Detritus & Me....

[MayoKetchup]

Fellow Closet Fanatical Fish Equipment Huggers....

question about Detritus....

every lfs/online claim so and so invert eats detritus and how beneficially it is.. but.. uh...

if they eat it, don't they poop it out?

so in the end, don't you end up with the same thing?

or do the inverts poop out fish candy?

L.O.C.A.L.,
MayoK

 

[Kinetic]

sometimes the poop is smaller, thus will get into the water column, eaten by corals and sucked up by skimmers and other filters.

that's my understanding.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Oh... so it's coral candy!

 

[Reefugee]

Is it also possible that the poop that comes out of fish aren't completely "processed" so the inverts can still find food in the poop?

 

[MrMikeB]

It is a simple matter of following the laws of conservation of matter and energy. They cannot be created or destroyed, just transferred. When you add food (matter and energy) the fish eat it. They 'use' some of the energy to live (which comes off as heat, waves, and other forms of energy). Their poop is matter in a much different form than what they ate. Then the inverts come along, eat the tasty 'treats' and the cycle continues where they poop out what they do not use in a different form than what they took in. Then there are bacteria, algae and other organisms that do the same thing to invert poop until the food you put in basically gets transferred into many different forms and eventually gets absorbed into the body of a coral, skimmed, water changed, etc.

So yes inverts poop, but their poop is part of the whole breakdown process in transferring the matter and energy into something that we can take out or deal with.

 

[Vincerama2]

The food chain... the poop gets more and more processed as different things eat other thing's poop. Bacteria is always processing it as well.

Your skimmer will pull some organics out of the water and your live rock and it's massive colonies of bacteria will push the ANN cycle.

Also...you do periodic water changes, right?

V

 

[Vincerama2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9663211#post9663211 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Vincerama2
The food chain... the poop gets more and more processed as different things eat other thing's poop. Bacteria is always processing it as well.

Your skimmer will pull some organics out of the water and your live rock and it's massive colonies of bacteria will push the ANN cycle.

Also...you do periodic water changes, right?

Algae is great at consuming the organics as well. And then snails eat the algae...etc, etc... I know singing lions are an integral part of the Circle of Life, but I'm not sure at which point they enter the aquarium ...



V