Keeping a natural reef

[StinkyBunny]

4 hours ago, BrentSA said:

Think ill be downgrading my 118g to something more manageable and do a natural tank and harvest my own live food to freeze . 

If you live that close to the ocean, why not collect natural sea water? When we move, I will be using NSW exclusively for the tanks as long as the weather permits its collection.

4 hours ago, Subsea said:

Harvesting is fun.  I enjoyed collection trips with the kids.  We would m@ke a picknic of it.  

 

I focus on in tank live food webs.  I do not feed fish; I overfeed the  system, but first I invest in micro fauna and fana to inoculate diverse food webs in the sandbed.

We just got back from a collecting trip 2 weeks ago to get mullet, clams and mussels for food.

3 hours ago, BrentSA said:

I was thinking about testing out some black mussels from where I usually pick from  when my family wants some fresh grilled ones too eat . Going to freeze them , shave them and feed it to the inhabitants , just don't know how I'll be getting them out of the shell without cooking them .

 

Throw the mussels in the freezer, then you can use a dull knife pop them open. That's the easiest way I've found to open clams before I throw them into the grinder.

[Subsea]

4 hours ago, BrentSA said:

I was thinking about testing out some black mussels from where I usually pick from  when my family wants some fresh grilled ones too eat . Going to freeze them , shave them and feed it to the inhabitants , just don't know how I'll be getting them out of the shell without cooking them .

 

I use a heavy knife and break thin shell.  At that point, scape fleash from both halves.

[tibbsy07]

8 hours ago, Subsea said:

@tibbsy07

 

Tell me about the nano box in your signature.  Inquiring minds want to know.

The nanobox nanobot thing? That was my signature when Dave at NanoBox Reef lights was still making a name for himself around here. I lived nearby and I still think he makes the best lights. I've been out of the hobby for a while now (moved, had a kid, bought a house, etc) and am now designing a new tank set up and I will 100% be using Dave's stuff again. No matter what size tank, no matter natural or mechanical filtration, substrate/rock/coral/fish - whatever the setup, I want a nanobox light over the tank if I can swing it.

[BrentSA]

I do collect sea water , it a schlep though. It's a big tank so 15 or 20% water change is not so small . 

Every time it is 8 25L or i think just over  6gallon containers , not too sure how to convert litres to US gallons . 

[Subsea]

That much water weighs about 400 pounds.  On my first marine tank, I took out back seat of a VW bug, put two empty 30G containers and collected water on an incoming tide at Galveston jetties, where I also collected Peppermint Shrimp and Curly Que Anemone.  NSW is rich in phyto and food for corals.  I kept it fresh with air pump and used it the same day.

[BrentSA]

I wish I was in a tropical area or the US ,just so i can bring home some things from the ocean and your guys equipment is a little bit better... but then I think... no tornados , no earthquakes,  no hurricanes , no heavy flooding and no volcanoes, I think I'll stay where I am . There is one tropical place in South Africa but it's about a 3hr flight away from me . 

[nicholc2]

3 hours ago, BrentSA said:

I wish I was in a tropical area or the US ,just so i can bring home some things from the ocean and your guys equipment is a little bit better... but then I think... no tornados , no earthquakes,  no hurricanes , no heavy flooding and no volcanoes, I think I'll stay where I am . There is one tropical place in South Africa but it's about a 3hr flight away from me . 

You do have those huge breaching great white sharks though.  Love to see those some day!

[KW NANOREEF]

Incredible thread to read! Every reefer need to read this and then base their personal opinions off of this.

[nicholc2]

50 minutes ago, KW NANOREEF said:

Incredible thread to read! Every reefer need to read this and then base their personal opinions off of this.

That’s the best thing about this hobby. The plethora of information and things are constantly changing and improving. 

[KW NANOREEF]

32 minutes ago, nicholc2 said:

That’s the best thing about this hobby. The plethora of information and things are constantly changing and improving. 

I will admit, trying to find live food for small fish is actually quite difficult. I feel that as long as you take care of your frozen food and make sure you are watching what your fish eat, you should get some of the same results.

[Subsea]

On 8/5/2018 at 1:04 PM, tibbsy07 said:

Yeah coral really rely on their microbial symbionts and the microbes in the ecosystem for a lot, as do other macro species. 

 

I remember a conversation some years ago in which I asked your thoughts on bacteria and uv sterilizer, “gumbo” is what I heard.  Yesterday, in a thread with Randy Holmes Farley, he said “spill their guts” with respect to uv and bacteria.  I have mature reef tanks in which I feed heavy and add ammonia.  From your experience with micro biology, do you think that bacteria nutrients after uv “spilled their guts” can be assimilated by corals directly?

[Nano sapiens]

16 minutes ago, KW NANOREEF said:

I will admit, trying to find live food for small fish is actually quite difficult. I feel that as long as you take care of your frozen food and make sure you are watching what your fish eat, you should get some of the same results.

Chopped earthworms are an excellent source of nutrition and loaded with bacterial.  If you can't get them from a pesticide free garden, you can very easily grow your own Dwarf African Red Worms in an old styrofoam ice chest (or similar).  I did this for years when raising Killifish and as a side benefit I always had rich compost for the house plants from my feeding the worms the veggie table scraps.

[BrentSA]

2 hours ago, nicholc2 said:

You do have those huge breaching great white sharks though.  Love to see those some day!

Lol we tend to stay away from them unless on a boat going out to see them,  but they don't often come into very shallow waters where we swim and when there has been attacks , seal population had shown to have decreased and the sharks were looking for food , attacks are few and far between though .

 

We even had orca whales here , which is not normal and they decimated our great white populations, so even if you go out , there is no guarantee you going to see anything breaching the water , good sign is that there has been breeding age females spotted since then and numbers are slowly improving but a real sad story over all .

 

As the shark cage diving we leave to the foolish tourists who feels like getting eaten ... if someone makes you signs an indemnity form ... walk away lol 

 

Btw I said I was going to post a link on this chat for feeding fish and how fresh foods helps with immunity . Here it is ...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145305X17301118

 

Ended up making a new post all together , really interesting stuff and I'm sure the same would apply for coral . 

[BrentSA]

25 minutes ago, KW NANOREEF said:

I will admit, trying to find live food for small fish is actually quite difficult. I feel that as long as you take care of your frozen food and make sure you are watching what your fish eat, you should get some of the same results.

Finding food is easy , freeze and grate into thin slices easy for fish to eat.

 

1 hour ago, nicholc2 said:

That’s the best thing about this hobby. The plethora of information and things are constantly changing and improving. 

Definitely ! Even if something has been discussed before , there is always new info coming out and you are always learning . Lately ive just been reading so many things on filterless reef systems , not even polyfilter or coal . Just a pump for water movement . 

 

I'm going to set up a smaller tank and thinking about trying this out ...but with a canister filtee  , so if I want Or need or start panicking for no apparent reason ,  I can add a layer of polyfilter or coal or both . 

[tibbsy07]

57 minutes ago, Subsea said:

 

I remember a conversation some years ago in which I asked your thoughts on bacteria and uv sterilizer, “gumbo” is what I heard.  Yesterday, in a thread with Randy Holmes Farley, he said “spill their guts” with respect to uv and bacteria.  I have mature reef tanks in which I feed heavy and add ammonia.  From your experience with micro biology, do you think that bacteria nutrients after uv “spilled their guts” can be assimilated by corals directly?

It kind of depends. Most of the bacteria that are in our tanks are not in the water column but attached to surfaces and substrate in the tank, so the UV sterilizer will kill stuff in the water column, but unless you have a water issue or cloudy tank there shouldn't be that much impact on anything - good or bad - in terms of bacterial load. 

 

That being said, it is entirely possible that a UV sterilizer provides a 'stew' of cellular contents into the water for coral to feed on. Anything else that uses microscopic food would benefit as well. We have no direct evidence of this in a tank so Randy Holmes Farley is completely speculating on that. UV doesn't cause cells to burst, it kills them by crosslinking DNA and preventing cellular repair and reproduction (mutations caused by UV can cause instant cell death too, though). Bacteria are constantly dying in our tanks so we already should have a stew of cellular contents... If your UV sterilizer is after your return pump and into the display, much of the bacteria will have gotten caught up in the mechanical filtration and the biofilms and such prior to getting to the return pump, especially if you have a skimmer. If your UV sterilizer is before your filtration setup, then the cellular contents risk being removed by chemical filtration and resins and such. It all sort of depends on your setup. 

 

Another key factor on UV sterilization is wavelength, concentration, and exposure time. The correct wavelengths need to be used in a high enough concentration to penetrate the concentration of bacterial cells present and there must be sufficient enough time to make it work. If you fall short on those, you may just make some mutations that don't to anything. We don't use UV sterilizers in labs much anymore because they aren't that effective or reliable. Sure we have them, but they don't really count for much under scrutiny. 

 

Personally, I'm not a fan. Not much harm to use, and absolutely great if you have a water issue they can help with. But I don't think spending the money on them is beneficial when you can just add foods and other supplements for much cheaper and get the same effect. UV sterilizers need new bulbs a lot. In the lab, they recommend replacing a UV bulb every year and that is one that is used for biosafety cabinets like an hour a day. Running a UV sterilizer constantly means you should be replacing it every month or so.

[Subsea]

@tibbsy07

 

Thank you for the great details.  It lessens some of my logic on using UV sterilizer for short circuiting the “microbial loop”.  However, the big reason is algae spores.  I run ornamental macro algae mixed garden lagoons.  Macro algae is often coated with biofilms and nuisance algae which bring in competing spores.  Thus UV sterilizer.

[Nano Nano Boo Boo]

I think there is something to be said here. Anyone else notice their tank looking happier when protein skimmer is off? My Biocube is absolutely a better tank without the skimmer. I occasionally turn it on if needed but mostly off at this point. Running Chaeto in a tower with cheap filter floss, that’s it. 

[KW NANOREEF]

40 minutes ago, Nano Nano Boo Boo said:

I think there is something to be said here. Anyone else notice their tank looking happier when protein skimmer is off? My Biocube is absolutely a better tank without the skimmer. I occasionally turn it on if needed but mostly off at this point. Running Chaeto in a tower with cheap filter floss, that’s it. 

That’s eshopps Protien skimmer🧐 my tank does 100% better with my aquatic life Skimmer on. If you can get it tuned and keep near constant water level your skimmer should start churning up some nasty stuff

[Subsea]

47 minutes ago, KW NANOREEF said:

That’s eshopps Protien skimmer🧐 my tank does 100% better with my aquatic life Skimmer on. If you can get it tuned and keep near constant water level your skimmer should start churning up some nasty stuff

That nasty stuff removes food that grows coral.  

 

Think of being skimmerless this way; instead of removing skimmate for nutrient export, grow more coral to frag & sell for nutrient export.

[Nano sapiens]

I think the debate on whether a protein skimmer should be used, or not, will probably outlive me 😊

 

Back when the original Berlin System was introduced, a skimmer was considered essential.  These systems originally included rubble (not sand) and a lot of live rock (think 'reef wall' all along the back) which allowed detritus and uneaten food to accumulate and not be easily accessible to most macro creatures kept at the time (the original recommendation was to keep an Engineer Goby since it's one of the few animals that can effectively burrow into this type of rubble substrate).  Water change recommendations were rather minimal, too (something around 5%/month if I remember correctly).  Skimmers made sense for these early systems.  Today we typically use a relatively fine sand substrate that more creatures can easily access, have less live rock/water volume, are more careful with fish stocking and often have more compacted coral cover that utilizes more of the in-tank nutrients.  As a whole, I'd say we also tend to change water/vacuum the substrate more often than back in the day and/or change larger volumes of water.

 

IMO, the changes in the way reef aquaria are setup and maintained today has allowed us to say that skimmers are an option that can be beneficial (especially in heavily fed and or heavily fish stocked systems).  But they are certainly not a necessity for the typical, well balanced reef system.

[nicholc2]

13 hours ago, Nano Nano Boo Boo said:

I think there is something to be said here. Anyone else notice their tank looking happier when protein skimmer is off? My Biocube is absolutely a better tank without the skimmer. I occasionally turn it on if needed but mostly off at this point. Running Chaeto in a tower with cheap filter floss, that’s it. 

My tank 1000% looks better skimmer-less and it's only been about a month at this point.  I've read that skimmer removes almost as much good as it does bad and seeing how my corals, rfas, fish, etc are reacting I'm inclined to agree.  I have an acro that was in the middle of STN and since I've went all natural that has ceased and it's coloring back up and growing new tissue again.  I don't believe in coincidences when it comes to reefing so I believe it is a direct result of my change.

 

FWIW I haven't slowed down on feeding either.  It's actually pretty cool to see the algae that I would normally think is bad almost solely in the refugium now and not in my display!  Once I start seeing enough bad algae on the chaeto I pull it out and done.  Love it!

[BrentSA]

So I decided to start emptying my 5ft natural reef today , rock is going into my quarantine , my buddy just came to get all my coral by me and placed an order on a tank which comes with everything , I was going to convert a standard freshwater to a marine with a canister and external skimmer which I would put in if needed, but I think I would start panicking with just a canister , so will be getting something with all the bells and whistles for in case anything decides to go wrong and leaving the skimmer off and going to mix the aragonite with some of the fine sand which is currently in my tank and will be filling the sump with some chaeto and going to get a mangrove cutting for $26  , don't know if that is worth it or not.