Maturity Issues
- Thread starter SeaStar
- Start date
saltshop
Premium Member
MiddletonMark said:Just call him Hurricane Justin
LOL, or there was the time when I had a 300 gallon vat filled for about 6 months and the bottom suddenly blew out....thank heavens for pond liners and some extra support strapping otherwise it would have all been on the floor and it REALLY would have been as if a hurricane struck.
That was a fun few days trying to get everything out of there before it completely let loose!
G-money
Premium Member
Saltshop,
Yours is probably the best example of "intermediate disturbance" I think we can get, though the new sandbed and (I assume) large percentage of new water is basically what I have done in my move. I have not, however added any new live rock (but added a few large pieces of sub-substrate base rock). I was actually amazed at the proliferation of life on the rock in the month the new tank was empty. It was a major factor in my going ahead with stocking what I had to stock in the tank.
While I am seeing largely desirable progression of the tank, the 2 acros receding at the tips kind of bother me. I am not going to lose either, as I have fragged a couple of unaffected tips that seem to be fine (after 5 days), but I have to consider them negative results. Nonetheless, nothing new will be going in the tank until all animals are progressing.
Someday I hope to be able to do the 6-9 month LRWSO (live rock with substrate only) tank! Next time...I plan on moving again in about 4 years anyway...
As for other "intermediate disturbances", sifting up the substrate has been largely frowned upon (especially the DSB)...I would love us to figure out some other possibilities of introducing this periodic disturbance to the tank without sabotaging the whole system...I guess some live rock replacement is good (even small amounts of uncured?), perhaps minor substrate replacement...blowing the rocks off with powerheads/turkey baster. Some of the things some of us consider somewhat normal "maintenance". While I usually place my corals with enough room to grow, I rarely intervene in their growth unless a neighboring colony is either a single unit (fungia/brain types) or getting wailed on.
Yours is probably the best example of "intermediate disturbance" I think we can get, though the new sandbed and (I assume) large percentage of new water is basically what I have done in my move. I have not, however added any new live rock (but added a few large pieces of sub-substrate base rock). I was actually amazed at the proliferation of life on the rock in the month the new tank was empty. It was a major factor in my going ahead with stocking what I had to stock in the tank.
While I am seeing largely desirable progression of the tank, the 2 acros receding at the tips kind of bother me. I am not going to lose either, as I have fragged a couple of unaffected tips that seem to be fine (after 5 days), but I have to consider them negative results. Nonetheless, nothing new will be going in the tank until all animals are progressing.
Someday I hope to be able to do the 6-9 month LRWSO (live rock with substrate only) tank! Next time...I plan on moving again in about 4 years anyway...
As for other "intermediate disturbances", sifting up the substrate has been largely frowned upon (especially the DSB)...I would love us to figure out some other possibilities of introducing this periodic disturbance to the tank without sabotaging the whole system...I guess some live rock replacement is good (even small amounts of uncured?), perhaps minor substrate replacement...blowing the rocks off with powerheads/turkey baster. Some of the things some of us consider somewhat normal "maintenance". While I usually place my corals with enough room to grow, I rarely intervene in their growth unless a neighboring colony is either a single unit (fungia/brain types) or getting wailed on.
Eric, Thanks for taking the time to respond in the manner in which you did. There is alot of good and eye opening information in your response that I am sure will help all hobbyists have a better understanding about what the heck is going on in our tanks. I unfortunatley only had about five minutes early this morning to rush through it, but am looking forward to sitting down and really take it in this weekend.
My immediate question has already recieved some discussion above. "Intermediate disturbance" What would be your definition of this term. I thought not so much as a small hurricane in our tanks as was mentioned (I don't think this would serve much purpose as all the same elements still remain in a closed system), but more along the lines of actually swapping things out in our tanks. Remove (or greatly frag) certain corals, swap out different fish, maybe replace a small portion of a DSB (if one is installed in a tank), replace some LR. That sorta thing.
My immediate question has already recieved some discussion above. "Intermediate disturbance" What would be your definition of this term. I thought not so much as a small hurricane in our tanks as was mentioned (I don't think this would serve much purpose as all the same elements still remain in a closed system), but more along the lines of actually swapping things out in our tanks. Remove (or greatly frag) certain corals, swap out different fish, maybe replace a small portion of a DSB (if one is installed in a tank), replace some LR. That sorta thing.
Weatherman
New member
Since Ecological Succession may be used as a model for how our tanks evolve over time, maybe it would be valuable for us to understand the succession of species in the real world a little better.
Unfortunately, for our critters, we have a tendency to want to have our tanks have the climax-state look almost immediately (like old-growth forest in a bottle).
Are there any on-line references that describe the succession of species on, say, an artificial reef?
Maybe that would allow us to plan the introduction of species to our tanks a little better and, as a result, reduce the stress on and mortality of our inhabitants.
Unfortunately, for our critters, we have a tendency to want to have our tanks have the climax-state look almost immediately (like old-growth forest in a bottle).
Are there any on-line references that describe the succession of species on, say, an artificial reef?
Maybe that would allow us to plan the introduction of species to our tanks a little better and, as a result, reduce the stress on and mortality of our inhabitants.
MiddletonMark
Premium Member
When discussing this with my fiance, she suggested a tank is mature -
`when it starts cleaning up after itself'.
Which is accurate in a sense ... no more weird successions ... things in balance which means less aquarist work [or leaving things] as diatoms/algae/etc etc go with only quick regular cleanings of the glass.
It also was nice comparison to humans, rare when this works for reef tanks
`when it starts cleaning up after itself'.
Which is accurate in a sense ... no more weird successions ... things in balance which means less aquarist work [or leaving things] as diatoms/algae/etc etc go with only quick regular cleanings of the glass.
It also was nice comparison to humans, rare when this works for reef tanks
Graham said:
Good morning Graham,
You might want to check out this thread, Peter replaces 50% of his substrate/ year. The longer I am in this hobby, the more I believe that measures such as this need to be taken in order to avoid old tank syndrome.http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24940
Steve
Good Morning Eric,
Finally had time to read through your response more thoroughly. Again very well written and I really feel it helps to fill in a several pieces of this 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle we opt to call "captive marine systems". I apologize that in my previous post I duplicated some of the questions and points already brought up by other members responses. I had limited time to read and post.
I would like to touch on some other points:
Pioneer corals and climax corals -can you give examples of each for our tanks.
You have shown many of the benefits of letting a tank "cycle"/"mature" for many months prior to the addition of any animals . One added benefit is that critter populations are allowed to flourish without predetation or at least from predetation much higher up the food chain(such as the experience Crawdad is having by letting his tank mature without livestock). However once 6 months or a year is up and the hobbyist starts stocking this tank, will the additional numbers and biodiversity of life in that tank really make any impact 6 months or one year latter or will the end result be the same.
Graham brings up refugiums and that even though good to help out with nutrient uptake, bacterial populations and such, they may not be all that beneficial in helping to maintain critter diversity/populations (unless I misread you Graham). Do you agree with him or does that fact that there is no preditation in a refugium make it a substantial, beneficial addition to our systems when it comes to suppling our main tanks with a continuing food source or to help keep a system stocked with diversity.
Thanks again for your time and insight
Finally had time to read through your response more thoroughly. Again very well written and I really feel it helps to fill in a several pieces of this 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle we opt to call "captive marine systems". I apologize that in my previous post I duplicated some of the questions and points already brought up by other members responses. I had limited time to read and post.
I would like to touch on some other points:
Pioneer corals and climax corals -can you give examples of each for our tanks.
You have shown many of the benefits of letting a tank "cycle"/"mature" for many months prior to the addition of any animals . One added benefit is that critter populations are allowed to flourish without predetation or at least from predetation much higher up the food chain(such as the experience Crawdad is having by letting his tank mature without livestock). However once 6 months or a year is up and the hobbyist starts stocking this tank, will the additional numbers and biodiversity of life in that tank really make any impact 6 months or one year latter or will the end result be the same.
Graham brings up refugiums and that even though good to help out with nutrient uptake, bacterial populations and such, they may not be all that beneficial in helping to maintain critter diversity/populations (unless I misread you Graham). Do you agree with him or does that fact that there is no preditation in a refugium make it a substantial, beneficial addition to our systems when it comes to suppling our main tanks with a continuing food source or to help keep a system stocked with diversity.
Thanks again for your time and insight
>>Thanks Eric!
That was probably the best description of this I've read. Explains a number of things I've wondered about; even factoring in `from another tank LR'.
More than worth the wait. Thank you very much for the time and sleepy effort.<<<
Thank Mark, Steve, etc. for all the flatterign remarks....
this thread bloomed big-time, so let me get down to brass tacks...as much as I cna before I have to leave to give a talk to our aquarium club this morning.
>>Anyway, what did you mean by "intermediate tank disturbance"? How would that help to prevent "old tank syndrome"?<<
Well, we see how ecoogical principles are pretty much happening in our tanks...and over time, systems tend towards fewer species as competition, resource limitation, habitat utilization, mortality without recruitment, etc. take hold. If we disturb populations, we free up these opportunites for "repressed" species to again have a chance. Better yet if we can periodiclly introduce new species at this time. Live rock, new sand, corals with base material, etc.
I think something like a big rock rearrangement and a big water change and some refugium work, and some coral trades and some new material added would probably qualify.
>>I would think that an intermediate disturbance would be more on the line of strong waves and thunderstorms. A typhoon would be an extreme disturbance (depending on the depth we're talking about) more along the lines of a forest fire. So possibly a wavemaker takes care of some of the minor disturbances, but how do we 'replicate' stronger disturbances?
I guess we could mimic the 'hand of God' by running our hands blindly through the tank every year or two <<
Seriously, that might be closer than you think.
>>I would also think possibly this major disturbance would be like using a powerhead and tubing to blow everything around and possibly even hand-shifting some rocks too? [except corals which would be hurt by it]
Interesting to think of this as an important part of keeping a tank long-term. Does make sense now that I'm thinking about it ... just not sure `how much' is enough?<<
I'm not sure either, but I do know everytime I've had a "disaster" - and I mean every single time, the tank is absolutely ripping about two to three months later.
>>When starting a SW tank many do not understand anything other than they need some "bacteria" in the tank.<<
I know. Its from very limited and basic beginnings that we seem to all get started and the fish stores and bottles we buy just tell us about those nitrifiers and how they eat ammonia and make it "safe" - once we are beyong that point, we rarely concern ourselves with it or revisit the facts because it won't happen to us again unless we start a new tank and then we "are prepared" for it...
T>>he cycles you have pointed out are very enlightening and something I've never really thought about and I've had "fish" tanks for well over 30 years.<<
Well thanks...and, tosome degree fish tanks are less of a problem because you don't have all the other things happenings....plants, gravel and filters are about the limits of other species diversity. When you throw live rock in there, you've complicated things immmensely by the tropical marine environment -
and being visual animals, we usually consider mainly things we can see rather than things we cannot.
>>I started a prop / grow-out / no room in the reef tank, tank in the garage about 6 months ago. This was started with a couple of pieces of fresh LR every couple of weeks, some home depot lights and no fish, a few snails and nothing more. The diversity in this tank, in the sand, on the rocks and on the glass is unbelievable. I can not claim to have planned it this way, it just happened due to it not really being a tank I was focused on. Now I seem to spend more time looking into this tank than the one in the house.<<
Uh huh - I know - seen the same thing a few times myself. We highly underfactor the roles of what predators like corals and fish do in tanks. Corals,in the load they exist in tanks, are extremely efficient killing machines of things whch would otherwise be playing significant roles in the ecology of our tanks.
To Grahm's good post:
By disturbance, i am thinking less in terms of loss of a taxon or two, but I do see the difficulties imposed by the tank volume and the examples you cite. I was thinking more of a freeing up of new opportunities and re-introduction of species otherwise lost. This probably entails partial population mortality, but maybe not "on purpose" - I'm not sure fragging or algae removal qulaifies as anything except maybe space - and maybe not even then...might actually reduce habitat...not sure.
Anyway, the tanks don;t act like entire reefs but little tiny pieces of reef, which to some degree is a small representation of the whole reef without entire ecosystem level dynamics - many of the same principles hold, though. My comment to your coent about food and playing down of aspects thereof is I don;t think we are anywhere near prey availability anyway, so I think the effect while ideally important is probably not so important in small water volumes with negligible availability even under the best cases.
Steve, refugium has changed...the deifinition and we've talked about before....we actually keep a refuge, not a refugium and the idea was to provide areas for growthof critters otherwise preyed upon. Now, however, people equate them to filtration areas, which is kind of silly since the rock and coralss and main tank are probably doing far more than a small box with some macroalgae in it. Still, even that provides a function. If these areas were much larger, they would be far more functional.
saltshop: A tank move ro change, I think, is exactly the sort of thing that qualifies as intermediate disturbance. take it all apart, and put it all back together again.
Seastar - same thing, I think.
Weatherman, remind me again and I will get all those references for you...I have a lot. I can probably .pdf or link some of them for the board.
That was probably the best description of this I've read. Explains a number of things I've wondered about; even factoring in `from another tank LR'.
More than worth the wait. Thank you very much for the time and sleepy effort.<<<
Thank Mark, Steve, etc. for all the flatterign remarks....
this thread bloomed big-time, so let me get down to brass tacks...as much as I cna before I have to leave to give a talk to our aquarium club this morning.
>>Anyway, what did you mean by "intermediate tank disturbance"? How would that help to prevent "old tank syndrome"?<<
Well, we see how ecoogical principles are pretty much happening in our tanks...and over time, systems tend towards fewer species as competition, resource limitation, habitat utilization, mortality without recruitment, etc. take hold. If we disturb populations, we free up these opportunites for "repressed" species to again have a chance. Better yet if we can periodiclly introduce new species at this time. Live rock, new sand, corals with base material, etc.
I think something like a big rock rearrangement and a big water change and some refugium work, and some coral trades and some new material added would probably qualify.
>>I would think that an intermediate disturbance would be more on the line of strong waves and thunderstorms. A typhoon would be an extreme disturbance (depending on the depth we're talking about) more along the lines of a forest fire. So possibly a wavemaker takes care of some of the minor disturbances, but how do we 'replicate' stronger disturbances?
I guess we could mimic the 'hand of God' by running our hands blindly through the tank every year or two <<
Seriously, that might be closer than you think.
>>I would also think possibly this major disturbance would be like using a powerhead and tubing to blow everything around and possibly even hand-shifting some rocks too? [except corals which would be hurt by it]
Interesting to think of this as an important part of keeping a tank long-term. Does make sense now that I'm thinking about it ... just not sure `how much' is enough?<<
I'm not sure either, but I do know everytime I've had a "disaster" - and I mean every single time, the tank is absolutely ripping about two to three months later.
>>When starting a SW tank many do not understand anything other than they need some "bacteria" in the tank.<<
I know. Its from very limited and basic beginnings that we seem to all get started and the fish stores and bottles we buy just tell us about those nitrifiers and how they eat ammonia and make it "safe" - once we are beyong that point, we rarely concern ourselves with it or revisit the facts because it won't happen to us again unless we start a new tank and then we "are prepared" for it...
T>>he cycles you have pointed out are very enlightening and something I've never really thought about and I've had "fish" tanks for well over 30 years.<<
Well thanks...and, tosome degree fish tanks are less of a problem because you don't have all the other things happenings....plants, gravel and filters are about the limits of other species diversity. When you throw live rock in there, you've complicated things immmensely by the tropical marine environment -
and being visual animals, we usually consider mainly things we can see rather than things we cannot.
>>I started a prop / grow-out / no room in the reef tank, tank in the garage about 6 months ago. This was started with a couple of pieces of fresh LR every couple of weeks, some home depot lights and no fish, a few snails and nothing more. The diversity in this tank, in the sand, on the rocks and on the glass is unbelievable. I can not claim to have planned it this way, it just happened due to it not really being a tank I was focused on. Now I seem to spend more time looking into this tank than the one in the house.<<
Uh huh - I know - seen the same thing a few times myself. We highly underfactor the roles of what predators like corals and fish do in tanks. Corals,in the load they exist in tanks, are extremely efficient killing machines of things whch would otherwise be playing significant roles in the ecology of our tanks.
To Grahm's good post:
By disturbance, i am thinking less in terms of loss of a taxon or two, but I do see the difficulties imposed by the tank volume and the examples you cite. I was thinking more of a freeing up of new opportunities and re-introduction of species otherwise lost. This probably entails partial population mortality, but maybe not "on purpose" - I'm not sure fragging or algae removal qulaifies as anything except maybe space - and maybe not even then...might actually reduce habitat...not sure.
Anyway, the tanks don;t act like entire reefs but little tiny pieces of reef, which to some degree is a small representation of the whole reef without entire ecosystem level dynamics - many of the same principles hold, though. My comment to your coent about food and playing down of aspects thereof is I don;t think we are anywhere near prey availability anyway, so I think the effect while ideally important is probably not so important in small water volumes with negligible availability even under the best cases.
Steve, refugium has changed...the deifinition and we've talked about before....we actually keep a refuge, not a refugium and the idea was to provide areas for growthof critters otherwise preyed upon. Now, however, people equate them to filtration areas, which is kind of silly since the rock and coralss and main tank are probably doing far more than a small box with some macroalgae in it. Still, even that provides a function. If these areas were much larger, they would be far more functional.
saltshop: A tank move ro change, I think, is exactly the sort of thing that qualifies as intermediate disturbance. take it all apart, and put it all back together again.
Seastar - same thing, I think.
Weatherman, remind me again and I will get all those references for you...I have a lot. I can probably .pdf or link some of them for the board.
>>Pioneer corals and climax corals -can you give examples of each for our tanks.<<
For our tanks...yikes...probably different from the wild due to closed system nature, but I would think Xenia would qualify - and star polyps. I would say something entirely different were people to actually wait to add things for longer than they do. the other big downfall here is that these things grow so fast they would actually decrease space availability and not offer habitat for much in a tank. Ideally, we want the same species as in the wild to start off with...Acropora, Pocillopora, etc. Then add a smattering of rare head corals (faviids, Porties) and a few relatively non-toxic soft corals - for a "reef tank" - if we got even smarter, we would avoid the reef tank and do the tiny "part of a reef tank" with each part considered seprately as to how the community should progress.
>>You have shown many of the benefits of letting a tank "cycle"/"mature" for many months prior to the addition of any animals . One added benefit is that critter populations are allowed to flourish without predetation or at least from predetation much higher up the food chain(such as the experience Crawdad is having by letting his tank mature without livestock). However once 6 months or a year is up and the hobbyist starts stocking this tank, will the additional numbers and biodiversity of life in that tank really make any impact 6 months or one year latter or will the end result be the same. <<
with the way most people stock, no...but that's where the "intermediate disturbance" could come in, right? It would also allow for refuge populations to exist prior to that one tiny growth of a red turf being lost forever by one nip of the yellow tang added the day after ammonia drops to zero...chances of losing establshed populations is much lower than chances of losing a single organism, you see? Plus the stability present would limit dramatically those early mortalities that plague most new aquarists. ...that in itself is worth the price of admission, you know?
>>Graham brings up refugiums and that even though good to help out with nutrient uptake, bacterial populations and such, they may not be all that beneficial in helping to maintain critter diversity/populations (unless I misread you Graham). Do you agree with him or does that fact that there is no preditation in a refugium make it a substantial, beneficial addition to our systems when it comes to suppling our main tanks with a continuing food source or to help keep a system stocked with diversity. <<
See repsonse to steve...
For our tanks...yikes...probably different from the wild due to closed system nature, but I would think Xenia would qualify - and star polyps. I would say something entirely different were people to actually wait to add things for longer than they do. the other big downfall here is that these things grow so fast they would actually decrease space availability and not offer habitat for much in a tank. Ideally, we want the same species as in the wild to start off with...Acropora, Pocillopora, etc. Then add a smattering of rare head corals (faviids, Porties) and a few relatively non-toxic soft corals - for a "reef tank" - if we got even smarter, we would avoid the reef tank and do the tiny "part of a reef tank" with each part considered seprately as to how the community should progress.
>>You have shown many of the benefits of letting a tank "cycle"/"mature" for many months prior to the addition of any animals . One added benefit is that critter populations are allowed to flourish without predetation or at least from predetation much higher up the food chain(such as the experience Crawdad is having by letting his tank mature without livestock). However once 6 months or a year is up and the hobbyist starts stocking this tank, will the additional numbers and biodiversity of life in that tank really make any impact 6 months or one year latter or will the end result be the same. <<
with the way most people stock, no...but that's where the "intermediate disturbance" could come in, right? It would also allow for refuge populations to exist prior to that one tiny growth of a red turf being lost forever by one nip of the yellow tang added the day after ammonia drops to zero...chances of losing establshed populations is much lower than chances of losing a single organism, you see? Plus the stability present would limit dramatically those early mortalities that plague most new aquarists. ...that in itself is worth the price of admission, you know?
>>Graham brings up refugiums and that even though good to help out with nutrient uptake, bacterial populations and such, they may not be all that beneficial in helping to maintain critter diversity/populations (unless I misread you Graham). Do you agree with him or does that fact that there is no preditation in a refugium make it a substantial, beneficial addition to our systems when it comes to suppling our main tanks with a continuing food source or to help keep a system stocked with diversity. <<
See repsonse to steve...
EricHugo said:
Hi Eric,
I know that in the past you have said you don't believe we need to disturb the DSB on a regular basis. Would you consider the DSB in this intermediate disturbance, and if so, what exactly should be done with this area? I ask this question because I have noticed that on the natural reef sand is shifted (and I would imagine sifted) on a regular basis.
My comment to your coent about food and playing down of aspects thereof is I don;t think we are anywhere near prey availability anyway, so I think the effect while ideally important is probably not so important in small water volumes with negligible availability even under the best cases.
Just to clarify, are you saying that the average refuge most of us keep, are not supplying enough food to our main tanks to be of any real use?
Thanks,
Steve
Hi Steve:
>>I know that in the past you have said you don't believe we need to disturb the DSB on a regular basis. Would you consider the DSB in this intermediate disturbance, and if so, what exactly should be done with this area? I ask this question because I have noticed that on the natural reef sand is shifted (and I would imagine sifted) on a regular basis.<<
I thnk disturbing a sand bed can have disastrous consequences - I commented in another thread about that - if you disturb and/or move the sand bed, it shold sit nicely for a couple days before sensitive corals are put back or a lot of mortality might occur....that sais, a "careful" disturbance like that might qualify...I don't think sand beds are the ideal way to do this.
>>Just to clarify, are you saying that the average refuge most of us keep, are not supplying enough food to our main tanks to be of any real use?<<
No. I think they are useful (though I confess I am not sure what the average size is), but no way near enough in every case I have seen (my own very definitely included).
>>I know that in the past you have said you don't believe we need to disturb the DSB on a regular basis. Would you consider the DSB in this intermediate disturbance, and if so, what exactly should be done with this area? I ask this question because I have noticed that on the natural reef sand is shifted (and I would imagine sifted) on a regular basis.<<
I thnk disturbing a sand bed can have disastrous consequences - I commented in another thread about that - if you disturb and/or move the sand bed, it shold sit nicely for a couple days before sensitive corals are put back or a lot of mortality might occur....that sais, a "careful" disturbance like that might qualify...I don't think sand beds are the ideal way to do this.
>>Just to clarify, are you saying that the average refuge most of us keep, are not supplying enough food to our main tanks to be of any real use?<<
No. I think they are useful (though I confess I am not sure what the average size is), but no way near enough in every case I have seen (my own very definitely included).
EricHugo said:
Thanks for the reply Eric.
Would you mind elaborating a bit more on why you feel this could have "disastrous consequences".
I agree with you that we need to shake things up in our tanks (although we might have a some what different opinion on why this is imporatant), but I am having trouble understanding how we can leave the DSB out of this equation. As I previously mentioned, it seems to me that the substrate in direct contact with the natural reef is shifted and sifted as a result of high energy. I would expect to find a DSB with the same energy level as my reef tank to be associated more with lagoons, or even more swampy areas. When I consider the high organic load I am putting on my DSB,coupled with low energy and a lack of sand fauna diversity, the result could end up being what I see in magrove swamps and mud flats, high organic sediment.
(though I confess I am not sure what the average size is)
LOL, yea thats the same thing I thought of when writing that
. From the reading I have done on others systems, it seems like about 20% of the total water volume of the system might be devoted to a refuge, but this is just a guess.Steve
Crawdad1 said:You are comparing 8 inchs of sand in a glass box to the ocean. In the ocean the layers are way deaper and, with a lager volume of water that is constantly washed across it that cannot be a compared or duplicate in our glass boxs. Am I making any sense here?
Uh, thanks Crawdad, I think you and Graham might be missing my point, however.
I am well aware of the differences between the natural reef and our tanks, in fact, I think I pointed that out
. The point I am trying to make is that if we indeed are going to "shake things up", then why has the DSB been left out of this equation?First of all Crawdad, it makes little difference how much deeper the layers of sand are in nature as far as the nitrogen cycle goes. As long as there are aerobic, anaerobic, and anoxic zones present, then the nitrogen cycle will occur. It is my contention that a DSB on the natural reef is subject to different dynamics than our glass boxes, and therefore must be treated as such.
Second, it is this large volume of water, along with other aspects (which I already pointed out) that do indeed make a huge difference in why a DSB might function long term in the ocean, but have a limited life in our tanks.
HTH explain my point a bit better.
Steve
Steve:
you are very right, and your comments are also the answer.
The sands around reefs are coarse and well sifted - and they are pretty functionless, too. You can dig your hand up to the armpit in sands in a reef spur and groove area and see nothing but pur white flakes of carbonate and very little life. The sand in our tanks aesthetically looks like the sand there, but fucntions like the seagrass/mangrove/ lagoon sands - that's where the action is in the wild in terms of excess production of the reef in the wild, and also where all the nutrient processing is in tanks. If it were constantly highly stirred in tanks, it would be fine to do this but not very functional. As it is, if you moved a chunk of the real reef to a calm organic-laden sand area near a mangrove and then disturbed the sediments, same thing would happen. Probably why you don't have many pathc reef communities in these areas, and why areas that get high organic sedimentation have a limited variety of corals that can thrive there.
I'm not thinking the sand bed in tanks doesn't need "attention", but that attention probably has special requirements and that having sensitive corals around during that time might kill them.
you are very right, and your comments are also the answer.
The sands around reefs are coarse and well sifted - and they are pretty functionless, too. You can dig your hand up to the armpit in sands in a reef spur and groove area and see nothing but pur white flakes of carbonate and very little life. The sand in our tanks aesthetically looks like the sand there, but fucntions like the seagrass/mangrove/ lagoon sands - that's where the action is in the wild in terms of excess production of the reef in the wild, and also where all the nutrient processing is in tanks. If it were constantly highly stirred in tanks, it would be fine to do this but not very functional. As it is, if you moved a chunk of the real reef to a calm organic-laden sand area near a mangrove and then disturbed the sediments, same thing would happen. Probably why you don't have many pathc reef communities in these areas, and why areas that get high organic sedimentation have a limited variety of corals that can thrive there.
I'm not thinking the sand bed in tanks doesn't need "attention", but that attention probably has special requirements and that having sensitive corals around during that time might kill them.
Mr.Jingles
New member
do we need to syphon our tanks at any time?
