DavidinGA
Active member
Easier depends on if you have a 50gal or 500gal tank....
I don't do water changes
- Thread starter houstonhobby
- Start date
Easier depends on if you have a 50gal or 500gal tank....
The bath example is basically what my old Chemical Oceanography professor called a box model. What sum contents of the box are what's already in the box, plus what is added the box, minus what leaves the box. Pretty darn good description of an aquarium
Phixer
New member
Great work none the less.
vitz
New member
SantaMonica
Well-known member
Well on hand here right now I only have an abbreviated list:
Vitamins:
Vitamin A
Vitamin E
Vitamin B6
Beta Carotene
Riboflavin
Thiamine
Biotin
Ascorbate (breaks chloramines into chlorine+ammonia)
N5-Methyltetrahydrofolate
Other tetrahydrofolate polyglutamates
Oxidized folate monoglutamates
Nicotinate
Pantothenate
Amino Acids:
Alanine
Aspartic acid
Leucine
Valine
Tyrosine
Phenylalanine
Methionine
Aspartate
Glutamate
Serine
Proline
Carbohydrates (sugars):
Galactose
Glucose
Maltose
Xylose
Misc:
Glycolic Acid
Citric Acid (breaks chloramines into chlorine+ammonia)
Nucleic Acid derivatives
Polypeptides
Proteins
Enzymes
Lipids
Studies:
Production of Vitamin B-12, Thiamin, and Biotin by Phytoplankton. Journal of Phycology, Dec 1970:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1529-8817.1970.tb02406.x/abstract
Secretion Of Vitamins and Amino Acids Into The Environment By Ochromanas Danica. Journal of Phycology, Sept 1971 (Phycology is the study of algae):
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1529-8817.1971.tb01505.x/abstract
Qualitative Assay of Dissolved Amino Acids and Sugars Excreted by Chlamydomanas Reinhardtii (chlorophyceae) and Euglena Gracilis (Euglenophyceae), Jounrnal of Phycology, Dec 1978:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1529-8817.1978.tb02459.x/abstract
Vitamins:
Vitamin A
Vitamin E
Vitamin B6
Beta Carotene
Riboflavin
Thiamine
Biotin
Ascorbate (breaks chloramines into chlorine+ammonia)
N5-Methyltetrahydrofolate
Other tetrahydrofolate polyglutamates
Oxidized folate monoglutamates
Nicotinate
Pantothenate
Amino Acids:
Alanine
Aspartic acid
Leucine
Valine
Tyrosine
Phenylalanine
Methionine
Aspartate
Glutamate
Serine
Proline
Carbohydrates (sugars):
Galactose
Glucose
Maltose
Xylose
Misc:
Glycolic Acid
Citric Acid (breaks chloramines into chlorine+ammonia)
Nucleic Acid derivatives
Polypeptides
Proteins
Enzymes
Lipids
Studies:
Production of Vitamin B-12, Thiamin, and Biotin by Phytoplankton. Journal of Phycology, Dec 1970:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1529-8817.1970.tb02406.x/abstract
Secretion Of Vitamins and Amino Acids Into The Environment By Ochromanas Danica. Journal of Phycology, Sept 1971 (Phycology is the study of algae):
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1529-8817.1971.tb01505.x/abstract
Qualitative Assay of Dissolved Amino Acids and Sugars Excreted by Chlamydomanas Reinhardtii (chlorophyceae) and Euglena Gracilis (Euglenophyceae), Jounrnal of Phycology, Dec 1978:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1529-8817.1978.tb02459.x/abstract
vitz
New member
can you provide a link establishing the uptake (especially the lipid based substances in your list, like vitamin a, for example) of what's on your list from macroalgaes, not phytoplankton, to corals and fish via the water column, from a macroalgae source ?
this time w/an actual link to the actual information-anyone can paste a link to a book. i'll wager you never read those books
vitz
New member
do you know what phycotoxins are ?
SpartaReef
New member
This is interesting...
FlyPenFly
SPS Killer
Water changes, while I do them remind me a lot of blood letting.
It was practice #1 and everyone was Convinced it was the best thing to do for the vast majority of ailments for 2000 years. People just didn't understand what was going on with the body yet humongous volumes of medical literature was written about it's benefits and how it purifies the body.
Today, we do it for a very limited number of diseases and it's considered horribly counterproductive. We understand much better how the human body functions and we've grown past it. When for the most of human history, blood letting was considered an Of Course treatment, nowadays people are disgusted that humanity as a whole could have been so stupid.
I think reef keeping today, we're still in the blood letting stage of development. We don't really know what's going on, how different corals interact, how other symbiotic organisms work in a closed aquarium. So we don't really know any better so we're just going to remove everything by taking a arbitrary percentage of the water out at arbitrary intervals.
It's horribly unscientific yet we just don't really know any better. Examples of thriving reefs that don't do water changes are simply dismissed because nobody really knows what's going on and can't explain it easily. This is how just about everyone has been perpetuating this hobby.
It was practice #1 and everyone was Convinced it was the best thing to do for the vast majority of ailments for 2000 years. People just didn't understand what was going on with the body yet humongous volumes of medical literature was written about it's benefits and how it purifies the body.
Today, we do it for a very limited number of diseases and it's considered horribly counterproductive. We understand much better how the human body functions and we've grown past it. When for the most of human history, blood letting was considered an Of Course treatment, nowadays people are disgusted that humanity as a whole could have been so stupid.
I think reef keeping today, we're still in the blood letting stage of development. We don't really know what's going on, how different corals interact, how other symbiotic organisms work in a closed aquarium. So we don't really know any better so we're just going to remove everything by taking a arbitrary percentage of the water out at arbitrary intervals.
It's horribly unscientific yet we just don't really know any better. Examples of thriving reefs that don't do water changes are simply dismissed because nobody really knows what's going on and can't explain it easily. This is how just about everyone has been perpetuating this hobby.
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SpartaReef
New member
The difference is we put fresh water back in, just like when we give fresh blood... It works
vitz
New member
not even remotely analogous, both from the standpoint of *why* they're/were done, how they're done, their impact or results.
the reasons for doing wc's are well established, known, documented, and very well based in logic and science. hardly the case for bloodletting.
i'm amazed that to this day, there's an argument going on anywhere re: wc's, the reasons behind them, and the effects/results they produce.
power boat jim
Well-known member
I always thought a better question was state what harm may come to the tank from doing regular water changes.
FlyPenFly
SPS Killer
It's about the same logic/reasoning as bloodletting.
Hey, you're really sick? Okay your blood is bad, we gotta take some of it out. How much, let me refer to this arbitrary chart based on maths that don't account for about a million variables.
I can appreciate that the reason we do water changes is that there might be some "bad stuff" that we don't really know the composition and quantity of that we want to remove. There just hasn't been a filtration system that we know of that has been invented that can remove them. Yet we also can't explain some of the healthy growing SPS systems that don't follow recommended best practices.
My challenge is, maybe we should move to figure out what we need to do instead of just doing the same thing that seems horribly inefficient and not very green.
What we've come to is that we need the equivalent of a dialysis machine for reefing instead of constantly just replacing someone's blood.
Hey, you're really sick? Okay your blood is bad, we gotta take some of it out. How much, let me refer to this arbitrary chart based on maths that don't account for about a million variables.
I can appreciate that the reason we do water changes is that there might be some "bad stuff" that we don't really know the composition and quantity of that we want to remove. There just hasn't been a filtration system that we know of that has been invented that can remove them. Yet we also can't explain some of the healthy growing SPS systems that don't follow recommended best practices.
My challenge is, maybe we should move to figure out what we need to do instead of just doing the same thing that seems horribly inefficient and not very green.
What we've come to is that we need the equivalent of a dialysis machine for reefing instead of constantly just replacing someone's blood.
blanden.adam
Team RC
So, here's a primer on how hemodialysis works.
You have a selectively permeable membrane that allows diffusion of small things (like salts and small organics), but not big things (like proteins and cells). On one side of that membrane, you have a mixture of salts and water that is essentially protein-free serum, or as close an approximation we can get to it. On the other side of the membrane, you connect a persons blood supply. You run them counter-current to one another to optimize salt and water exchange. The water and the salts equilibrate across the membrane, but the cells and proteins stay on the blood-supply side, which is then pumped back into the person. It's a "gentle" way of swapping out serum and restoring ionic balance.
So, dialysis is, in essence, the removal of some volume of large-molecule free fluid, and replacement by a volume of fluid of different composition you apply to it. In fact, if there are no large molecules held back by the dialysis membrane, dialysis is precisely equivalent to a "water change" of lesser volume.
A second thing to note is that dialysis is horrifyingly inefficient on a per-volume basis -- particularly in a medical hemodialysis setting, but also with just regular, run of the mill dialysis bag in a reservoir setting as you approach larger and larger exchanges.
Lets assume you have a 10 mL dialysis bag with some impurity in it. Here's a table for the minimum volume of impurity-free solution you need to dialyze it against to remove different percentages of that impurity:
1% -- 0.1 mL (1% volume)
10% -- 1.1 mL (11% volume)
25% -- 3.4 mL (34% volume)
50% -- 10 mL (100% volume)
90% -- 100 mL (1000% volume)
99% -- 1000 mL (10000% volume)
For comparison, here's what volume of water change you would have to do (again, barring any larger molecules)
1% -- 0.1 mL (1% volume)
10% -- 1 mL (10% volume)
25% -- 2.5 mL (25% volume)
50% -- 5 mL (50% volume)
90% -- 9 mL (90% volume)
99% -- 9.9 mL (99% volume)
So you see? On an efficiency-basis, dialysis is categorically worse than a water change. The only reason to do dialysis is to keep certain desirable molecules from escaping, but beyond that dialysis IS essentially a water change. Much more so than blood letting.
Also, I would point out that if you believe a 5-10% water change per week isn't green, please not that a 10 minute shower takes on the order of 50 gallons of water, and I still plan to take one every day
You have a selectively permeable membrane that allows diffusion of small things (like salts and small organics), but not big things (like proteins and cells). On one side of that membrane, you have a mixture of salts and water that is essentially protein-free serum, or as close an approximation we can get to it. On the other side of the membrane, you connect a persons blood supply. You run them counter-current to one another to optimize salt and water exchange. The water and the salts equilibrate across the membrane, but the cells and proteins stay on the blood-supply side, which is then pumped back into the person. It's a "gentle" way of swapping out serum and restoring ionic balance.
So, dialysis is, in essence, the removal of some volume of large-molecule free fluid, and replacement by a volume of fluid of different composition you apply to it. In fact, if there are no large molecules held back by the dialysis membrane, dialysis is precisely equivalent to a "water change" of lesser volume.
A second thing to note is that dialysis is horrifyingly inefficient on a per-volume basis -- particularly in a medical hemodialysis setting, but also with just regular, run of the mill dialysis bag in a reservoir setting as you approach larger and larger exchanges.
Lets assume you have a 10 mL dialysis bag with some impurity in it. Here's a table for the minimum volume of impurity-free solution you need to dialyze it against to remove different percentages of that impurity:
1% -- 0.1 mL (1% volume)
10% -- 1.1 mL (11% volume)
25% -- 3.4 mL (34% volume)
50% -- 10 mL (100% volume)
90% -- 100 mL (1000% volume)
99% -- 1000 mL (10000% volume)
For comparison, here's what volume of water change you would have to do (again, barring any larger molecules)
1% -- 0.1 mL (1% volume)
10% -- 1 mL (10% volume)
25% -- 2.5 mL (25% volume)
50% -- 5 mL (50% volume)
90% -- 9 mL (90% volume)
99% -- 9.9 mL (99% volume)
So you see? On an efficiency-basis, dialysis is categorically worse than a water change. The only reason to do dialysis is to keep certain desirable molecules from escaping, but beyond that dialysis IS essentially a water change
. Much more so than blood letting.Also, I would point out that if you believe a 5-10% water change per week isn't green, please not that a 10 minute shower takes on the order of 50 gallons of water, and I still plan to take one every day
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blanden.adam
Team RC
Healthy people have kidneys. Tanks do not. So in this extended example, a tank would not be a healthy person, it would be a dialysis patient with end-stage renal failure. In which case I would recommend water changes 3x a week and a horribly restricted diet. (for real, the dialysis diet is the worst)
SantaMonica
Well-known member
Ah, yes they do... algae
Anyway, I'll try to get the more macro-specific info and texts and stuff into order; it's been on the to-do list for a while. It sucks when you remember the tables/layouts/graphs etc, but did not copy/paste it down so you can search for it later.
vitz
New member
Ah, yes they do... algae
Anyway, I'll try to get the more macro-specific info and texts and stuff into order; it's been on the to-do list for a while. It sucks when you remember the tables/layouts/graphs etc, but did not copy/paste it down so you can search for it later.
while you're at it, can you explain to me what phycotoxins are ?
SantaMonica
Well-known member
They are consumed by bacteria and are the same things that algae release on the reef.
