Weekly Discussion: Successful?

[jenglish]

I think this is one of the classic arguments about what defines a successful tank. IMO, controlled and natural are on different ends of the spectrum and neither is attainable in it's purest form. We can't mimic nature perfectly anymore than we can truly control every variable. There are some who believe that a true reef tank would need to mimic the whole process of the ocean, which would be pretty difficult since we don't understand how all of it works!

I always think about the biodome experiment and natural reeftanks.... where they tried to recreate many enviroments in the same dome. Surprise surprise, aggressive growing jungles overtook the desert. basically some things are not scaleable. I view a skimmer, denitrators, media, a waterchange, and alge filters/fuge are all just different ways to manage nutrients. They have benefits and drawbacks but IMO they are all different methods for the same goal.

[gouch]

Originally Posted by jenglish

IMO, controlled and natural are on different ends of the spectrum and neither is attainable in it's purest form.

so if you cant attain a controlled enviroment, the natural will occur in any given system.

qoute didnt work but.......

[/quote]We can't mimic nature perfectly anymore than we can truly control every variable.[/quote]

if we cant control nature or every variable.......then we would not even be mimmicing nature........we would be harboring it, as it would occur naturaly in our systems.......right?

[cutietwo]

Success is in the eye (or mind) of the beholder. For me if none of my animals are dying, and are actually thriving then that's success. Like u guys said above, goals help a lot too. Have a goal to have a beautiful thriving saltwater tank, and when you reach that goal you have had a great success. Of course goals are never over it seems, once a goal is reached (bravo success!!) there is another one born etc. Really it's a question where the answers can go on forever and we could talk about it but there still would not be a conclusion.

[gouch]

Originally Posted by cutietwo

Success is in the eye (or mind) of the beholder. For me if none of my animals are dying, and are actually thriving then that's success. Like u guys said above, goals help a lot too. Have a goal to have a beautiful thriving saltwater tank, and when you reach that goal you have had a great success. Of course goals are never over it seems, once a goal is reached (bravo success!!) there is another one born etc. Really it's a question where the answers can go on forever and we could talk about it but there still would not be a conclusion.

but its fun to gain some perspective from everybody else!!

[Geoff]

jenglish- correct me if i am wrong, obviously.

i think Jeremy was thinking of the difference between an open and a closed system. this is why i called it a controlled system, because in the purest form our systems are not open or closed. nothing can truely be a closed system. even if you really think about it the Earth is an open system it is receiving gamma rays and sunlight from external sources.

ahh, we are not mimicking nature. we are just providing a place for our critters to live. we are doing all of the cleaning and nutrient supply for our systems. we can try and convince ourselves otherwise, but the truth is that our system do not mimic nature. they are just allowing us to keep a snapshot of a very vast ecosystem.

to truely put it into perspective, all we so is culture bacteria. the rest is just icing on the cake.

G~

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by gouch

so if you cant attain a controlled enviroment, the natural will occur in any given system.

qoute didnt work but.......

We can't mimic nature perfectly anymore than we can truly control every variable.[/quote]

if we cant control nature or every variable.......then we would not even be mimmicing nature........we would be harboring it, as it would occur naturaly in our systems.......right?[/quote]


IMO, it will not be a natural system to the extent it will not be like any biotope in nature and will not be balanced perfectly. If you stopped feeding, topping off, etc the system would break down. It is not a true closed system. On the other hand there are too many variables to control all of them and we probably have dozens of populations that wax and wane in our tanks w/o ever knowing it. In this way we cannot truly control them either. Even the things we do control are subject to equipment failures etc. You do get more variability with a more natural system than one that strives for more control IME.

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by Geoff

jenglish- correct me if i am wrong, obviously.


G~

I think open or closed is part of it... but I think some people believe they establish an ecosystem and let it go and it will balance while others believe they are controlling everything. My point is that what we do is somewhere in the middle. I am trying to control variables, but there is probably a lot more chaos in a tank than we know

[gouch]

Originally Posted by jenglish

IMO, it will not be a natural system to the extent it will not be like any biotope in nature and will not be balanced perfectly. If you stopped feeding, topping off, etc the system would break down. It is not a true closed system. On the other hand there are too many variables to control all of them and we probably have dozens of populations that wax and wane in our tanks w/o ever knowing it. In this way we cannot truly control them either. Even the things we do control are subject to equipment failures etc. You do get more variability with a more natural system than one that strives for more control IME.

agreed. so we can control some things, but others will occur wether we like it, know about it, or dont like it.

as far as success...you can be fairly new to the game, or part of the "varsity"(geoff)
as long as you have a goal......and work towards it without being deterred by the inevitable bumps along the road; and are always willing to learn new ways to keep your system healthy.(i.e. skimmers, fuges, sumps, lighting, dosing) then IMO your a success.

[fihsboy]

Success is everyday I look at my tank and write in my log. Its a learning experience. Every day I learn something new in this hobby. I have found out so much about the ocean and reefs through my tank alone. Everyones idea is completly different. You could recreate any reef in the world.....if you were to try to do something with the reefs off of Florida....it would be a boring tank. Nothing in Florida looks like Fiji, the soft coral captial of the world. I personally think tangs shouldnt even be kept in a tank......They graze for miles a day. they obviously cant do that in our systems. Its what you believe in, and why you have your tank. Do you have your tank to pack corals in as tight as possible and create a living rainbow......do you want to see creatures as you would in the wild.........or do you want to recreate an area as true as you can. Success is in the eye of the Beholder

[three90s&125sump]

Originally Posted by Geoff

are you sure we are mimicking nature? remember we are dealing with controlled systems.

G~

Depends on how loosely you want to define mimick.

Are we world champion gobblers? I don't think so, maybe some are regional champions and others are state champions. I have yet to see a calcium reactor on a real reef.

A lot of tanks are designed to look like specific natural reefs, some tanks are not designed at all and some tanks are designed to out perform natural reefs. There is no real way to actually mimick real reefs in our tiny little boxes, we can only hope to replicate (to the best of our abilities) the needed perameters and conditions for our pets to exsist in them.

[gouch]

Originally Posted by fihsboy

Success is everyday I look at my tank and write in my log.

keeping a log is a good idea! thats a surefire way to track progress on goals and ....success.

do a lot of you guys do this? what do you keep in the log?

[Fly Guy]

At the most primitive level........success for me is looking at any given system of mine and being overall pleased with what I see.

.......OR as well, it also pleases me, and gives me a feeling of accomplishment to always have some new tweak, tune, or altogether change that I have under way going on in some aspect and seeing affects of whatever it is I am playing with. The affect can be positive or negative(within reason), but I have spent enough time on these froums trying to soak up what I can to have learned that much of what we read is so clouded in the individuality of everyones system, and clouded with misinformation that much of it truly doesnt help educate you unless you prove the concepts on your own, with your own systems and methodologies.
And while I experiment, I have learned that I must have the willpower and awareness to keep all things equal the best I can whenever playing with new or old ideas so that the results tend to have some real validity to them, instead of clouded speculation.

[depitch]

By definition, success is obtaining a favorable outcome.

Therefore if we have a tank that has healthly fish and /or corals we have achieved success in the hobby.

Since there are many methods to achieve the success in this hobby, a forum such as this is provides a means to share our information.

JMHO

Doug

[Elegance Coral]

Success to me is providing an environment where the animals can behave as close to the way they would in the wild as we can. I believe that when the animals are healthy, growing, and attempting to reproduce, you have reached true success.

[Salty O'Shen]

Originally Posted by gouch

keeping a log is a good idea! thats a surefire way to track progress on goals and ....success.

do a lot of you guys do this? what do you keep in the log?

i keep a log...have ever since my freshwater days...i have some standard entry spaces that are laid out for standard parameters and some space for observations, new introductions, and changes. I put a spreadsheet together in Excel and then I print out pages and keep them in a 3 ring binder...

but i'm OCD and a Nerd