Berlin reef setup tank

From the day you set up your aquarium until years down the road, testing your aquarium water should become an important aquarium ritual. Proper lighting is important to the success of your reef tank. Corals are photosynthetic animals and need light to survive. When purchasing a light for your saltwater aquarium it is important to buy a light which is built specifically for this purpose. When you first set up your aquarium, lights should be switched on for 6 — 8 hours per day.

If you have a controllable LED light you can also reduce the light intensity. If you start noticing algae blooms decrease the intensity or length of daylight time. Depending on the size of your tank and rockscape you will create light zones in the aquarium with high and low lights.

As in nature, different corals need different amounts of light. Different light intensity zones are produced by the depth of the water and shadows created by the rocks. Light will be weaker at the edges of the tank and in the shadows of rocks. You can use a PAR meter to test light intensity. Flow is an essential part of a healthy reef tank. Flow is created why powerheads and depending on the size of your reef tank you can one more than one powerhead creating flow.

Read: Gyre Flow. There are three types of filtration required for a saltwater aquarium Mechanical, Biological, and Chemical. Mechanical filtration removed large particles from the water.

Mechanical filtration is done by a sponge filter. This filter removes free-floating waste before it decays. Biological filtration begins once your tank is properly cycled. Biological filtration is when bacteria in the tank breaks down dangerous ammonia, converting them to nitrites, and then the nitrites to less toxic nitrates.

Biological filtration is also known as the nitrogen cycle. Chemical filtration can be achieves using activated carbon. Activated carbon filter removes organic pollutants which cannot be removed by biological or mechanical filtration.

Read: Mechanical. Once your aquarium has been running for six weeks or longer you can gradually add corals, invertebrates, and fish. It is important to start slow when adding livestock and we recommend starting with snails, hermit crabs, and peppermint shrimp. When you are ready to add corals, start with hardy beginner corals like leathers, zoanthids, or mushrooms.

These corals are perfect for filling up space in your aquarium and adding color. When making your choice, you should remember that not all animals are compatible with each other. If there is one fish, in particular, you want to check their compatibility with other fish and work on that list.

Regular water changes are fundamental to maintaining an aquarium. The volume and frequency will fluctuate for each tank but almost every reefer performs regular water changes on their aquarium.

Ongoing Maintenance : A properly set-up and stocked reef system is actually the closest thing marine systems have to being maintenance-free. Summary: I don't want to dissuade you from pursuing a "reef-system"; my intent is only to urge your considering what an involved enterprise it is. How to build a living reef system. Corals in the reef tank. Reef aquariums: an introduction.

Live rock algal succession in a reef system. The Reef Aquarium. Emmens, C. The natural system and the minireef. Coral reefs and miniature reefs. Fenner, Bob. The revolution of the mini-reefs. Frissell, Christopher A. Living coral in the marine aquarium.

Guerra, Manuel III. Compatible fish for reef tanks. Hemdal, Jay. Fishes for the home miniature reef. SeaScope Volume 5, Spring Klostermann, A. Coral growth in captivity. Coral nutrition, parts Invertebrate propagation and reproduction at home. The care and maintenance of corals, parts 1,2. Plumbing the reef tank. Parks, Noreen. Immortal corals. Sea Frontiers. Rasche, Jeffrey A. Fine-tune the homemade reef system.

Coral nutrition, parts I-V. Schiemer, Gregory. The reef aquarium; starting from the beginning. Smit, George. Marine aquariums mini-reefs , parts The ecological marine aquarium, parts Reef Notes column. You must take care when using kalkwasser as it has a very high PH of When using it in the Berlin method of marine filtration you should put it into your tank using a drip at night. This will avoid the PH of your aquarium rising suddenly.

It is important not to mix too much at once. Other calcium supplements can be used in the Berlin method of marine filtration, for example, the two parts balanced solutions.

The Berlin method of filtration also requires trace element supplements, specifically strontium and iodide. Some people also choose to supplement magnesium but this is not a necessity. Good water movement is also critical in the Berlin method of marine filtration.

The life that is kept in salt water aquariums come from the sea. So they are used to very powerful currents, which we are unable to replicate exactly. However we can get close and should try to get it as close as possible for the survival of our aquariums.

In the Berlin method of marine filtration the most important reason for good water movement is to move the nitrogenous waste so that the nitrifying and de-nitrifying bacteria can get to it. Using the Berlin method of marine filtration within an aquarium is fairly easy to set up and to maintain. Especially when using good quality live rock. Your aquarium could be set up within a day. The surge idea is to give the algae time to exchange gasses and absorb nutrients as well as provide light to all sides of the algae for maximum growth in a small area.

For these algaes to grow they need light. The lighting of an algae scrubber should be run the opposite to when the main tank lights are on. The reason for using a light cycle opposite from the main tank is to maintain stable pH, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels within in the system due to photosynthetic respiration. This prevents the wide range fluctuations found in most tanks. The type and output of the lighting will also affect the type of algae and growth rates.

Nearly any type of intense light can be used, metal halide, VHO and HO flourescents, mercury vapor, halogen to name a few. Jaubert, of the Monaco Aquarium, promotes a variation of the Lee Chin Eng system which uses the 'natural' approach. The main variation is the introduction of a Plenum at the bottom of the tank. A plenum is a gap or void space underneath the one to four inches of live sand at the bottom of the tank.

Typically this void space is 1 inch deep and this area becomes anoxic, or an area low in oxygen. This anoxic area creates a 'ying-yang' enviroment where oxygen strarved organisms breakdown or remove components from the oxygen carrying organisms and components.

The natural reduction of Nitrate NO3 in these systems is the direct result of a plenum as it generates a 'de-nitrification' process that robs the nitrate complex of its oxygen. Another benifit of the two opposing enviroments is the natural dissolution of calcium, magnesium, and strontium to natural levels within the aquarium. The Jaubert system does not use a protien skimmer as the removal of organics via skimmer would decrease the effectiveness of the plenum.

Additionally the only water movement within the tank is that of an airstone and its resulting rising bubbles. The live rock should be strategically positioned so that minimizes the amount of sand that it actually covers, as the covered spots would quickly cause dead areas within the sand that it sits upon. The Live Sand Bed method In a reef tank with a live sand bed set up properly the hobbyist is creating an enviroment that is more 'ecologically complete' or dynamic, certainly more like a true reef enviroment.

As debri from the tank settle at the bottom of the tank there are a number of animals that feed on that debri, lets call them detrivores animals whose food source is the debri of other animals. These animals consist of crabs, shrimps, snails, starfish, sea cucumbers, and bottom-dwelling fish. Whether or not these animals actually consume or simply break up the debri into smaller particles, they are making that debri even smaller and easier for the next level of organisms to break it down further, physically and chemically.