Everyone knows that the design of the original Tunze Stream pumps was flawed. The pump itself is great, silent and efficient but the electronics were it’s achilles heel. Both the transformer and driver unit were very prone to breaking, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. But that was easily dealt with because Tunze has always supported their products with complete selection of spare parts. Until now, that is. To my surprise (and shock) I learned that Tunze no longer provides spare parts for older Stream pumps. Instead, you are required to send your old Stream to Tunze and then negotiate a discount for a new model. In my case that means I could get a Tunze 6105 for 200 € instead of 245 €. Hardly a substantial discount, especially when you consider that I still have one more 6100 for which I might need spare parts later (and, by the way, for which I’ve already bought a new transformer and driver unit about a year ago). I think I’ll keep the broken 6100 for spare parts, it’s much more valuable than 45€.

The important question of course is how will this “new” Tunze handle current equipment two years from now? They will break.

Only two days after the Tunze debacle I managed to accidentally break the ceramic axle in my ATB skimmer pump Airstar 1500. I contacted ATB and all the necessary spare parts were sent to me three hours after my email with no mention about money (I assume an invoice is included). The parts were sent with fast express service to ensure I’ll get my skimmer back online as soon as possible. No negotiations and no hint of “who cares” attitude.

It is nice to deal with serious people.

No related posts.

New tank shortly after move. Everything was good.

It all started 15 months ago when after a long and serious illness I was able to “restart” my old tank. After a lot of work it all started to look good but then something happened that set the tone for the next 15 months: just when I thought the tank was back on right track the center brace broke and I was forced to drain the tank and buy a new one. So began a year during which pretty much nothing has worked (or so it seems to me).

Old tank before and after. It took 5 weeks of hard work.

This tank has caused me more trouble than all my previous tanks combined. Well, actually, it’s not the tank but the owner who has caused so much trouble. Traditionally I’ve been very conservative with my husbandry practices. I’ve always used pretty standard and simple Berlin type setup i.e. combination of sand, live rock, skimmer, GAC, limewater and good lighting. My only departure from the age old Berlin method was DOC dosing which I started about 10 years ago. Sure, I’ve experimented with some additives but all in all, very safe and stable.
That’s boring, right?
So thought I and together with this new tank I started to explore all kinds of “new” and exciting products that would certainly make my new tank that much better than all my previous attempts. Unfortunately I got a bit too enthusiastic about some of the products and as a result managed to almost completely ruin my tank with extremely high nutrients. This year has also been plagued with equipment failures and about 1000 miscellaneous smaller problems. By far the worst year in my reefkeeping history.
Unfortunately as the problems have been piling up so has my motivation to write plummeted, I haven’t even had the energy to be grumpy

My 240 gallon tank April 2010. Current number one problem: Aiptasia

Let’s hope 2010/2011 season will be more enjoyable!

Related posts:

1. Tank update, July 2009
2. Tank update, June 2009 (Updated)
3. Tank update, October 2009

After an ill-judged experiment with Tropic Marin BioActif (an experiment that left me with 25+ ppm NO3 and 1.0+ ppm PO4) I found an article (“Filter and suspension feeders” at coralscience.org) that mentioned a new form of filtration that made a lot of sense to me: a solid source of labile organic carbon that would release carbon only through enzymatic action of bacteria. This means two things: first of all, it makes overdosing pretty much impossible and secondly it avoids most of the problems that results from heavy use of DOC.

The old 2 liter setup. Pellets were quickly clogged with bacterial biomass.

I started out with only one liter of NP-reducing BioPellets (NPBs). Considering the “bioload” this was clearly too small amount for my tank but for once I wanted to be cautious. Seeing that nothing died and that the pellets were quickly colonized by bacteria (product was not available in stores at this time and there were no user reports) I added a second liter of NPBs. This was the recommended amount for the size of aquarium I have but considering my quite unorthodox feeding regime I didn’t stop the dissolved carbon dosing completely but cut it to half instead. With this combination of solid and dissolved organic carbon the nutrient levels stayed pretty much the same as they were with twice as high DOC dosing. So obviously the NBPs were working as advertised and I had reached my goal which was not to stop DOC dosing completely but to reduce it to more sensible level.

After a couple of months I still had some measurable nitrate (2.5 ppm) and phosphate (0.04 ppm) and I decided to really go “overboard” and ordered 3 more liters of NPBs. Since I didn’t have large enough “reactor” for this amount of NPBs I made a simple open top canister filter from an old 10 liter GAC container and a small 1000 l/h pump and placed the 5 liters of media in there. At the same time I stopped DOC dosing completely.

5 liters of NP-Biopellets in a 10 liter bucket. Using modest (1000 l/h) pump and large diameter container results in slow water velocity which seems to give best results in my case.

The results have been wonderful. It seems that the “critical mass” for my aquarium was around 5 liters of NPBs. The water stays crystal clear at all times and nitrates are finally dropping below 1 ppm. Using many commercial foods with excess phosphorous I still must use small amounts of GFO (before NPBs 2000 ml and now about 500 ml). I feed about 3-4 grams (dry weight) of pulverized invertebrate foods daily which is equal to about one 500 ml bottle of commercial liquid invertebrate food.

My NPBs used to get clogged pretty fast with thick bacterial growth but now, with twice as much surface area for them to colonize, the need to stir the media has diminished significantly. This might actually be a good indicator for sufficient amount of NPBs: if you find your media clogging very fast you might need more pellets to increase the usable surface area. Of course nitrate concentration is also a good indicator.

Comparison of costs of different filtration methods. Assuming 4 x 54W T5 lighting, 18 hrs/day. Bulb replacement every 9 months, 30% of NPBs yearly

I would recommend NPBs to all reef aquarists who are feeding their tank with invertebrate foods. Don’t be afraid to use more than recommended by the manufacturer. All tanks are different and manufacturers can only make general recommendations. Although the cost might seem high at first glance, NPBs are still a lot cheaper (and easier) than maintaining a large enough refugium to match the nutrient binding capacity of NPBs. Electricity and replacement bulbs aren’t cheap! There are also some competing products coming to market so I would expect the price to drop.

Related posts:

1. New ideas for reef aquarium filtration
2. Back to spirits (Updated)
3. Weapons of Nutrient Destruction: cone and pellets with sugar on top

Read all about it here.

Related posts:

1. Amino acids and reef aquariums
2. Amino acids and reef aquarium: Cysteine
3. Amino acids and reef aquarium: Arginine

So, here are four tanks I think are some of the best looking reef tanks I’ve seen. There are certainly many more equally great looking tanks. Although in my opinion it is much more important to have healthy and interesting animals than picture perfect aquascape I certainly wouldn’t mind having a tank such as these.

These will work nicely as a contrast for my tank update I’ll post tomorrow

Japanese soft coral tank:

No related posts.