Arguing against the arguments against stuff!

[Scott Fellman]

I have enjoyed many of your articles and even seeing you talk in person, but I don't enjoy articles that are condescending and talk down to fellow reefers. If modern reefing has taught us anything it's that there are many, many ways to have a thriving reef tank - you can find LPS, SPS, and mixed reef tanks with just about every combination of lights, substrate, and filtration imaginable.

Do you have personally a wide variety of reef tanks running at your home? Nanos, medium cubes and tanks like that? I am curious how you found room for macro algae (or preventing light bleed) in those small sumps as only sumpless tanks get a "pass" on macro reactors. Likewise with substrate in nanos when coral is so think you can't reach the bottom with a siphon?

You talk about "haters" a lot but you seem the be the hater here.

Well, I figured a few would probably take it in a not-so-good way. My "rants" are just that- stream of consciousness ideas that are in my head...honest, open, and often distasteful to some. Please don't take this as "hate"- because that's not my style...I apologize if this came off that way. "Condescending" is a word I can say I have NEVER heard ascribed to any of my writing in 17 years, so it's a new one! Seems a bit off, really. In fact, if you look back on my body of work and talks and such, most of it is self-deprecating, because as The Rev will tell you- no human is perfect. That being said, I am generally writing this stuff because it's something somebody challenged me on or as you woful say, "hated on me" about... And yeah, I've ran a ton of tanks in addition to that little coral warehouse we had, and have played with a lot of ideas. I don't claim to have the answers to everything, which is EXACTLY why I open this up to discussion- and I appreciate your viewpoint, though I respectfully and humbly disagree- and simultaneously apologized if offense was taken as a result of my piece. And trust me, there are a lot of ways to get macroalage into almost any sumpless system...Ya' know, you can grow it in the sand, if all else fails, now that I think about it. So I take away my free pass to the sumpless tanks now, to ;Shamefullyembarrased

Maybe I am kind of a jerk?

Seriously- thanks for the feedback and let's keep the discussion going!

-Scott

 

[chefjpaul]

Agree...I mean, far be it from me to tell anyone how to run a tank...I mean, I like stirring the pot a bit...
My 4 cents worth (inflation-adjusted, of course!)

-Scott

Love your writing, wether I personally agree or not. As long as we are not needing to start a "safe space" thread, always good discussions.

I love my tiny refugium, love the life, the creatures, that keeps me intetested, dont think it contributes much as far as nutrient reduction.

Regarding the post,
I also do like the reactor stuff, but decided against it on this tank...just because its another thing not necessary atm.

 

[Scott Fellman]

So here's the thing...that's really a 'Thing', or at least I think it's a thing...

I find so much of this hobby is based on the reef keepers personality. Time and again, real life examples have shown that the only gadgets needed to maintain a thriving mixed reef tank are a good pump to provide sufficient flow, proper lighting, a heater and a thermometer (can throw in a reliable ATO, too, for convenience/stability). But, for many people, that's just too simplistic/boring a system when there are so many 'goodies' that can be added. And that's fine, I get that. I personally find it interesting to follow along with the many build threads of this type to see how the systems do over an extended time period.

Speaking of refugiums, I have nothing against them but also haven't seen the need in the decades I've been keeping reef aquariums. Guess I'm just the uber-simplistic/anti-add-on/anti-gadget/salt-crusty 'old school' reefer type

Ralph.

;Shamefullyembarrased;Shamefullyembarrased;Shamefullyembarrased;Shamefullyembarrased;Shamefullyembarrased

 

[Scott Fellman]

Love your writing, wether I personally agree or not. As long as we are not needing to start a "safe space" thread, always good discussions.

I love my tiny refugium, love the life, the creatures, that keeps me intetested, dont think it contributes much as far as nutrient reduction.

Regarding the post,
I also do like the reactor stuff, but decided against it on this tank...just because its another thing not necessary atm.

Cool stuff! Agreed...spirited discussion welcome. I don't think anyone is preaching hate here, but we all have opinions...And yeah, as said in the article, I love reactors and such, especially if applied correctly...It's just that I have received a lot of questions over the years from people who have so many problems that would be solved by simply making things less complicated...and for making the effort to learn what was causing the problem instead of just reaching for something to "fix" it...Just good old application of knowledge...or getting ga lot of opinions and going from there...It's a great time to be in the hobby...and the goal is to keep people in the hobby!

-Scott

 

[Scott Fellman]

I think that about sums it up.

My current tank is 30 years old and I have always had a second refugium tank attached to my main tank, have always grown a lot of macro-algae, have always had a sand bed and have never siphoned out one speck of detritus. But I recognize the bare bottom, lower bio-load, siphon out everything, lots of water changes approach is likely as effective, if not wildly more effective, than what I choose to do. I just have no interest in that level of direct oversight and participation in the tank's well-being. And given that my teenage son has to turn on the television for me - the cutting edge technology is also a non-starter. I also enjoy the worms and the micro stars and shrimp and such that inhabit the refugium as much as I enjoy the corals and fish in the main tank.

You have to find an approach that keeps your interest and that you are willing to maintain. Once that happens - most any approach will likely be effective.

Perfectly said. And again, it's not about "ripping" anyone or their opinion...I might have articulated it wrong if people are interpreting it that way..to me it's questioning why so many people who try all of these exotic techniques and expensive equipment keep asking me and others the most basic questions imaginable about reef keeping- no, fish keeping...Apply any methodology you want- agreed...but learn the basics too. I think that's all that's really needed. Gadgets help us, but they are not a crutch for lack of understanding of the basic tenants of aquarium management, IMHO.

-Scott

 

[Scott Fellman]

Glad to hear you're getting back to the Salty Side

You never really escape it, lol;Nailbiting

 

[brandon429]

ideally im wanting to see nitrate up top/mid sections and then none down below, like a clearinghouse factory of detritus. that's the endpoint assumption when people let a bed continually compile waste from fish directly above it, and Ive seen it working not knocking the method, only its repeatability across the board is what made us take a different direction in long term nano reef work

was wanting some portions of the tested aged beds to show the zero nitrate mode, the benefit of housing the detritus wo removal.

another fair consideration to untouched sandbeds is the liability, rockslides etc that may upwell yet-to-be-mineralized zones...drop a powerhead down while on vacation that could be a death knell in the touchy landmine type dsb (any aged hands off dsb). I guess if its NNR is functioning so well that there's never any work required then its a good deal, but the clean mode is ushering in consistency and fair prep for events as well.

In the event of a power outage, the older the dsb the more risky it is to crash the whole system via BOD spikes and plenty of nutrients in play to feed hungry aerobes to the tax of all the other life.

the oxygen demand risk alone is worth the challenge to old school sandbedding imo. agreed there's extra surface area, but the live rock we use is so vastly got that covered the sandbeds just keep coming back as a liability to me in anything but the largest systems

ps the best argument thread of all time, the most passionate in the history of reefing, is should we pinch a puffer to make it expand via reefcentral 2004 heh try to find it in archives. it was a shredfest heh

 

[Scott Fellman]

ideally im wanting to see nitrate up top/mid sections and then none down below, like a clearinghouse factory of detritus. that's the endpoint assumption when people let a bed continually compile waste from fish directly above it, and Ive seen it working not knocking the method, only its repeatability across the board is what made us take a different direction in long term nano reef work

was wanting some portions of the tested aged beds to show the zero mode, the benefit of housing the detritus wo removal.

another fair consideration to untouched sandbeds is the liability, rockslides etc that may upwell yet-to-be-mineralized zones...drop a powerhead down while on vacation that could be a death knell in the touchy landmine type dsb. I guess if its NNR is functioning so well that there's never any work required then its a good deal, but the clean mode is ushering in consistency and fair prep for events as well.

In the event of a power outage, the older the dsb the more risky it is to crash the whole system via BOD spikes and plenty of nutrients in play to feed hungry aerobes to the tax of all the other life.

the BOD risk alone is worth the challenge to old school sandbedding.

An excellent point. Perhaps the "New School DSB" would simply make having a backup generator a mandatory component...I mean, we see them all the time on all sorts of reef tanks, why not with a DSB, right? On another angle, I've always wondered why so many tanks with DSBs' had extensive rockwork above them. You're right about the potential "liabilities" of a rock slide...Personally, although I love sand, I was never a DSB aficionado for a variety of reasons. I think the mid-range sanded depths are equally fascinating, and I could be wrong, but I recall a study done several years back about denitrification actually occurring in very shallow sandbeds...It's interesting, albeit esoteric stuff, that I think still warrants a lot of thought and research! Good stuff!

-Scott

Oh, I forgot...I had a relatively deep sand bed in my seagrass tank about 7 years ago...and we had a localized protracted 9 hour power failure (and yeah, I had no backup)...I had a LOT of seagrass in there, and a fair amount of coral. No losses...I wonder....seagrass? Hmmm...

 

[Scott Campbell]

Scott I was curious about something.

that's the ideal arrangement for sure, are you using any offsets to waste compounding in the system beyond skimming and basic water changes and what the refugium takes up>

am looking for offsets in place like liquid carbon dosing or relying on algae systems

finding 30 yr old unassisted Berlin setups is ultra rare, that mode went out of commonality as attaining natural nitrate reduction turned out to be inconsistent among reefers. It would be neat to know if you had to increase offsets as the years went by or if the system seems to be using natural reductions beyond plant export.

in a recent post referencing tanks of the masters, none of them was concerning over nutrients here and there, they were living a freer approach as well. many hands off tanks are getting a dilution benefit justifiably as well, very hard to replicate that approach in old nanos, there's somewhat of a breakpoint where only gallonage determines a hands off status (we have no ten year hands off nanos in the active forums, for ex. all old nano tanks are taking export action somewhere, somehow)

on the smaller tanks we find it easier to just force clean them, big tanks= that's a headache.

Brandon

To be perfectly honest, I dropped out of the whole reef community for a long time. I had young kids, a business to run and twice diagnosed with cancer. So I just kept on doing what I had been doing. Mostly because I didn't have the time or focus to learn anything new. The system (tank and refugium) didn't get huge amounts of attention from me. Infrequent water changes, very poor monitoring of calcium and alkalinity and such. But I did pull out large amounts of macro-algae on a regular basis. It was something I could do when and if I had time. And that still holds true for me today. The fish were always fine but I can't say my corals flourished. At best they grew very, very slowly. But they did well enough and are still going strong. Several are close to 30 years old. A few years back I started carbon dosing on a limited basis and have found that to be very helpful. The corals seem happier and I don't have to pull out as much algae. These days I have a yellow tang, rabbitfish and urchin that eat all the algae in the display tank, I pull out a packed pint container of macro-algae from the refugium once or twice a week and empty my skimmer once or twice a week. My water changes are still small and infrequent.

To answer your question - yes, I had a lot of plant export. And still do. The recent carbon dosing has offset the plant export with more skimmate. For a while I tried to monitor how the algae export compared by weight to the food I put in. I don't remember the results except that a small amount of food translated into a large amount of algae. Another factor is that through all the years of benign tank neglect I only had herbivore fish - so I did not have to feed the tank all that much food. I also have an inordinate amount of sponges and tube worms.

Not sure if that answers your question?

Scott

 

[Paul B]

This is silly and can't possibly work. Old school sandbed using real natural creatures and algae is just insane. It is a nitrate factory, and those natural creatures will die of boredom, can't possibly work for more than 40 or 50 years with no problems.
Now if you said you wanted to add a UG filter, I would know you are nuts.
Besides, all the reefs I dove on always had glass floors.

 

[Scott Fellman]

Yeah, it's true...there is not one tank with sand that has been successful. NOT ONE! ( I've literally received a message asserting that not long ago, lol)

Random thought:
Hey, wasn't the UGF really the first version of a plenum? We just didn't know it, right? ;Dead

Arghh...more ideas!

 

[Nano sapiens]

I could be wrong, but I recall a study done several years back about denitrification actually occurring in very shallow sandbeds...It's interesting, albeit esoteric stuff, that I think still warrants a lot of thought and research! Good stuff!

You remember correctly. A reference can be found in 'The Reef Aquarium' (Delbeek/Sprung), Vol 3, Pg 260. In short, nitrifying and denitrfying bacteria co-exist in shallow sand beds since the grains contain anoxic microsites for the denitrifiers, as well as aerobic surface substrate for the nitrifiers. The term used is 'coupled' since the process occurs simultaneously due to the close proximity to each other of the different bacteria types. If kept clean of excessive detritus, this process alone can account for a good portion of a system's denitrification potential.

Ralph.

 

[brandon429]

Paul in all fairness, your sandbed is getting the royal workover in your tank, its berlin not. and no one else here is RUGF, your approach is prob what Id use if I needed the bed in a larger tank, its way against the norm. all other examples so far are sinkers, yours is an expeller of waste and dilution still helps for sure in the measures and long term results imo


this search wording shows some nano work in dsbs:

toonen nano reef denitrification sandbed studies

 

[Vaughn17]

Well, I figured a few would probably take it in a not-so-good way. My "rants" are just that- stream of consciousness ideas that are in my head...honest, open, and often distasteful to some. Please don't take this as "hate"- because that's not my style...I apologize if this came off that way. "Condescending" is a word I can say I have NEVER heard ascribed to any of my writing in 17 years, so it's a new one! Seems a bit off, really. In fact, if you look back on my body of work and talks and such, most of it is self-deprecating, because as The Rev will tell you- no human is perfect. That being said, I am generally writing this stuff because it's something somebody challenged me on or as you woful say, "hated on me" about... And yeah, I've ran a ton of tanks in addition to that little coral warehouse we had, and have played with a lot of ideas. I don't claim to have the answers to everything, which is EXACTLY why I open this up to discussion- and I appreciate your viewpoint, though I respectfully and humbly disagree- and simultaneously apologized if offense was taken as a result of my piece. And trust me, there are a lot of ways to get macroalage into almost any sumpless system...Ya' know, you can grow it in the sand, if all else fails, now that I think about it. So I take away my free pass to the sumpless tanks now, to ;Shamefullyembarrased

Maybe I am kind of a jerk?

Seriously- thanks for the feedback and let's keep the discussion going!

-Scott

You're no jerk, Scott. You're funny, thoughtful, and intelligent. Keep stirring the pot!

I've grown macroalgae in three sumpless, skimmerless nano tanks in the past. Some of it is quiet pretty, but it's messy, IME, and will kick the bucket in a heartbeat if nutrients drop below its preferred level. Now I grow macroalgae and sps in a 180 that I dose daily with both NO3 and PO4. The macroalgae is hair algae, lol, and my clean up crew keeps it mowed down nicely. And yes, it mostly definitely has a sandbed.

 

[keddre]

A very cool idea... I don't know if that will be all-telling, and if nitrate contained in a DSB is indicative of it being a "nutrient sink" or merely that it's doing what we want it to do- processing nutrients, etc...But the spirit and idea are right...With all of the crazy cool technology and really smart reefers out there, it would be cool to see some new research into this! Who's game?

-Scott

Although my sand bed is only 4 months old I would volunteer as it is a heavy fed tank. My only “problem” is how I can get water from the complete bottom without a mouthful of sand

 

[Scott Fellman]

You remember correctly. A reference can be found in 'The Reef Aquarium' (Delbeek/Sprung), Vol 3, Pg 260. In short, nitrifying and denitrfying bacteria co-exist in shallow sand beds since the grains contain anoxic microsites for the denitrifiers, as well as aerobic surface substrate for the nitrifiers. The term used is 'coupled' since the process occurs simultaneously due to the close proximity to each other of the different bacteria types. If kept clean of excessive detritus, this process alone can account for a good portion of a system's denitrification potential.

Ralph.

Ahh, thanks for the recall, Ralph! I was beginning to think I was senile, lol

 

[brandon429]

keddre truly at 4 mos I don't think its worth the risk, that's still a pretty clean stage, not much detrital incursion please don't inhale vibrio on my behalf

 

[Scott Fellman]

You're no jerk, Scott. You're funny, thoughtful, and intelligent. Keep stirring the pot!

I've grown macroalgae in three sumpless, skimmerless nano tanks in the past. Some of it is quiet pretty, but it's messy, IME, and will kick the bucket in a heartbeat if nutrients drop below its preferred level. Now I grow macroalgae and sps in a 180 that I dose daily with both NO3 and PO4. The macroalgae is hair algae, lol, and my clean up crew keeps it mowed down nicely. And yes, it mostly definitely has a sandbed.

Aww..thanks! In all fairness, I can come across a bit opinionated/sarcastic/annoying/hypocritical at times, but that's all part of being human...and I love to question the stuff we take for granted...Very cool to share what's on our mind, be a bit brave, and occasionally (?) get a few people thinking...even if they're ticked off at you...That's pretty cool!

And good to hear of the macro algae thing...It CAN be utilized in all sorts of systems...like anything else, it's a compromise for sure, dealing with mess and such, but it's possible!

Reef on!

Scott

 

[Paul B]

and no one else here is RUGF,

Yeah I know, can't possibly work, a stupid idea, I hate it.

 

[Broadwave]

I couldn't agree more with this article. A traditional refugium, works great, adds biodiversity, reduces nutrients and provides free food for my Tangs and other inhabitants. (well, the initial purchase of the algae wasn't free, but its the gift that keeps on giving).

Keeping things simple makes our aquatic ecosystems easier to maintain and... we are much more apt to keep up on weekly maintenance when kept simple. When adding gadget upon gadget it makes things more complicated to maintain and laziness ensues. Don't get me wrong, new whiz-bang shiny gadgets are cool... but the new shiny object factor goes away fast when frequent maintenance is needed on said gadget(s). Been there, done that and have the tee shirt to prove it. Also, keeping things simple allows more time to actually enjoy our displays and their inhabitants.