Nutrient Management by “Old School” Reefer

[Subsea]

Outstanding thread!!! I've been running my skimmer drier and drier over that past year and a half, to the point I clean it out only every 3 months or so. I've even noticed my corals and fish look more healthy (my clowns and mandarins now breed on a weekly to monthly basis) with less skimming. I just cranked my skimmer up to produce wet skimmer but now installed a tube running from the bottom of the cup to the return pump. I'm hoping this helps oxygenate and feed my softie dominated tank...

Where does your protein skimmer get it’s air from. Air drawn from inside of home is usually much higher in CO2 than outside air..

 

[Paul B]

Where does your protein skimmer get it’s air from. Air drawn from inside of home is usually much higher in CO2 than outside air..

I really think "youse" guys worry way to much about silly things, unlike me who thinks about important things like Supermodels and whats new on FaceBook

The CO2 may be ever so slightly higher in a house, if at all, changing the pH. (especially if the majority of people living there have large noses) I doubt it, but even if that is true. Who cares? pH, like salinity and how many parasites live in a cubic mile of seawater or how many real blonds live in the UK is not that important.

I think I tested my pH in the 80s. My test kit came in a wooden box. That was last century and when the CO2 levels in my house get to high, I will croak a simple, peaceful death, safe in the knowledge that my fish are in good hands, whom, ever those hands will be.

My fish, even the 30 year olds never look good or bad. They always look as healthy as they can look especially when they are spawning no matter the pH.

My corals also never look anything but growing, even when they don't know where the air was minutes before it goes into my skimmer. Truth is, I draw the air through my sock drawer first.

 

[HuduVudu]

The CO2 may be ever so slightly higher in a house, if at all, changing the pH. (especially if the majority of people living there have large noses) I doubt it, but even if that is true.

When you date supermodels and live in million dollar homes in New York, your house might not have problems with CO2. The poor unwashsed masses, like myself, might not be as lucky as to have modern convienences like air handlers and such. When this happens the CO2 can not only be a real problem, though maybe unknow, but a down right destructive influence on our aquariums and us too. It isn't so much the CO2 that is the problem IMO but the what the CO2 tells us, and if it could be speak it would laugh and say I took all of the oxygen and I am not giving it back. We have to purge this evil threat to us and our tanks from our house. I let this little devil sit around in my house for 18 hours and what I got was 2500 (ppm) of his little friends. This is obviously not a good thing. Especially when they were taking all of the oxygen and they wouldn't give them back.

Here is the before and after of my running the little CO2 buggers out of town, with Sheriff ERV:

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

@Subsea My skimmer pull in air from the sump area. I've been meaning to run a line of tubing to the outside for years but logistically it difficulty due to the tank's location. Now that the attic is not a walk-in-oven maybe I can finally run one through the wall to the roof...

 

[Paul B]

LOL. This is a picture maybe 25 years ago, yes, my tank looked like a produce farm then but it is the only old picture I have of this. That red fish in the center is a fireclown. At the time I took this picture that fish had already been in my tank for 10 years. If you look close, he is smiling there


Here he is this week with his eggs. He is not only smiling but he is also dancing the macarana.
He doesn't know the pH but for the last 3 years the tank is in a smallish room with no windows right next to my furnace. I have no idea what the CO2 level is and neither does he. But I have yet to see any fish who cares about pH or CO2 levels.

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

As usually your photos and experiences are the stuff of legends @Paul B . Not sure what our hobby, or reef2reef for that matter, would be without our resident sages like you! I know I personally have taken many of your comments and tank husbandry methods and put them to practice with great results. I think one of the joys of this hobby is to do what I call "tinkering-with-no-harm". Tweaking, modifying, adding, removing, etc. the seeming countless factors and parameters we have in our tanks to ensure our creatures are living as best as they can is a true pleasure for me. As long as these changes don't harm our tank inhabitants and are done slowly with intense observation, which includes testing, we continue the tradition of hopefully one day (or year; you've set the bar pretty darn high with your 45+ year old tank Paul!) to become tank legends like yourself! Will lowering the CO2 going in my skimmer nuke my tank? Most likely not. Will it help my coral and inhabitants? Maybe... who knows, no two tank will ever be same and that is the true joy of this hobby!!!

 

[Subsea]

In earlier links that I posted, PH fluctuated from 8.7 to 7.8 on an IndoPacific reef between day & night. Upon more in-depth studying, low oxygen concentration was always the cause of problems for coral.

 

[Paul B]

. Not sure what our hobby, or reef2reef for that matter, would be without our resident sages like you!

I do. Most people would be quarantining for 362 days. As a matter of fact many people would just have a quarantine tank and no main tank because their fish would always be in either quarantine or medication. All corals would be dipped in tree stump remover to remove pests like crabs and armadillos.

Mandarins would be fed mostly chicken cattchatori and beans (but it would be blended first. )
About 50% of hobbiests would be changing water 2 or 3 times a day and boiling it first to eliminate those parasites that can fly 10'.
No indoor air would be used but it would be siphoned off the top of Poland Spring water bottles after being filtered through 14lbs of coconut fiber stuffed into the air filter of a 1967 Oldsmobile Cutless.

Besides that. I think you give me to much credit for changing this hobby or forum at all. Most people just think of me as a Senile, very lucky Geezer with a fish tank.

 

[HuduVudu]

@Paul B you aren't senile. CO2 causes cognitave decline in humans in concentrations over 1400ppm. Thats what they say from the medical establishment, so you be the judge.

 

[Subsea]

Paul,
I am still laughing. Here in Texas, armadillos are special.


[All corals would be dipped in tree stump remover to remove pests like crabs and armadillos. ]

[Mandarins would be fed mostly chicken cattchatori and beans (but it would be blended first. ]

[No indoor air would be used but it would be siphoned off the top of Poland Spring water bottles after being filtered through 14lbs of coconut fiber stuffed into the air filter of a 1967 Oldsmobile Cutless. ]

Don’t stop now, you are on a role.

 

[Subsea]

@Paul B
With respect to Mandarins eating. I had one for several years when I first starting feeding live mussels. I noted his curiosity as the tank was feeding on some fresh scraps when he aggressively eat a sliver of flesh half his body length.

 

[Subsea]

CO2 in my home is carbon for my reef tank. I don’t measure it. When lights on 120G display are off, I have two main sources of carbon dosing using carbon dioxide & photosynthesis to produce glucose & oxygen. A 40G algae filter with 300W of growlight and a diy algae reactor with 100W of intense lighting.

 

[Subsea]

Several others on this thread have tried carbon dosing without a skimmer with no clear advantage. Including me with vinegar. I consider phytoplankton a carbon source as glucose from photosynthesis and a nutrient source, considering f2 fertilizer that grew phytoplankton..

[Phytoplankton, as a primary producer are at the bottom of the food pyramid pushing carbon up through the microbial loop. I can’t think of a better way to carbon dose without a skimmer. This is nutrient management on steroids because phytoplankton feeds diverse food webs that recycle live food to hungry mouths]

 

[Subsea]

@DaddyFish one of the problems I had when I was doing freshwater tanks was shaking the thinking of doing saltwater tanks. Ultimately I couldn't do it so I stopped. One thinking that does not translate well between fresh and salt is gas exchange. Salt water is VERY difficult to get gases disolved into the water. Fresh water is much easier. Good gas exchange through skimmers and/or large flow (there are other ways) is the hallmark of a successful salt water tank.

It is very hard to remove the filtration mindset. The fear that the tank will be "polluted" is intense. This I think is what causes many people problems in biological systems. It is more important IMO to create a biologically balanced loop than to arbitrarly remove things that the aquarist deems as bad.

This is the heart of this thread, nutrient management by recycling live food up the food chain.

 

[Paul B]

I know people dose all sorts of things for some reason. I dose clams so all I have to remove is clam juice and the sponges do that for me so I have nothing to do but watch Oprah.

 

[Subsea]

When I saw BRS video on the Triton Method, I was amazed at the amount of fresh seafood feed to an SPS tank with a heavy fish load. Using intense lights a chaeto algae filter was primary nutrient management tool and it worked amazingly.

Feed heavy & export heavy is what I got from all of this. Consider another dynamic of nutrient management involving another form of nutrient export: frag & sell coral.

 

[Subsea]

@DaddyFish one of the problems I had when I was doing freshwater tanks was shaking the thinking of doing saltwater tanks. Ultimately I couldn't do it so I stopped. One thinking that does not translate well between fresh and salt is gas exchange. Salt water is VERY difficult to get gases disolved into the water. Fresh water is much easier. Good gas exchange through skimmers and/or large flow (there are other ways) is the hallmark of a successful salt water tank.

It is very hard to remove the filtration mindset. The fear that the tank will be "polluted" is intense. This I think is what causes many people problems in biological systems. It is more important IMO to create a biologically balanced loop than to arbitrarly remove things that the aquarist deems as bad.

Let’s remove filtration mindset and say “biofiltration”, after John Tullock’s, “The Natural Reef Aquarium” the next most influential person to influence me with using “the little people” to move carbon up the food chain.

The Clean Up Crew

The proper selections for your marine aquarium clean up crew.

chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net

What is a clean up crew?

[ Most often, a clean up crew is thought of as being but a few herbivores or scavengers to simply eat algae and clean up left over fish food. I feel this is an over simplified view and most often does not take into consideration that we are striving for a Reef aquarium. It is my hope that by taking the effort to put this together, it will inspire or guide others to think outside of the coral box. After all, what is a reef? Surely not a bunch of rocks with some corals parked on top of it all. I enjoy all the "little people" as much or more than I do the coral species kept plus the fact that I wish to have an actual ecosystem that through its various animal and plant members can maintain itself. Each animal has its part to play in that role and in combination, makes for an easy to keep reef aquarium with minimal equipment and effort while providing me with the joy of seeing it all in action. Being that most all of the inverts and sponges are closer to the bottom of the food chain than say the corals and fish are, I also consider these animals to make up what one could call a very extensive "clean up" crew while providing food for other species as well. Since I am discussing food chains I need to stress the fact that all food chains with one exception (deep ocean vents) start at the bottom with plants or algae. The very item that caused us to consider buying a clean up crew to begin with. Yet once an aquarium does acquire a diverse clean up crew, it will most likely need to be supplemented with phytoplankton to ensure we keep as much diversity as possible. In short, a clean up crew is a reef ! ]

 

[Subsea]

While this is not a nuisance algae thread, to rid a tank of dinos, this article at @AlgaeBarn illustrates nutrient management to target feed competitors & consumers of dino.

Eliminating Nuisance Dinoflagellates with Ocean Magik Live Phytoplankton

Eliminating harmful and ugly dinoflagellates remains one of the most common—and challenging—tasks for the marine aquarist. Not only can marine aquarium

www.algaebarn.com

Starving Dinos for a Solution

[It should seem that the best way to eradicate nuisance dinoflagellate blooms is to put a stop to the problem that allowed them to arise in the first place—excess nutrients. As mentioned earlier, the safest and surest course of action here is to increase competitive pressure on dinos by increasing the densities of beneficial algal species. The enlightened aquarist can carry out a highly effective multi-pronged attack with the use of high-end live algal products such as Ocean Magik. This product incorporates a blend of several species of algae that actually nourish phytoplanktivorous aquarium animals (such as many corals, clams, sea cucumbers, etc.) as they sequester nutrients such as ammonia, nitrate, phosphate and silicate directly from the aquarium system water.]

[In other words, Ocean Magik does not merely eliminate bad stuff; rather, it turns bad stuff into something very, very good. Perhaps most importantly, it does so in the most benign way possible. And, when the job is done, the flourishing algae is happily consumed by a very wide variety of aquarium creatures such as copepods (which, incidentally, put even more pressure on heterotrophic varieties of dinoflagellates by competing for organic waste products). Problem solved!]

 

[Subsea]

Nutrient management from my point of view entails more about nutrient recycling and moving carbon up the food chain with live food beginning with detrivore larvae as a source of that carbon..

I can recall laying on my stomach with 2 yr old grandson using magnifying glass with led light to see the “little people” in mud/macro refugium.


I have a theory about nutrient export using algae. Algae will absorb nutrients in the ratio that they are in the water. In cases like iron, macro algae will store up excess for when times are lean with iron. This iron storage is well documented in both land and marine plants. I can document it with respect to Gracilaria Hayi.

I bring in a lot of minerals with well water at 1000 TDS. I know I remove many minerals with macro that has concentrated minerals from the water. The most surprising example was copper which tested at 2 ppm in Red Ogo but bulk water showed < 100 ppb or 0.01 ppm which was test sensitivity level. Concentration ratio of copper from bulk water to algae dry mass was 200:1

 

[HuduVudu]

I bring in a lot of minerals with well water at 1000 TDS.

Holy Cow!!!!