Maturity Issues

I'm just letting it run it's course at the time. I'm going to try and add some left handed hermits which I've heard will eat cyano. Theres really just a small patch in the middle of my sand bed.

When there is a really large strand, I will usually just pull it out and throw it away.
 
Isn't it interesting how the tank cycle described by Dr. Borneman included changes in the aquarist? The bacteria reproduces, and dies, populations change and the aquarist reads, asks questions etc. Perhaps a description of the cycling of the aquarist should be included in texts, too much reading or worry may lead the reef never to form for fear of a crash...too little and the discouragement and cost leaves to a failed in land reef. The proper balance and a reef grows far from any ocean in the basement or living room of a primate's lair. The new aquarist may also mature and if complacent with husbandary contribute to old tank syndrome (part of the cycling of the aquarist) then there may be compensation, appropriate or excessive and on it goes...
 
about substrate and sand bed

about substrate and sand bed

can anyony tell me where can i find more information about it
 
Eric,

I was reading your article in Reefkeeping Magazine which suggested waiting 3 months before adding herbivores to the tank. Does the defintion of herbivores also include hermits/snails? I have some pretty good live rock which came together with plenty of corraline and some hitchhiker corals (some green and orange zoanthids, some mushrooms, a frag of Tubipora musica and a couple of bits of finger leather coral) and would be a bit worried that the algae would smother them without some janitors in there (the tank already has 6 hermits who have been tranferred from the old tank, though I assume they won't make much of a dent in the new tank's algae growth on their own).

Would it be OK to add some more hermits now and some snails as well, or should I wait it out?

Tom
 
Sure its ok...that is a guideline rather than a rule. The point is to make sure that the water chemistry is stable enough that the herbivores don't have a hard time surviving, die, and make the situation worse rather than better.
 
burntom said:
Thanks Eric! Hopefully the exceptionally fresh LR (taken out of the sea in Okinawa and shipped overnight to my door) helped.
Click to expand...

Careful on what your saying. Their watching the boards.;)
 
EricHugo said:
Before delving on this one, a couple of comments:

>>I know Eric to be a .........../.............. I am fully convinced that intermediate tank disturbance would prevent old tank syndrome.

So, that's it for now...time for me to hit the hay...sorry for typos, I am typing too fast in a dark office.
Click to expand...


I think I read that in a book once :strange:

I was just linked to this thread, and this explanation is beautiful.

I agree it is hard to explain exactly why tanks need to mature, but once you've seen it happen, you pretty much become an advocate. My tank here at work has been running since Oct 8th, and I added my first few zoanthids , hermits and snails within the past few weeks. Battling algae was a matter of reduced photoperiods and nutrient control.
 
Good topic. I have a question. My tank has had hair algae very bad for a long time. I have done all the stuff you find when doing a search on it and I have not beat it yet. The tank is 2-3 years old. The hair algae has been with me now from the 6 month mark on... I know my snails and hermits are low. I do not want to add the 5 million snails only to watch them starve when the algae is gone. (side note: I can not keep the big snails all that long anyway 2-3 months. ???) Last December I went through a bit of effort to get stuff that reproduces in the tank - stomalla snails, mysis shrimp, and ensuring a copepod collection. Now at 5-6 months later the populations are growing (or maybe stable?) but not really making a dent it the algae. How long is a reasonable time to wait for a balance to occur? I was hoping the population would peak with the HA almost gone and then be self limiting. Sort of changing the darwining outcome of the tank - from HA to snails.
 
I will say that I have seen the Sea Hares TEAR through mair algae. They can be found online a few places... I believe IPSF.com has them and if you are frustrated enough... those giant Trochus are quite the constant grazers... day and night.
Also looking into Algae eating fish helps. Bicolor blennies , orange spot gobies , they sound like a good size for your tank.
 
Yep, hair algae sucks. I tried a lawnmore blenny and a kole tang and a foxface but they all turned away from it. Then I got a Sea Hare. Within two days he had cleared about 75% of the HA:rollface: I already have two guys willing to share him cause once the algae is gone I don't want him to die and release his toxins into my tank. It's a machine.
 
Can you say stream of consciousness posts....
colnel, I wonder if that could all be said in 1 post ;)

another couple of unsuspecting books I like are Calfo's BOCP, and tullocks Natural Reef Aquarium. Lots of info in both of those books.
 
This thread has really been quite astounding and has offered insights into a variety of issues regarding tank maturity and sandbed maturity that I hadn't had previously realized or considered.

I am a a follower of the theory that OTS is primarily caused by sandbed saturation, and as a result am setting up my next system to include a DSB 'fuge in-line to the sump which I will be able to fully detach from the system, strip and replace. I haven't done this yet (still setting up) but I've thought about it a bit.

I had to move my 29g last October, and since the 2" deep crushed coral (TBSW LS) sandbed was going to get stirred, shuffled, shoveled out and replaced anyway, I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that any layers of nitrification, denitrification, et al., bacterial would largely end up in the wrong places and would mostly be destroyed. Oddly, I didn't see any increase in algae growth that I would have expected. It may be that my sandbed is so shallow that stirring it really doesn't have much effect.

It would seem that the act of upgrading aquariums (moving, as I'm planning, the contents of a 29g to a 54g+sump system) would reduce some of the maturity of the tank. The amount of sandbed disturbance, repositioning of rock, larger water volume, etc., represents a really large environmental change. Unfortunately, when this sort of thing is being done, one wants to put all the critters from the old tank into the new.

Do you have any suggestions or thoughts on this, given that some of the creatures we have stewardship for definitely require a mature tank, and the act of moving the contents of an aquarium in which they are settled and doing well might disturb or endanger them?

Thanks,

Ratty
(Click the little red house to see my 12g and 29g reefs!)
 
Well, in your case a lot has to do with the crushed coral. I doubt there is much an an anoxia problem given the particle size and depth, so you probably were getting denitrification within the grains and perhaps on surface layers a bit, but probablynot stratified through the bed as you would tend to find with fine sediments. If I were you, I would mix in maybe 1/4 of your current CC with a new finer sediment and let it settle for a few days or a week before adding any animals. I'd add rock after any dust settles, and let that go for the remaining days of that week. Then you should be fine, and I think you'll be surprised at how well things will go from there.
 
Eric, you make a wonderful description of how the cycles run, and include that the aquarist starts to read, but how does the cycles change if the aquarist reads before starting?

If I am not having the fish die for I am not adding them, which feed the continuation of the cycles, then how long should one wait before starting to introduce the small clean up crew, then some of the other stuff, and do I want to start with corals before fish right?
 
I hope this thread isn't too old to add to it. I'm still in the research and planning stage, but will be setting up my 50g tank soon and plan to follow this method as well as I understand it.

One concern I have is that my wife and kids won't be as excited as I will about a tank without any fish in it for 6 to 12 months. Is there a good herbivore I could add shortly after adding snails? All the fish I'd planned on adding are omnivores (clownfish) or carnivores (firefish, neon gobies, cardinalfish). I had thought about some yellow tangs but I get the impression they'd be too aggressive on the algae growth. What can I add to keep the family as excited about this as I am?

John
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

P
Cycling Questions
Replies
7
Views
388
SantaMonica
S
M
Random GSP Closure. Ideas?
Replies
6
Views
180
griss
griss
305 Steve
Steve's Reef Casa
Replies
10
Views
374
305 Steve
305 Steve
hrdneglcry
Why can't I grow coral?
Replies
3
Views
91
Reefing102
Reefing102
JCOLE
Does anyone have any established sand/rock they can spare?
Replies
5
Views
213
Reefing102
Reefing102
Back
Top