The Reef Tank banner

Reefkeeping made easy- what was not explained.

920K views 2K replies 195 participants last post by  hackshobby 
#1 · (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: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
 
See less See more
#385 ·
excellent read! oh to explain the breaking glass with epoxy. its the heat it creates. esp. on tempered glass. i used to work at a high end detail place that had a guy with a sand blaster and did etching on glass for custom rides, etc. thing is which he showed me one time was NOT to run the etching in one area too long. reason is its friction causing heat, the heat is so high in one spot it would shatter the glass. so yeah in the epoxy situation, the heat is whats busting the glass.
 
#386 ·
thanks for the clarification on the epoxy bottom heat glass breaking.

Nate_Bro- i will need to read that article when i have time this weekend. i can not wait to see what it says. :D

depending on what it says will determine how much haunting i will do on RC.

G~
 
#387 ·
thanks for the clarification on the epoxy bottom heat glass breaking.

Nate_Bro- i will need to read that article when i have time this weekend. i can not wait to see what it says. :D

depending on what it says will determine how much haunting i will do on RC.

G~
in the Phosphate accumulation paragraph, its like he gets so close to the problem, but ends up striking out IMO....
 
#388 ·
ok, i had to stop after section 2. how can they not see the reason?! they have all of the answers right there in front of them.

ok, so who has read the article Nate_Bro linked to? i have started a thread in The Think Tank to discuss this article in depth instead of in this thread.

G~
 
#389 ·
Half way finished through the whole thread and I already understand the need to take care of my reef tank no differently than a fresh water with gravel. Siphon when water changing, makes simiple sense. Now why didn't I think of that before :(
 
#390 ·
because you have been brainwashed by those that think the best way to run a system is with the warm and fuzzies. that you should have the ENTIRE worlds oceans exosystems in a 5g box, instead of creating the environment necessary for what you are trying to keep.

not sure why this makes sense for FW and not for SW for some people.

G~
 
#391 ·
because you have been brainwashed by those that think the best way to run a system is with the warm and fuzzies. that you should have the ENTIRE worlds oceans exosystems in a 5g box, instead of creating the environment necessary for what you are trying to keep.

not sure why this makes sense for FW and not for SW for some people.

G~
I just wish I saw this earlier, I don't know what I was thinking:cry: Hopefully we can save more corals/tanks with spreading the good word:idea:
 
#393 ·
there is nothing really wrong with running carbon. the amount of phosphates that it can leach into the system is very small. it does loose its effectiveness fairly rapidly though. it absorbs toxins very well and after a few days it is done or covered in bacteria blocking the binding sites. lots of people use carbon to clear their water and to keep alleopathy between corals at bay if they are running a mixed reef system.

G~
 
#397 ·
sounds like a good plan to me. i would not leave carbon in the system for more than a week before replacing it. if you find it annoying to do so, then just do not run it. leaving it in the system will just turn the carbon into a nitrate factory. it becomes a simple particulate filter.

G~
 
#399 ·
there is no way anything can be in the system for that long and not get clogged up with bacterial mass. bacteria just replicate so fast and will quickly colonize anything.

i know this was covered in The Think Tank. i will see if i can find it.

G~
 
#401 ·
now I have a 100g pond in my back yard, I don't feed it, or clean the floor of it, but I do top offs and run a fountain.

the fish eat the bugs, algae, plants that grow in the pond, I don't add anything, but I do take out leaves, or other foreign organic objects.

now I have had 3 ponds and I when I have moved I took the fish, rocks (filter), rubbermaid water trough and plants with me. so with the moves, this pond is well over 25 years old. I do add tap water to the pond, but when I move I wash out the bin, I guess this has kept it from filling up with TDS from the tap water.

I have not had green water in this pond but twice, and that was only for a week.
 
#402 ·
I hate to cross post but after reading this other thread its basicly what is stated here in this thread but just scaled down for an easier understanding. All these other add ons to remove waste like refu, sumps, micro alge, mangros etc.. is pointless if you remove waste with water changes, right? This is a good read since it explains reefing success in a smaller scale which actually seems simpler to achieve than larger reef tanks since they can be 100 percent water changed. Only thing I can't understand is he has a dsb?

http://www.livingreefs.com/new-pico-reef-3-years-old-1-gallon-vase-t19119.html
 
#403 ·
you are correct. it is all about removing the phosphates before they can become a problem. DSB's are fantastic phosphate sponges. they can suck up a lot of phosphates before they start leaching them back into the system. as with any kind of sponge/filter it will need to be emptied. they give a lot of slop factor. you can become lax in maintenance and it will not bite you in the butt for quite a while. for really small systems, regular large water changes and sand replacements will work quite well.

Nate_Bro-i guess it all depends on what you define as sustainable. you probably could create a lagoon type system that could keep some life in it. small ponds do seem self sufficient, but i would not want to look into one as if it were a tank. the water is no where near clear. they are phosphate traps.

G~
 
#406 ·


this is good, IMO

its just the last part scares me a little, adding the phytoplankton the absorb the inorganic PO4 so that is can be skimmed out, but if you clean, and siphon the tank well, you will not need to add in more nutrients (phytoplankton), just to absorb the PO4, and in the end hope you skimmed out all the old inorganic, PO4 along with ALL the plankton you just added.

Its kinda like panning for gold, yes it makes it easier if you add mercury to the pan and attract the gold, but what about the mercury that is released out of the pan and into the river...

not only did you gather more gold, then without the mercury, but you also leached some mercury into the water causing some problems down the road...
 
#407 ·
Ha! Well, I can't defend the phytoplankton (or most of the other stuff), I took it from some of the other posts. That particular bit came from a "Spanky the Border Collie" post, and he seemed to be a primary driver behind this whole approach. I just want to see if my understanding is close.
 
#409 ·
reddogf5- Welcome to TRT!!!

:wavey:

not bad bit of summarizing.

a couple things to clarify.

do you have a link to where that Spanky quote is? i can not place which thread it is in. i can not tell which context it was about. interesting use of phytoplankton. a nutrient export tool instead of food, which is what people think, though i am not sure the phyto could reproduce that fast to actually uptake that much phosphate to be useable.

detritus gets into the sand bed through various means. gravity and also bacterial turgor moves the grains around and causes the flock to work its way down.

more reading about the phosphates being incorporated into calcium carbonate. i have not had a chance to read through it completely yet.

very nice.

G~
 
#413 ·
do you have a link to where that Spanky quote is? i can not place which thread it is in. i can not tell which context it was about. interesting use of phytoplankton. a nutrient export tool instead of food, which is what people think, though i am not sure the phyto could reproduce that fast to actually uptake that much phosphate to be useable.
Now you got my doubting my memory. I didn't have the link in OneNote, but went and found it just to make sure:
It is in the thread Some funny misconceptions I've read about DSB's, post 108 (the forum won't let me post a link because my post count is too low)
 
#412 ·
holy cow that is a lot of pipe 70 miles holy cow!!!!!!! I would be dreaming about plumbing if I was doing that system, glad it wasn't me lol!!!!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top