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Unread 04/03/2015, 11:01 AM   #101
zooman72
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Originally Posted by ca1ore View Post
There always seems to be a lot of 'noise' in these threads lately. I also think that there is actually more convergence than divergence. At the end of the day, you have to be exporting nutrients from your system - the debates here really seem to be about how one does that. I run a DSB, have for years; but I 'hedge my bet' somewhat by running it remotely. So, if something does go awry, the fix is easy. I also think it is wise to not get overly caught up in long posts, and technobabble from folks who may simply be parroting what they have read, as opposed to actually having done it. I've posted this a few times lately, but find somebody with a demonstrable tank you aspire to and follow their advise. Wayne's tank seems like one of those worth emulating
Again, well said...


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Unread 04/03/2015, 11:27 AM   #102
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Originally Posted by ca1ore View Post
There always seems to be a lot of 'noise' in these threads lately. I also think that there is actually more convergence than divergence. At the end of the day, you have to be exporting nutrients from your system - the debates here really seem to be about how one does that. I run a DSB, have for years; but I 'hedge my bet' somewhat by running it remotely. So, if something does go awry, the fix is easy. I also think it is wise to not get overly caught up in long posts, and technobabble from folks who may simply be parroting what they have read, as opposed to actually having done it. I've posted this a few times lately, but find somebody with a demonstrable tank you aspire to and follow their advise. Wayne's tank seems like one of those worth emulating
yeah,
"pick a tank and copy it as best you can" / "what works for one tank may not for another"

"prove it with science" / "all the empirical studies are on the ocean, it's not the same"

"show me a working tank" / "that tank would've crashed in another year {} that reefer beats his dog"

"you're too noob" / "you're stuck in the past"

"it's pretty" / "it's ugly"


it'll be a miracle if i can keep these chromis alive lol
I learn a lot from these threads though


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Unread 04/03/2015, 11:29 AM   #103
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Originally Posted by CStrickland View Post
Hi Wayne
I think my question before might have gotten buried in those couple pages of nonsense. Do you have a theory why your tank has avoided some of the pitfalls of dsb's? It's a tricky thing, I think Calore was getting it at too. Its really confusing when you're a noob to see beautiful BB's and beautiful DSB's, but then sometimes your tank doesn't work out and you don't know if the sand had anything to do with it. I'm good at gardening, but sometimes my friends will do just like I say and their plants die, it's annoying

Haha, like religions that say "if you do it our way everything will work out." When it doesn't, they say "you must not have prayed hard enough" lol
Not you Wayne, you're not saying that all somebody needs is a dsb. Just a funny thing.
OK, so this is my theory on why I think I was successful with my DSB setup. I must also preface this by saying this is strictly a hobbyist's perspective. I am not going to pretend I know everything there is to know regarding reefing. It's quite the opposite as I stated before, I'm still learning something new everyday. I'm not scientific at all and don't use all the new catch phrases or terminology.

So, after you cancel out all the extraneous noise in this thread, other than trying to keep your system stable and constant, I think continuous nutrient export is the key to success. I accomplish this by running a very good skimmer, 10% weekly water changes, and employing GFO and Carbon.

I'll start with the skimmer. My mantra is if you invest in quality equipment on the front end, you'll end up saving on the backend. I'm not saying you can't be successful with cheaper equipment. I just think life will be easier by buying the best equipment you can afford.

I perform 10% water changes for a couple of reasons. Nutrient export is one, but also because I want to constantly refresh all the trace elements that my system is consuming that my salt mix provides.

But honestly, I think running GFO and to a certain degree carbon is where the magic happens. I agree that not only sand, but live rock too are phosphate sponges. And I think this is where the whole notion of ticking time bomb comes from. However, my belief is that this time bomb can be defused by actively removing the phosphate with GFO. Why do I think this? Because I think we've all encountered algae blooms, more specifically hair algae in new systems.

I personally like to start with dry rock and sand. But doing so with my last system, after about the first month I had a terrible case of hair algae. I tried everything to remove it. Manual removal, snails, tangs, slugs, everything. Then a fellow reefer (thank you Scott!) explained to me the the HA is feeding off the phosphates leaching out of the rock. He recommended that I aggressively run GFO. And he said that it's been proven that in a high phosphate system, the GFO can be 'used up' very quickly. I was kind of confused because my PO4 readings were always low on my Saifert tests. But he explained to me that the rock and sand can slowly release the PO4 where it shows up lowing overall system, but is concentrated in your rock and sand where the HA is feeding off of it. So what I changed out the GFO weekly. Well, in about 6 weeks, the hair algae literally disappeared in a bout 2 days. So just from this result, it proved to me that the GFO was actively not only pulling the phosphates from my water column, but was pulling it out from my sand and rocks too.

After my system tank failure crash last year and it taking so long for my new tank to be completed, I decided to acid wash my rocks and start fresh. Well, low and behold, I still got a HA bloom when I setup my current system. This was actually kind of surprising to me, but I aggressively ran GFO again and it cleared the HA out in about 3 weeks.

SOOO...I just took a long time to basically say that I think regular use of GFO and Carbon, and obviously you need to run the correct amount for your system, actively removes sufficient nutrient from your system where it can thrive. That coupled with all the benefits of running a DSB that I stated before, provides a very stable, beneficial bacteria rich environment for all the animals in my tank. And I think its because of the beneficial bacteria rich environment that I can afford to feed my tank so heavily without seeing any negative side effects on my SPS corals.


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Unread 04/03/2015, 11:38 AM   #104
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Originally Posted by WayneL333 View Post
You do realize this article was posted in 2006 don't you?
i am well aware of when it was published. are you saying that the science has changed since the article? are you saying that since 2006 nutrients no longer accumulate in substrates and Julian Sprung was wrong? something magic now happens in substrates? i also asked for a more recent article or thread that discusses the "current thinking" of how to set up a DSB's.

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It's not recommended to have sands sifting gobies or starfish if you're trying to employ an active sand bed as they will consume the beneficial organisms that live in the sand.
back to the fact that in order to have organisms in the substrate, there must be enough resources for those organisms to survive. there must also be a near equal amount of waste organic material produced by those organisms. again pointing to an increase in nutrients in substrates.

zooman72-

THE ENTIRE ARTICLE FIT MY NARRATIVE!!

i went through it paragraph by paragraph. it all points to the fact that substrates accumulate nutrients.

why is this so hard to understand? if there is life in a substrate, there must be resources for it to survive. if the reef hobby forums believe that there is life in the substrate doing magic, then there must be resources for these organisms to perform this magic. at no point in time can there be zero, or a net loss in nutrients. this would indicate a crash.

please feel free to discuss any article you like. i have no problem with that. you all wanted an article from the hobby literature, so i got one.

softies utilize readily available inorganic nutrients. that is there evolutionary advantage over hermatypic organisms. hermatypic organisms have evolved to take advantage of extremely low inorganic nutrients to survive.

very little has changed with respect to setting up a true berlin system. skimmers have gotten better, but the concept is still the same. export waste organic material in a timely manner. i am not sure what else you need me to post about a true BB system. it is WYSIWYG. see the poo, remove the poo. there is not a lot of groundbreaking to do, most of the variables have been minimized.

there are some of us that are utilizing conical settling tanks and much larger skimmers to push the rapid removal of waste organic material as far as we can think. going on the offensive when it comes to nutrient export.

i am not saying that DSB's will never work. i am just saying that they need to be cleaned or replaced on a regular basis. as has been stated, they make great phosphate sinks. the more organisms in the DSB the more nutrients that are sunk. the problem is that at some point it reaches its full capacity and more resources are going to need to be employed to keep the affects of the decaying waste organic material from affecting the water quality. if one has a RDSB, and replaces it X number of years, that would make complete sense. that is using the DSB correctly as the tool that it is. the bigger the DSB, the bigger the nutrient sink.

a hobby refugium is just another phosphate sink. it is doing nothing for the actual accumulation of waste organic material. i thought we went through this already.

how can you reach a steady state of nutrients in=nutrients out in a substrated system without siphoning of detritus? if one is always feeding the tank, and we have already proven that substrates accumulate nutrients (the life in the substrates shows us this), that right there tells us that it is impossible to export as quickly as the food is going in. lets say that we decide not to feed the tank at all. we then run into the point made by Julian Sprung that some of the P gets locked up in Calcium Phosphate. this is now unavailable to organisms. as time goes on more and more of this gets locked up. less for other organisms to utilize. somethings gotta give. i put my money on an organisms population crash.

i still think sand is evil.

G~


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Unread 04/03/2015, 11:57 AM   #105
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Originally Posted by Reefin' Dude View Post
i am well aware of when it was published. are you saying that the science has changed since the article? are you saying that since 2006 nutrients no longer accumulate in substrates and Julian Sprung was wrong? something magic now happens in substrates? i also asked for a more recent article or thread that discusses the "current thinking" of how to set up a DSB's.
Well since you're asking for a " more recent article or thread ", I thought you would actually cite an article more recent than a 9 year old one. And no before you ask, 9 years is not current to me.

Also, I forgot what you're debating? Can you restate it please in a simple short sentence?


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Unread 04/03/2015, 12:06 PM   #106
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Originally Posted by Reefin' Dude View Post
that picture of my tank was only after a years worth of growth. yours was after 6 years. hard to compare, but i would rather have mine obviously because it is mine and i know what is going on behind the LR wall.

G~


And honestly, your entire tank looks drab. Your acros colors look drab, you have zero coraline growth which makes your existing algae growth even look drab. You're absolutely kidding yourself if you think your tank would look any better in 5 more years.

Even if my system was a ticking time bomb, I'd rather have to live with looking at this everyday:



Than have to come home to looking at :



Or even this:



And honestly, if what I was doing were getting your results, I would think I was doing something wrong and probably wouldn't be in the hobby much longer. And I'm certain the majority of reefers out there would too. I'm just saying...


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Unread 04/03/2015, 12:13 PM   #107
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Originally Posted by Reefin' Dude View Post
zooman72-

THE ENTIRE ARTICLE FIT MY NARRATIVE!!

But it actually does not, especially as your narrative has changed over time here and elsewhere (but not on your own forum).

i went through it paragraph by paragraph. it all points to the fact that substrates accumulate nutrients.

While you may have gone through it paragraph by paragraph, some of those paragraphs point to the fact that the water above the substrate is just as important, and the article specifically mentions phosphate, not "nutrients".

why is this so hard to understand? if there is life in a substrate, there must be resources for it to survive. if the reef hobby forums believe that there is life in the substrate doing magic, then there must be resources for these organisms to perform this magic. at no point in time can there be zero, or a net loss in nutrients. this would indicate a crash.

There again is no "magic", but organisms doing what they do - reduction, which may liberate material to a position where it can be ameliorated. Wayne does a pretty good job of explaining his methods, which seem quite reasonable, and quite hard to argue with the results, no matter how hard one might try...

softies utilize readily available inorganic nutrients. that is there evolutionary advantage over hermatypic organisms. hermatypic organisms have evolved to take advantage of extremely low inorganic nutrients to survive.

Evolution is not about "advantage", but "fitness" to the environment. While that may confer an advantage, it is by no means necessary or guaranteed.

there are some of us that are utilizing conical settling tanks and much larger skimmers to push the rapid removal of waste organic material as far as we can think. going on the offensive when it comes to nutrient export.

But again, the obsession with reaching zero nutrient levels has resulted (anecdotally of course) in coral problems as well, and this is where some of us find problems with the dogma pushed by some - there are limits and pros/ cons to everything we attempt.

i am not saying that DSB's will never work. i am just saying that they need to be cleaned or replaced on a regular basis.

Actually, you used to say just that, and appear to have "evolved" a bit...

a hobby refugium is just another phosphate sink. it is doing nothing for the actual accumulation of waste organic material. i thought we went through this already.

Again, you are lumping all "refugiums" together, when they may be constructed in various ways to accomplish various goals. You still avoided my mention of Sprung as your chosen resource above - he uses refugiums.

how can you reach a steady state of nutrients in=nutrients out in a substrated system without siphoning of detritus? if one is always feeding the tank, and we have already proven that substrates accumulate nutrients

What if "nutrients" are being removed from the water quickly though various means, and liberated from the substrate through various biological organisms? It is not inconceivable, although it may be viewed as unlikely - and no matter how much you protest this fact, it still remains - there has been no proper scientific and long term study of DSB's, and therefore no peer-reviewed work of said study. Everything is therefore conjecture. Rail on...

i still think sand is evil.

I know, I have read your work...

G~



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Unread 04/03/2015, 12:36 PM   #108
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1. Aesthetics based upon personal choice.

2. Using a one-way street vs two-way street to get to the destination.


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Unread 04/03/2015, 01:16 PM   #109
Reefin' Dude
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Originally Posted by WayneL333 View Post
Well since you're asking for a " more recent article or thread ", I thought you would actually cite an article more recent than a 9 year old one. And no before you ask, 9 years is not current to me.
i would if i could find one. there is a reason why you can not find any recent ones. it goes back to what happened in this hobby in 2005-2006. it was found out that DSB's do not work as advertised.

i know they do not work as advertised and are nutrient sinks. prove to me and everyone reading this thread, all those 2700+ viewers, that they are not nutrient sinks, and like any sink without a drain, it is not going to fill up. i have posted articles both peer review and hobby related to show that substrates are nutrient sinks. how can you all keep denying it.

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Also, I forgot what you're debating? Can you restate it please in a simple short sentence?
substrates need to be mechanically cleaned of waste organic material or replaced on a regular basis to maintain their functionality as a nutrient sink.

what are you debating?

G~


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Unread 04/03/2015, 01:29 PM   #110
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i would if i could find one. there is a reason why you can not find any recent ones. it goes back to what happened in this hobby in 2005-2006. it was found out that DSB's do not work as advertised.

i know they do not work as advertised and are nutrient sinks. prove to me and everyone reading this thread, all those 2700+ viewers, that they are not nutrient sinks, and like any sink without a drain, it is not going to fill up. i have posted articles both peer review and hobby related to show that substrates are nutrient sinks. how can you all keep denying it.



substrates need to be mechanically cleaned of waste organic material or replaced on a regular basis to maintain their functionality as a nutrient sink.

what are you debating?

G~
I'm debating that substrate doesn't have to be mechanically cleaned. I must not have gotten the advertisement in 2005-2006, because here's the proof:




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Unread 04/03/2015, 01:31 PM   #111
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Quote:
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i have posted articles both peer review and hobby related to show that substrates are nutrient sinks. how can you all keep denying it.
Because there are systems out there that have been running DSB for many years, 10-15+ that are still running with out crashing or having issues. I have saw them in person. Its only a sink if you add and never remove those nutrients.

An example of a system that has been running for 15 years had no skimmer. It employs a DSB, refugium, and Algae Turf Scrubbers. As nutrients are added the turf scrubber takes those nutrients back out. They are not just continuously added to the sand bed. The sand bed therefore does not just get filled up but also forms a filter of its own.


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Unread 04/03/2015, 01:33 PM   #112
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Oh and some pictures of my tank from around 2005-2006 not working:

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

As you can tell, I wasn't into acros yet. How much more proof do you need?


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Unread 04/03/2015, 01:35 PM   #113
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Just because you show me an article doesnt mean there isnt some other explanation. If you show me a peer reviewed article that says the sky is green (which could be true such as the northern lights) that doesnt mean that the sky isnt blue in other cases.

So therefore your article may be true but I believe there are still many ways to accomplish the same thing.


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Unread 04/03/2015, 02:02 PM   #114
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I'm debating that substrate doesn't have to be mechanically cleaned. I must not have gotten the advertisement in 2005-2006, because here's the proof:




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Unread 04/03/2015, 02:02 PM   #115
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Please, being "poor" has nothing to do with the state of your aquarium, and it is nice to see that some of us where right - you should not be giving out advice here or anywhere else...
The sate of my aquarium? There is nothing wrong with the state of my aquarium besides a lil excess phosphate, and yes because if the recently added sand. One cannot deny the algae outbreak in my 10g was because of the sand when nothing in the aquarium was changed for 8 months prior, the only thing that changed was sand was added then the algae came. Now if your talking about the non growth of corals during the short period I have had most of them, I don't think there is anything to doubt seeing as how I have been constantly changing things and even then I've still had growth, the fact that all the euyphilla I have besides the torch came from a failing tank, rebounded and have been growing new heads shows they are happy. Being poor has everything to do with the amount of corals you can buy, last time I checked my LFS wanted money not to give free handouts.
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Seriously??? LOL...I knew your tank would look like that. Get a little more practical experience first and then maybe I'll take the time to read anything else you may post after...if not, I recommend hanging out at Petco. The people there may buy what you're trying to sell.
Look like what? Void of plenty of corals because I don't have money? The green on the rock on the right, btw that green doesn't grow it's just green, it grew that algae when I reintroduced it after being out of water for two weeks. The sand doesn't help either since it brought in a whole new supply of phosphates. Those that think new sand doesn't contain phosphates & nutrients are blind.


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Unread 04/03/2015, 02:07 PM   #116
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zooman72- tell me how my narrative has changed over time. i have always said that we must clean up after our pets, whether it is coral, dogs, cats, fish, worms, whatever. they require food, and they require their wastes cleaned up. not sure how you think my narrative has changed. you all keep trying to change it and confusing the issues with "ecosystem" and "biodiversity", but it is still all the same. not keeping the exports up and creating more resources for more organisms.

zooman72"There again is no "magic", but organisms doing what they do - reduction, which may liberate material to a position where it can be ameliorated. Wayne does a pretty good job of explaining his methods, which seem quite reasonable, and quite hard to argue with the results, no matter how hard one might try... "

there is a major lack of understanding going on here about how biology works, and until the basics of biology are understood by some people this is always going to be like hitting ones head against a wall.

i will try this once more. an organism, no matter what the organism is can not survive without a constant supply of resources to support it. i am hungry, so we will us hamburgers. lets also say that 1 hamburger equals on nutrient. we have to keep this simple for some. for me to be living right now i must have on hamburger in me. i am now hungry, i am going to eat another hamburger. so i do. now being a mature human and not trying to in crease my mass around the middle. i keep my hamburger intake to my hamburger export. i now have to export my other hamburger to maintain my mass. that whole conservation of mass thing. so for every 1 of me, there is going to be a constant flow of 3 hamburgers. lets say that is a true BB system. we put the hamburger in, and we siphon out the old hamburger. if we have more organisms, then we feed more and we remove more. now, lets go with a substrate. the same 3 hamburgers are associated with any given organism. the problem is that the outgoing hamburger is not removed, it stays in the substrate, or it could be left over food hamburgers accumulating in the substrate. regardless there is going to be an increase in hamburgers. what do you think is going to happen with these left over hamburgers? another organism is gong to eat it. cool, that is great and all, right? wrong. now there are two organisms, but the total number of hamburgers associated with those two organisms is now 6. for any increase in biomass, there is going to be an increase in total nutrients that are associated with that organism.

now to expand on the hamburgers one more time with algae. lets say you remove just the organisms. the only hamburger being removed is the one in the algae. there is still those 2 other hamburgers in the system. so more algae can grow. algae makes for a poor hamburger exporter. it is only removing the hamburgers that are in the algae, and not the ones that feed the algae, so another algae will be right there waiting to take over. lets say you siphon up all of the hamburgers in the system. what will the organisms or algae have to eat? nothing. population crashes, no hamburgers for them to eat. wrinkle time. of course we all know that algae is not able to eat a hamburger. they are autotropic dummy. everybody knows that. so how does the algae eat the hamburger, it has to wait for the bacteria to break the hamburger up into inorganic hamburger bits. this adds another 2 hamburgers to the equation (monster simplification here, but it still gets the point across). so now in order for one algae containing one hamburger to live in the system there must be 5 hamburgers running around instead of 3. one for the bacteria to eat, one in the bacteria, hamburger converted to algae food, hamburger in the algae, released algae hamburger. it is really hard to lower the total nutrients of a system by removing 1/5th of it regularly.

zooman72-"But again, the obsession with reaching zero nutrient levels has resulted (anecdotally of course) in coral problems as well, and this is where some of us find problems with the dogma pushed by some - there are limits and pros/ cons to everything we attempt."

where have i ever said i was pushing zero nutrient levels? do not associate inorganic nutrient levels with organic nutrient levels. i feed the daylights out of my systems. they are no where near hungry. they have all of the fresh hamburgers they care to have. i just make sure all of the used hamburgers are removed. there is a huge difference between inorganic nutrients and organic nutrients. in no way am i talking about making a system zero nutrient. low inorganic maybe, but not low organic nutrients.

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I'm debating that substrate don't have to be mechanically cleaned. I must not have gotten the advertisement in 2005-2006, because here's the proof:

you have not debated anything actually. you have not explained anything. you have just shown pictures. i want your explanation on what is going on in that substrate.

feel free to stir up that substrate of yours and then explain to me where all of the waste organic material came from, and that all of that waste organic material is now helpful in maintaining the trophic state of your system now that it is released from the substrate. if you want to take that risk with your system, great. not me, and i think that all readers getting into the hobby should know the risks. there are pros and cons to everything. it is a good idea to know what they are. i have been there done that. i have seen in person TOTM from RC "crash" in person from the build up of waste organic material.

if it does not need to be mechanically cleaned, then why are you starting out with new sand instead of just using the old sand?

G~


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Unread 04/03/2015, 02:21 PM   #117
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Originally Posted by PhaneSoul View Post
The sate of my aquarium? There is nothing wrong with the state of my aquarium besides a lil excess phosphate, and yes because if the recently added sand. One cannot deny the algae outbreak in my 10g was because of the sand when nothing in the aquarium was changed for 8 months prior, the only thing that changed was sand was added then the algae came. Now if your talking about the non growth of corals during the short period I have had most of them, I don't think there is anything to doubt seeing as how I have been constantly changing things and even then I've still had growth, the fact that all the euyphilla I have besides the torch came from a failing tank, rebounded and have been growing new heads shows they are happy. Being poor has everything to do with the amount of corals you can buy, last time I checked my LFS wanted money not to give free handouts.

Look like what? Void of plenty of corals because I don't have money? The green on the rock on the right, btw that green doesn't grow it's just green, it grew that algae when I reintroduced it after being out of water for two weeks. The sand doesn't help either since it brought in a whole new supply of phosphates. Those that think new sand doesn't contain phosphates & nutrients are blind.
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Unread 04/03/2015, 02:23 PM   #118
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Originally Posted by Reefin' Dude View Post
zooman72- tell me how my narrative has changed over time. i have always said that we must clean up after our pets, whether it is coral, dogs, cats, fish, worms, whatever. they require food, and they require their wastes cleaned up. not sure how you think my narrative has changed. you all keep trying to change it and confusing the issues with "ecosystem" and "biodiversity", but it is still all the same. not keeping the exports up and creating more resources for more organisms.

zooman72"There again is no "magic", but organisms doing what they do - reduction, which may liberate material to a position where it can be ameliorated. Wayne does a pretty good job of explaining his methods, which seem quite reasonable, and quite hard to argue with the results, no matter how hard one might try... "

there is a major lack of understanding going on here about how biology works, and until the basics of biology are understood by some people this is always going to be like hitting ones head against a wall.

i will try this once more. an organism, no matter what the organism is can not survive without a constant supply of resources to support it. i am hungry, so we will us hamburgers. lets also say that 1 hamburger equals on nutrient. we have to keep this simple for some. for me to be living right now i must have on hamburger in me. i am now hungry, i am going to eat another hamburger. so i do. now being a mature human and not trying to in crease my mass around the middle. i keep my hamburger intake to my hamburger export. i now have to export my other hamburger to maintain my mass. that whole conservation of mass thing. so for every 1 of me, there is going to be a constant flow of 3 hamburgers. lets say that is a true BB system. we put the hamburger in, and we siphon out the old hamburger. if we have more organisms, then we feed more and we remove more. now, lets go with a substrate. the same 3 hamburgers are associated with any given organism. the problem is that the outgoing hamburger is not removed, it stays in the substrate, or it could be left over food hamburgers accumulating in the substrate. regardless there is going to be an increase in hamburgers. what do you think is going to happen with these left over hamburgers? another organism is gong to eat it. cool, that is great and all, right? wrong. now there are two organisms, but the total number of hamburgers associated with those two organisms is now 6. for any increase in biomass, there is going to be an increase in total nutrients that are associated with that organism.

now to expand on the hamburgers one more time with algae. lets say you remove just the organisms. the only hamburger being removed is the one in the algae. there is still those 2 other hamburgers in the system. so more algae can grow. algae makes for a poor hamburger exporter. it is only removing the hamburgers that are in the algae, and not the ones that feed the algae, so another algae will be right there waiting to take over. lets say you siphon up all of the hamburgers in the system. what will the organisms or algae have to eat? nothing. population crashes, no hamburgers for them to eat. wrinkle time. of course we all know that algae is not able to eat a hamburger. they are autotropic dummy. everybody knows that. so how does the algae eat the hamburger, it has to wait for the bacteria to break the hamburger up into inorganic hamburger bits. this adds another 2 hamburgers to the equation (monster simplification here, but it still gets the point across). so now in order for one algae containing one hamburger to live in the system there must be 5 hamburgers running around instead of 3. one for the bacteria to eat, one in the bacteria, hamburger converted to algae food, hamburger in the algae, released algae hamburger. it is really hard to lower the total nutrients of a system by removing 1/5th of it regularly.

zooman72-"But again, the obsession with reaching zero nutrient levels has resulted (anecdotally of course) in coral problems as well, and this is where some of us find problems with the dogma pushed by some - there are limits and pros/ cons to everything we attempt."

where have i ever said i was pushing zero nutrient levels? do not associate inorganic nutrient levels with organic nutrient levels. i feed the daylights out of my systems. they are no where near hungry. they have all of the fresh hamburgers they care to have. i just make sure all of the used hamburgers are removed. there is a huge difference between inorganic nutrients and organic nutrients. in no way am i talking about making a system zero nutrient. low inorganic maybe, but not low organic nutrients.



you have not debated anything actually. you have not explained anything. you have just shown pictures. i want your explanation on what is going on in that substrate.

feel free to stir up that substrate of yours and then explain to me where all of the waste organic material came from, and that all of that waste organic material is now helpful in maintaining the trophic state of your system now that it is released from the substrate. if you want to take that risk with your system, great. not me, and i think that all readers getting into the hobby should know the risks. there are pros and cons to everything. it is a good idea to know what they are. i have been there done that. i have seen in person TOTM from RC "crash" in person from the build up of waste organic material.

if it does not need to be mechanically cleaned, then why are you starting out with new sand instead of just using the old sand?

G~
Yeah if you stir up the sand in my tank, it gets cloudy. But then my skimmer does its job and it'll clear up in a few minutes. Guess what happens when you stir up the sand in the ocean? Give up? Believe it or not, it gets cloudy too! So what?


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Unread 04/03/2015, 02:36 PM   #119
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Originally Posted by Reefin' Dude View Post
i would if i could find one. there is a reason why you can not find any recent ones. it goes back to what happened in this hobby in 2005-2006. it was found out that DSB's do not work as advertised.

Ah yes, you are your cohorts exposed the fact that the "king wore no clothes", and those dastardly "experts" all left with their tails between their legs... How exactly was it "found out" that DSB's cannot work - care to point me to the peer-reviewed articles on that? Methinks it was just anecdotal evidence no matter all of your lamentations...

i know they do not work as advertised and are nutrient sinks. prove to me and everyone reading this thread, all those 2700+ viewers, that they are not nutrient sinks, and like any sink without a drain, it is not going to fill up. i have posted articles both peer review and hobby related to show that substrates are nutrient sinks. how can you all keep denying it.

How do you know? You are the one so certain, but without direct verifiable evidence. I hate to say it, but it reeks of internet expertism...

G~



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Unread 04/03/2015, 02:41 PM   #120
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Originally Posted by PhaneSoul View Post
The sate of my aquarium? There is nothing wrong with the state of my aquarium besides a lil excess phosphate, and yes because if the recently added sand. One cannot deny the algae outbreak in my 10g was because of the sand when nothing in the aquarium was changed for 8 months prior, the only thing that changed was sand was added then the algae came. Now if your talking about the non growth of corals during the short period I have had most of them, I don't think there is anything to doubt seeing as how I have been constantly changing things and even then I've still had growth, the fact that all the euyphilla I have besides the torch came from a failing tank, rebounded and have been growing new heads shows they are happy. Being poor has everything to do with the amount of corals you can buy, last time I checked my LFS wanted money not to give free handouts.

So now sand is the cause of your past/ current problems, and your tank looks relatively void of coral after several months because you have no money to buy any additional livestock? Yet you are capable of critiquing much more accomplished aquarists with superior aquariums? You have indeed come out from under the bridge...

Look like what? Void of plenty of corals because I don't have money? The green on the rock on the right, btw that green doesn't grow it's just green, it grew that algae when I reintroduced it after being out of water for two weeks. The sand doesn't help either since it brought in a whole new supply of phosphates. Those that think new sand doesn't contain phosphates & nutrients are blind.

So now new inert sand contains nutrients/ phosphates...



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Unread 04/03/2015, 03:03 PM   #121
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Reefin' Dude View Post
zooman72- tell me how my narrative has changed over time. i have always said that we must clean up after our pets, whether it is coral, dogs, cats, fish, worms, whatever. they require food, and they require their wastes cleaned up. not sure how you think my narrative has changed. you all keep trying to change it and confusing the issues with "ecosystem" and "biodiversity", but it is still all the same. not keeping the exports up and creating more resources for more organisms.

You have bounced back and forth from sand is problematic and wrong, to it is OK as long as it is either maintained or replaced. You still loath refugiums, but use a refugium "expert" to make a point about nutrients. It is your way or the highway in the end, and anyone that differs in opinion just doesn't understand the science - we all sticking our heads in the proverbial sand...

zooman72"There again is no "magic", but organisms doing what they do - reduction, which may liberate material to a position where it can be ameliorated. Wayne does a pretty good job of explaining his methods, which seem quite reasonable, and quite hard to argue with the results, no matter how hard one might try... "

there is a major lack of understanding going on here about how biology works, and until the basics of biology are understood by some people this is always going to be like hitting ones head against a wall.

So now we are ignorant of biology, us poor souls? I have a pair of degrees in biology - how about you? You pick and choose what is relevant to your argument, which is typically considered bad "science". You continue to state your opinion as fact, but fail to consider one of the hallmarks of science - stating a hypothesis as true with verifiable testing collaborated by others. Yes, references to the subject matter at hand is important , but they cannot be used as substitute for actual direct testing of the hypothesis. This is a major lack of understanding on your part - the scientific method.

i will try this once more... something about hamburgers...

You can continue to try to educate us with one scenario after another, thinking we are incapable of understanding your point, but the issue is with you I am afraid...

zooman72-"But again, the obsession with reaching zero nutrient levels has resulted (anecdotally of course) in coral problems as well, and this is where some of us find problems with the dogma pushed by some - there are limits and pros/ cons to everything we attempt."

where have i ever said i was pushing zero nutrient levels? do not associate inorganic nutrient levels with organic nutrient levels. i feed the daylights out of my systems. they are no where near hungry. they have all of the fresh hamburgers they care to have. i just make sure all of the used hamburgers are removed. there is a huge difference between inorganic nutrients and organic nutrients. in no way am i talking about making a system zero nutrient. low inorganic maybe, but not low organic nutrients.

I am glad you get it, but why do you think others have had so many issues when attempting ULNS's? Where did the idea possibly come from? This is what bothers me about the whole issue - it is so easy to see others latch on to an idea from an "expert" without fully contemplating what else may be going on - the very thing you accused others of doing back in the mid-2000's.

you have not debated anything actually. you have not explained anything. you have just shown pictures. i want your explanation on what is going on in that substrate.

You have not explained anything about his success either! Why does the successful aquarist have to explain his methods any more so than he has to others that disagree with him? You claim to have a full understanding of all of the various processes, yet cannot explain any success in spite of your theories, other than they are "ticking timebombs" based on anecdotal examples...

feel free to stir up that substrate of yours and then explain to me where all of the waste organic material came from, and that all of that waste organic material is now helpful in maintaining the trophic state of your system now that it is released from the substrate. if you want to take that risk with your system, great. not me, and i think that all readers getting into the hobby should know the risks. there are pros and cons to everything. it is a good idea to know what they are. i have been there done that. i have seen in person TOTM from RC "crash" in person from the build up of waste organic material.

Wayne answers this quite well already actually, but once again, you offer up anecdotal evidence as proof - you personally saw a crash and are certain it fit your narrative, yet others have seen successful aquariums fall outside of your narrow range of acceptance, but they must be mistaken or lucky...

G~



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Unread 04/03/2015, 03:08 PM   #122
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Per my research, DSB is more attractive to me because of it's function once it's established. It's self maintained. Shallow bed on the other hand requires regular maintenance, vacuuming.
this would be an easy example of advertising. Doggie did not invent the idea that dsb's are self maintaining from whole cloth, he got it from someone, who got it from someone else. When I was deciding how to set up my tank I read the same stuff, and watched those youtube vids like NYstealo, but then I read threads like this one where the layers get peeled back a little and you start hearing about dsb+skimmer+ats+gfo. Not picking on Doggie at all, just to say why it's important to hash this stuff out (politely)

The point being that most of the DSB's still in operation seem willing to share credit with other export mechanisms. Almost like the dt dsb is acting as a buffer, holding phos for the supplemental export (or is the dsb what is supplementing?). But that comes with risks too, they can be unpredictable like any other organism-full thing, and sooner or later they will get full. I don't think there's much to argue about really. I think that letting people know those risks ahead of time is super helpful cause we've all seen tanks crash where someone had unrealistic expectations of a dsb, it looked great for just long enough to get a nice spendy assortment of stock and then all hell broke loose. That's a shame cause who knows, maybe if they had used the supplemental stuff all along, or planned ahead for replacing the sand, they could've been spared that.


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Unread 04/03/2015, 03:20 PM   #123
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Originally Posted by CStrickland View Post
this would be an easy example of advertising. Doggie did not invent the idea that dsb's are self maintaining from whole cloth, he got it from someone, who got it from someone else. When I was deciding how to set up my tank I read the same stuff, and watched those youtube vids like NYstealo, but then I read threads like this one where the layers get peeled back a little and you start hearing about dsb+skimmer+ats+gfo. Not picking on Doggie at all, just to say why it's important to hash this stuff out (politely)

The point being that most of the DSB's still in operation seem willing to share credit with other export mechanisms. Almost like the dt dsb is acting as a buffer, holding phos for the supplemental export (or is the dsb what is supplementing?). But that comes with risks too, they can be unpredictable like any other organism-full thing, and sooner or later they will get full. I don't think there's much to argue about really. I think that letting people know those risks ahead of time is super helpful cause we've all seen tanks crash where someone had unrealistic expectations of a dsb, it looked great for just long enough to get a nice spendy assortment of stock and then all hell broke loose. That's a shame cause who knows, maybe if they had used the supplemental stuff all along, or planned ahead for replacing the sand, they could've been spared that.
I will give credit where credit is due - and in all fairness, that is a well-reasoned post.

I would also add that the aquarium hobbyist world is not completely represented by the various internet forums, as I know several really accomplished aquarists that avoid forums like the plague.


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Unread 04/03/2015, 04:21 PM   #124
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isn't there a thread already similar to this one in the advanced section? In fact, I think it has the same underlying tone as well.


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Unread 04/03/2015, 08:04 PM   #125
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Then how are you supposed to remove the build up from the sand bed?


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