Which is easier lps or sps?

[eddiereefs]

If a skimmer is a placebo then il give u my skimmate to dump in ur tank and wel see what happens. I joke of course, it is however about 30 percent effeciant which is good in this hobby. More info on that two year w.o water change tank pleaseee

 

[Jrambo88]

Where did you get the statistic of 30% efficient? Lol some people just say stuff I swear. Im pretty sure.

 

[Saltliquid]

Definitely the exception to the rule here!! When you say lots of work what do you mean?

My bio system is massive, much bigger then the tanks combined in size and water volume.
It is based on the oceans functions, sort of, reef tanks are not!
Its very complicated and took over 30 years to get it right, with each and every tiny function to the large functions all work together, working on all waste naturally!
Once the water exits the tank in my ways through a prefilter slide, algae to import and convert "œnot export" over specific media on a raised floor with specific flow in that massive area with specific caulerpa algae species.
A massive 5 level/trays of anoxic functions that can not receive rubbish and produce heaps of valuable nitrogen due to settling pre filters'
A very large dry zone and into the sump it goes then back to tank, there is more but it is far to complicated to explain it all.
I have tried before and no one gets it as it is not mainstream.

 

[Saltliquid]

This test dried the skimmate for measure, and could not see the inorganic phos that gfo takes out. But it's an interesting study

????Ay! The nitrogen cyclers have to work on the organic matter to leave orthophosphate and phosphorus that is phos when bound in tissue, that doesn’t happen in a skimmer.
On organic mater, there is no nitrate, that is a phase of the nitrogen cyclers that oxidise, they are not there, they live on objects??
Except for what is still organic, which is all that adheres to the bubbles membrane, how would you find inorganic in skim mate!!!!
That would be near impossible and if so, it would be so microscopic its not funny, as to if anything inorganic is in it!

 

[Saltliquid]

If a skimmer is a placebo, then what's all this brown gunk I have to pull out of it every few days? just fish poo?

How do you think the ocean does it, not with live rock or a skimmer.
The reefs out there are nothing like what you use live rock for, and a skimmer works nothing like sea foam, sea foam remains!
I us as much as I can fit in my fish room of ocean functions, I do not use live rock!
It was an experiment of all that I had learnt to see if I could do it, it worked and if I had more room, lets just say ocean water quality would be easily achieved for a massive aquarium!
You take out as much organic as you can via a skimmer, I used it to make nitrogen to feed my pant life that will import and convert and the phos components help that life excel at conversion!
With out phos, cells can not multiply!
Any one know a bit about horticulture here, what do you put in your garden to inspire the best growth-poo and poo and all that is in that gunk is organic and when does it function at its best for plant life, that’s another complex issue to explain!
Lets just leave it at far to complicated to explain!

 

[Perth_reefer]

My bio system is massive, much bigger then the tanks combined in size and water volume.
It is based on the oceans functions, sort of, reef tanks are not!
Its very complicated and took over 30 years to get it right, with each and every tiny function to the large functions all work together, working on all waste naturally!
Once the water exits the tank in my ways through a prefilter slide, algae to import and convert "œnot export" over specific media on a raised floor with specific flow in that massive area with specific caulerpa algae species.
A massive 5 level/trays of anoxic functions that can not receive rubbish and produce heaps of valuable nitrogen due to settling pre filters'
A very large dry zone and into the sump it goes then back to tank, there is more but it is far to complicated to explain it all.
I have tried before and no one gets it as it is not mainstream.

Definitely the exception to the rule!! Great work though!

How do you think the ocean does it, not with live rock or a skimmer.

To be fair the ocean has a far higher water to fish ratio to reduce organic matter. Our tanks at home are massively overstocked when compared to the ocean.

 

[Mark9]

My bio system is massive, much bigger then the tanks combined in size and water volume.
It is based on the oceans functions, sort of, reef tanks are not!
Its very complicated and took over 30 years to get it right, with each and every tiny function to the large functions all work together, working on all waste naturally!
Once the water exits the tank in my ways through a prefilter slide, algae to import and convert "œnot export" over specific media on a raised floor with specific flow in that massive area with specific caulerpa algae species.
A massive 5 level/trays of anoxic functions that can not receive rubbish and produce heaps of valuable nitrogen due to settling pre filters'
A very large dry zone and into the sump it goes then back to tank, there is more but it is far to complicated to explain it all.
I have tried before and no one gets it as it is not mainstream.

Well said! I think sps are the easiest.
Just cheap on line leds will be cool for the softies of cool white and standard blue diode with 80 degree optics and a 100watt fitting.

So, sps are easy, but it took you 30 years to get it right?

 

[CStrickland]

Lol, it's easy! No skimmer, no water changes, $100 lights.

Pay no attention to the Rube Goldberg water slide behind the curtain... anybody can do it (in 30 years) I'd explain it, but you wouldn't understand.

????Ay! The nitrogen cyclers have to work on the organic matter to leave orthophosphate and phosphorus that is phos when bound in tissue, that doesn’t happen in a skimmer.
On organic mater, there is no nitrate, that is a phase of the nitrogen cyclers that oxidise, they are not there, they live on objects??
Except for what is still organic, which is all that adheres to the bubbles membrane, how would you find inorganic in skim mate!!!!
That would be near impossible and if so, it would be so microscopic its not funny, as to if anything inorganic is in it!

If your point is "skimmers don't remove inorganic phos" then we're on the same page. That's what I was trying to point out. I feel like a lot of new to the hobby readers don't understand phos forms.
If you don't understand how nitrate could be present, the article that I quoted from and linked to might be illustrative. They go into great detail.

 

[Saltliquid]

So, sps are easy, but it took you 30 years to get it right?

That's funny and predictable, i was doing sps by the end of 82, but back then sort of like you i was using my home made skimmers with air stone, then found a venturi was easy to make and live rock and available products and so on, same old same old!
Now i can do it with near no mech at all and in very different ways to you!
It was actually more then 30 years to get to where you are not, you see i didn't stop at what was available in the lfs, I never stop with what everyone else is stuck with if I can avoid it!
Plus I love the ocean and all of nature in general and always wanted to find a way to get out of the sheep run to do it similar to how the ocean does it, as I have been in it every chance I get since 1970.
I couldn’t afford a chiller and made one out of an up right freezer with a manual dial thermostat controller set in a glass test tube with fresh water sealed in it, with it, the glass boxes in side took months to make to run from one to another then back to the tank and sat the test tubed thermo in my water, too noisy, so I stoped keeping corals in 85 I think it was, to hard to keep cool and just had basic inverts with far to many fish, very well I might add and from there I played with making tanks as well, big tanks!
To me, some of the thousands of marine life I would collect commercially went I to my endless experiments.
Any way I got my first actual chiller in 99 and got back into corals and more with this tank in the pic and sold it in 2007 and started on my ocean water quality experiment properly that was always on my mind.
After stuff up after stuff up with the figuring out the other components needed, by 2011 it was perfect, but I still kept going trying to improve on it.
Yeh, 30 years to get to where you are, that was over 30 years ago!
Behind that timber was part of my first success at getting away from what reefers are stuck with using.

 

[KafudaFish]

Where did you get the statistic of 30% efficient? Lol some people just say stuff I swear. Im pretty sure.

What is your value?

 

[RussIV]

If a skimmer is a placebo then il give u my skimmate to dump in ur tank and wel see what happens. I joke of course, it is however about 30 percent effeciant which is good in this hobby. More info on that two year w.o water change tank pleaseee

how about i place all my livestock in your skimmer cup for an hour and you tell me it prevented nitrates from entering your system.

most of it dies in your cup.

50% of skimmate is calcium and magnesium carbonate. not doc.

 

[RussIV]

If a skimmer is a placebo, then what's all this brown gunk I have to pull out of it every few days? just fish poo?

a combination of nematodes, phyto, diatoms, copepods, and other microfauna.

give you a hint. we feed 10 cubes in our tank and ill use a filter sock, you use a skimmer. you tell me who has the caught the most "wasted food".

anyone with a hobby grade microscope will see all the life they are killing.

by all means, smell the death and state it prevented nitrates.

or state that your entire livestock has diarrhea and that is why they can fill that cup every 3 days.

 

[pisanoal]

a combination of nematodes, phyto, diatoms, copepods, and other microfauna.

give you a hint. we feed 10 cubes in our tank and ill use a filter sock, you use a skimmer. you tell me who has the caught the most "wasted food".

anyone with a hobby grade microscope will see all the life they are killing.

by all means, smell the death and state it prevented nitrates.

or state that your entire livestock has diarrhea and that is why they can fill that cup every 3 days.

What is your alternative? I am very interested in your approach. I am constantly trying to remove equipment from my system as I learn more.

 

[CHSUB]

not sure what we are discussing, some of these posts have me LOL!!!

A very large dry zone

someone has a filter system with a dry zone??? we are talking fish, not hamster right???:lolspin:

 

[RussIV]

What is your alternative? I am very interested in your approach. I am constantly trying to remove equipment from my system as I learn more.

nitrates are at an atomic scale.

that little bubbler is just a particle suspender. it doesnt matter if it is algae, or a bristle worm. its getting sucked up.

let the bacteria and the microfauna do most of the work like they should. by throwing a skimmer in there you just did something worse than dosing tetracycline in the tank.

those little critters will eat and poo as well but they cant if you dont let them reproduce and do what they were meant to do.

the most abundant sources of food for the lowest forms of life in the ocean is phyto and doc. skimmers are very good at getting those in your cup. without those, you retard zooplankton's growth and require a refugium with macroalgae.

it takes a while to rebalance a system if you pull a skimmer but the benefits are enormous.

just keep the substrate clean of debris, deep sand bed in an isolated section of the tank (chamber one is fine) with live rock. if you see stuff creeping up use chamber 2 for the fuge and throw in macro algae. chamber 3 is always the sponge u clean weekly for bits and pieces you dont want to decay.

ive seen detritus DISSOLVE in chamber 1. like there is nothing to vaccuum. you got a ton of life waiting to clean that tank and your overpriced bubbler that you sniff each time you empty it is making you think you prevented a tank crash.

if you need a lil help here and there dose seachem stability or
mb7. they knock down trates a bit. otherwise you need to be a more proactive and add bacteria colonization with matrix or more lr.

tbh. each system is unique and i could not advise you. just give you my method.

i change 10 gallons of water a month and that is to vacuum the sb in my dt. my total volume is 300+ gallons

 

[ericarenee]

That's funny and predictable, i was doing sps by the end of 82, but back then sort of like you i was using my home made skimmers with air stone, then found a venturi was easy to make and live rock and available products and so on, same old same old!
Now i can do it with near no mech at all and in very different ways to you!
It was actually more then 30 years to get to where you are not, you see i didn't stop at what was available in the lfs, I never stop with what everyone else is stuck with if I can avoid it!
Plus I love the ocean and all of nature in general and always wanted to find a way to get out of the sheep run to do it similar to how the ocean does it, as I have been in it every chance I get since 1970.
I couldn't afford a chiller and made one out of an up right freezer with a manual dial thermostat controller set in a glass test tube with fresh water sealed in it, with it, the glass boxes in side took months to make to run from one to another then back to the tank and sat the test tubed thermo in my water, too noisy, so I stoped keeping corals in 85 I think it was, to hard to keep cool and just had basic inverts with far to many fish, very well I might add and from there I played with making tanks as well, big tanks!
To me, some of the thousands of marine life I would collect commercially went I to my endless experiments.
Any way I got my first actual chiller in 99 and got back into corals and more with this tank in the pic and sold it in 2007 and started on my ocean water quality experiment properly that was always on my mind.
After stuff up after stuff up with the figuring out the other components needed, by 2011 it was perfect, but I still kept going trying to improve on it.
Yeh, 30 years to get to where you are, that was over 30 years ago!
Behind that timber was part of my first success at getting away from what reefers are stuck with using.

I Would love for you to show us all up on how its really done right.. Just open that cabinet and take some Pictures.......
You do have a Gorgeous Small tank.... Back when We had a 40 gallon tank i could totally maintain it with nothing more then weekly water changes.. And this was all done Without a Dry zone.. Matter a fact the water changes (because i am messy) Made my whole kitchen and Dining room (where tank was) a WET Zone.
thanks in advance for sharing with US (THE WORLD OF AQUARIUM OWNERS) How to do a REEF TANK RIGHT...

Erica Renee:thumbsup:

 

[Jrambo88]

nitrates are at an atomic scale.

that little bubbler is just a particle suspender. it doesnt matter if it is algae, or a bristle worm. its getting sucked up.

let the bacteria and the microfauna do most of the work like they should. by throwing a skimmer in there you just did something worse than dosing tetracycline in the tank.

those little critters will eat and poo as well but they cant if you dont let them reproduce and do what they were meant to do.

the most abundant sources of food for the lowest forms of life in the ocean is phyto and doc. skimmers are very good at getting those in your cup. without those, you retard zooplankton's growth and require a refugium with macroalgae.

it takes a while to rebalance a system if you pull a skimmer but the benefits are enormous.

just keep the substrate clean of debris, deep sand bed in an isolated section of the tank (chamber one is fine) with live rock. if you see stuff creeping up use chamber 2 for the fuge and throw in macro algae. chamber 3 is always the sponge u clean weekly for bits and pieces you dont want to decay.

ive seen detritus DISSOLVE in chamber 1. like there is nothing to vaccuum. you got a ton of life waiting to clean that tank and your overpriced bubbler that you sniff each time you empty it is making you think you prevented a tank crash.

if you need a lil help here and there dose seachem stability or
mb7. they knock down trates a bit. otherwise you need to be a more proactive and add bacteria colonization with matrix or more lr.

tbh. each system is unique and i could not advise you. just give you my method.

i change 10 gallons of water a month and that is to vacuum the sb in my dt. my total volume is 300+ gallons

I think it all boils down to there is more then one way to run a reef and it every way has its pros and cons

 

[heathlindner25]

nitrates are at an atomic scale.

that little bubbler is just a particle suspender. it doesnt matter if it is algae, or a bristle worm. its getting sucked up.

let the bacteria and the microfauna do most of the work like they should. by throwing a skimmer in there you just did something worse than dosing tetracycline in the tank.

those little critters will eat and poo as well but they cant if you dont let them reproduce and do what they were meant to do.

the most abundant sources of food for the lowest forms of life in the ocean is phyto and doc. skimmers are very good at getting those in your cup. without those, you retard zooplankton's growth and require a refugium with macroalgae.

it takes a while to rebalance a system if you pull a skimmer but the benefits are enormous.

just keep the substrate clean of debris, deep sand bed in an isolated section of the tank (chamber one is fine) with live rock. if you see stuff creeping up use chamber 2 for the fuge and throw in macro algae. chamber 3 is always the sponge u clean weekly for bits and pieces you dont want to decay.

ive seen detritus DISSOLVE in chamber 1. like there is nothing to vaccuum. you got a ton of life waiting to clean that tank and your overpriced bubbler that you sniff each time you empty it is making you think you prevented a tank crash.

if you need a lil help here and there dose seachem stability or
mb7. they knock down trates a bit. otherwise you need to be a more proactive and add bacteria colonization with matrix or more lr.

tbh. each system is unique and i could not advise you. just give you my method.

i change 10 gallons of water a month and that is to vacuum the sb in my dt. my total volume is 300+ gallons

Let see some pics of your " livestock"....I love to see the end result of this system you're using

 

[Jrambo88]

I was curious about that too.

 

[CStrickland]

I think it all boils down to there is more then one way to run a reef and it every way has its pros and cons

I agree, buuuut...

I do not think it is a good practice to come into the noob area of a forum and start telling people who don't appear to understand the basic needs of their corals that they can stop changing water or throw away their skimmer. If Russ and Liquid are going to do that they should be willing, at the very least, to explain their methods in sufficient detail to allow replication. It serves nothing but their egos to brag about their beautiful growth amongst the younguns here, and in a bunch of other recent threads. IMO it does more harm than good, especially when both have hidden means of export.

It is no surprise to me at all that when pressed, both fell back on lame excuses for why their tanks are special. Both of these posters rolled up in here like "nah, you don't need that fancy stuff" and then both admitted they are exporting nutrients other ways but refused to elaborate. Come on! This area of the forum is about teaching, and that's not how a teacher be's.

But at least liquid posted pics, that's a beautiful tank. well done!