Part 1 For ZEPH on Clams and Ozone and more

[albertthiel]

Zeph ... not sure how the 2 posts ended up in General discussion here is Part 1

 

 

Zeph,

 

Well you sure bring up a lot of points but I sense that your main interest is in what I have to say about large Clams (Blue and Brown).

 

First a little background on myself and the Company I used to run ….

 

Yes when I started up Thiel Aqua Tech I was importing products from Germany (Dupla and a few others) and at that time, and originally, most if not all were geared towards freshwater “plant” aquariums, based on the writings of Kasper Horst and Horst Kipper (the owner of Dupla).

 

As I traveled around though I came to realize that the freshwater hobby was not quite ready for very high end plant tanks, and as a result I slowly moved into saltwater tanks.

 

Since Dupla, at that time, did not have anything for saltwater I developed a whole range of products here in the US (you may remember X-Nitrate, X-Phosphate, Ridalgex and Liquid Gold, KSM and a few others). Most of them were soon copied by other manufacturers as you well know, and most of the products are still around in some form or another but made by different manufacturers under other names.

 

Correct also on the fact that we sold high end stuff, and that a lot of the aquarium controls were taken care of by instrumentation as, because the “natural” processes that took place in aquariums were not that well known, even though many advanced hobbyists and marine biologists were really looking into all of those (Huckstedt, Fossa, Nielsen, Weigel, Paysan and others, most of them where from Germany), instrumentation was the alternative way to go, albeit expensive.

 

Not too much research seemed to be going on in the US although Moe, and then Delbeek and Sprung, Shimek and others too many to mention came onto the scene a few years later and started educating hobbyists into more and more of the natural processes.

 

Since we did not know much at that time about the natural processes that occurred, or could occur and be taken advantage of, the whole Thiel Aqua Tech approach was based on instrumentation, from measuring levels of all kinds of water quality parameters besides the basic ones that everyone monitored. Looking into ORP, oxygen levels, CO2, accurate salinity, accurate temperature, water flow, chillers, advanced RO units and membrane filtration units, etc. were not really part of what most hobbyists got involved in, perhaps because the devices needed to do so were expensive to say the least. But that is what we sold and used ourselves and quite a few hobbyists did buy our products but it remained a niche market for sure.

 

As time went on, and as we gained a better understanding of the processes going on in aquariums large and small, things started to change and the number of meters and like devices sort of fell out of large scale use, and hobbyists began to focus on maintaining their aquariums in natural ways, with less reliance on outside devices (e.g. the introduction of more advanced trickle filters and other types of water purification devices, including ones that used live stock that performed the water cleaning for them, either in the tank or in the sump in a number of cases, and greatly reduced the cost of setting up invertebrate tanks (soft corals at first and then hard ones after that).

 

As the understanding of the natural process gained momentum and as more information on what really happened in aquariums began to be published, the manner in which aquariums were kept started changing, and in some cases a great deal. Sure there was that intermediate period where all kinds of methods were advocated but they were still not where the hobby needed to go: simplification of a lot of maintenance and care. That eventually did come about.

 

We at Thiel Aqua Tech followed the trend as the motto was: offer hobbyists what they need and are looking for, and try to bring down the cost of keeping reefs large and small. We were successful in doing so and provided them until I sold the company, unfortunately to someone who was not fully engaged in the process, upset a lot of hobbyist (and often I was blamed for it as few knew or realized that I was no longer involved and had sold the Company, but of course my name was still on the products and the buyer operated under the same Thiel Aqua Tech name).

 

Eventually he ran the Company into the ground and left quite a few hobbyists hanging out in the cold unfortunately, and although I really had nothing to do with it, I do want to offer an apology to those who were affected buy what happened.

 

A long story to agree with you that the orientation of keeping reefs was for a long time instrument and reactors of all sorts heavy and was expensive to get into, a lot more so than it is now (although it is still not an easily affordable hobby).

 

On the use of Ozone all I can say was that its use was in a lot of cases not properly understood and applied and, indeed, as you state, a lot of ozone was escaping into the surrounding air, which it should not have if enough activated carbon was used both before the water re-entered the tank, and at the top of skimmers and other devices to prevent the residual ozone from escaping into the air. I think that by now that has been resolved, and those who use ozone use it only on a limited basis, maybe a few times a week or even month, and are much more careful about preventing its escape into the air.

 

Was it helpful? Yes as the skimmers in use at that time were not all that efficient and a lot of organic breakdown material was not removed from the water. Is it still helpful now? I would say yes but whether or not it should be used depends a lot of size of tank, load per gallon, feeding habits, presence or lack of cleaning organisms in the tank etc … so using it intermittently is probably the best use for it right now as an extra step in ensuring that the water quality remains where it should be (in many nano and certainly pico aquariums it is in my opinion not needed.

 

Is it still helpful? Yes, I do think so, and agree with you on that point but there are a lot of ifs and whens, and with what kind of livestock and aquariums.

 

I see that some hobbyists use hydrogen peroxide and add very small amounts to the tank, and since that is an oxidizer as well that should clean up the water if needed. Do I recommend its use: not really as figuring out the right dosage and when to use it is not for the beginner and intermediate hobbyists. Plus we need to get away from using chemicals as much as we can. Ferric oxide serves the same purpose and is a mild oxidizer so that is probably a better way to go.

 

Now to Clams :

 

I must assume you are talking about Tridacnid types: blue and brown. As I am not sure how many words can be put into one post I am going to post this in part II of this response

 

Albert

[iball1804]

Part I and II, along with all your other informative threads, were moved to General Discussion, as these aren't aquarium threads.