Peter Eichler
New member
Are you asking in relation to overskimming or just that conversation in general?
Common Misconceptions In the Hobby
- Thread starter Peter Eichler
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Are you asking in relation to overskimming or just that conversation in general?
Peter Eichler
New member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12465636#post12465636 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tbittner
I think that overskimming is possible if you're trying to keep goni's or gorg's. But has anyone been successful in keeping those AND SPS in the same tank?
Well, than brings up another common misconception. That being that SPS corals require super low nutrients and huge amounts of light to thrive. SPS corals are just about the most diverse group of corals in the ocean and the ideal environment from specimen to specimen can be quite different. In nature you can find SPS corals in high light, low light, high nutrients, low nutrients, high current, low current, and everything in between.
Good point. But has anyone found Goni's or Gorg's living in nutrient poor water in the ocean?
I know, success in keeping those two is still very much speculation but the ones who have been successful seem to do it with a nutrient rich environment.
I guess the proper response to the question:
"Is it possible to overskim" is:
"Depends..."
I know, success in keeping those two is still very much speculation but the ones who have been successful seem to do it with a nutrient rich environment.
I guess the proper response to the question:
"Is it possible to overskim" is:
"Depends..."
Peter Eichler
New member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12465786#post12465786 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tbittner
Good point. But has anyone found Goni's or Gorg's living in nutrient poor water in the ocean?
I know, success in keeping those two is still very much speculation but the ones who have been successful seem to do it with a nutrient rich environment.
I guess the proper response to the question:
"Is it possible to overskim" is:
"Depends..."
Gorgonians are often assosciated with lower nutrient reefs. Goniopora are typically found in higher nutrient lagoons and coastal zones but I wouldn't be shocked if they were found in closer assosciation with the reefs as well, though it's not typical.
I agree with your summation on if it's possible to overskim
shred5
Premium Member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12465786#post12465786 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tbittner
Good point. But has anyone found Goni's or Gorg's living in nutrient poor water in the ocean?
I know, success in keeping those two is still very much speculation but the ones who have been successful seem to do it with a nutrient rich environment.
I guess the proper response to the question:
"Is it possible to overskim" is:
"Depends..."
Gorgonians live in nutrient poor water everywhere. And goniopora while I have never seen any in my dive trips I have seen video of Palau where they are growing on a sloped wall as far as the eye can see and the only thing you see and this was nutirent poor water... weird thing is I was talking with Eric Borneman a few years back about goniopora and the Palau goniopra was brought up.. He said the hole thing was wiped out a few years back...
People need to realise there is a difference between nutrient poor and food rich.. while there is not a lot of nutrient there can be allot of food ie plankton.. Gorgonians for example do not like nutrient rich water because algae can easily overtake them but they do require food more than most corals esp the non-photosynthetic type..
Dave
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Aquarist007
New member
its good that you have defined the term nutrient rich as food rich aks rich in zooplankton for corals and phytoplankton for zooplankton
and it also works into the "depends" summary if you can overskim by bitner
too me this comes back to your reef filtration setup
eg how are you using your refugium(s) filtration/ food production which is related to flow rates. Where and how are your drains and returns setup for the tank.
IMO if setup effeciently skimming still has a vital role in the aquarium ecosytem and can help remove some organics that are basically toxic to other living things
again to respect what Peter said--we don't know what a skimmer is doing for sure but in a poorly setup system we do know that it can work against what we are trying to accomplish--the nutrient or food enriched envirnoment with a wide variety of inverts and useful bacteria
this is why I. also, really like the answer to overskimming being "depends"
Aquarist007
New member
with two refugiums I have lots---but I have gone out of my way to learn how and setup up my system to maintain it that way
shred5
Premium Member
I agree. I was not debating if you can over skimm.. There is
another thread on that going on right now where I have replied.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=12465201#post12465201
I just did not want to repeat my self on that topic.
To answer your question.. phyto is algae. I think you mean zooplankton in general and the answer is very little.
capn_hylinur one thing about a refugium with algae is it will lower the nutrients but it also can increase food supply by harboring other critters.
Dave
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I understand and I wasn't debating either.
Your statement is a good statement and knowing the difference is key to maintaining a nice reef. The goal is to maintain a healthy, regenerating food supply for our captive reef while still maintaining enough other organisisms to eat the "food" that dies. That will keep nitrAtes and phosphates low without the need for a skimmer and/or chemicals of any kind.
I think a well established reef that is a few years old and has had meticulous husbandry applied to it can reach that point. But there probably needs to be a regenerative amount of sand fauna added occasionally in order to keep that life up into the quantities required to keep the dead "food" consumed.
shred5
Premium Member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12467883#post12467883 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tbittner
I understand and I wasn't debating either.
Your statement is a good statement and knowing the difference is key to maintaining a nice reef. The goal is to maintain a healthy, regenerating food supply for our captive reef while still maintaining enough other organisisms to eat the "food" that dies. That will keep nitrAtes and phosphates low without the need for a skimmer and/or chemicals of any kind.
I think a well established reef that is a few years old and has had meticulous husbandry applied to it can reach that point. But there probably needs to be a regenerative amount of sand fauna added occasionally in order to keep that life up into the quantities required to keep the dead "food" consumed.
I had edited my post probably while you were typing this.
"To answer your question.. phyto is algae. I think you mean zooplankton in general and the answer is very little."
Can you keep a tank with out a skimmer and just a fuge yes, I have seen it done. Can you support large populations of plankton, I doubt it for the average reef tank. It would take a massive fuge. I f you have ever been diving you would know what I am talking about. But is it possible maybe?. Harbor aqautics had some huge holding tanks for love rock and they were tied in with more large holding tanks.. These things were huge though and the life in there was amazing. You seen things living in there that you would not have seen in a normal reef tank. Things in there lived just like they were in the ocean.
Dave
Paul B
Premium Member
Gorgs usually live a long life in my tank. My tank as some know is not that clean. I am not making a statement as to which type of water they prefer but I know they can live in not so pristine conditions.
Also I do not believe you can overskim. I live by the sea, and I am a Captain so I spend a lot of time watching the water. When there is any foam at all the water is polluted. Clean seawater does not make foam no matter how much you agitate it. After your skimmer pulls out whatever it is pulling out, it will foam no more and no more nutrients can be removed. I am talking about a properly run skimmer, not one that is just removing clean water.
You can stand on an ocean beach on a windy day and tell how clean the water is just by watching the foam at the breakers.
If the bubbles last at all, the water has some problems.
Of course the water could still be polluted even if it does not foam. Not all pollutants make foam. But sea foam is a sure sign of pollution.
Also I do not believe you can overskim. I live by the sea, and I am a Captain so I spend a lot of time watching the water. When there is any foam at all the water is polluted. Clean seawater does not make foam no matter how much you agitate it. After your skimmer pulls out whatever it is pulling out, it will foam no more and no more nutrients can be removed. I am talking about a properly run skimmer, not one that is just removing clean water.
You can stand on an ocean beach on a windy day and tell how clean the water is just by watching the foam at the breakers.
If the bubbles last at all, the water has some problems.
Of course the water could still be polluted even if it does not foam. Not all pollutants make foam. But sea foam is a sure sign of pollution.
Aquarist007
New member
Paul lets take your point a little further--you have a skimmer that has taken all it can from your reef tank--then have you not robbed that ecosystem of everything that is good for your corals and inverts--so in fact you have overskimmed
Over skimmed compared to what? Certainly many reef tanks are over skimmed when compared to atlantic water off the New York coast. North atlantic water are pretty nutrient rich compared to tropical reef waters.
It probably is not possible to over skim compared to tropical reef waters. They are pretty darn clean;
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1107_keyholecoral.html
Although if that article is true, we may want the tanks a little 'dirty', because no way we can duplicate those sponges. So it may not be that Paul's gorg's 'like' dirty water (or zoos, or whatever) but that they have to feed off something, and if you can't get gorg poop, then another poop might do.
So here is my misconception;
There is good science backing up most of what we reefers believe goes on in our tanks.
Huh, no. You cannot reliably duplicate a reef in a glass box. You cannot even duplicate the same reef TANK twice. That means no 'control' for your conclusions.
It's virtually all anecdotal.
nalbar
It probably is not possible to over skim compared to tropical reef waters. They are pretty darn clean;
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1107_keyholecoral.html
Although if that article is true, we may want the tanks a little 'dirty', because no way we can duplicate those sponges. So it may not be that Paul's gorg's 'like' dirty water (or zoos, or whatever) but that they have to feed off something, and if you can't get gorg poop, then another poop might do.
So here is my misconception;
There is good science backing up most of what we reefers believe goes on in our tanks.
Huh, no. You cannot reliably duplicate a reef in a glass box. You cannot even duplicate the same reef TANK twice. That means no 'control' for your conclusions.
It's virtually all anecdotal.
nalbar
greenbean36191
Premium Member
....misconception #478.
She's my avatar because she makes me smile too. I'm a guy. That's not me. I believe capn knows some links about her too.
greenbean36191
Premium Member
There is very little doubt in my mind that you can, in theory, overskim a tank. How common a problem it actually is, I don't think anyone knows.
First, reefs in nature are low in dissolved nutrients. They are not devoid of nutrients. There is a dissolved nutrient pool and it's known that corals do utilize it. Also, natural DOM concentrations may or may not be the thing we want to shoot for. It's been shown that in many cases dissolved nutrients can be low enough that they're limiting to coral growth. They actually grow better with low levels of nutrient enrichment such as that provided by fish. Free amino acids are one common component of the dissolved nutrient pool that are used by corals and they're also one of the groups you would expect to be heavily removed by skimming.
Also, like shred5 pointed out, low in dissolved nutrients does not mean low in food. Photosynthesis gives corals at least part of their requirements for C, but doesn't meet their requirements for N. The coral has to get their nitrogen from either dissolved N compounds or from ingesting food, the latter usually being more important, especially when the dissolved organic pool is small (like if you skimmed out all the amino acids and the algae were taking up all the nitrate). Besides dissolved organics skimmers are also thought to be very effective at removing small particulate organics and nano and picoplankton. Guess what's thought to make up the bulk of the diet for Acropora? It's thought that they feed mostly on bacteria, some of which they farm on their bodies (and are probably more responsible for the measured use of dissolved nitrogen), and some of which exist as planktonic clumps or as coatings on particulate matter.
In most cases I think people are at very little risk of overskimming. The people at the biggest risk would be the typical SPS reefer with an oversized skimmer, few fish, and very little feeding.
First, reefs in nature are low in dissolved nutrients. They are not devoid of nutrients. There is a dissolved nutrient pool and it's known that corals do utilize it. Also, natural DOM concentrations may or may not be the thing we want to shoot for. It's been shown that in many cases dissolved nutrients can be low enough that they're limiting to coral growth. They actually grow better with low levels of nutrient enrichment such as that provided by fish. Free amino acids are one common component of the dissolved nutrient pool that are used by corals and they're also one of the groups you would expect to be heavily removed by skimming.
Also, like shred5 pointed out, low in dissolved nutrients does not mean low in food. Photosynthesis gives corals at least part of their requirements for C, but doesn't meet their requirements for N. The coral has to get their nitrogen from either dissolved N compounds or from ingesting food, the latter usually being more important, especially when the dissolved organic pool is small (like if you skimmed out all the amino acids and the algae were taking up all the nitrate). Besides dissolved organics skimmers are also thought to be very effective at removing small particulate organics and nano and picoplankton. Guess what's thought to make up the bulk of the diet for Acropora? It's thought that they feed mostly on bacteria, some of which they farm on their bodies (and are probably more responsible for the measured use of dissolved nitrogen), and some of which exist as planktonic clumps or as coatings on particulate matter.
In most cases I think people are at very little risk of overskimming. The people at the biggest risk would be the typical SPS reefer with an oversized skimmer, few fish, and very little feeding.
greenbean36191
Premium Member
I agree that hobbyists generally believe that more is known about our animals than really is or they assume that certain things are known for sure when there's really just preliminary or controversial data. I also think hobbyists tend to bastardize good science by reading more into a statement than is really there. A great example is people reading in a news story that "temperature increases of as little as 2 degrees can cause coral bleaching." I've seen hobbyists use that statement as evidence for their argument that temperature fluctuations kill reef animals when in fact the statement isn't even talking about fluctuations, but rather sustained temperatures two degrees above the normal maximum.
I certainly don't agree though that very little of what we do has scientific backing. There's certainly a lot of trial and error and gap filling that goes on in the hobby, but we know quite a bit, especially about biochemistry and physiology from empirical work.
shred5
Premium Member
greenbean36191 pretty much said it all... Zooxanthellae pretty much produce glucose which is sugar for the coral (carbon). Could you just live on sugar... Ingesting bacteria can provide a source of phosphate and nitrogen. Bacteria is also easily skimmed removed by the skimmer.
Dave
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