What is THE ONE Reef Chemistry article you would love to read?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Here's one I'm considering right now based on many recent threads, including the myth thread in the main forum, despite the fact that I'm sure not a single person is clamoring for it. I once read a comment somewhere that journalists should not give readers what they are looking for, but what they don't know they need to hear. It will obviously be very controversial.

How and why starting a reef tank with NO intentional cycling (no bacteria added, etc.) may be accomplished.

The gist of it is forget nitrification, forget bacteria, and forget about fish for a good while.

Start a reef tank with photosynthetic organisms. Macroalgae, easy corals, coralline algae.

Dose N and P and trace elements. I know some folks do things like this with tiny tanks, but still often add foods and clean up crews.

Drawback is I don't have the time to test it out. It would be a thought experiment until someone tries it. I assume that will feed the doubters endlessly, but that doesn't mean I should not do it.

Thoughts? Doubts?

 

[DanyL]

Here's one I'm considering right now based on many recent threads, including the myth thread in the main forum, despite the fact that I'm sure not a single person is clamoring for it. I once read a comment somewhere that journalists should not give readers what they are looking for, but what they don't know they need to hear. It will obviously be very controversial.

How and why starting a reef tank with NO intentional cycling (no bacteria added, etc.) may be accomplished.

The gist of it is forget nitrification, forget bacteria, and forget about fish for a good while.

Start a reef tank with photosynthetic organisms. Macroalgae, easy corals, coralline algae.

Dose N and P and trace elements. I know some folks do things like this with tiny tanks, but still often add foods and clean up crews.

Drawback is I don't have the time to test it out. It would be a thought experiment until someone tries it. I assume that will feed the doubters endlessly, but that doesn't mean I should not do it.

Thoughts? Doubts?

No doubts it’ll work, and it’ll work well.
Bacteria is everywhere, especially on coral tissue - so when you introduce coral into a newly setup tank and provide all the necessary elements consumed both by the coral and by the bacteria that came with it, both will grow and multiply.

There is only one caveat to this - you might need to be extremely sterile with no fish or CUC, because even just a slight introduction of algae would turn into an outbreak, with nothing to control it.

This is why I think this would work best with SPS or softies, where you can introduce only coral tissue, rather than LPS that has an exposed skeleton attached to it.

 

[Miami Reef]

forget bacteria, and forget about fish for a good while.

Many beginners won’t like that. That’s why bottled bacteria is the appeal, or at least some established rock.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Many beginners won’t like that. That’s why bottled bacteria is the appeal, or at least some established rock.

For sure. Almost everyone wants fish fast, and I do not expect many folks to try my suggestion. It's more of a proof of concept idea.

Think I might title it "Ammonia is our Friend", just to get even more haters who think I've gone around the bend. lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

No doubts it’ll work, and it’ll work well.
Bacteria is everywhere, especially on coral tissue - so when you introduce coral into a newly setup tank and provide all the necessary elements consumed both by the coral and by the bacteria that came with it, both will grow and multiply.

There is only one caveat to this - you might need to be extremely sterile with no fish or CUC, because even just a slight introduction of algae would turn into an outbreak, with nothing to control it.

This is why I think this would work best with SPS or softies, where you can introduce only coral tissue, rather than LPS that has an exposed skeleton attached to it.

Good point on algae control. I have some ideas, but don't want to clog up this new article thread with them. I'll start another thread gathering ideas.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Here:

Ammonia is our Friend: thoughts needed

I'm thinking of wring an article on how ammonia has been wrongfully vilified in our hobby, with plenty of ammonia science and literature data, experiences of folks dosing it, etc. One possible part of it relates to the whole idea that one could start a reef tank without intentionally cycling...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[kenchilada]

Here's one I'm considering right now based on many recent threads, including the myth thread in the main forum, despite the fact that I'm sure not a single person is clamoring for it. I once read a comment somewhere that journalists should not give readers what they are looking for, but what they don't know they need to hear. It will obviously be very controversial.

How and why starting a reef tank with NO intentional cycling (no bacteria added, etc.) may be accomplished.

The gist of it is forget nitrification, forget bacteria, and forget about fish for a good while.

Start a reef tank with photosynthetic organisms. Macroalgae, easy corals, coralline algae.

Dose N and P and trace elements. I know some folks do things like this with tiny tanks, but still often add foods and clean up crews.

Drawback is I don't have the time to test it out. It would be a thought experiment until someone tries it. I assume that will feed the doubters endlessly, but that doesn't mean I should not do it.

Thoughts? Doubts?

Cycling has become laughably complicated.

I always keep blocks of sponges in my sump. When I need to setup a quarantine tank or new tank, I put a seeded sponge in a HOB filter. That’s it. I just did this with a 40B QT and four 6-8” fish, and I can instantly feed 2 cubes of frozen a day no problem.

If I were a newbie starting out I would get seeded media from someone. If I were an LFS I would sell seeded media. Add a small quarantined fish and feed it normally, add a few inverts and easy corals… all of this worked 30 years ago and still works today.

No bottles required.

This assumes dry rock. But that’s a topic for another day.

 

[ackshee]

Here's one I'm considering right now based on many recent threads, including the myth thread in the main forum, despite the fact that I'm sure not a single person is clamoring for it. I once read a comment somewhere that journalists should not give readers what they are looking for, but what they don't know they need to hear. It will obviously be very controversial.

How and why starting a reef tank with NO intentional cycling (no bacteria added, etc.) may be accomplished.

The gist of it is forget nitrification, forget bacteria, and forget about fish for a good while.

Start a reef tank with photosynthetic organisms. Macroalgae, easy corals, coralline algae.

Dose N and P and trace elements. I know some folks do things like this with tiny tanks, but still often add foods and clean up crews.

Drawback is I don't have the time to test it out. It would be a thought experiment until someone tries it. I assume that will feed the doubters endlessly, but that doesn't mean I should not do it.

Thoughts? Doubts?

I think this would work surprisingly well. An interesting angle to approach this question/experiment would be to think of establishing a reef tank as stages of an ecological succession. You start a tank with no cycling, and introduce your "pioneer species" -- the hardy, fast-growing, weedy species, such as algaes, macroalgaes, phytoplankton, copepods, etc. Once those establish themselves and have sort of stabilized, then you introduce the next tier of successional species, and let the tank re-stabilize. Maintain the water parameters and let nature run its course.