Berlin system for freshwater tank?

No water changes!?! In Montana (arid highland plains & mountains) we can lose 2 gallons a day from a big tank to evaporation, so the accumulation of minerals and any chemicals (or anything, for that matter) can be pretty impressive. I can't imagine not changing the water at least once a month....

Is this different in more humid climates where evaporation is not such an issue?

Wedge
 
Didnt mean to imply that plenums wouldnt denitrify on their own.

I meant that plants will improve tank conditions, much like the protein skimmer and photosynthetic critters in reef tanks. (algae, corals, clams, etc.)


Wedge- if your worried about water contaminents, you might want to invest in an RO/DI unit, or at least a DI unit. They can dramatically improve your water. Ro itself removes around 95% of all water contaminents, and with the DI unit it will remove around 99%.


My 90 gallon tank evaporates around 4-5 gallons daily (during winter anyways). With the seasonal water changes that influence the NO3, silicate, copper, and phosphate levels, im not taking any chances. Nice little setup tapped directly into the cold water pipes. The Ro fills a 5 gallon bucket (conviently located on top of a floor drain :D) then automatically shuts off. When the water level in the tank drops, the float switch turns on the pump and the tank gets filled back up. Very convient setup. Im currently adding a 25 gallon bucket to the system. Fill it up with water and use it to do water changes.
 
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I think what we need to do here is look at the Berlin system in principle, and apply these principles to the freshwater aquarium. At the recent instant ocean senimar 2002, speaker Dietrich Stuber was talking about the Berlin system. He said that the main aspects of the Berlin system are:
1) the tank
2) the lighting
3) the water motion
4) the filter
5) the skimmer
as we are looking at this from a freshwater point of view, we can cross the skimmer off as it wouldnt actually do anything for a freshwater tank.
As for the others....
The tank should be as large as possible so as to keep water chemistry as stable as possible.
Because the key to the Berlin system is nature, then plants should be incorporated and because of this there should be good lighting for the plants.
You may think that water motion is mainly a marine thing, but you have to see past the Berlin system as marine, and tyhink of it more as being 'the natural approach'. When looked upon from this perspective, you can see that what you have to do with water motion is reproduce what it would be like in nature. For example, a fast flowing river of stagnant pool, and replicate this with water movement in the aquarium.
Now, the filter is quite contary to what has been writtin so far in this thread. I thinm you would be causing alot of hassle for yourself by running a tank without one, and since it is in fact a component of the Berlin system, i would include one.
 
i must admit slipknottin...i didnt think there was either. but one thing i do know is that Dietrich Stuber knows a thing or two more about te Berlin system than i do.
 
Lee Eng was the "inventor" of the modern Berlin reef aquarium. He used nothing but liverock and and airstones.

Peter Wilkens is the most famous of the people behind the Berlin system. His tanks were setup with no wet/dry or undergravel filters, which were common at the time. His work has been expanded on by Alf Nilsen, Charles Delbeek, and Julian Sprung. None of which used mechanical filters.

Mr. Struber does not use mechanical filtration.

The second system I would like to describe belongs to Mr. D. Stuber of Berlin, Germany. Mr. Stuber has been in the hobby for more than 20 years and his system is representative of what is known as the "Berlin School" of aquarium keeping. Two 250-watt Osram HQI metal halide lights (replaced every six months), supplemented with blue fluorescents (actinic-type tubes), are used on his 700-liter (185-gallon) aquarium. The lights come on and go off in stages during a 13-hour period.

Filtration consists simply of a small overflow that drains into a sump. The sump contains a few small compartments for prefiltration and one for calcareous gravel, in which denitrification is believed to occur. Water is pumped from the sump into two 4-foot, air driven protein skimmers (completely cleaned everyday) and then flows back into the tank. These skimmers were designed and built by hobbyists in Berlin and have been used for many years. Air is pumped into the skimmers at a rate of 700 liters (185 gallons) per hour, which is approximately 1 liter (0.26 gallon) per hour of air per liter of aquarium water. There are six Tunze Turbelle water pumps located in the tank itself to promote vigorous water movement (Stuber, 1989).
Click to expand...
 
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It is generally accepted by the aquarium community that the Berlin system only uses live rock and a protein skimmer, with no other filtration. If we have misinterpreted the way this was originally proposed, so be it, but the general understanding is what Slipknottin had previously stated.
 
i am aware that the filtration he was referring to was his live rock and sedimentation compartment. however, we are applying this to a freshwater aquarium which would not be able to contain the live rock filtration of the marine aquarium. and, as he did state filtration to be very important in the article i read in practical fishkeeping magazine March 2003, a magazine which Julian Sprung also writes for (i often read his section with great interest), it would be advisable to include it for the well being of the occupants.
 
Not true, live rock has both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. You can easily simulate these conditions with rock such as tufa, or lava rock, and with a moderate to deep substrate.
 
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