Developing, and maintaing the anerobic "zones" of our reef tanks

[aquaticsdeptleader]

Ok we have talked dsb to death but what about the live rock. I would venture this no matter how much yu blow out your rocks out at some point the anerobic zone of the lr is going to shrink as it does in a dsb.

simply replaesing the rock is unexceptable in my opioin. cultured live rock can not meet demand and that florida gulf rock well you ask the fish who live there now if they find this home less habitiable then the others.

so how do we keep from running into the same problem with our live rock as we discussed in the dsb post?

jim

[SPC]

Originally posted by aquaticsdeptleader
Ok we have talked dsb to death but what about the live rock. I would venture this no matter how much yu blow out your rocks out at some point the anerobic zone of the lr is going to shrink as it does in a dsb.

I don't believe this is the case Jim. IMO the anoxic zone of L/R is self cleaning.

cultured live rock can not meet demand and that florida gulf rock well you ask the fish who live there now if they find this home less habitiable then the others.

I don't think I follow you here, what about this rock would the fish find less habitable?

Steve

[aquaticsdeptleader]

is the man made enivroment any diffrent then the actual reef? so distroying it is the same as destroying a reef.

I don't believe this is the case Jim. IMO the anoxic zone of L/R is self cleaning.

how?

jim

[Green Chromis]

Aquaticsdeptleader, take a piece of your live rock and put it a container filled with saltwater and a powerhead, keep it in a dark area and let it sit for a month, you will notice a lot of detritus on the bottom of the container, I belive the bacteria in the anerobic zone some how pushes the detritus out thus cleaning out the rock. If you want a detailed explanation talk to Spanky. The man made enviorment is totaly different then the reef enviorment. No we shouldn't destroy either enviorment.

[aquaticsdeptleader]

[quote]Originally posted by Green Chromis
[b]Aquaticsdeptleader, take a piece of your live rock and put it a container filled with saltwater and a powerhead, keep it in a dark area and let it sit for a month, you will notice a lot of detritus on the bottom of the container,

this is very simliar to removeing sections of a sb and not easly done in an establashed tank.

reef and man made are simply sepperated by time

jim

[mojoreef]

Jim I believe Green was trying to show you a way of proving that a LR (to a point) is able to self clean. The meathod of the experiment he was saying (as in put the LR in a dark jar. Was basically tell you if you have a rock clean of detritus (blown off) and you put it in a dark container with just a power head (the same basically as saying take it away from any source of food) You will see that it will still continue to process detritus. The reason for this test is to show you that the bacterial action that occurs in a LR and because it is suspended (as in, it does not have a bottom sealed surface that wont allow detritus out) you will see that the action of the bacteria will in fact pull the detritus out of the Live rock.
This goes back to the micro bacterial enviroment in anerobic zones. Behing each set of bacteria is another set of bacteria feeding off the waste of the one infront of it. The eating and processing action will cause the bacteria to pull the waste to thier vacinity in order to use the waste. this action thus causes the detritus to be pulled from the piece. How it differs from a DSB is that this is a bottom to the bed (the glass). What the bottom does is create a bacterial hirearchy going from the top to the bottom based on enviroment, where as the rocks higherarchy has an areobic zone on the bottom to. The problem with the bottom is that it does not allow the detritus to go any further, and it does not allow the unprocessable do go anywhere either, thus it sits and collects.

Mike

[NewReefer]

How it differs from a DSB is that this is a bottom to the bed (the glass). What the bottom does is create a bacterial hirearchy going from the top to the bottom based on enviroment, where as the rocks higherarchy has an areobic zone on the bottom to. The problem with the bottom is that it does not allow the detritus to go any further, and it does not allow the unprocessable do go anywhere either, thus it sits and collects.

and That in a nutshell is our problem, being Limited!

If we reach the bottom and have nowhere else to go then what happens? If this buildup just sits there and piles up, we must be creating other effects yet studied. I'd imagine after a while this pile or waste causes other consequences!

[Doug1]

Just a thought since you are on the bottom track, and limiting thereof. With a plenum or a DSB you have essentially a 2 dimensional apparatus for proccessing.
It starts at the top and is stymied at the bottom, wheras in a typical chunk of Live Rock the process is more 3 dimensional in that there is no top and bottom, only in and out, if you follow me. It relates to far more work area avalable

[SPC]

Originally posted by aquaticsdeptleader
is the man made enivroment any diffrent then the actual reef? so distroying it is the same as destroying a reef.

Not IMO. The animals that take up residence on this "man made rock area" would have never lived to begin with.

Look at it this way Jim. There are millions of eggs released by a species of coral. These eggs go through planktonic stages, are prayed upon and eventually will settle out in an appropriate environement in which to grow. If the man made rock area is there, then some will find this environement to their liking and they will settle out there. If the man made rock area was not there, then they would die.

So, all the man made rock area does is allow the excess corals a place to grow. The natural reef is just that, natural, and it can only support a certain # of living organisms.

To me this is the same as farming.

how?

Green and Mike explained my point.
Steve

[mojoreef]

Well Steve I dont think I totally agree with you. I agree on your explaination on how things work nature wise. But I guess you have to inject a bit of man into the equation. If you look at the ammount of habitat (rock) man takes out then this putting back would just kinda make up for the loss to start with. The reason the rock is being places in that zone is to make up for a previous loss. So .....you know what I mean.....


Mike

[aquaticsdeptleader]

you guys are assuming there is a pass through effect think three dimensionaly the entire surface of the rock is coated with bateria in such a case the center of the rock becomes the bottom of the sand bed and the same effect begins within the rock as the sand bed.

spc agreed

jim

[mojoreef]

I agree with you Jim that the center of the rock is basically the bottom, but, what you have to do is look at the micro enviroments on and in the rock its self. Because of the shapes and porousity changes on the rock that dose not apply completely. An anerobic zone can be very close to the surface if the conditons are correct. Also depending on how the rock is placed it can create different zones on the contact points.

Mike

[SPC]

Originally posted by mojoreef
Well Steve I dont think I totally agree with you. I agree on your explaination on how things work nature wise. But I guess you have to inject a bit of man into the equation. If you look at the ammount of habitat (rock) man takes out then this putting back would just kinda make up for the loss to start with. The reason the rock is being places in that zone is to make up for a previous loss. So .....you know what I mean.....


Mike

No I'm not sure I do Mike . The aquacultured rock was placed in the Gulf for the purpose of farming it, not to replenish what had been taken, two different issues to me. If replenighment is the goal, then IMO that is a different subject that should be addressed by the government and tax payers.
If the majority of citizens in Fla decide that they need more rocks in the ocean for reef structure, then this is what they should ask for.
Now, if you are saying that the original L/R collectors should not have collected the rock to begin with, I won't argue with that. But the point is that they did, and it was perfectly acceptable at the time to do so and is still acceptable in most of the world.
One other thing, I'm not real sure if the artificial reefs that man has built in Fla don't harbor more marine life in numbers, as well as diversity, than the original L/R did.
Steve

[mojoreef]

Yea its a tough call. I guess one could say that for every pound of rock collected (as in the man made aquaculture )that is a pound of natural rock not collected some where else, hehehe

Mike

[Green Chromis]

Mojo, that exactly what I was saying, just in a shorter form. The aqua farming of the live rock is not for replacing the lve rock taken in the old days when you could collect rock in florida, it's because the law doesn't allow us to collect rock anymore and a few people aquired permitts to farm the rock before the goverment could stop it all together. Mojo do you think that water passes through the rock from top to bottm and side to side?