# can i use NPT way on marine tank?



## yhead777 (Jun 4, 2006)

can it work if i use soil , sea sand, marine plant and nature marine water to keep marine fish, just like NPT way ?


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## megasycophant (Oct 22, 2007)

I'm not an NPT afficionado, but I would think that the live sand/live rock/plenum method has a lot of similarities with NPT, doesn't it?


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## bencozzy (Jun 2, 2006)

actually i believe garf uses a top soil and magnesium sulfate plus aragonite mixture that they grow their mangroves and macroalgeas in.


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## newbie314 (Mar 2, 2007)

For the mangroves, is that setup up more of a brackish environment?


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## bencozzy (Jun 2, 2006)

i believe its plumbed into their main reef system and live rock vats. so it couldnt be brackish.


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## yhead777 (Jun 4, 2006)

before i try to see if the marine NPT works, the problem is i can not find the marine plant which have roots in Taiwan...

the mangrove might be a choice, but it is too big(my original purpose is to set up a tiny marine tank) and i heard from taiwan's forums that the mangrove is hard to keep in pure marine water(brackish?).

have someone keep the mangrove for marine fish?


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Thanks for your interesting, provocative question. My vote is an overall NO for using the "NPT way" for marine tanks. Several problems, not just one, come to my mind:

Seawater has over 200 times mores sulfates than most freshwaters. That fact creates one major problem-- H2S or hydrogen sulfide toxicity. Sulfates are converted to toxic H2S in anaerobic environments, particularly a soil underlayer. The combination of a high sulfate concentration and an anaerobic environment is deadly to both plants and fish (my book, pp 67 and 133). In contrast, the typical freshwater NPT can have a soil layer with a strong anaerobic environment without problem, because there's not enough sulfates in freshwater to get converted to H2S.

The second problem is that the "NPT way" is based on having plentiful organic matter (dissolved organic carbon in the water and some debris). As bacteria slowly degrade the organic matter, the degradation releases CO2 for plants. In contrast, saltwater plants and algae get their carbon from the plentiful bicarbonates in seawater. They don't need the CO2 released by bacterial degradation of organic matter.

Freshwater fish and plants are adapted to environments with organic matter (storm runoff from soils, tree leaves falling into streams, etc). During certain times of the year, oxygen levels may be somewhat less than full saturation (0.8 mg/l). In contrast, marine fish come from environments where there is little organic matter and the water is fully and consistently oxygenated.

That said, using mangroves in a sump tank connected to a main seawater tank sounds good. The mangroves, which have the "aerial advantage" (my book, Chapter IX) would efficiently remove waste and excessive nutrients from the main tank.

Marine tanks are tricky, labor-intensive, expensive, and in my opinion, unethical. The marine aquarium industry has long been associated with coral reef destruction. Poor fisherman in developing countries (desperate to feed their families) have dynamited coral reefs, electro-shocked fish, or added copper sulfate to the water. Not only are the fish and coral reefs damaged, but the harsh methods kill many fish in order to get one survivor. Yes, there are efforts by some conscientious marine hobbyists, but with all the money involved, the destruction is inevitable and will continue. 

If you must set up a marine tank, please stock it with fish that are captive- bred or are "certified" (fish sold by responsible collectors that use hand-netting, etc). Don't just buy the cheapest marine fish. Instead, support conscientious collectors that care about the coral reef environments from where these beautiful, exotic fish come.

Okay, my sermon is over.


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## cholly (Jun 12, 2007)

dwalstad said:


> Seawater has over 200 times mores sulfates than most freshwaters. That fact creates one major problem-- H2S or hydrogen sulfide toxicity. Sulfates are converted to toxic H2S in anaerobic environments, particularly a soil underlayer. The combination of a high sulfate concentration and an anaerobic environment is deadly to both plants and fish (my book, pp 67 and 133). In contrast, the typical freshwater NPT can have a soil layer with a strong anaerobic environment without problem, because there's not enough sulfates in freshwater to get converted to H2S.


Just in case it should be of any interest, quite a bit of work has been done with deep substrates in reef tanks over the past decade or so. H2S build up can be largely avoided by having a large and healthy population of benthic microfauna (the usual suspects; polychaetes, copepods, amphipods, peanut and sphagetti worms, etc)within the substrate. Such organisms are commercially available from various aquaculture operations (Indo Pacific Sea Farms, Inland Aquatics, etc). If you're curious about deep substrate options in a saltwater aquarium, I'd recommend Shimek's old Aquarium Frontiers articles (ca. 1996-1998 or so) on the subject as a starting point. His bibliographies list a number of quite useful papers on marine sediments. Adey addresses the subject briefly in 'Dynamic Aquaria' (Smithsonion Press) as well, if I recall. There is also a very simplistic overview summary of deep sand beds in reef aquaria at http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1278760 which is a bit outdated, but still fairly informative.

Having said all that, I wouldn't imagine a deep substrate would be, strictly speaking, needful in a "planted" marine tank unless one were going to attempt something like turtlegrass instead of the more typical macroalgae.



> That said, using mangroves in a sump tank connected to a main seawater tank sounds good. The mangroves, which have the "aerial advantage" (my book, Chapter IX) would efficiently remove waste and excessive nutrients from the main tank.


From a practical standpoint mangrove seedlings just grow too slowly to have an appreciable effect on water parameters. Julian Sprung experimented with them in a reef tank back in '94, and Albert Thiel did so quite extensively back around '97 if I recall correctly. For nutrient export something like chaetomorpha (on the algae side of things) or even xenia (on the coral side of things) will be tremendously more efficient than mangrove seedlings will.

On the other hand, mangroves can be attractive so if someone is interested in them for aesthetics, use'em.



> Marine tanks are tricky, labor-intensive, expensive, and in my opinion, unethical.


FWIW, I agree with the "unethical" part. It's why after twenty five years of involvement with the saltwater hobby and industry I'm back to keeping freshwater tanks again


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Hey Cholly, 

Thank you for your well-written and informative response. 
Welcome back to freshwater!

Diana


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## Jimbo205 (Feb 2, 2006)

I personally got involved with saltwater because it was the only club that was available locally in my area. www.cdmas.org After meeting Grim at Union Aquarium locally, I may finally have met a potential local freshwater club.

If approached from the right point of view, salt water or reef tanks can be ethical. The nice part of Nano Tanks is that the challenge restricts what you can put in your tank. This encourages more research and of course it makes good sense from many points of view to use captive bred fish, coral, and live rock. www.garf.org encourages this.

The planning, reading books and magazines is extensive with salt water. Very similar to freshwater aquatic planted tanks.

With a salt water tank, the only things that happen quickly are bad things. Good things with reef tanks take time. Lots of time.

Taking the ideas that I have learned here and trying to apply them to a Nano Reef tank I have found to be a challenge. But good.


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