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Making Live Rock

August 18, 2009

Live Rock

The major bio-filtration media in use by marine aquarists, whether they keep a reef or fish only system, is probably live rock and for good reason.

Premium live rock is rock that has been fairly recently harvested from around the reefs, meaning it is ‘rubble’ rather than hewed from the reef itself. This rock has growths of all sorts which could be of interest to the aquarist. Unfortunately, live rock needs to be cured after import which simply means that all the dead and dying organisms on and in the rock have to be removed, meaning that pollution will not occur in the aquarium. However, for the most part there are tougher organisms that do survive and they could make an appearance in the aquarium, this appearance could be months after the rock has been introduced. Live rock can also harbor unwelcome organisms, such as the aquarium weed aiptasia, an anemone that could become a real nuisance without controlling attention.

In addition to natural organism introductions with the rock, it is very decorative. Reef and fish only aquarists are able to construct a very interesting and decorative structure which suits livestock very well.

The next great attribute of live rock is mentioned in the first paragraph – bio-filtration. Living organisms in the aquarium will literally be poisoned unless there is some means of negating the toxic substances that they produce. The two major toxins are ammonia and nitrite, and a much less dangerous one is nitrate. Dwelling on and in the live rock are oxygen requiring bacteria which convert the toxin ammonia to the toxin nitrite, which is then converted to nitrate. Bacteria living within the rock also require oxygen but find it hard to obtain, therefore they extract it from the nitrate which breaks the nitrate down releasing the residue from the aquarium as gas. The process from ammonia to gas release is known as the nitrogen cycle.

Live rock is a great commodity for the aquarist, providing the major and essential job of bio-filtration and also doubling up as decoration. The rock must of course be present in sufficient quantity to deal with the bio-load present, which is created mainly by fish.

There’s only one problem and that is cost, it’s expensive, particularly the premium grade. It’s expensive to air freight rock. This cost could be controlled up to a point by using base rock as the lower part of the rock structure and premium grade for the surface – but it is still expensive.

One way of avoiding this cost is to create live rock, which isn’t difficult. What is required is inert porous rock, that is, rock that is known to be free of any substance that could be harmful in seawater and also porous. This type of rock is often available in local fish shops and at a very much lower cost than the live variety. It isn’t any use purchasing solid non-porous rock. The second requirement is that there needs to be as much rock as would be used if the live variety were bought, which should ensure that the amount of bio-filtration media will be adequate.

If necessary the rock is thoroughly rinsed before it is placed in the aquarium to form a structure as required. The aquarium is then filled with seawater (note the net gallonage for future use) at the required specific gravity (SG) and heated to the design temperature. Seawater circulation should also be turned on. At this stage there isn’t any need for lighting. The seawater should be left to settle down to the required parameters. Check the seawater SG once it has heated up as temperature could affect it.

Once the seawater is at the required SG and temperature attention can be given to processing the rock. Anyone who has ever used a canister filter for bio-filtration will be aware of the process. A commercial maturation fluid is obtained and added to the seawater at the amounts given in the instructions. Test kits for ammonia and nitrite are also required, and the seawater should be tested in accordance with the instructions. Eventually the ammonia reading will disappear, followed by the nitrite reading. Once the aquarist is sure the reading remains at zero for both, the rock can be considered to be initially mature, that is, there is an initial population of bacteria to deal with toxins.

A test should now be done for nitrate; a level will probably be clearly seen. This nitrate should be reduced by a seawater change until it is as low as possible or preferably undetectable.

Slow stocking can now commence, turning the lighting system on of course. It is important that ammonia and nitrite tests continue, if there is any indication of either ammonia or nitrite stocking should cease until the reading(s) are zero again and remain so. The bacteria need to adapt to the increasing bio-load and must be allowed the time to do so.

Eventually of course the aquarium will be stocked as required. The bacteria population is able to stabilize and after a further say three months can be considered as fully mature. Routine seawater changes, as with any system, need to continue as does testing.

Wait a minute though; we’re supposed to be creating live rock which should be able within reason to deal with nitrate. So it will, in time. It takes longer for the nitrate reducing bacteria population to establish, and once it has the nitrate should be controlled. Relative to live rock and nitrate what does ‘within reason’ mean? It simply means that if the aquarium is often overfed and the toxin reducing bacteria produce a lot of nitrate, and the aquarist is missing routine seawater changes, the nitrate could be too high for the bacteria to control.

Ok, so now we have an aquarium filtered by live rock. What about the natural growths that could occur (though not always) with natural live rock? These will obviously be absent as the rock was initially dead. With both the fish only and reef system, if the environment is of high quality it shouldn’t be long before encrusting algae’s make an appearance. In a fish only system it could be necessary to seed with a small piece of rock from a friend’s aquarium that already has encrusting algae on it. In a reef system, when the aquarist introduces corals they will usually be attached to pieces of natural rock. These rocks should contain organisms that should seed the other rocks provided a high quality environment is maintained. Before long the previously dead rocks should look completely different – just like natural live rock.

So for a considerably reduced price live rock is achievable. What the aquarist needs to provide is some patience (required by all marine aquarists) and considerably less money. There is great concern about the future of the wild reefs and concern has been expressed about the impact of live rock collection, so the aquarist who produces his/her own will be assisting with reef protection.

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How Did I Know The Rock Had Become Live?

August 8, 2009

Live Rock

All marine aquarists are aware of live rock. It’s the stuff that perhaps the majority use for bio- filtration and it’s also excellent as décor, be it a reef or a fish only system.

Good mature live rock has the usual bacteria present, those that convert the toxins ammonia and nitrite to the much safer nitrate. Unlike a canister filter where the nitrogen cycle stops after the production of nitrate, live rock within reason will deal with nitrate. This is because the bacteria that dwell deep inside the rock would also prefer to use oxygen directly, but because it is in very short supply they remove oxygen from nitrate which breaks it down.

When I set up my current soft coral reef system I used two canister filters for the bio-filtration. (The photo shows the reef in part. You can tell I took the photo!) The bio- media was Eheim sintered glass. It worked very well. Being aware that nitrate could become excessive I built a denitrator based on suphur and this ran from when nitrate was noted as being present even though the reading was very low. Better to defeat a potential problem than wait to tackle a real one. Once the denitrator was matured the nitrate disappeared and I never had any readings at all. This was over the first 5½ years of the aquarium’s life. It has to be said that the fish load is very low; there are two small fish (a blue damsel and a flame angel) in 43 gallons net of seawater.

The reef is built of what is named ‘grotto rock’. This doesn’t come from any grotto so why the name I don’t know, however it’s ideal for marine use as it is totally inert and full of crevices and holes. Just as important, it’s very porous. The rock comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes and it was great fun creating the reef.

The reef developed over the years and I noted the lack of nitrates. I thought I’d do a little experiment at one point to prove the effectiveness of the denitrator; this experiment consisted of turning if off. Difficult!

I monitored the nitrate level and found that all readings were zero (I suppose I ought to state that nitrate was undetectable with the test kit). I left the denitrator off for a week, two weeks, which turned into months. Still nitrate didn’t appear. The canister filters continued to run so nitrate would be produced.

I like looking at the reef from various points in addition to the front and sides. This often involves lying on the floor and peering into the aquarium. This sometimes occurs at night when most of the little beasties are about. The rocks I thought looked more like live rock than the real stuff, with all the worm growths, algae etc. I then wondered if it was in fact live. This thought was supported by the lack of nitrate, the canisters were producing it and perhaps bacteria were removing it? I realized that I did routine seawater changes and this would tend to reduce nitrate levels as well.

The rocks were now live, why not? It was an excellent home for bacteria after all. However, at the end of the day a rock looks like a rock, there’s no way a bacteria presence can be checked. It is a known fact that bacteria exist on surfaces within the aquarium in addition to any intended bio-filtration area, but would there be sufficient to support the aquarium completely? Surely the canister filters would be taking the majority of the bio-load?

I have two canister filters running as said, so it was easy to check. At the next scheduled clean of one of the canisters I removed the bio-media and ran the canister empty (seawater is returned to the surface for oxygenation and to agitate the surface). A careful watch was kept and there weren’t any unwanted effects.

So far so good, but the next stage was a little more cautious. Even though the bio-media from the first canister had gone, maybe the second canister was handling everything, so with the second canister, when the time was chosen to remove some bio-filtration media I only removed half of that present. Hopefully that left would prevent any major disaster from occurring. The amount left was one quarter of the total original amount. This was left for a month with everything being carefully watched. No problems.

Now came the crunch – remove the final bio-media. This was done and both canisters now ran empty. Feeding and maintenance continued as though nothing had changed. Nothing untoward happened.

The system continues to run normally and it is now approaching its 7th year. The inert rock is now live.

To be honest I wasn’t really surprised, though it was very sound to use caution. One way of producing live rock is to mix inert rock in with live; the higher the live proportion the quicker the inert variety converts (it still takes quite some time). There wasn’t any live rock in the system at all at the start; it was all inert, so how did it convert?

The first possibility is that ‘overspill’ from the canisters occurred though perhaps this is unlikely, I don’t know. The second is that bacteria developed on and in the rocks naturally and these expanded in number.

To my mind the most likely explanation is that the bacteria were introduced, though some could have appeared naturally as suggested above. Most of the corals that were introduced are attached to rocks and of course they were attached to these when collected – these rocks are live. So the inert rocks were colonized by the bacteria from the live coral rocks.

When the bio-media was slowly removed from the canisters the bacteria on and in the rocks would have expanded to deal with the increased load and, hey presto, the system is now based on live rock.

The denitrator sulphur media has been cleaned and is not in use. I haven’t actually removed the unit as it isn’t in the way. The good thing is there isn’t any more need for it to be maintained though the maintenance wasn’t a problem. The worst part was the flow, denitrators have a very slow flow and this was occasionally problematical and a bit of a headache. No more of that though.

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Bio-Media Removed

March 4, 2009

When I first started my current reef aquarium over six years ago I didn’t use any live rock. Instead, for the bio-filtration I used canister filters.

There are two Eheim Ecco canister filters installed and I have to say that they are good, well constructed and to date absolutely reliable. Anyway that’s not what I’m on about here.

Over the six years many corals on rocks have been introduced and the rock that was inert and dead is now live. It hasn’t the potential diversity of life that natural live rock has, but it has a lot of organisms on it and probably in it – there are tiny tube worms by the hundred and a high population of tiny creatures that appear mostly at night. It is also typical live rock in appearance as far as encrusting algae and the like are concerned. I have to say I can’t see that much rock anyway as most is covered up by some organism or another.

I suspected that the rock was live because of nitrate. As I had elected to use canister filters a home made denitrator had been fitted as well. There has only ever been the tiniest presence of nitrate according to the tests and it was so faint my wife and I were unsure about that. Eventually this trace disappeared as well and never re-appeared. So about two years after the trace, if there was one, had disappeared I turned the denitrator off. There continued to be no trace whatsoever of nitrate and the denitrator has remained off.

If there was nitrate present and it had disappeared then routine seawater changes wouldn’t have been the cause as these have been done bi-weekly ever since the aquarium started (though at first they were weekly). It wasn’t the denitrator as this was turned off and nothing re-appeared. I assumed that bacteria had colonized the very porous reef rocks and these were dealing with any nitrate, as well as ammonia and nitrite. I decided to remove the bio media from one of the canisters. It didn’t happen.

The canisters, both of them, were left running in full bio-mode as I didn’t do anything because of the reef, it was so successful and natural looking that I was afraid that if I made a mistake the livestock would suffer and I wouldn’t have time to generate a new bacteria population. After a while, I thought that this was ridiculous – and it was as there are two canisters and they both have the capacity to bio-filter the aquarium. So I removed the media from one, then started it up again empty as it is used for surface agitation.

To date, six months down the line, there hasn’t been a problem. So now I’m thinking I’ll remove the bio-media from the other canister. Going on previous performance it’ll be a while before anything is done! I feel certain that there isn’t a need for bio-filtration with the canisters any more.

When I removed the bio-media I expected that there would be visible life within it (Eheim sintered glass). There wasn’t, none at all, at least any I noticed. The aquarium is full of life, mobile and otherwise, so this was a surprise. On cleaning mechanical media I am always rescuing tiny shrimps.

I was really pleased with the state of the bio-media. When washed only a very small dusting of dirt appeared, one rinse and it was gone. This was down to the four weekly mechanical media cleaning, also the mechanical media set-up. The entire mechanical media was before the bio-media, taking the form of a coarse sponge, a very fine filter ‘cloth’ one half inch thick and another fine sponge, so the filter ‘cloth’ was sandwiched tightly between the sponges. It clearly worked.

During the operation on the canister I noticed a fair growth of some toadstools in one area on the reef. All the corals grow at a quite fast rate and the toadstools are the fastest. So out came the sharp scissors and off came their heads. Very drastic sounding but it has been done several times before without mishap. They grow back rapidly.

Toadstool Coral

I also noticed more new corals growing beneath, toadstools again, six in all. Four were removed entirely and two left. The photo (sorry, it isn’t particularly good) shows the cut ‘stalks’ and also the two small new ones that were left.

The cut corals look awful at first but they don’t stay that way for long. First polyps re-grow, then the heads start to increase horizontally and the stalks lengthen.

It’s all quite miraculous really.

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Live Rock A ‘Different’ Way

March 1, 2009

Live rock is quite rightly highly rated by marine aquarists, particularly by those with a reef, for both its filtration capabilities and its appearance. It is natural, what could be better than that? Well, nothing really, but nevertheless there are drawbacks in its use.

The first negative is that it is expensive and it’s bound to be with the cost of air freight never mind transport to the final destination in the US or Europe. This cost is generated by both weight and bulk.  Nevertheless, aquarists buy it and can reduce their costs by using base rock underneath the reef which is less expensive. Another way is to reduce the amount required by putting face rock on a framework of plastic supports which means less is required, though care has to be taken that there is still an adequate amount for effective bio-filtration.

Some enterprising aquarists manufacture their own live rock though the numbers who do this are low and the result is not usually as good looking as the real stuff (in my opinion).

Other aquarists use dead inert rock as a reef and employ canister filters for the bio-filtration. This is what I did with my current reef. The bio-media is being removed from the canisters as the rocks are now live.

The last paragraph leads me into the reason for this text. My aquarium (over six years old) is now using rocks as its main bio-filtration, as said the rocks were previously ‘dead’. After setting up the aquarium, before the canisters could be used they had to be ‘matured’, that is a bacterial culture had to be started within them. It could have been done another way – I could probably have used maturation fluid to establish a bacteria colony on the rocks in the first place, they are very porous. The rocks when used initially were not very ‘reefy’ looking though they are now.

If only there were rocks that were both porous and ‘reefy’ in appearance many aquarists would be pleased. Well, it seems there are now.

Artificial ceramic reef ‘rocks’ were brought to my attention by a comment on the forum, they are named Vida Rocks. So of course, never having heard of them, I went onto the internet and had a look. I have to say that the appearance of the rocks seems good, they are natural looking taking the shape of ordinary rocks, arches etc. An aquarist would be able to create a good looking aquascape with them.

The rocks are stated to be highly porous. This means that they should present a suitable habitat for those bacteria that protect our livestock. The bacteria culture would have to be kick started in the same way that a canister filter is by the use of maturation fluid, but this is not a problem. With this method nitrate will probably appear in the aquarium but this is easily reduced by a seawater change. As the ceramic article is porous the possibility, or maybe probability, arises that nitrate could be dealt with as with natural live rock. Bacteria could establish inside the rock in low oxygen areas. It would be great if this occurred.

So we have a system that will present an ‘authentic’ reef appearance and provide adequate bio-filtration. Over time the rocks will become more natural looking as organisms take over the surface areas. These organisms could be introduced on rocks with corals attached.

There must be disadvantages though, and there are. The ceramic rock is not loaded with bacteria by Mother Nature as the natural stuff is. Also, the life forms that could appear in the aquarium when using natural live rocks are not there. The life that could appear with natural rocks is a gift, and there is often quite a lot of it even after the transport time and ‘curing’ process. However, natural live rock could also bring undesirables such as aiptasia (glass anemones) etc which will obviously not occur with the ceramic type. Undesirables could appear in the course of time anyway as coral rocks will be introduced to a reef system and so the threat remains.

I am all for the move to ‘natural’ based aquarium husbandry as are most aquarists and this hasn’t changed. Live rock and deep sand beds (DSB’s) are a good example. This ceramic rock has aroused my interest. If the ceramic rock has been ‘matured’ with bacteria and is combined with a DSB it would amount to very nearly the same thing, with a difference.

The difference is that live rock for the most part is taken from the wild reef areas. By using the manufactured rock the demand on the wild resources would be reduced which generally would be good. Local fish shops (LFS’s) would probably state that it would affect their trade, so they could sell the ceramic variety. They could even sell more of it as it would no doubt be cheaper particularly as it does not have to be air freighted, at least in the US where it is manufactured (I do not know the price).

For an aquarist who is considering extending their reef (or fish only aquascape) this ceramic rock could be considered. It will need a little time to mature (bacteria) so if increased stocking is envisaged care would be needed.

For an aquarist who is just setting up a marine system it is a consideration as a particular aquascape design can more or less be achieved. The normal constraints on stocking after maturation would apply, as with a canister filter. Unlike a canister filter, hopefully the industrious bacteria within the ceramic rock would within reason have an effect on nitrate levels.

Have a look and see what you think:

http://www.cerameco.com

I look forward to comments by aquarists who use it.

(Aquaristsonline.com does not have any links, personal or commercial, with the above internet site)

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First Introduction – Fish Or Invertebrate

September 22, 2008

The majority of aquarists decide that the first introduction to their aquariums should be a fish yet does it need to be this way.

I fully understand why this happens and perhaps this is due to historic reasons where aquarists used hardy fish to assist in the cycling of their aquariums. Something which I am glad to say is not done anymore. Perhaps it is the movement and colour of the fish which draws the eye. There are many reasons as to why people choose a fish as the first inhabitant of their aquarium. It uis of course not up to me to sway their decision in any way but perhaps people believe that a fish has to be the first introduction.

On another note if the aquarium is a fish only aquarium then the aquarists will of course be introducing a fish first!

For the aquarist with a reef aquarium however there is another choice especially when live rock is used as the filtration but it does not matter what filtration is employed. Live rock even when matured correctly is not very sterile and therefore may carry opportunistic parasites. When a fish is caught in the dealers it is put under immense stress due to the catching, the bagging, the transport etc. When the fish is introduced to the aquarium its immune system may be lower than normal and in a reef tank filtered via live rock it may become prey to opportunistic parasites.

I appreciate that the above can happen at any time in the aquariums life however at the very start the aquarist is learning and if a fish is lost at the very start then this is sad for obvious reasons however the aquarist’s confidence in the aquarium and his/her own abilities and may give up the hobby.
There are certain fish which are more resilient than others however a lot of these fish – damselfish for example can become problematic later due to the aggressive nature and it is very hard to remove a fish from an aquarium with live rock in it!

Another method at the very start instead of fish is introducing hardy invertebrates.

By introducing hardy invertebrates first the aquarist will gain experience in acclimatisation techniques as well as stocking techniques. At the very start when the aquarist’s knowledge is low for want of a better word it is probably fair to say that a fair amount of tinkering will be employed. What I mean by this is that the aquarists hands will be in the aquarium a lot moving various corals around as well as the relevant water movement devices until they are satisfied that the conditions provided in the aquarium are suitable for the aquarium inhabitants.

If the decision is made to introduce invertebrates prior to fish then the aquarium, as with fish must be ready for the introduction of them. By this I mean that the nitrogen cycle has completed, there are no large algae outbreaks evident or they are under control and the water conditions are maintained in accordance with the recommended levels. For examples nitrates should be low as should phosphate levels. More than that the water conditions should not just be maintained they should be stable.

With the aquarist deciding to introduce invertebrates in the first instance the equipment purchased and installed should be capable of support the life in the aquarium. For example the lighting needs to be correct. This may sound basic but I hear of a lot of people trying to keep corals under lighting which to be honest is just not suitable for them.

At this point – actually a lot earlier the aquarist should know what corals, fish etc that they want to keep and should have based their purchases around this decision. At this point in the aquariums life you would not be looking at introducing an SPS coral like acropora etc as the aquarium is simply not ready for it.

At this point the corals you will be interested in purchasing are the ones which are not too expensive and do not have the colour of the majority of SPS corals. This is not to say that these corals are dull and colourless as they are far from it but when you compare prices you will see what I mean!

Speaking of purchase again I recommend that you build a relationship with a local dealer, another hobbyist or an online area (like Aquarists Online hint hint…) where you can go and ask advice as to what is suitable etc. Building a relationship with others is important as you can use their experience, their knowledge to your advantage o=plus you can learn a lot about the hobby and will hopefully not make expensive mistakes.

When selecting corals you are looking for corals which are suitable for the beginner. When looking you will probably see some exceptionally colourful species. I would probably stay away from these as there are some species which do not contain zooanthellae and require feeding for them to thrive. A good example of this is the sun coral. There are also other colourful ones which are probably for more advanced aquarists or aquarists who have had stable aquariums for a long period of time.

You have to remember that the aquarium is new and the water, rockwork, sand, glass, equipment etc all needs to age. You can always come back to these more colourful corals when your confidence has grown by maintaining a reef aquarium for a number of years.

In my opinion the list below details what I believe to be good ‘starter corals’ and are suitable for first introduction.

  • Button Polyps
  • Xenia
  • Mushrooms
  • Leather Corals
  • Star Polyps

This does not mean that you should not introduce fish. I personally think that an aquarium with just corals in and no fish lacks movement however I think that perhaps more aquarists should introduce invertebrates prior to introducing fish to gain both confidence in themselves as well as giving the aquarium time to settle.

This of course also does not mean that you will not get problems when introducing fish at a later stage. You might but just remember to acclimatise them properly and use a quarantine tank.

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Can Decorative Sand Be Used For Filtration

September 18, 2008

This is a very good question which I was asked recently via email and I thought that I would detail it here for others to read and hopefully benefit from.

A lot of aquarists decide to put a small amount of decorative sand in the bottom of the aquarium to make it look more natural. This sand is normally something like coral sand, live sand etc.

Normally a small scattering is put in the aquarium – just enough to cover the bottom of the aquarium. At first the aquarium does look very natural however before long the sand starts to get clogged up with detritus, uneaten food and unless the aquarist cleans it then it can start to look very dirty.

Whilst looking into possible methods to keep it clean the aquarist may stumble upon a term called deep sand beds. After a small amount of research the aquarist may decide to ‘give it a go’ and after purchasing more of the sand installs it into the aquarium and believes that he/she now has a deep sand bed.

Wrong I am afraid and this is a deep sand bed which is probably destined to fail.

The reason for this is that the sand used in a deep sand bed has to have sand particles which are within a given size range. This is so that the animals which live in the sand are able to move the sand around. This is a term which is called turning the sand bed over. The animals will not magically appear. Some will migrate from the live rock if this is used in the aquarium, however the majority will need to be introduced by the aquarist. Not just once either the bed will need to be topped up from time to time. Once the bed has animals in there they then need feeding so that they can reproduce and increase the diversity in the sand bed. For this they need to be fed by placing some food directly onto the sand bed alternating where the food is placed. Other animals can also be purchased and introduced to the aquarium to assist in the cleaning up of the sand bed. These can be hermits, starfish etc but they have to be ones which will survive in a sand bed.

The other thing that is required is the actual depth of the sand bed. The sand bed needs to be a minimum of four inches in depth. Having a deep sand bed of at least this depth will create a bed which is low in oxygen at the bottom. When this happens this allows for the relevant bacteria to live which will assist in the filtration.

There are a large amount of aquarium stores now that sell sand which is designed for use in the the creation of a deep sand bed. There is a variety of colours to choose from however personally I prefer the natural ‘sand’ looking colour!

A deep sand bed is a very powerful tool for filtration and is often underestimated. Combine a deep sand bed with live rock and you have an aquarium filtration system with a large amount of power. As long as it is properly setup and properly cared for.

In answer to the question – yes decorative sand can be used for filtration as long as the fundamentals of deep sand beds are understood.

Below are links to two articles we recently wrote on this subject:

The Deep Sand Bed – One Of The Most Effective Filtration Methods

Deep Sand Bed Construction

Feeding a Deep Sand Bed

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What Is Natural Aquarium Filtration

August 15, 2008

There is one thing that I have learnt in all my years of keeping aquariums – do not underestimate nature!

It still amazes me today how powerful natural aquarium filtration actually is and how many ways there are to actually filter an aquarium or provide additional nutrient export by using the power of mother nature.

Nowadays whenever I am asked for my recommendation as to the best way to filter a marine aquarium I always mention natural filtration. In my opinion and this is purely my opinion live rock mixed with a remote deep sand bed has to be the ultimate natural based filtration available at this moment in time.

The prime advantage of using natural based filtration methods is its efficiency and the advantages that it gives to the aquarist.

A lot of people however have never heard of natural filtration never mind actually understand what it is.

So what is natural filtration?

Any filtration technique applied to an aquarium actually does have an element of nature in it – the bacteria however in a lot of occasions the container upon/in which the bacteria lives is not natural – it is manmade.

A good example of the above would be a canister filter. The bacteria is natural, however the holding device if you will has been manufactured.

Therefore a good way to explain natural filtration is that it is where the bacteria live in any area which has not been manufactured by man.

This is not a set rule however as there are exceptions to natural filtration. One of which would be using macro algae as a nutrient export tool.

Numerous natural filtration methods can be employed in the home aquarium. Some can be implemented for use as a primary filtration method whilst others can be utilised as an additional nutrient export tool.

As already stated natural filtration can be and is an exceptionally powerful tool. Think about the ocean – it is huge, however the natural filtration devices which are in use in the ocean are very similar to what we can use.

The rock structures on the coral reefs are similar to live rock filtration, grass beds are similar to a refugium/macro algae, mangrove swamps are a much larger scale of mangrove usage in the aquarium etc.

Can you see how powerful this type of filtration can be. The ocean has been filtered this way for millions of years and it can and does work in the aquarium.
Although our aquarium are minute compared to the size of the worlds oceans the end result is the same – excellent water parameters.

There is a point which needs to be made however, the filtration has been termed as natural filtration simply because it is similar to what is used in nature or is the same as is used in nature but on a much smaller scale but there will always be an element of human involvement.

That’s right – the care and maintenance. As with all things in this hobby the correct care and maintenance techniques need to be applied and this is no different with natural aquarium filtration. Nature can again be involved in this area for example using hermit crabs, snails etc to keep the rocks/sand clean however there will always be a time where we need to get involved to keep it just right and running at optimum efficiency.

If you are just starting out in this hobby or already have an aquarium and are using man-made filtration then I really recommend that you at least consider natural based aquarium filtration. It is absolutely amazing how powerful it actually is.

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