EcoSystems

[thebanker]

I've used MM. I removed it about 9 months ago and guess what...

Nothing happened, because I had enough redundant filtration on my tank that it didn't matter. The mud really didn't do much for me other than leach iron into the water (it seems to be very good at that, the lab analysis shows it is high in Fe).

That being said, it can work just as a deep sandbed would. It is a nutrient sink. The problem is, nutrients will eventually build up in the mudbed, and it will start to leach those undesirables back into the water once it hits the saturation point.

What billsreef said is spot on. It will work as a great nutrient sink for a while, but will eventually become saturated. I know Leng Sy even recommends replacing the mud after 6 months to 1 year for this reason.

Chingchai uses it in his beautiful aquarium, but he has a lot of other filtration methods as well.

 

[RobbyG]

If we want to know how something like, mud from the bottom of the ocean, will effect a tiny glass box with delicate reef creatures in it, we simply need to look at science and our understanding of nature for the answers. We know that tropical coral reefs, at least the healthy growing ones, are found in very clean/nutrient poor environments. This tells us that the animals living there have evolved to prosper under these conditions. Knowing this, it becomes obvious that confining these animals in a tiny glass box with a bunch of rot and decay would be a bad idea.

That post is the best advice you could ever get!

I wish more people would just think about what's in a healthy real Reef and stick with that rather than trying all sorts of wierd ideas. Don't even get me started on the new found power that LED's are giving people, now Tanks are becoming Disco's and people set lighting to match their tastes not the health of the corals. The real Pity is that each time a new fandangled item comes out, it ends up putting truck loads of Corals and fishes into Land fills, not saying MM fits this catagory, it may be beneficial but why chance it when the whole concept moves so far away from a healthy real world reef environment, just like so many products of the past two decades.

 

[herring_fish]

Miracle Mud is an old idea. In the 90s, it was the new interesting alternative to the algae scrubber. It had mud, caulerpa instead of turf algae, and bio balls which were more popular back then.

Billsreef,

Please let me return to the hijack with a quick question. On the open ocean reef, isn't there a big difference between nutrient rich and nutritious? Live plankton can consume nutrients to very low levels but until it dies and rots it can be a loaded source of nice bite sized nutritious meals for a wide variety of different sized coral and fish mouths . Yes?

 

[docbattysreef]

Yesterday I attended a briefing by Leng Sy the inventor of the EcoSystem Miracle Mud. Sounded interesting and he provided some strong support of the concept. I am setting up a 185 Gallon mixed reef and am thinking about going this route. Basically stated the system does not use a protein skimmer, it uses a refugium containing a 1 1/4" deep bed of Miracle Mud with a flow of 1000+ GPH.

Looking to see if anyone is currently using this system or has used it in the past. Would like to hear your personal review and all the Pros and Cons you experienced.

Thanks

I don't currently use this method but I did maintain a tank for years using this method. The tank I used this method in was a 55 gallon mixed reef but without acros. The system ran great for years. I didn't encounter any problems in that system that I haven't experienced in other systems. I think the real key to this method actually isn't the mud but keeping the tank bare bottom and removing debris before it has a chance to break down.

 

[billsreef]

Billsreef,

Please let me return to the hijack with a quick question. On the open ocean reef, isn't there a big difference between nutrient rich and nutritious? Live plankton can consume nutrients to very low levels but until it dies and rots it can be a loaded source of nice bite sized nutritious meals for a wide variety of different sized coral and fish mouths . Yes?

If you are looking at the difference between dissolved nutrients in the seawater, and bite sized packets of nutrients bundled into organisms like bacteria, plankton, inverts, and fish, then yes. If you look at as the sum total of nutrients available on the reef (in the water as well as what is bound up in organisms) than not so much. Though for us and the sort of tests we typically run and the sort of water quality needed for our tanks we do need to pay attention to the nutrient poor idea of dissolved nutrients in the water, and then make up for the availability of those bite sized meals with adding food for our reef tanks. Naturally, being a closed glass box without all the components of a natural reef, we don't get the same sort of tight recycling of those nutrients we add, hence the build up of dissolved nutrients we experience in our tanks and constantly battle.

 

[ant-elp]

leaving ulns behind going back to mud method best tank i ever had good riddens also the other blogger is dead wrong ther is so much dom on a clear reef get your facts straight.good luck with your mud system you wont be dissapointed

 

[elegance coral]

leaving ulns behind going back to mud method best tank i ever had good riddens also the other blogger is dead wrong ther is so much dom on a clear reef get your facts straight.good luck with your mud system you wont be dissapointed

Easy killer!

I'm sorry, but what you're saying makes no sense. As DOM goes up, water clarity goes down. If you look at water from places like swamps, river mouths, or the collection cup of a skimmer, the level of DOM is often so high that you can't see into it beyond a few inches, or not at all. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, you find waters around healthy, tropical, coral reefs that are very clear because it is very low in DOM. It is very hard to find water in the natural world that is clearer, or lower in DOM, than the water around healthy, tropical, coral reefs. About the only places, I know of, that could compare would be deep aquifers, mountain streams, or the open ocean. This is simple. Clean water is clear. Dirty water is not. So to say, "ther is so much dom on a clear reef", is simply wrong. :headwally:

 

[barjam]

I have never heard anyone debate whether sps feed or not (in the wild). I didn't know it was in question.

Also the poster who claimed that the coral reefs are nutrient poor and the open ocean is nutrient rich is 100% wrong. The open ocean is incredibly nutrient poor and the coral reefs are very nutrient rich. The reefs are just efficient at locking up nutrients and recycling them.

 

[elegance coral]

I have never heard anyone debate whether sps feed or not (in the wild). I didn't know it was in question.

Also the poster who claimed that the coral reefs are nutrient poor and the open ocean is nutrient rich is 100% wrong. The open ocean is incredibly nutrient poor and the coral reefs are very nutrient rich. The reefs are just efficient at locking up nutrients and recycling them.

Who said the open ocean was nutrient rich?
Coral reefs are nutrient rich in comparison to what? Other than environments that are commonly referred to as deserts and support very little life.

 

[CinciReefer]

Incredible how this thread turned out! A ton of good reading in this one. Thank everyone that contributed to this one, I learned a ton!

 

[Paolo Piccinell]

Coral reefs are nutrient rich in comparison to what?

in comparison to surrounding ocean.

DOM is higher, but the distinctive trait on reef communities is POM abundance (bacterioplankton, fitoplankton, zooplankton of different sizes).
My aim as a reef aquarist is to have zero DOM and very high POM in my tank.

DOM is food for corals, unfortunately it's low quality food and it is consumed by cyanobacteria and algae too, so it is the worst kind of food I would give to my tank.

POM is food for corals and filter feeders, expecially when it is intended to be live POM (tiny swimming nutrient packages).
The advantage here is that it does not support algal growth, and it does not start to rot when it is added to the tank.

 

[ivans75]

in comparison to surrounding ocean.

My aim as a reef aquarist is to have zero DOM and very high POM in my tank.

How do you do this? It is not possible to have zero DOM in a closed aquarium system. The POM will eventually sink to the bottom or stick on live rocks and could then become DOM.

My tank got 0 nitrate and 0.05 phosphate and still i get cyano. The POM that sinks on the bottom and sticks on the sand will fuel cyano growth. In the ocean thats different story.

 

[dz6t]

what is POM stands for? P... organic matter?

 

[billsreef]

Particulate Organic Matter

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I know I'm chiming in late, but I had a few comments.

I agree with others in this thread who have reservations about looking at a tank and knowing anything about the utility of a particular method used in it. Suppose the method does NOTHING good or bad. If that is the case, then one can obviously have an incredible reef tank using that "method", along with the other usual husbandry techniques that work.

IMO, the question is what does the mud provide that is useful (if anything) and is the commercial mud the best way to provide that.

I thought the biggest claim was release of metals such as iron from the mud. If so, why would one assume that adding mud is the best way to provide such elements? Why not add them directly and in more controlled fashion and see the useful effects (or not).

A second idea relates to refugia as a whole. Well, OK, refugia may be very useful. I have several big ones on my system. Would they be better with a commercial mud on the bottom? Why?

 

[r-balljunkie]

I'm sorry, but this isn't true of healthy tropical coral reefs. The waters in these areas are crystal clear. The reason they're clear, and you can see such long distances under water, is because they lack particulate matter.

I'm afraid this statement is not true. we dive every weekend. when the morning divers get back, and the afternoon divers start loading the gear, one of the first questions we as is 'how was the vis (visibility) today?" it changes constantly, and differs lagoon to ocean side. it can be 10', it can be 200'.

Case in point I do a walk in dive and try to hit my favorite coral head. your swimming on the surface and shooting a compass direction of 240 from a certain buoy. I know the damn coral head is there but on some days I just flat out miss it. it's a football field wide and only 70' deep, but I still miss it because the vis is so bad. some days when the visibility is good, you can't miss it. it's right there in front of you.

there's tons and tons of floaties in the water, some look like molecular chains of white transparent goo, some look like specs. this is what gives you backscatter on a lot of your underwater photo's too.

back on the original topic...dried mud from the bottom of the ocean floor?..meh. never seen any mud on my dives on the reef. I think it's a bit gimmicky. I tried it some time ago(8-10 years ago??), found no real benefits to it, so pulled it out. my tank seems to be doing fine without it.

 

[jimmy frag]

that photo could be Mexico. i dont see a reef

 

[r-balljunkie]

that photo could be Mexico. i dont see a reef

wow, ur hilarious dude.
this is me lost and trying to find the aforementioned coral head LOL.

I have to post up bad pics to prove a point. i checked the turtles passport, indeed stamped for the Marshall islands and not from Mexico.

here's some from RMI and Phuket for reference.

 

[ivans75]

R-ball, i was actually waiting for someone to show something like this.

I don't really understand there are lots of debate from people who got no idea of what coral reefs water like.

Guys I live in Indonesia where your corals are from, don't simply assume it is clear and whatnot if you never seen it yourself. It is not dirty as well. But floating particles or organics are everywhere.

I've been to South sumatera for a fishing trip and I saw a plankton boom in the water surrounding the reef area.

The water in reefs area are full of floating particles. NOT CLEAR.
When you look from the top of the water in shallow areas, yes you can see the bottom quite clearly. But it is not that "clean"

What I mean by "clean" is as clean as potable water when you cant see many floating particles.

I took a water test taken from water of 5 meters depth (free diving) and surprisingly the nitrate was 0 and phosphate was 0.06 measured by hanna checker. Calcium was 440 and mg was in 1300 mark.

Dont just read books and article but also listen to those who actually live and experience the water of where these corals are from.

I was snorkling in one of the island in thousand island north of jakarta. Granted that the area has been much deteriorated but you can see almost clearly till about 6-7 meters depth from the top. When you dive down, you will see many floating matters.
Here's my pictures taken from my facebook. This was a trip organized by our nature adventure group Lintascafe.com Should one of you would like to visit us, we would be happy to take you for a little dive in our little heaven.

My friend trying to be a fish lo

Me on the left

A cute girl, you can see its actually "looks" clear from the top

 

[ivans75]