Intelligent Design is Natural Filtration

[seabass]

On 9/25/2017 at 12:29 AM, Subsea said:

We shall see how important opposite light cycles are. 

With good aeration, I agree that they aren't required.  However, when possible, opposite light cycles can help with pH stability; although I suppose that less buffering occurs.

 

Incorporating decorative macros in the display seems to be a growing trend here on Nano-Reef.  Can you please post the links to your tanks here for us?

[Weetabix7]

2 hours ago, seabass said:

With good aeration, I agree that they aren't required.  However, when possible, opposite light cycles can help with pH stability; although I suppose that less buffering occurs.

 

Incorporating decorative macros in the display seems to be a growing trend here on Nano-Reef.  Can you please post the links to your tanks here for us?

 

Yes, please!!

[Subsea]

I am a dinasour when it comes to taking pictures and posting.  I have asked a friend to help me with pictures of tanks.  Hopefully, I can accomadate in a few days.  

 

I deal with aireation in two ways.  On my 75G mixed garden with Jaubert Plenumn, the surfacer skimmer is one part of the solution.  By removing surface film,  the water gas interface promotes effective gas exchange; adds oxygen removes carbon dioxide.  The second componant to aireation is  30G mud/macro refugium.  With bioballs in the first compartment, gas exchange is facilitated without photosynthesis.

 

I should add at this time that I circulate large volumns of water (20-40 volumns per hour).  The bacteria populations consume oxygen 24/7.  

[CronicReefer]

I definitely agree that biological filtration benefits the tank more than any synthetic product on the market. For biological filtration in my 75g I currently have: ~100lbs live rock (Haitian is very dense), DSB in display, ~8g in-sump refugium overgrown with chaeto and 10lb of miracle mud, and a Bio-Brick doped with sulfur that is rated for up to 1000g aquariums. I have stopped using a fiber sock and only use a protein skimmer when dosing carbon. The bio-brick has made the biggest difference along with dosing a carbon source because I now have large anaerobic bacteria colonies inside the bio-brick and DSB. Another thing I did is increase the water temperature which now stays between 80-81F. This is supposed to more beneficial to corals and provides them with more energy for growth.

 

After not much success with this tank for the first year, the past 6 months I've seen corals growing noticeably and maintaining vibrant colors. Nuisance algae problems have become a thing of the past. I don't even have to scrape the glass except to remove coralline algae off the front panel. The only time I use any chemical filtration is a bag of carbon to remove water discoloration once a month. Water testing for phosphates/nitrates has become unnecessary so that saves me time and money on test kits. Another benefit is now I can feed my fish without worrying about polluting the water with nutrients because the huge bacteria populations have no problem eating up the waste. My clownfish have bred regularly over the past 6 months from the increased feeding which has never happened despite them being mature for over two years.

 

 

[Subsea]

On 9/26/2017 at 6:32 AM, Weetabix7 said:

 

Yes, please!!

As an early  Christmas present, I ditch my laptop with windows 10 and bought this iPad fifth generation. So now I can post pictures and will do so. I do not have any tank threads so I will just post pictures of tanks as they presently are.  

 

This is picture was the tank in question.  It is my only tank with a sump.

[Subsea]

On top is 55G  display macro and coral grow out.  On bottom is 55G tumble culture of Gracilaria Hayi.

[Subsea]

On bottom is 55G macro and coral grow out tank.  On top is a 10G tank with pods and snails at top of food chain.  I enjoy waking up in the morning with my first cup of water watching this tank wake up.  I feed it and watch the little people come to life as they chase food.  The top right space will shortly be another 55G tumble culture, instead of Gracilaria, it will be Halmenia dilatata.

 

Bad light from outside.

[seabass]

Very nice!  I'm glad that you can post pics now.

[Subsea]

This is 55G  macro coral frag grow out tank.  I just did move a diver collected live rock that has been neglected for five years.   There is still one hard coral on it.   It has some hard to reach aptasia that resist   hydrogen peroxide injection.  I will let the peppermint shrimp deal with it.  Today, I have 15 lbs of uncured live rock (nano size) and fifty peppermint shrimp arriving.  We will let nature take its course.

[Subsea]

This is on the mid/right side of tank.

[mr9iron]

I am enjoying your thread to say the least.  I like the idea of less technology and more biology.  Biology always seems to win in the end.

[Subsea]

30 minutes ago, mr9iron said:

I am enjoying your thread to say the least.  I like the idea of less technology and more biology.  Biology always seems to win in the end.

Thank you for the compliment.  There was an old tv commercial about margarine and butter..  When Mother Nature realized that she had been fooled,  as she took out her magic wand she said "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature" and the tempest came down.

 

Natural systems don't fight Mother Nature.  

[mr9iron]

1 minute ago, Subsea said:

Thank you for the compliment.  There was an old tv commercial about margarine and butter..  When Mother Nature realized that she had been fooled,  as she took out her magic wand she said "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature" and the tempest came down.

 

Natural systems don't fight Mother Nature.  

I've been caught up in all of the gadgets over the years.  What I have learned, albeit through anecdotal evidence, is that simple systems seem to work better and are much less costly.  My new 20 IM fusion will be ran with lots of live rock, no sand, some extra Matrix media for increased surface area for bacterial growth, and the IM skimmer.  I feel that the skimmer will remove some dissolved organic compounds, but the major benefit is for gas exchange.

 

I will use carbon and GFO in small amounts if needed.  

 

Weekly water changes will be a must as well.

[NanoRox]

18 hours ago, Subsea said:

and fifty peppermint shrimp arriving

Now that's an army of peppermint shrimp! :-)

[Subsea]

When I go to fight a war, I bring an army.  Aptasia, be gone!  The 20 lbs of live rock that I received yesterday had no Aptasia on it.  The peppermint shrimp will be dived among six tanks, but in the meantime, I bring live rock to it.  In the case of live rock from 75G Jaubert Plenumn display tank, I use Flatworm Exit to treat for red planaria.

 

This rock was removed from tank with red planarian mix.  I first treated with a hydrogen peroxide bath of 10% for ten minutes.  Then after washing treated with flatworm exit for 30 minutes.  Glued a cutting of Green Sinularia and inserted some red grape stems.  I like my Christmas colors.

[Subsea]

On 9/29/2017 at 7:15 AM, CronicReefer said:

I definitely agree that biological filtration benefits the tank more than any synthetic product on the market. For biological filtration in my 75g I currently have: ~100lbs live rock (Haitian is very dense), DSB in display, ~8g in-sump refugium overgrown with chaeto and 10lb of miracle mud, and a Bio-Brick doped with sulfur that is rated for up to 1000g aquariums. I have stopped using a fiber sock and only use a protein skimmer when dosing carbon. The bio-brick has made the biggest difference along with dosing a carbon source because I now have large anaerobic bacteria colonies inside the bio-brick and DSB. Another thing I did is increase the water temperature which now stays between 80-81F. This is supposed to more beneficial to corals and provides them with more energy for growth.

 

After not much success with this tank for the first year, the past 6 months I've seen corals growing noticeably and maintaining vibrant colors. Nuisance algae problems have become a thing of the past. I don't even have to scrape the glass except to remove coralline algae off the front panel. The only time I use any chemical filtration is a bag of carbon to remove water discoloration once a month. Water testing for phosphates/nitrates has become unnecessary so that saves me time and money on test kits. Another benefit is now I can feed my fish without worrying about polluting the water with nutrients because the huge bacteria populations have no problem eating up the waste. My clownfish have bred regularly over the past 6 months from the increased feeding which has never happened despite them being mature for over two years.

Kudos to your system.  A mature tank makes reefkeeping easy.  Congradulations.

On 9/29/2017 at 7:15 AM, CronicReefer said:

 

 

 

[Subsea]

After 25 years with a mud/macro refugium, I have turned out the lights on the refugium.  Sponges and tunicates replace macro.  I have embraced cryptic zone filtration.  Sea Apples and Flame Scallops have always been favorites.  Continuing with the red theme are Red Tree Sponges.  My three favorite green colors are GSP, Green Sinularia and Hammer time.

[Subsea]

On 9/1/2016 at 12:00 AM, Nano sapiens said:

 

Having been in this hobby for a few decades, I've seen the ebb-and-flow between proponents of the 'natural' and 'technology-driven' systems. What I find most interesting is the recurrent belief that some seem to have that technology will fix all the problems that people often believe are inherent in reef keeping. This perspective fits in well with the prevailing mechanistic-centric point of view that all parts of a system can be broken down into individual components and then 'fixed'. Works great for man-made machinery, but living organisms and systems are holistic by nature, which is a concept that until fairly recently was not taught/understood well in the western world.

 

Phosphate is an excellent example. Before we could test for any form of phosphate, no one gave it much thought. So if algae got to be a problem, there was no "Oh my, looks like I have high PO4". But we did know that dirty conditions weren't reef healthy and promoted algae growth. Ergo, clean the tank and keep it clean...which reduced organics/phosphates.

Nano,

You have summarized the whole point of view.  Reef aquariums are holistic in nature.  A long term, successful reef aquarium needs first to be built up with bacteria then micro fauna and fana.  These absob nutrients and feed corals and fish.

[CronicReefer]

On 10/21/2017 at 9:14 AM, Subsea said:

Kudos to your system.  A mature tank makes reefkeeping easy.  Congradulations.

 

Thanks! And yes it is definitely much easier as things have matured. I'm hoping to get a sailfin blenny sometime in the near future if my pod populations continue to increase in the display. You have quite the tank collection going as well

 

[Nano sapiens]

When I think of all the different macro organisms have been added to my 9+ year old small system, and then all the various micro organisms that were also introduced at the same time, the total number of individual species would be in the hundreds, or perhaps thousands (corals, fish, various inverts, sponges, alga, bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists...).

 

On the whole, I would expect a typical fully mature successful reef system to be more resilient due to a stable microbial community and increased biodiversity. 

[Subsea]

On 10/22/2017 at 11:44 PM, Nano sapiens said:

When I think of all the different macro organisms have been added to my 9+ year old small system, and then all the various micro organisms that were also introduced at the same time, the total number of individual species would be in the hundreds, or perhaps thousands (corals, fish, various inverts, sponges, alga, bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists...).

 

On the whole, I would expect a typical fully mature successful reef system to be more resilient due to a stable microbial community and increased biodiversity. 

 

I have added Blue Tangs to a 20 yr old mature tank with ich visible thru the shipping bag.  During the first 24 hours ich was visible on skin.  After 24 hours ich was not visible.  For the next 48 hours Hippo scratched his body and then stopped scratching with no more symptoms in that tank.

[TFish77]

On 8/31/2016 at 4:31 PM, Subsea said:

After four years in the Air Force ending in Nov of 1970, I thought I wanted to be Jaques Cousteau and lean to a Marine Science career. The marine biology department head at LSU advised me to attend Texas Maritime Academy in Galveston, as a Marine Engineer. During that first semester, I attended Oceaneering 101 and learned how to see these natural systems as being interconnected and dependent on each other. During that first summer in the Galveston Bay Area, I set up a theme tank, I collected natural saltwater on an incoming tide at the Galveston jetties. Also collected at the jetties were anemone and peppermint shrimp. Using a small net in the marsh reed grasses, I collected green mollies and grass shrimps. For substrate , I used crushed up oyster shells which were used in chicken feed houses. For live rock, I collected an oyster cluster with numerous differrent filter feeders.

 

 

 

As an engineer, I lean toward natural systems that self regulate. I don't like fighting "Mother Nature". As a control systems.engineer on complex subsea BOP control systems, I found that the more bells and whistles there were, the more things that could go wrong.

In speaking with educated pHD in microbiology and physics, it is evident that biological processes are far more complex and efficient than previously understood. Future research to understand how corals communicate to schronize a coral mass spawning that can be seen from space. Because nothing happens in a vacum, the dynamics to equalize nitrogen and carbon dioxide maintain nutrient export and import that is self regulating as well as photosynthetic energy producing oxygen and sugar, which is a form of carbon dosing "nature style".

 

This thread will talk about differrent natural processes and the science behind them.

 

Very cool stuff. Part of what attracted me so much to this hobby is not only how much information is out there to learn but also how much information is still being discovered.

 

Are you still in school studying or have you graduated?  

[Subsea]

The Texas Maritime Academy was 45 years ago.  After the first semester for Christmas, I went to my mothers home in Lafayette, La.  The “Hub City”  in  “Cajun Country”.  I was the last of ten siblings to arrive.  There was much laughing and joking with an unusual number of Aggie jokes.  I even told the few that I knew.  Some few hours later, I found my semester grades in my mother’s in box near front door, where everybody saw it.  On the letter return address in bold print was Texas A&M.  Voila, a Cajun/Aggie is born.  

 

I worked 35 years in offshore drilling as a Senior Subsea Engineer before retiring to Austin, Tx.   

 

The human anatomy is amazingly complex.  We put a man on the moon 50 years ago, yet we can not cure cancer.  

 

Coral Holibiot has come into use in the last 20  years.   How can Coral communicate with cynobacteria to utilize nitrogen fixation as a back-up nitrogen source.  How can corals on the Great Barrier Reef schronize a mass spawning that can be seen from space?

 

After 45 years addicted to this hobby, I marvel at the complexity of dynamic equilibrium, nutrient recycling thru complex food webs.  Dynamic equilibrium drives partial pressure of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen  between athmosphere & water.    Facultative bacteria in an oxygen reducing environment, convert a nitrate molecule into free nitrogen gas in a process called

de-nitrification.  This is nutrient export at the water/air interface.    On the other end of the spectrum, cynobacteria convert free nitrogen gas into a nitrate molecule in a process called “nitrogen fixation”.  Carbon dioxide in the water, driven by photosynthesis produces sugar, nature’s way to carbon dose.

 

 

[Subsea]

Natural sunlight.

 

All of my aquariums on east wall get direct and indirect natural sunlight.  I especially like dappled early morning sunlight beams sending glitter lines inside the tank.   When I hear “What is the best light for my corals”, I shudder.  If you did the best light for your corals health, your corals would look brown because the best light for them would be sunlight.   With real “full spectrum” natural  sun corals block out intensity and spectrum with zooanthelia.  Because we have reef tanks for our enjoyment, we enhance our visual input by adjusting light spectrum in the tank.  This adjust what color pigments will be reflected back.

 

Todays reef tanks are stunning with enhanced lighting technology.  With lighting as the one exception, I continue to say “Less technology/More biology

[Subsea]

First picture shows four different red macros.  Note the dark burgundy of Gracilaria Hayi in left corner.  It was just removed from a tumble culture tank with subdued lighting.  To the right of the Hayi is Red Grapes, Bortacladia.  This normally is collected in Gulf of Mexico between 60’-120’ deep.   Not very bright at that depth, with mostly blue spectrum.  On the top right is Dragons Tongue supported with an acrylic post.  The fourth red macro is on a piece of Gulf live rock.  It is one of two Halymenia collected in Florida called Dragons Breath.  Also attached to this rock is a very fragile green macro that I have not identified.  I can only surmise that it taste good to the herbivores.  There was none of this green macro evident two weeks ago, when I received rock.  Also on rock we’re three glass anemones, Aptasia.  I was waiting on Peppermint Shrimp to do this part of curating live rock, but I am not very patient with a pest like this.  If caught early, it is easily contained.  As Barney Fife would say to Andy Griffin, “You have got to nip it in the bud”.  Both hydrogen peroxide and Aptasia X work well for Aptasia elimination when used properly.  

 

Note this:  In my experiences:  Aptasia, ich and Red Planaria can be dormant much longer than what is commonly accepted.  It is for that reason, my focus on reef ailments is not to eliminate pest but to increase fish and coral immune systems by starting with the bottom of the food chain, bacteria.  Provide healthy probiotics with live food.  There is no better source of Omega 3 & 6 than live bi-vale’s with their large gut cavity.  I buy live marine mussels for $.10 each.  Normally, I get a weeks worth which for me is ten.