Nitrate in the aquarium
- Thread starter Cody Ray
- Start date
Yes it will become live because of the transfer of life. But you need to have the introduction of a type of life in the beginning. Using live rock from different parts of the world gives that base.
I never brought in any pods, etc. when I bring in a fish. From the acclimation to the dip to the QT to the display, nothing but the fish goes in. Maybe bacteria that live on the fish but you know what I mean when I say nothing.
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
The point is that you DON"T need to bring in rock from other parts of the world to get diversity. That is certainly an option however, you can gain diversity from the simple act of importing fish and corals.
The larger point here is that piles of rock and their different flow areas and orentations provide a very diverse range of habitat types for different creatures and life to thrive on/in and exploit. These habitats would not exisit without the rock.
Please don't misinterpret what I am saying... importing rock from other places is certainly a valid means of gaining diversity (good or bad).
wooden_reefer
New member
I am not certain if a lot of communication with the outside world is quite essential. There is always simple diffusion. We are talking about 24/7 and a lot of observable surface area.
Major degree of denitification in sand bed is always a possibility. One the other hand, the use of rather fine sand as substrate has been around for a long time, decades. I believe it preceded the popular use of crushed coral and dolomite. At one time aquarists were concerned about undesirable anaerobic activity in the sand bed that generates H2S. When fine sand bed is used directly as a substrate, sulfur containing protein is not excluded, hence excessive generation of H2S was a real concern. (The conversion of sulfate ion to generate H2S is not impossible either)
Somehow some careful aquarists should have managed to keep a deep sand layer and avoided H2S problem. The aquarium hobby is full of myths. If a deep sand substrate had served many aquarists well in denitrification, why has it not been more popular. This is a tough question; perhaps people have not been wise or observent enough.
There are denifrification setups using deep sand that excludes sulfur-containing protein particles.
I quite agree with the idea of biodiversity beyond nitrification and denitrification. For this concept to be uniquely material for live rock, it must have a special ability to sustain such diversity. I am not talking about using some live rock as seeds of such diversity, but some features about live rock that make it permanently unique and useful: chemical composition, structure that cannot be duplicated, a natural spread of level of oxygenation on its surface and crevices etc.
wooden_reefer
New member
First, why do you need the world's diversity? Don't you think LA diversity is enough?
Second, if you are talking about the chance of getting a small damsel fish in live rock, I suppose the more you buy the greater the chance of this "diversity" of damsel fish.
But if your are talking about obtaining microbes from rock, then sufficient diversity is quickly achieved.
In statistics, I think one can say that the standard deviation in the sample is very small, so a large sample size is not advantageous.
RichConley
New member
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but from what I've seen, the VAST MAJORITY of reefers are running deep sand beds.
As to diversity, adding more rock does not necessarily add more diversity. It adds more types of organisms, yes, but whos to say that adding organism X to your tank doesnt kill off your population of resident organism Y, which is a direct competitor.
wooden_reefer
New member
For aquarists who use both lots of live rock and also a DSB, the claim that the LR is keeping NO3 low is less valid. So may be LR is less unique than many tend to claim.
But I think indeed there was a time when most aquarists were using only mostly LR, no DSB or kindred kinds.
Yes, in my area the small black Argentinian ants have almost (not quite) forced the larger fire ants into extinction. I have not seen any fire ants in my yard for years. The fire ants used to be everywhere.
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thriceanangel
Active member
Just found this thread, and I'm at work so I haven't read every post, but it seems to have evolved into the theory that there are NO bacteria in the core of live rock?
That I can't believe. If there is water, there HAS to be bacteria. There isn't a sterile surface in the natural world really is there? I mean from caves full of acid, to the coldest climes, to volcanic vents, there are bacterium.
Maybe it isn't acting the way we think it is and reducing nitrate, but unless there isn't a way for bacteria to get into it, ie watertight, there should be bacterial presence.
That I can't believe. If there is water, there HAS to be bacteria. There isn't a sterile surface in the natural world really is there? I mean from caves full of acid, to the coldest climes, to volcanic vents, there are bacterium.
Maybe it isn't acting the way we think it is and reducing nitrate, but unless there isn't a way for bacteria to get into it, ie watertight, there should be bacterial presence.
Aquarist007
New member
maybe we should be putting half as much live rock in our tanks and allowing for more swimming room. Load the sump up with live rock if you wish.
In my area--Ontario--the push is still on to keep adding more and more live rock to increase the bioloads we can handle
In my area--Ontario--the push is still on to keep adding more and more live rock to increase the bioloads we can handle
Lets say aliens came and wanted a nice representation of earth life. Wouldn't they miss a whole lot if they took big chunks of land from only the eastern US instead of a big chunk from each continent? Of course they could take a big chunk from only the east US and then combine that with moon rock and then life would eventually transfer over to that dead piece of rock too, like many of you are saying combining "dead rock" with "live rock". But if you took big chunks of earth from all over the world wouldn't you have more diversity?
Many insects, plants, etc (likened to copods, algae, microbes, etc in live rock) do not all live throughout the world. Many are represented in only certain habitats. So without a representation from many parts of the world we are actually bringing on only a minimal representation of the worlds oceans, regardless of how the current or waves or lights hit the piece of live rock.
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RichConley
New member
Right Ralphie, but if you took a whole bunch of animals from each continent, and stuck them all in a small area, you'd end up with a very small group of species. They'd outcompete each other.
Species from different areas are not equipped to deal with each other. Adding more species does not necessarily mean more diversity. In many cases, it just means changing the dominant species.
If I fly out to a deserted island known for its song birds, and dump a whole bag of different small cat species, I'm certainly not increasing diversity.
Species from different areas are not equipped to deal with each other. Adding more species does not necessarily mean more diversity. In many cases, it just means changing the dominant species.
If I fly out to a deserted island known for its song birds, and dump a whole bag of different small cat species, I'm certainly not increasing diversity.
wooden_reefer
New member
The practical significance of this disscussion is this:
Can I buy just 10 pounds of live rock collected from the ocean, place it into a tank with 190 pounds of manmade live rock, and after six months expect to see the same diversity as buying 200 pounds of live rock?
I am say yes, if the manmade live rock closely resembles the live rock in chemical composition, aggregate, porosity, surface features etc.
Rich,
Not every organism competes with every other organism. they all fill little niches. your fish dont all kill each other right? some eat other fish, some eat algae, some eat copods, etc. many lifeforms can coexist. so combining LR from different areas will not necessarily mean everything will die except for one or two prevailing species.
Not every organism competes with every other organism. they all fill little niches. your fish dont all kill each other right? some eat other fish, some eat algae, some eat copods, etc. many lifeforms can coexist. so combining LR from different areas will not necessarily mean everything will die except for one or two prevailing species.
Fishbulb2
New member
It doesn't even have to be that close to natural live rock. I use all DIY rock made of concrete and oyster shells. By now you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it and real live rock. It's completely encrusted in all sorts of crap. Small feather dusters, various algaes, copapods, small snails, sponges, ect ect. All of this stuff came in on frags as been suggested. After an initial algae bloom I've never been able to detect nitrates. I hardly even test for them anymore. I don't feel like I have any less biodiversity than any other tanks I've seen. I think it's a combination of what Bean and RichConley have suggested. As Rich suggested, there is a ton of competition in these artificial closed environments and so we have a microscopic amount of diversity compared to nature and whatever does survive and thrive in our tanks is just as easily transferred from one tank to the next via frags and such as Bean suggested. This has been my observation. I doubt I'll ever buy massive amounts of live rock again and I really doubt acquiring it from various ends of the globe really does that much for you.
FB
FB
RichConley
New member
I'm not talking one or two species, I'm talking about the more places you add things from, the less improvement you get. There may be absolutely no difference in biodiversity between 2 places for rock, and 3 places.
You bring up fish: If I go and randomly buy fish from tanks at the LFS, I'm going to end up with a single panther grouper in my tank. Thats essentially what you're doing on a microscopic level.
Organisms from different areas dont even need to compete to be hazardous to each other. Some release chemicals that will kill others.
Adding more live rock just guarantees that your ecosystem will be different than what it was. It says nothing about biodiversity.
Cody Ray
New member
I would also have to agree that using rock from different areas will probably not equal a greater diversity in the long run. It seems that after a certain point diversity hits a wall and you end up with only a few dominant species along with fish and corals. Heck the same is true for corals. Corals will fight with one another until there are only a few species left.
wayne in norway
New member
I recall that when most people used just LR nitrate removal was always the subject of conversation........
In reply 'I am not certain if a lot of communication with the outside world is quite essential. There is always simple diffusion. We are talking about 24/7 and a lot of observable surface area.' Actually I'm not simple diffusion is adequate. If we have a situation where anaerobic bacteria are overlain by layers of aerobic , nitrate generating bacteria, it would seem that the nitrate must pass thro' this layer to get to the anaerobic, and it strikes me that the aerobic bacteria would resist this, , and effectively separate the anaerobic bacs. gfrom the nitrate in the tank water - if any microbiologists can coment on this, I would be grateful. The advantage of a sandbed is that advection is a forcible injection of nitrate carrying waters into the area of dentrafication
In reply 'I am not certain if a lot of communication with the outside world is quite essential. There is always simple diffusion. We are talking about 24/7 and a lot of observable surface area.' Actually I'm not simple diffusion is adequate. If we have a situation where anaerobic bacteria are overlain by layers of aerobic , nitrate generating bacteria, it would seem that the nitrate must pass thro' this layer to get to the anaerobic, and it strikes me that the aerobic bacteria would resist this, , and effectively separate the anaerobic bacs. gfrom the nitrate in the tank water - if any microbiologists can coment on this, I would be grateful. The advantage of a sandbed is that advection is a forcible injection of nitrate carrying waters into the area of dentrafication
mr.maroonsalty
New member
Hvordan stor det til? Vaere saa snill og Snak paa engelsk, vis De vil. Hva menner du "advection is forcible injection."
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