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Reefkeeping made easy- what was not explained.

899515 Views 1783 Replies 195 Participants Last post by  hackshobby, 
Geoff
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:page 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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Ntvper
lmao
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Elegance Coral
Ntvper said:
nah i wouldnt do that for a few reasons. theres enough debates on here that i can get on without starting one lmao. though since ya did bring it up i could start one on 'why do ya want to keep a sterile tank' roflmao.
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I would subscribe to that one.
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ebross67
I've had a DSB for over a year. During that year everything was wonderful. No algae issues and nitrates where 0ppm. The sand bed would've lasted another year or so. It wasn't until I added a Tonga Fighting Conch that I realized what a cesspool I had on my hands. It disturbed the bed enough to unleash a nasty assortment of cyano, diatoms, and string algae. Siphoning, GFO, and carbon have kept it in check, but it is still there and thriving. G~ I stopped using GFO and Carbon for a while (because I ran out and had to order more), and siphoning alone was not working. As soon as I add GFO and Carbon it made an immediate impact (24hrs fast for a reef tank). It hasn't completely gone away, all though I think removing the sand bed will do the trick. I wanted to post my experience with a DSB, so people can get some real world experience of the crud thriving in those pristine looking DSB.
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Ntvper
i think pristine looking DSB is a contributing factor as i have found out as well. when my sand bed looked perfect i had the same issue, now that it looks a lil beat up no issue. wonder if my beat up sand bed has all the bacteria to combat the bad vs perfect clean ones dont. just my two cents one of these days i gotta get a microscope and see what is exactly happening. that way i cant 'rely' on what others say, do, or test, or write papers on. i like to have the balance of the ocean in my small petri dish. that way there is no 'crash' but then even oceans 'crash'
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Ntvper
Geoff said:
explain sterile? our systems are completely bacterial driven. how is that sterile? both the Berlin method and the Adey Method both have the same critters in the system?

G~
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well sterile as those who deep clean sand beds to make perfect no brown in sand. their syphoning out all the good stuff that combats the bad. IMO/E. so 'sterile' would be a bad term and maybe squeaky clean sand? or system so there is no 'buffer' in the system to balance out the waste or common events in the tank.
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Elegance Coral
Ntvper said:
i think pristine looking DSB is a contributing factor as i have found out as well. when my sand bed looked perfect i had the same issue, now that it looks a lil beat up no issue. wonder if my beat up sand bed has all the bacteria to combat the bad vs perfect clean ones dont. just my two cents one of these days i gotta get a microscope and see what is exactly happening. that way i cant 'rely' on what others say, do, or test, or write papers on. i like to have the balance of the ocean in my small petri dish. that way there is no 'crash' but then even oceans 'crash'
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You can't have "the balance of the ocean in my small Petri dish." You simply can't. It's impossible. Attempting such a thing, or believing you can, is futile.

Ntvper said:
well sterile as those who deep clean sand beds to make perfect no brown in sand. their syphoning out all the good stuff that combats the bad. IMO/E. so 'sterile' would be a bad term and maybe squeaky clean sand? or system so there is no 'buffer' in the system to balance out the waste or common events in the tank.
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What "good stuff" are you talking about?

Would you care to explain how a rotting pile of filth "buffers" the system?
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Ntvper
u keep a tank...its pretty and clean, your inhabitants are healthy? sounds like a balanced system to me. good stuff being bacteria that eats bad stuff, good vs bad food vs fish balance bacteria filtering bad out of water buffer. seems like you guys are on the border of not having a tank at all and lean with the 'leave animals in the wild' group. theres balance all over ya just gotta find it. your home, a petri dish, some just have to work at it more then others. your drinking water is 'balanced' for your consumption. specially if your on a municipal water system. ya know that comes from the same line that you poop in. sounds like you guys are trying to make a 'sterile' environment for your pets. but then that brings up the case of if your environment is sterile can your immune system start to be deficient, but thats another debate. and another thing....nothing is impossible. and if you take out the filth then what would the bacteria eat? nothing then that too would starve. if there wasnt any fish in the tank to start the process all over...oh wait thats a balance too.
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shutterfish
whew... just spent the last 2 hours reading through this thread... what a wealth of info and since I am in the process of setting up a new tank and was trying to educate myself to do everything right, I wish I could go back and start over AGAIN (and not waste so much money 'learning' by doing things wrong first...)
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Arwen
Ok, so as I'm understaning all this: Live rock, skimmer, and good flow are a must. About 1lb of live rock per gallon? That seems common enough info. Dry rock is better than live. And sand is better for looks than overall filtration, so it needs to be easy to clean and cleaned often.

Nitrate is taken out by very porus LR and water changes. Phosphates are removed by the skimmer, macro algae (if it is harvested regularly and not allowed to die in tank), and regular water changes.

And beer from Ireland is better than others - but I'm not a drinker, so I'll have to take your word for it :)

I was thinking about adding something like miricle mud for mineral replacment. All of this points to that being a bad idea. Have I missed anything important? Thanks Geoff :)
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Elegance Coral
Ntvper said:
u keep a tank...its pretty and clean, your inhabitants are healthy? sounds like a balanced system to me. good stuff being bacteria that eats bad stuff, good vs bad food vs fish balance bacteria filtering bad out of water buffer. seems like you guys are on the border of not having a tank at all and lean with the 'leave animals in the wild' group. theres balance all over ya just gotta find it. your home, a petri dish, some just have to work at it more then others. your drinking water is 'balanced' for your consumption. specially if your on a municipal water system. ya know that comes from the same line that you poop in. sounds like you guys are trying to make a 'sterile' environment for your pets. but then that brings up the case of if your environment is sterile can your immune system start to be deficient, but thats another debate. and another thing....nothing is impossible. and if you take out the filth then what would the bacteria eat? nothing then that too would starve. if there wasnt any fish in the tank to start the process all over...oh wait thats a balance too.
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You lost three fish this morning, you have to pluck algae out from between your zoo's, and some of your zoo's simply refuse to open, yet you feel that your methods work. What would it take for you realized there's a problem? BTW, 74 degrees isn't what killed your fish.
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R
I'll follow along on this one. Maybe I can find a few hours to start from the beginning.
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chrisd
Elegance Coral said:
You lost three fish this morning, you have to pluck algae out from between your zoo's, and some of your zoo's simply refuse to open, yet you feel that your methods work. What would it take for you realized there's a problem? BTW, 74 degrees isn't what killed your fish.
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It takes some people a little longer to sink in.

Geoff, great thread
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Nate_Bro
Showed up the class today, and seen some great debates. I got rid of my DSB a few days before this thread and have seen great results, and its so easy to clean. I'm actually thinking to go BB.... I have about 10lbs of sand in my 55g right now...
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Ntvper
Elegance Coral said:
You lost three fish this morning, you have to pluck algae out from between your zoo's, and some of your zoo's simply refuse to open, yet you feel that your methods work. What would it take for you realized there's a problem? BTW, 74 degrees isn't what killed your fish.
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one who knows what the temp got down too. two algae is food for snails i dont want to eradicate it i dont run phos ban. it goes away on its own. two my tank recently crashed due to two things i figure, my wife got a sick anemone, and while redoing plumbing i broke my PVC gate valve so i put on a 'safe' brass gate valve while my pvc one was ordered. for two days that run like that then i was like omg stupid me there is no 'safe' brass fittings to use on saltwater. so my tank crashed. mostly my fault. not detritus build up on sand. plus i ran a 3 inch sand bed on my freshwater African Cichlid tank for 20 years before i ended up getting rid of all my FW stuff. no problems with that why cant that work with SW. my LFS has been in business for 25+ years they tell me and his display tank he runs a 4 inch sand bed says he never had problems and that tank with the same sand has been there since the beginning. minus the time he took it from home to the store as a display piece. oh and all the stuff in that tank is not for sale. and for the info now my zoas open up quite nicely cept the green ones probably due to dead but their not decaying so i dont know. params are great at 0 even the phos but i assume those are locked up in the algae which has quit growing/expanding on rock. and i only blow the algae from the zoas as needed. which was once so far since the tank crashed and recovering. so one this month. so if ya got that info from my blog then you would know that things are on the up n up. unless your just like everyone else and trying to find stuff wrong you omit the good. which is one sided, stupid, ignorant and now im just ranting. admit it your views aint the world there are others that work just as well. and what would u say that killed my three poor fish, that left two clowns, regal tang, mandarin, snails, hermits, and emeralds alone?
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M
Ntvper - I find your posts difficult to read. I'm interested to read what you have to say but sometimes it can be hard. Maybe you could try to space it out better with punctuation.
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Ntvper
mikenicol88 said:
Ntvper - I find your posts difficult to read. I'm interested to read what you have to say but sometimes it can be hard. Maybe you could try to space it out better with punctuation.
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Okay will do sometimes my brain works faster then my fingers
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S
Wow, this class got a bit heated... The teacher is out, EC and Ntvyper are going at it...

So we have some still swearing by a DSB, and some swearing by a BB tank... Personally, I had an experience with my WC yesterday that I thought was interesting... I siphoned out sand bed, which is about 1" or so in most spots, with a few "dunes" here and there... Well anyways, when I siphoned it out, I got some really really fine particulate that came up, it was not just the white of the sand, but had a greenish-brown hue to it.

I was really thorough with the cleaning, and did the best I could to clean all the sand... By the time I was done, I couldnt get any of that fine particulate anymore, it was all just clean grains of the sand... I only share this because the best I can assume is that the stuff I was getting out was food, poop, and other waste that settled into the sandbed...

If I had simply let that go, I can only imagine it wouldnt have taken long for it to build up to an unsafe level...

Now, will I remove my sandbed? No... Why? Because I like the look of it, that simple lol. I'm willing to do a bit more work for the aesthetic of it, and as long as it isn't harming the tank with proper husbandry, I'm willing to keep the sand.

So now I'm curious! Knowing now that sandbeds can become cesspools of bacteria, and can wind up harming a tank, more than helping it... How many of us will keep them anyways, and ADMIT that it's strictly because you like how it looks? That's why I have it... and I figure as long as I'm cleaning it... It won't cause problems in the near future...

-Scott
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Geoff
Great discussion everyone.

Arwen-pretty much on track. though if the tank is processing phosphates properly and you are exporting them regularly, you really should not have any macro algae that would be doing well enough to harvest for export.

with the amount of flow needed to keep the LR clean i suggest going with CC sand instead of the oolitic sand that is the norm. it is hard to siphon that stuff without siphoning it up.

all of those funky colours you see in your sand bed are the various layers of bacterial activity. they are all trying their best to process phosphates. one thing to notice, for those that still have DSB's is that the layer of bacterial activity will start to creep higher and higher as the DSB fills with phosphates. when the DSB is new the bacteria are working everywhere, but as the bed fills up with detritus the bacteria have to move up also in order to not get chocked out by the detritus. when you deep clean the bed you open the bed up again and allows the bacteria to function again.

G~
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Geoff
here is an interesting idea for those that want to have sand, but want the benefits of a BB. i have not seen Matt_b on for many years. :( i think this is a fantastic compromise. allows you to easily get to all of the sand for cleaning yet you can have gobs of flow under the LR structure to keep it from building up under there.

G~
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Geoff
alright another bit of info before we start getting into what problems phosphates cause besides just algae.

a bit source of phosphates for a lot of advanced reefers is there calcium reactors. calcium reactors are filled with aragonite, the same stuff most people use for crushed coral bottoms. because it is aragonite, it is made of calcium carbonate and contains phosphates. does anybody know how calcium reactors work?

G~
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