Graduate Research
- Thread starter Pwamf
- Start date
TucanSam007
New member
Pwamf, great to hear your going into research in reef aquariums for your graduate program. My career is in agriculture and I'm looking to move into a combined agriculture/aquaculture field moving forward. I think we could certainly brainstorm some good ideas on here but whats your criteria? Are you looking at ornamental stock breeding in reef aquariums, or the saltwater hobby it self as a whole? I think further research is needed in the advancement of Led's and the correct spectrum.
Is you background biology, chemistry, or something else?
OK, because there are some strict chemistry things (like analyzing organics in the aquarium), but that's probably not what you'd want.
There are tons of questions, and some will be much harder nuts to crack than others.
For example, in ultra low nutrient systems, some SPS corals are said to get "burnt tips" when the alkalinity is higher than 7-8 dKH (say, at 11 dKH), while those same corals in higher nutrient systems seem not to suffer that way. First off, is it a phosphate or nitrogen effect, and beyond that, why does it happen?
I expect I know the answer to this one, but is any strontium needed in the water for hard corals to thrive (I expect not). Many reefers seem to think it is useful, but the number of folks thinking so has declined over time. A DIY salt could be made with and without strontium, and you could compare coral frags from the same parent in side by side aquaria.
That same format could be used to test a lot of hypothesis (iodine, phosphate, nitrate, etc. ).
There are tons of questions, and some will be much harder nuts to crack than others.
For example, in ultra low nutrient systems, some SPS corals are said to get "burnt tips" when the alkalinity is higher than 7-8 dKH (say, at 11 dKH), while those same corals in higher nutrient systems seem not to suffer that way. First off, is it a phosphate or nitrogen effect, and beyond that, why does it happen?
I expect I know the answer to this one, but is any strontium needed in the water for hard corals to thrive (I expect not). Many reefers seem to think it is useful, but the number of folks thinking so has declined over time. A DIY salt could be made with and without strontium, and you could compare coral frags from the same parent in side by side aquaria.
That same format could be used to test a lot of hypothesis (iodine, phosphate, nitrate, etc. ).
AC2020x
Marine Conservationist
That is certainly a cool idea.. I will be following along with this thread as well.. I'm working as an undergraduate student under Dr. Todd Lajeunesse at Penn State and may have the chance to do some biology related research of my own as we are setting up a couple coral aquariums right now for research purposes.
Seems to me this subject's complex enough for a bunch of grad student to get degrees for years to come.
Majority_Rules
Member
Could you research why exactly vitamin C helps zoas? No one REALLY knows why it works so well. It's all just speculation at this point. There are tons of theories but it would be cool find out what exactly the vitamin C is doing to help.
If anything. Showing it has an effect different than vinegar would also be interesting to see side by side.
FWIW, showing why something happens can be an almost impossible task in many cases, while showing what does or does not happen is much more straight forward.
coralreefdoc
New member
Tying into/building upon this insightful comment ... Potassiums crucial role
Misunderstood by many and would be an interesting research analysis, inevitably well received within the advanced reef community
VectorAKA
New member
same
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