How does the sea differ from a tank?

[KafudaFish]

How to be a master plumber:

1. Small pipe to big pipe
2. Drain does at the lowest point of a floor (some don't get this though)
3. Gravity works in all situations (see #1).

See Paul gets it why can't others.

 

[barnett8]

Its bigger too. :lol:

 

[dougsidd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15548631#post15548631 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
...thats why I add bacteria from the sea.

Paul, I'm curious how you "add bacteria from the sea." I'm guessing this means that you add/use NSW. How much? How often? In San Diego, we have access to filtered NSW at the Scripps Institute pier, and there's an ongoing debate over the safety issue. Some are concerned about disease, bacteria, toxins (red tide) and/or runoff pollution. The other side of the argument is that it's passed through three sand filters and used in all the tanks at the Birch Aquarium, along with the fact that many people use the stuff with success.

--------
Doug

 

[Paul B]

Doug I use unfiltered sea water right near NYC. My tank is 40 years old and I have always done this. I have never had a paracite or any other disease issue.
I just added some today.
As for bacteria, there is not much in seawater but there is plenty in mud. I take some regular mud from the Long Island Sound or sand from ocean beaches and put it in a container in my tank.
After a few days I remove the mud. I also collect amphipods and other things which I put in the tank for food.

I was in San Diego this year, I didn't see you

I also was asked to speak in Stockton California this year and I brought someone there New York Mud for his tank. I don't know if it did anything for him but I did not hear that it gave his tank paracites or anything else.
People get paranoid with this stuff. All of our animals came from NSW and I have been to the places where they collect this stuff.
Many of them have no sewage facilities and people worry about bacteria from NSW from civilized countries. If NSW were not so heavy I would use nothing else. ASW does not compare.

 

[Qcks]

I think the way things are remediated in our tanks is a significant difference. The hobby manually removes much of what nature can break down.

As a for instance, I read a paper that talked about the mechanisms for remediating lipids (fats and oils) in marine environments. The paper identified two mechanisms: UV light and microbial communities that live in the sand on the beach.
The microbial community broke down the lipids through a fermentation process.
Within the context of the tank, nether of those options are really viable. letting a lipid sit on top of the water takes up surface area, preventing oxygen exchange, and probably doesn't recieve enough Ultraviolet light to decompose.
The microbial community might work, but the established methods in the hobby create a logistical barrier here since lipids, for the most part, float. Meaning that the lipids never reach the microbes that facilitate their decomposition.

Most lipids are simply skimmed out and removed from the tank.

 

["Umm fish?"]

And why are all those baby fish swimming around all over the place? Because mama and papa fish are all fat from eating all day long and have plenty of extra for gamete production. Right on, Paul.

 

[rizakaniza]

Great post! I was actually thinking about the sunshine comment the other day. I wish there was a way to program a random cloudy day into my ReefKeeper Lite.

 

[Paul B]

I wish there was a way to program a random cloudy day into my ReefKeeper Lite.

Un plug it

 

[dougsidd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15571485#post15571485 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
I was in San Diego this year, I didn't see you ...
QUOTE]

Well, I only hang out in the best dive bars.

 

[SpencerG]

Good food for thought. I've wondered how these relatively shallow tanks affect the fish. I've also wondered about the effects of sound from all the pumps, skimmer, etc. Probably not great, but they adapt and many live much longer lives than in the wild, though some bite the dust well before their time. I have also wondered whether in the quest for stability, we may be overlooking the stength that can come from variation and occasional stresses.

I've put sand, water and snails from coastal Alabama and South Carolina in my tank, with no ill effects. I've tested the water as well. I have not used anything from coastal Mississippi - it's too close to the Mississippi River. The water is brackish, and the sand/mud is foul smelling. On second thought, I bet there is a lot of nitrifying bacteria in there though with all the nitrates from Iowa flowing out to the Gulf. Maybe there's Mississippi Miracle Mud in my backyard. Seriously though, I have to imagine that NSW and sand/mud help supply some natural things that the system needs and that may not come in sufficient supply through the live rock.

What are some easy things we can all do that will make our tanks a bit more like the ocean?

 

[Paul B]

I have to imagine that NSW and sand/mud help supply some natural things that the system needs and that may not come in sufficient supply through the live rock.

I have always used natural mud from New York. We have plenty of mud here due to the fact that the Long Island Sound was carved out by a glacier when WaterKeeper was born.
The bottom is mud. New York Harbor and the Hudson River is Mud. The East River (not really a river) is also mud. The only sandy beaches we have are the Ocean Beaches which surround Long Island.

Clean sandy ocean beach

This is the East River, all mud and very thick. I have been down there.

 

[WaterKeeper]

I was washed ashore in an alluvial deposit just about where the little red lighthouse stands below the GWB eons ago.

When we calculate the volume of water per fish in the ocean we do need to consider that vast areas of the ocean contain very few fish. Even the numbers of bacteria and other organisms differ greatly from one area of the ocean to the next. Reef areas are an oasis of life in the sea and support huge populations of fish and invertebrates compared to the open ocean. Still that open ocean is one heck of a great sump.

Now Paul doesn't understand that we were possibly all given birth my lighting. Back when I was created there was a soup of organic molecules moving about in the atmosphere and lighting bolt probably fused some of the molecules into amino acids and then, later, they would supply DNA for the ocean waters. Our chemistry sets were really primitive back in those days but somehow we managed to use that DNA for useful purposes and hence we are overwhelming the earth's resources.

It is somewhat the same with this hobby. Often, because it enhances are viewing pleasure, we forget that we are cramming fish that would not normally be found together into a crowded environment. Sure we go through all sorts of mechanical and biological filtration methods but the fact is we always want more. One of the things I try to instill to all my newbies is that a tank has limits. They are not clear cut but they do quickly manifest themselves when exceeded. Only by careful selection of livestock and resisting the temptation to constantly add more will a tank flourish and only by careful husbandry will it remain viable.

 

[Paul B]

Back when I was created there was a soup of organic molecules moving about in the atmosphere

I was created from clam chowder

 

["Umm fish?"]

I thought the latest word on the last common ancestor was that it was a hyperthermophile and that the deep sea thermal vents might be the origin of the soup? At any rate, we should ask Sanjay. I heard they wanted to call it "Sanjay World" but that some boring scientist insisted on "RNA world" instead.

 

[WaterKeeper]

Are you Joshi me.

 

[lougotzz]

I lived on long island. I miss Jones Beach. Thats a nice looking shark you have, got anymore photos of it?

 

[Paul B]

Are you talking about the nurse shark from the Caymans? I have been diving since Waterkeeper was knee high to a clown gobi so I got a million of them. Almost all of them were taken with a film camera so they are not digital.
Film is something you used to put in camera's that looks like Scotch tape.

 

[WaterKeeper]

My Brownie uses film but it didn't fare too well when I took it underwater.

 

[Paul B]

My Brownie uses film but it didn't fare too well when I took it underwater.

You should have waited until it turned into a girl scout.

 

["Umm fish?"]

They still don't fare too well when you take them underwater. They _are_ good for starting fires on the beach, though.