Where do you get your water?

[filefishfinatic]

On 7/28/2021 at 2:18 AM, blasterman said:

I refuse to buy bulk RODI water because there's no quality standards. If your tap water is regarded as safe to drink then RODI water made with old filters is safe to drink.

 

LFS and grocery stores are the worst. Several in my area have tested for high TDS not much better than tap. Do not trust RODI bulk water unless you personally know the owner of the store.

 

I have low water pressure and gave up on RODI as well. 

 

I keep glass on my tank and since its only a 20gal I lose less than a gallon a week to evap. A gallon a week of bottled distilled fixes the problem, and I know its pure. I know the rage right now is rimless tops with lots of evap and a gun to your head to get a plumber and an RODI unit. I will cover with glass thank you and save money and run my tank how I want. Not to mention we have areas of the country that are living in denial about water conservation.

 

I add some tap water to my tank because I need some phosphate and trace silicate,  My tank is not typical though and most of the time I would not suggest tap.

i use store distilled its best imo and it is cheaper than rodi long term if you did a weekly 10% wc and lost 10% of your water voluem 

[filefishfinatic]

On 7/28/2021 at 10:36 AM, blasterman said:

Brings up another pet peeve of mine, and that's the water change cult in general. 

 

My 20L is crammed wall to wall with fast growing SPS and I dont do water changes. I keep my bioload light, dont over feed and hence dont have nitrate issues. Spare me the trace element nonsense. Water changes do not reset your tank to default. Want to melt zoas? Do aggressive water changes and keep stripping nutrients . If getting source water is a pain here's a concept: back off water changes to a more conservative schedule. 

thats what i do i just dont overfeed like father fish says and i dont get nutrient issues and i dose vitamins and minerals more for my fish then anything because i know they are healthier and they color up better. from reading, tanks with lots of fish and lots of coral have a correlation, more bioload and more natural filtration to mimic a real reef = more coral vs waiting 10 years to get 1 zoa frag and keeping 1 fish 

[Tired]

Understocked tanks can wind up with issues if nutrients aren't dosed, ,yes, but the conclusion is not that overstocking is good. The conclusion is that you shouldn't do too many water changes, and should dose nutrients if needed. 

 

You can't mimic a real reef that way in a tiny container of water. When looking at a wild reef, you can't just look at the bit right around the coral. You have to look at how much water is above them. An aquarium stocked to the ratio of fish to water that a wild reef has, would have no fish until you had hundreds and hundreds of gallons of water. 

[filefishfinatic]

Just now, Tired said:

Understocked tanks can wind up with issues if nutrients aren't dosed, ,yes, but the conclusion is not that overstocking is good. The conclusion is that you shouldn't do too many water changes, and should dose nutrients if needed. 

 

You can't mimic a real reef that way in a tiny container of water. When looking at a wild reef, you can't just look at the bit right around the coral. You have to look at how much water is above them. An aquarium stocked to the ratio of fish to water that a wild reef has, would have no fish until you had hundreds and hundreds of gallons of water. 

how many of those fishes are aquarium fish and/or go out off the reef into the middle of the ocean to get eaten by a trevally? if a reef was 30' underwater and there was 1 trevalley per square foot (a reasonable amount) 1 trevalley (a large fish) would need roughly 210 gallons of water 

[Tired]

There is not 1 trevally per square foot on an entire reef. 

[filefishfinatic]

i am trying to calculate fish per cubic feet

 

[Tired]

This is not one trevally worth of fish per 30 cubic feet of water. If I took a 10-foot cube of water out of this reef, even one taken from primarily over the corals, I would have only a tiny scattering of fish. 

[filefishfinatic]

i can count at least 70 fish in that image. remember theres fish living amongst the coral and rocks also. 

[Tired]

They're small fish, and a lot of water. If you imagine that 210-gallon column of water reaching from the surface down into the reef, how many fish do you think it would intersect? I'd say maybe half a dozen at its densest section, and we can extrapolate a couple more fish hiding in the coral. Eight fish that look like they're maybe the size of my palm, maybe a bit bigger, wouldn't be much in a 210 gallon tank. 

[filefishfinatic]

on all the worlds reefs, there is roughly 875 billion fish. now if we divide that by 10 (great barrier reef size) we get 87.5 billion fish, do a lot of math to find square footage (359100000000) square feet divide by 87.5 billion voila 4.1 fish per square foot we will say 1 per cubic foot (remember these are about 6" fish beccause thats an average size) so 24" of fish per 1 sq foot and 1 cubic foot is 7 gal being theoreticall we will say depth is irrelevant because bioload can be controlled but if you have a vertically swimming fish you would need a taller tank so 24" of fish per 7 galllons and i have about 16" of fish in my tank (if my scorp is max size) 72" of fish per 20 gallon on a coral reef 20" with wrasse i want. obviously the fish are swimming around and stuff but territorially and bioload, 4 fish can live in 1 square foot of aea. most reef fishes dont go above the corals generally because a trevalley or a shark would go nom and fish would be dead 

[Tired]

Yeah, we really can't run the math that way. First of all, you've made no allowance for the huge variation in fish sizes- an average you pull out of your hat doesn't do any good. That's just a random number, not based in any science. I'd also be curious to know where you got an estimate of how many fish are on every reef in the world. 

 

Second, you're looking at square footage of reefs, and not factoring in how much water is above or below them. We're talking bioload, and bioload includes amount of water, and you haven't looked at if the reef is in 5 feet of water or 50. 

 

Third, inches of fish per gallon is useless. Ten one-inch fish have a massively different bioload and need for space than one ten-inch fish. 

 

Fourth, find me any reputable sources saying you can keep four reef fish in one cubic foot of water. That's, what, 7.5 gallons of water? 

 

Fifth, fish do go above the corals. Look at any picture of a reef. They often stick close, yes, but there are fish in the water. 

 

Also, please use commas, periods, and sentence breaks. 

[filefishfinatic]

1 minute ago, Tired said:

Yeah, we really can't run the math that way. First of all, you've made no allowance for the huge variation in fish sizes- an average you pull out of your hat doesn't do any good. That's just a random number, not based in any science. I'd also be curious to know where you got an estimate of how many fish are on every reef in the world. 

 

Second, you're looking at square footage of reefs, and not factoring in how much water is above or below them. We're talking bioload, and bioload includes amount of water, and you haven't looked at if the reef is in 5 feet of water or 50. 

 

Third, inches of fish per gallon is useless. Ten one-inch fish have a massively different bioload and need for space than one ten-inch fish. 

 

Fourth, find me any reputable sources saying you can keep four reef fish in one cubic foot of water. That's, what, 7.5 gallons of water? 

 

Fifth, fish do go above the corals. Look at any picture of a reef. They often stick close, yes, but there are fish in the water. 

 

Also, please use commas, periods, and sentence breaks. 

this is just for territory nothing else. that, along with swimming space is all i base my stocking on. bioload can be corrected. if a fish is fighting your tank is overstocked. if all the fish are living happily together then its not overstocked. even if its a grouper with a shark in a 20 gallon tank and they arent fighting nor are they suffering theorettically its ok. simple welfare, if a animal that feels pain is feeling pain it is suffering. if it isnt suffering, it is happy and satisfied with its enviroment 

[Tired]

There are many kinds of suffering that aren't pain. If I wake you up every time you try to sleep, and you don't sleep for three days, you'll be suffering without being in pain. If I keep a rabbit in a cage inside a pen of wolves so it's constantly terrified, it'll be suffering, but won't be in pain.

 

Fish are prey animals, which hide stress. They also don't fight unless forced to it. They can be stressed, and therefore suffering, without showing it very well. Fish can fight in a tank that isn't overstocked, and an overstocked tank can have stressed, unhappy fish without having fighting in it. 

 

Simple welfare means giving an animal all its basic rights, not just the right to not be in pain. That includes the right to enough space to show natural behaviors, and whatever amount of social interaction and interaction with other species is good for it. 

[filefishfinatic]

wait how did this conversation start on a thread to buy water 

1 minute ago, Tired said:

There are many kinds of suffering that aren't pain. If I wake you up every time you try to sleep, and you don't sleep for three days, you'll be suffering without being in pain. If I keep a rabbit in a cage inside a pen of wolves so it's constantly terrified, it'll be suffering, but won't be in pain.

 

Fish are prey animals, which hide stress. They also don't fight unless forced to it. They can be stressed, and therefore suffering, without showing it very well. Fish can fight in a tank that isn't overstocked, and an overstocked tank can have stressed, unhappy fish without having fighting in it. 

 

Simple welfare means giving an animal all its basic rights, not just the right to not be in pain. That includes the right to enough space to show natural behaviors, and whatever amount of social interaction and interaction with other species is good for it. 

2 chiclids will choose to fight over a mate. stress is possible to see also. 

[Tired]

You claimed overstocking is a good thing because it mimics natural reefs. 

 

Cichlids fighting over a mate are forced to fight, they have no other way to resolve the issue. Fish can be crowded enough to be stressed, but not enough to fight.