Reefkeeping made easy- what was not explained.

899496 Views 1783 Replies 195 Participants Last post by hackshobby, Aug 5, 2017

Geoff

Discussion Starter · Jan 17, 2011 (Edited)

here are a few threads that were started in another forum about what is going on in our system. hopefully some of you all will read the information here and start to get a handle on what makes our systems work or not work. I know this may require some reading and those on the internet are allergic to reading threads that are not theirs, but give this thread a go. I am hoping that it will answer most of the questions you may have about reefkeeping. these first three posts may be a bit disjointed. as they came from the other thread. I will try and edit them so that they flow a bit better and lead into each other better.

the biggest things we will be discussing in this thread are the biological process that are going on in our systems. these biological process are what most of the false information that is out there is about. this includes reef forums and LFS. The two main elemental processes we will be discussing are the Nitrogen and Phosphate cycles that are occurring in our systems. these two elements lead to the greatest confusion about what is going on in our little slices of ocean.

There will be a lot of information in this thread. I will be linking to other threads with even more reading and papers on the subject at hand for even further reading. This hobby is easy if you understand what is going on, if you do not care to understand what is going on and listen to a lot of false information out there, then this hobby can be very frustrating and lots of wasted money.
I would anybody to ask questions if they need clarifications. I will try and keep things as short as possible to keep the reading down to a minimum, but some of this stuff is fairly long winded in general.

G~

UPDATE

A sort of Table of Contents for the thread. please feel free to PM any subjects or pages i should add to the contents.

Introduction: Page 1
Nitrogen cycle: Pages 1-2, 22
Phosphates: Page 3, 31
Sources of Phosphates: Page 3
Phosphate Cycle Graphics: Page 35
Early Tank Processes: Page 30
Problems with Sand: Page 4, 19
Sandbed Cleaning

age 7
DSB's: Page 9
BB Alternatives: Page 25
About LR: Page 8
LR Purging: Page 19, 26
Cured LR: Page 23
Tank Flow: Page 7
Light: Pages 13-15
Kalkwasser: Page 12, 17
Feeding: Pages 17-19
Zoax: Pages 15-17
Carbon Dosing: Pages 24-25
Tank Self Feeding: Page 27
Conservation of Matter: Page 28
Beer!: Pages 6-7
Bad Experts: Page 19
Definitions according to Spanky: Page 21
My Reference Links: Page 37

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721 - 740 of 1784 Posts

Rattsnewtreef

· #721 · Apr 29, 2012

thats why Im pulling the SSB out now, but someone that is bent on keeping one, will they always have to deal with that? how do you keep the SB clean enuff to keep the levels down? is it even possible? That has been my question since I started reading this thread months ago. Is there enuff cleaning to be done to keep levels stable? obviously,it is, when you see some ppls tanks. but it seems my maintenance has raised the levels , especially nitrates, since starting to remove my SSB..and Im doing more "maintenance", now than I have since starting a SW tank.. I'm hoping the switch to BB will help with control on these params better.. it is quite frustrating to do a ton of cleaning each week, change a ton of water, and still have params. above what im trying to lower.

Caronte

· #722 · Apr 29, 2012

I don't know if is to late for ask a question about the sand; So far I read till' page 24 so far and I saw threads on sand as a filtration, the detritus accumalated in there, etc. But what about a sandless tank? In not a way for make Reefkeeping more easy for those of us who doesn't keep any burrow critters?

Geoff said:
nobody has really come up with a method to really make sand work correctly. the undergravel filter idea is not that horrible, the problem is that it is really hard to pull all of the detritus through the sand bed then back up through the tubes to be collected somewhere else to be removed. the plenum system comes pretty close, but it is a bit difficult to do right and it really takes up a lot of space in the tank. leaving very little room for the stuff we really want to see and keep.

as long as regularly clean your sand bed very well you can keep phosphates under control. it is just very difficult to do this without disturbing the LR. some people use PVC pipes cut into sections to rest their LR on and some have acrylic stands. they all accomplish the same thing raise the LR up off the sand to keep the phosphates from wicking up into the LR and to allow you to more easily clean the entire bed of bacterial flock.

we can get into more sand bed husbandry if we want, just let me know. i am going to focus on phosphates for now.

i chose the epoxy bottom on my system. i will also do this again when i start on my new system. this allowed me to have as much flow as i wanted. the detritus did not have a chance to accumulate anywhere in my display. in fact i would only have to siphon out a few places of sand every few months. the sand was formed by the bacterial turgor breaking off little bits of the LR structure. i did not have any sand in the tank at all. all of the flow allowed the detritus to either be removed by the skimmer or accumulate in my sump, which i vacuumed out every week when i did water changes.

ok, next food for thought. what make you pick out a piece of LR?

G~

Nate_Bro

· #723 · Apr 29, 2012

Caronte said:
I don't know if is to late for ask a question about the sand; So far I read till' page 24 so far and I saw threads on sand as a filtration, the detritus accumalated in there, etc. But what about a sandless tank? In not a way for make Reefkeeping more easy for those of us who doesn't keep any burrow critters?

Hence my BB critter burrows....

I'm getting a pistol shrimp and goby, for the middle one, and my sleeper goby has taken over the one on the end there...

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Geoff

Discussion Starter · #724 · Apr 29, 2012

cool idea Nate!!

Caronte- there is also the plateau sand bed system. where a solid table of acrylic or epoxy is setup in the middle of the tank where all of the LR is placed. then all around it sand is placed for easy cleaning and for the critters that need the sand.

G~

Nate_Bro

· #725 · Apr 29, 2012

someone even used a little plastic dish and filled it with sand for their anemone, not as complex as the plateau system, but it works.

Geoff, I'm really looking foreword the the shrimp and goby pair, that middle burrow gets a lot of sand build up inside so I'll be happy to have someone in there cleaning house

a bag of it

· #726 · Apr 29, 2012

lot's of great info in here, thanks guys

Caronte

· #727 · Apr 29, 2012

Very interesting, I like Nate-Bro tank and I never hear from the plateau sand bed system. I go to investigate a bit more about that, any clues where to start?
What I does was place my LR over the egg craters about 2" over the botton (frag tank style) and I place an small square ceramic plate with sand for mushrooms corals only the same way than Geoff described above

fireandsalt

· #728 · Apr 30, 2012

Well after reading all 49 pages of this thread I have started to rebuild my tank. Am going to use the platuea method i think. Might take awhile as i am going to need a new tank probable. Running a 250g display take and a 80g sump. I have increased my over all flow in display to be 24x now. But still trying to get the right placements what are your thoughts on flow in display tank? Something we haven't touched on yet.
And i had a bad out break of algea while renovating my basement. I think i have it under control rerock scaped and did a great clean out of the sand but still trying get a hold of the last long haired green algea on the LR. Is there any kind of medication that you would ever recomend using to help kill off this long haired algea? And with in two days of cleaning sand there is a brown algea now growing on the sand is this I understand from phosphates? I can't seem to beat this algea get one under control and another starts from this thread i am assuming from the sand being saturated? And will replacing the sand help with this. I have a 1" sand cleaned out every two weeks or so. The tank is around 6 years old same sand.
So questions are medication recomendation?
Replacement of sand.
And any other suggestions you may have.

Have to keep sand as wife likes the look.

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Nate_Bro

· #729 · Apr 30, 2012

nothing wrong with a fake sand look, or even a large grain shallow sand bed, if you need to "look"...

personally I don't like to add a lot of things, even running carbon scares me now...

but I do keep PRIME on hand for emergencies, it comes in handy sometimes, but if nothing is dying, then I don't like to add anything but kalk and salt mix...

I would replace the sand, and don't worry, I re-built my tank twice during this thread, lots of great info and makes life a lot better

Nate_Bro

· #730 · Apr 30, 2012

Caronte said:
Very interesting, I like Nate-Bro tank and I never hear from the plateau sand bed system. I go to investigate a bit more about that, any clues where to start?
What I does was place my LR over the egg craters about 2" over the botton (frag tank style) and I place an small square ceramic plate with sand for mushrooms corals only the same way than Geoff described above

not much more really to investigate the plateau sand bed, just a few posts here and there. I don't think I have seen one ran yet, but we do have it worked out well, Geoff just needs to get his system up and running!!!!!! :blob:

Geoff

Discussion Starter · #731 · Apr 30, 2012

the person who had a plateau sand bed working has not been around in a while, but the thread is still here showing what we are talking about. the PSD is what i would do if i had a critter that NEEDED sand. i just do not have any that i would like, nor do i have any interest in the work involved with keeping sand clean. here is the thread about the Plateau sand bed.

fireandsalt-replacing the sand will help. though you will still get an uglies stage because of all of the easily released nutrients from the new sand. the more rinsing of the sand the better. starting with new sand allows you to know the maintenance that has occurred on the substrate from this point on. as long as you keep siphoning it on a regular basis to keep the detritus from accumulating significantly, then you can keep a substrate in a system without problem.

the object of keeping a SW system is to know the environment you are trying to emulate. then adjust skimming/feeding/siphoning to create this environment. having sand in the system allows a phosphate buffer, which can be a good thing if one is trying to emulate a more eutrophic environment, but a bad thing if you are trying to emulate an oligotrophic environment. this is probably the biggest mistake that people make when getting into the hobby. thinking that just because a critter came from SW, that it came from the same environment as something else from SW.

G~

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Nate_Bro

· #732 · Apr 30, 2012

I forgot about that one G~!!

best3175

· #733 · Apr 30, 2012

Geoff said:
i am still confused. i am not disagreeing with you about matching the environment and maintenance to a persons desires. i am confused about these statements:

why would you need to do a lot of water changes? the number of water changes should be the same regardless of the substrate choice. you should always be using a siphon for water changes. why would you need more filters if you are running a BB system? i would argue that you would need less. if the detritus is removed in a timely manner, then what are the filters going to do? they are unnecessary. you are removing everything the filters would be doing anyway.

this is probably the biggest point of the entire thread. it does not matter what you choose to keep, or what you put on the bottom of the tank. the toilet still needs to be flushed. in a nutshell, that is this entire thread.

G~

I am saying that if you want to do fewer water changes, BB and more filter capacity will help.

FloridaReefDreamer

· #734 · Apr 30, 2012

Geoff said:
the person who had a plateau sand bed working has not been around in a while, but the thread is still here showing what we are talking about. the PSD is what i would do if i had a critter that NEEDED sand. i just do not have any that i would like, nor do i have any interest in the work involved with keeping sand clean. here is the thread about the Plateau sand bed.

G~

I looked that older thread up, that is a really cool idea. Would a spray bar be necessary, or is it just an added tool to keeping it clean?

He also had flow nozzles coming up all around the tank, i wonder if that was how his return was plumbed in or was all that added flow along with the normal return at the top?

Nate_Bro

· #735 · Apr 30, 2012

best3175 said:
I am saying that if you want to do fewer water changes, BB and more filter capacity will help.

filter capacity?

I'm still not understanding what we are talking about when we say filter capacity

best3175

· #736 · Apr 30, 2012

Nate_Bro said:
filter capacity?

I'm still not understanding what we are talking about when we say filter capacity

Definition - ca·pac·i·ty (k

-p

s

-t

)n. pl. ca·pac·i·ties 1. a. The ability to receive, hold, or absorb.
b. Abbr. c. A measure of this ability; volume.

I am saying if you increase the filters ability to receive, hold, or absorb (really the later two), then you can increase the time between water change intervals.

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5

marc2912

· #737 · Apr 30, 2012

best3175 said:
Definition - ca·pac·i·ty (k

-p

s

-t

)n. pl. ca·pac·i·ties 1. a. The ability to receive, hold, or absorb.
b. Abbr. c. A measure of this ability; volume.

I am saying if you increase the filters ability to receive, hold, or absorb (really the later two), then you can increase the time between water change intervals.

I love when people ask for help and answer like this to the person spending time to help them....

:angry:

best3175

· #738 · Apr 30, 2012

marc2912 said:
I love when people ask for help and answer like this to the person spending time to help them....

:angry:

Really? Because I feel like some of the moderators on this site talk down to everyone else. I kind of felt like that in regards to this question, which is why I responded like this.

This forum is full of great information. I actually switched to this forum from another reef forum because of the information available and large community. I do not wish to offend anyone, but sarcasm will be met with sarcasm.

Rattsnewtreef

· #739 · Apr 30, 2012

I don't think NAte was being sarcastic when he asked you to explain that... Putting say 20 filters in your sump to catch everything WOULD make for fewer WC... But you'd still have 20 "toilets" to clean and flush anyway.. And inbetween these less frequent WC's, your nitrates and phosphates would still go up.. more filters with dietrus breaking down in them just don't seem like the answer to me... But to each there own.. you want 20 filters? Go for it... And post the results so we all can see how it works..

FutureDoc

· #740 · Apr 30, 2012

best3175 said:
Really? Because I feel like some of the moderators on this site talk down to everyone else. I kind of felt like that in regards to this question, which is why I responded like this.

This forum is full of great information. I actually switched to this forum from another reef forum because of the information available and large community. I do not wish to offend anyone, but sarcasm will be met with sarcasm.

As someone who knew Nate before the assention into mod-dom, Nate does not talk down and never intends to talk-down. Other mods do not try and talk down... it is just the text-based media that makes the intent of comments to be taken in different ways. Unfortunately, I think this has happened so lets take a step back and approach it again in good humor. :beer: (FutureDoc buys the next round!)

As for the filter definition, it is not the "capacity" term but rather the filter term (I think). With barebottom, the ability to absorb or hold is not desirable. The BB folks are all about export so capacity other than exportation is irreverent (not always but according to the theory it is). Thus, the idea of additional filter capacity is confusing and ambiguous as more bio-balls is more filter capacity that would not be desirable, but more skimmer capacity might be desirable.

As a discussion note, posting definitions can be taken different ways. Sometimes it is clarification to discuss a specific topic, sometimes it is a crude semi-attack. I do not think either was intending the attack, but Nate was asking about how Best defined filter capacity not the definition of the term.

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