I've been doing a lot of reading through the forums and I am very interested in a nutrient recycling setup with no mechanical filtration, which would ideally make maintenance minimal. A pretty big challenge it seems, and not many people opt to create a closed loop recycling system so hard info is kinda hard to find.
The ideal for me is a large tank emulating an atlantic ocean estuary or shelf where populations of several benthic substrate and small pelagic creatures would sustain themselves against natural levels of predation from inverts, mainly some kind of sand scavenging crab that would feed on algae, detrius, bristleworms, molluscs, etc., as well as live in balance with eachother to create a mini-ecosystem. I worry creatures like clams and molluscs would be able to breed and grow fast enough, so i wouldn't mind regularly restocking them myself, and it seems that bioactive tanks require cyclical seeding with bacteria and algae as well. Guidance on this would be appreciated, and in general this thread is just helping me aggregate the data so i don't drown myself scouring every corner of the internet. Unfortunately wide searches don't yield the hard details i want as of yet (any tips for finding scientific documentation on sediment comps and geology, plant species, structure, etc?)
So, several questions to this end:
How fast do bristly worms and other small wormy things breed in the environment? In captivity? Clams? Bacterial colonies?
What kind of measures to take to maintain balance of all life, nutrients, etc to prevent an imbalanced setup? What are the major pillars to keep in mind?
What level of care are we talking to sustain as much natural feeding and living behaviour as possible for all species involved?
What does above entail in terms of stocking, water details, etc. I know about live sand and rock being good, but what stock do you all enjoy and recommend for restocking bacteria, algae, etc and generally introducing biodiversity to the tank? Suppliers, reliable brands, etc. Same for plants. How long do i let it sit and develop?
What brands of hardware do you all like to use for maintaining water temperature and salinity? What about waveboxes for tidal motion?
(Also, I'm having trouble finding specific salinities and such for the atlantic sea shelf along the US coasts, but I imagine they don't change much compared to broader ocean data, though they seem to have slightly lower salinities? What about inner estuary areas such as those found in the Northeast?)
Would overfeeding be a problem with these creatures if left to their own devices beyond the scheduled larger feeding times with controlled aquaculture food? Should I try to simulate some kind of other stressor to encourage sheltering, or is the presence of visible activity outside the tank enough to cause the crabs to take shelter regularly and not constantly sift the sand for food?
Is there some kind of species-specific calculus i can run for this stuff to assure balance beforehand, or is it more of an adjust-as-you-go thing? I assume the latter, but ideally i'd like to be able to plan this is meticulous detail to ensure I don't end up killing some cute inverts/ending up with several pounds of dead plants floating around or something bad. Especially since I am kind of inexperienced in the hobby.
How would I even find a tank for such a setup? From some suggestions, 400 gal or more would probably be needed to even have close to enough substrate area for all the plants and living food for the crab to dig, feed and roam naturalistically, which is pretty intimidating. How can I scale this down and practice in a smaller tank to begin with?
On a side note, what are the best tank construction styles? I hear seamless are less prone to bursting, which is a really strong edge-case fear I have about aquaria. Thoughts?
Reality check here, is this even a good idea to try to sustain a tank through this method? Possible?
These are all of the questions I can think of right now, but I'm sure we'll think of some more together. Thank you in advance! (also, i won't let this thread die like my last one about the horseshoe crab tank did, i have adhd meds now so i should be more attentive lol. I'm sure a lot of similar details will surface here, but this thread is about setting up the tank and establishing robust aquastock specifically.)
The ideal for me is a large tank emulating an atlantic ocean estuary or shelf where populations of several benthic substrate and small pelagic creatures would sustain themselves against natural levels of predation from inverts, mainly some kind of sand scavenging crab that would feed on algae, detrius, bristleworms, molluscs, etc., as well as live in balance with eachother to create a mini-ecosystem. I worry creatures like clams and molluscs would be able to breed and grow fast enough, so i wouldn't mind regularly restocking them myself, and it seems that bioactive tanks require cyclical seeding with bacteria and algae as well. Guidance on this would be appreciated, and in general this thread is just helping me aggregate the data so i don't drown myself scouring every corner of the internet. Unfortunately wide searches don't yield the hard details i want as of yet (any tips for finding scientific documentation on sediment comps and geology, plant species, structure, etc?)
So, several questions to this end:
How fast do bristly worms and other small wormy things breed in the environment? In captivity? Clams? Bacterial colonies?
What kind of measures to take to maintain balance of all life, nutrients, etc to prevent an imbalanced setup? What are the major pillars to keep in mind?
What level of care are we talking to sustain as much natural feeding and living behaviour as possible for all species involved?
What does above entail in terms of stocking, water details, etc. I know about live sand and rock being good, but what stock do you all enjoy and recommend for restocking bacteria, algae, etc and generally introducing biodiversity to the tank? Suppliers, reliable brands, etc. Same for plants. How long do i let it sit and develop?
What brands of hardware do you all like to use for maintaining water temperature and salinity? What about waveboxes for tidal motion?
(Also, I'm having trouble finding specific salinities and such for the atlantic sea shelf along the US coasts, but I imagine they don't change much compared to broader ocean data, though they seem to have slightly lower salinities? What about inner estuary areas such as those found in the Northeast?)
Would overfeeding be a problem with these creatures if left to their own devices beyond the scheduled larger feeding times with controlled aquaculture food? Should I try to simulate some kind of other stressor to encourage sheltering, or is the presence of visible activity outside the tank enough to cause the crabs to take shelter regularly and not constantly sift the sand for food?
Is there some kind of species-specific calculus i can run for this stuff to assure balance beforehand, or is it more of an adjust-as-you-go thing? I assume the latter, but ideally i'd like to be able to plan this is meticulous detail to ensure I don't end up killing some cute inverts/ending up with several pounds of dead plants floating around or something bad. Especially since I am kind of inexperienced in the hobby.
How would I even find a tank for such a setup? From some suggestions, 400 gal or more would probably be needed to even have close to enough substrate area for all the plants and living food for the crab to dig, feed and roam naturalistically, which is pretty intimidating. How can I scale this down and practice in a smaller tank to begin with?
On a side note, what are the best tank construction styles? I hear seamless are less prone to bursting, which is a really strong edge-case fear I have about aquaria. Thoughts?
Reality check here, is this even a good idea to try to sustain a tank through this method? Possible?
These are all of the questions I can think of right now, but I'm sure we'll think of some more together. Thank you in advance! (also, i won't let this thread die like my last one about the horseshoe crab tank did, i have adhd meds now so i should be more attentive lol. I'm sure a lot of similar details will surface here, but this thread is about setting up the tank and establishing robust aquastock specifically.)
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