1. water---pretty obvious, except this; water dissolves things. Salt water REALLY dissolves things. Stir some table salt into a glass of water. Note that not all dissolves. This is because what you dumped in exceeds what water wants to 'carry,' ie, how much it can hold in solution. Hot water can carry less oxygen, say, than cold water. But warm water can dissolve things cold water can't. One of those little mysteries of chemistry. Most of the ocean floor is rocks or mud---and the water dissolves things out of it; it dissolved calcium and magnesium, and sea creatures built their skeletons of it, then died, fell to the bottom, and yes, the ocean still dissolves it away.
One of nature's little wonders is that, if you drop in 4 tbs of powdered lime into 1 gallon of ro/di freshwater---just 1tbs dissolves instantly. Add more water and bingo! more of the lime that fell to the bottom instantly dissolves, then won't take any more. That's water for you.
2. your sand and rock: contains bacteria that slurp up waste just as ocean rock does; those bacteria process it until it turns to harmless nitrogen gas and floats up to the atmosphere and joins the air we breathe. Think of this sort as the 'liver' of your tank, continually purifying the water. Exceed its capacity and your tank chokes on waste. That's why we say 1 lb rock per gallon.
3. your skimmer. This is the surf of your tank. It churns up a froth, that floats to the shore and lies there until it joins the landbased ecosystem as fertilizer. This is spare amino acids and other protienacious fishy waste. That snail that died? He's froth, now.There were pix a couple of years back of a 20 foot high wall of sea foam that rolled ashore in, I think, Australia: and parents were letting their children romp in it. Reefers were going "ewwwwwwwwwwww."
4. your lights. This is the sun. Back in the Permian extinction, when a combo of a meteor impact (theoretical) and the Siberian Traps volcanic eruption blitzed the Earth's atmosphere, the earth's oxygen went bye-bye and the sunlight that got through the thick clouds was weird, like doomsday. Which it was. Cyanobacteria grew up under that lighting and succeeded so well it actually replaced the planetary atmosphere, producing so much oxygen it revived the whole planet and led to the age of dinosaurs. And you think YOUR tank has a cyano problem? ---Seriously, cyano responds to light. When your lights start to change spectrum (get old) weird things happen. Cyano is one, and lps starting to retract are another.
5. your sump. consider this the ocean deep, where nameless processes go on that you really don't want to look at. Upstairs, light sparkles and the tank is spotless. Sumps---rarely are. But they're a way to get the nasties all behind doors or downstairs.
6. Your water changes: yep, it's the rain. It's the lightning, that causes chemical changes. It's the runoff. It's the Great Refresher that brings in trace elements from the middle of the continents.
One of nature's little wonders is that, if you drop in 4 tbs of powdered lime into 1 gallon of ro/di freshwater---just 1tbs dissolves instantly. Add more water and bingo! more of the lime that fell to the bottom instantly dissolves, then won't take any more. That's water for you.
2. your sand and rock: contains bacteria that slurp up waste just as ocean rock does; those bacteria process it until it turns to harmless nitrogen gas and floats up to the atmosphere and joins the air we breathe. Think of this sort as the 'liver' of your tank, continually purifying the water. Exceed its capacity and your tank chokes on waste. That's why we say 1 lb rock per gallon.
3. your skimmer. This is the surf of your tank. It churns up a froth, that floats to the shore and lies there until it joins the landbased ecosystem as fertilizer. This is spare amino acids and other protienacious fishy waste. That snail that died? He's froth, now.There were pix a couple of years back of a 20 foot high wall of sea foam that rolled ashore in, I think, Australia: and parents were letting their children romp in it. Reefers were going "ewwwwwwwwwwww."
4. your lights. This is the sun. Back in the Permian extinction, when a combo of a meteor impact (theoretical) and the Siberian Traps volcanic eruption blitzed the Earth's atmosphere, the earth's oxygen went bye-bye and the sunlight that got through the thick clouds was weird, like doomsday. Which it was. Cyanobacteria grew up under that lighting and succeeded so well it actually replaced the planetary atmosphere, producing so much oxygen it revived the whole planet and led to the age of dinosaurs. And you think YOUR tank has a cyano problem? ---Seriously, cyano responds to light. When your lights start to change spectrum (get old) weird things happen. Cyano is one, and lps starting to retract are another.
5. your sump. consider this the ocean deep, where nameless processes go on that you really don't want to look at. Upstairs, light sparkles and the tank is spotless. Sumps---rarely are. But they're a way to get the nasties all behind doors or downstairs.
6. Your water changes: yep, it's the rain. It's the lightning, that causes chemical changes. It's the runoff. It's the Great Refresher that brings in trace elements from the middle of the continents.
