JimM]

'yawn'

[beaslbob]

'yawn'

Sorry to wake ya