Carbon Limited VS Carbon Balanced - Ugly Stage

[HomebroodExotics]

If I am reading correctly -- your argument is based on the idea of corporations and governments deliberately hiding knowledge from the public for profit. That is a rather significant claim and I think that we would all be very interested if you have concrete evidence, especially with regards to reef biology and aquariums.

Yes, this is called capitalism. I really don't have time to teach you to be self aware and understand how the system works around us. This is just how it works man.

Could also you help me understand how somebody like Dr. Tim gains access to the "locked" information or contributes to it, so that he can run his business?

He once worked for these corporations and did the research himself, in the 80s....and he's been selling the same stuff since. Ask him why he has not improved upon his products. 1) He won't tell you, 2) if he tells you you wont believe him 3) if he tells you, you may face an existential crisis because the world clearly doesn't work like you think it does and i doubt he wants that on his conscious. Any way this is simply one example, a drop in the ocean.

You may not be aware, but there is extensive academic research, books, and freely available data on microbial processes, nutrient cycling, and other topics relevant to this discussion. While some research is behind university and academic paywalls, those paywalls help fund the collection and organization of research. That doesn’t mean the information is "locked away".

There's a lot of research going on now that technology has caught up for the masses. Technology has caught up to where even some of us poors have been able to learn some stuff.

Could you explain what specific information has been 'locked away' since the 70s, and why it isn’t accessible through academic or public channels? I’m not being facetious, but if such information is 'locked away,' how are you aware of it?

All information that corporations have is locked away, I don't understand how you don't get this and I really don't know how to explain how a business works to someone. Can you be more specific? Like do you not understand what trade secrets and patents and poor labelling laws are and how they create a society of secrets that leads people to believe nonsense over facts? I know I'm saying a of things you think are ridiculous right now, but you did ask.


Anyway please tell me how society works in your world. It sounds much more pleasant than my reality. Can you explain how corporations freely give us all of their knowledge and we aren't playing catchup to those with the most money and resources?

 

[BeanAnimal]

Yes, this is called capitalism. I really don't have time to teach you to be self aware and understand how the system works around us. This is just how it works man.

He once worked for these corporations and did the research himself, in the 80s....and he's been selling the same stuff since. Ask him why he has not improved upon his products. 1) He won't tell you, 2) if he tells you you wont believe him 3) if he tells you, you may face an existential crisis because the world clearly doesn't work like you think it does and i doubt he wants that on his conscious. Any way this is simply one example, a drop in the ocean.

There's a lot of research going on now that technology has caught up for the masses. Technology has caught up to where even some of us poors have been able to learn some stuff.

All information that corporations have is locked away, I don't understand how you don't get this and I really don't know how to explain how a business works to someone. Can you be more specific? Like do you not understand what trade secrets and patents and poor labelling laws are and how they create a society of secrets that leads people to believe nonsense over facts? I know I'm saying a of things you think are ridiculous right now, but you did ask.


Anyway please tell me how society works in your world. It sounds much more pleasant than my reality. Can you explain how corporations freely give us all of their knowledge and we aren't playing catchup to those with the most money and resources?

Yes Capitalism involves private business with trade secrets, patents and and other intellectual property. That is how business protect their investments into the R&D. I am still unclear on how this translates to"all information that corporations have is locked away". Not all knowledge comes from private corporations or government.

In the context of this thread and conversation, much of what we know is from publicly available research, most of it from academia with contributions form (or funded by) the government (e.g. NOAA, NASA) and private sector studies. Can you be more specific in what you think is being "locked away" and by whom?

I am also not following your response about Dr. Tim's. If the product is selling and he sees no need to improve it, how is that evidence of a conspiracy? Are suggesting he is part a secret government organization that provides him with secrets so that he can make money in the aquarium hobby, but only gives him enough information to profit modestly in the aquarium hobby?

As for social structure -- I am not arguing that a business should freely give away their knowledge -- they aren't obligated to. But framing that as A shadowy system of universal control or oppression through concealment feels exaggerated.

The broader discussion about social structure would be topic for a different forum or a private conversation. In context to this thread and forum I would assert that most progress in "reef science" comes from public research, individuals (me, you and Sixty, members of forums and publishers of content), and other private innovation from the companies that both sell to and educate the hobby.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I was going stay out of this but I feel it necessary to ask a question that I eluded to near the beginning of this thread, to see if I get an answer this time. How on earth can you know what impact your snail is having on controlling "nuisances" in relation to your carbon dosing? I feel adding consumers invalidates any results from the outset. I'm just not understanding, I guess.

the important aspect for me, is that they are also producers.
Initially they were added to consume diatoms produced by silica and create extra nutrients for copepods and by effect more nitrogen.

On prior experiments I was able to find that X amount of organic carbon would reduce the equivalent to 0.8 mg/l nitrate.
As snails started consuming diatoms and excreting fezes, the organic carbon dose had to be increased to Y.

Don’t hold me to it, as I need to check my initial results but this could potentially mean that each snail in this tank is producing on average the equivalent of 0.96 mg/l Nitrate a day.
If someone was to introduce 6 snails to a 50 litre system, could potentially mean that there would be a production of the equivalent of 5.76 mg/l nitrate in ammonium form.

No ground breaking material but the consumer (snail) could potentially be adding more nutrients into the water column that is removing becoming one of the main producers during cycling, especially if their waste is not being removed from the aquarium effectively.
What I’ve “observed” so far is that a large quantity of their droppings would stay trapped in the rock work and on the glass base, if it was sand it would disappear fairly easily. Their droppings seem heavy and even a decent flow can’t remove it from the front of my display.

 

[Garf]

If someone was to introduce 6 snails to a 50 litre system, could potentially mean that there would be a production of the equivalent of 5.76 mg/l nitrate in ammonium form.

Ok, they are not producing anything, just converting what's already there into another form, less a little bit that's used by the organism. Dunno how big the snails would need to be, to eat enough algae to equal 170ppm nitrate per month, gigantic, I expect, lol.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Ok, they are not producing anything, just converting what's already there into another form, less a little bit that's used by the organism.

That term could be also acceptable, they transforming algae into algae food.

Dunno how big the snails would need to be, to eat enough algae to equal 170ppm nitrate per month, gigantic, I expect, lol.

It depends if you consider 170 mg/l a month a lot.
I’d say that’s just a drop in the ocean or in this case, a drop in the aquarium.
You also have to take into account volume, the same 6 snails in 100 litres would only be 85 mg/l.
We not really able to calculate how much a aquarium is producing and how much of that is being removed by filtration.
Our residual nitrate for example is just a picture in time of a particular pollutant.
We usually don’t know how much nitrogen is being produced and we don’t know how much nitrogen is being exported through several pathways.

 

[BeanAnimal]

On prior experiments I was able to find that X amount of organic carbon would reduce the equivalent to 0.8 mg/l nitrate
As snails started consuming diatoms and excreting fezes, the organic carbon dose had to be increased to Y.

Snails and Nitrogen - Snail are not producing nitrogen, they are transforming organic matter that is already accounted for in the system inputs (if you were measuring them) into waste in a complex web of interactions.

Garf's point - His point was that your number is wildly unrealistic, not just a matter of scaling or volume adjustments. If the original number is speculative and oversimplifies the food web, using it to build some kind of predictive ratio only compounds the issue

If the original number is based on wild speculation and oversimplification of the food web, then building it into some type of ratio is even more wildly speculative and unsupported.

Measurement contradictions - You openly admit you can’t accurately measure all nitrogen pathways or changes but still make quantitative claims about snail contributions. This completely undermines your argument -- both here and in multiple other threads.


Nitrate - You correctly state that residual nitrate is a snapshot, you don’t account for the broader system of nitrogen cycling. The “residual nitrate” isn’t just a static number -- it’s the result of countless inputs, transformations, and exports. As we have established many times, you experiments are not designed to isolate or measure these transformations.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Nitrate - You correctly state that residual nitrate is a snapshot, you don’t account for the broader system of nitrogen cycling. The “residual nitrate” isn’t just a static number -- it’s the result of countless inputs, transformations, and exports. As we have established many times, you experiments are not designed to isolate or measure these transformations.

Knowing how much each organism is producing it’s not useful for anything, it’s just informative that they are also producing nutrients as a effect of eating.

It’s also amazing that we finally agree on something like nitrate just being a snapshot in time that indicates in your words.

“it’s the result of countless inputs, transformations, and exports“

For the hole system. The result of what not been used by multiple pathways, import and export if this stands true. What would several snapshots showing nitrate increasing possible mean? If no changes was to be made to the tank.

This could result in two options:

1• the multiple organisms in the system are now not able to deal with all the ammonia and resulting in increase nitrate (possibly something died)

2• the denitrification is not being able to perform correctly for a unknown reason.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Knowing how much each organism is producing it’s not useful for anything, it’s just informative that they are also producing nutrients as a effect of eating.

It’s also amazing that we finally agree on something like nitrate just being a snapshot in time that indicates in your words.

You keep looping back to generic observations without addressing the actual criticisms.

The point was that a "snapshot" Is not relevant to the argument you were making about measuring specific contributions from things like snails. So you have again sidestepped. Agreeing on a snapshot doesn't justify using unverifiable or overly simplified metrics to draw broad conclusions and is contradictory to the rest of your point.

You have based many of your claims on knowing how specific organism classes produce or transform nutrients. this is central to your Redfield arguments and others. Yet, your own admission about the complexity of “countless inputs, transformations, and exports” directly contradicts those claims. Something we’ve been trying to explain to you across five threads.

Adding more speculative causes for hypothetical nitrate increases is par for the course and points back to the core issue of this and the rest of the threads. Your "experiments" have no protocols, no controls and no means to measure the things that you are speculating about, let alone building other arguments and your "body of research" and findings on.

 

[sixty_reefer]

You keep looping back to generic observations without addressing the actual criticisms.

The point was that a "snapshot" Is not relevant to the argument you were making about measuring specific contributions from things like snails. So you have again sidestepped. Agreeing on a snapshot doesn't justify using unverifiable or overly simplified metrics to draw broad conclusions and is contradictory to the rest of your point.

You have based many of your claims on knowing how specific organism classes produce or transform nutrients. this is central to your Redfield arguments and others. Yet, your own admission about the complexity of “countless inputs, transformations, and exports” directly contradicts those claims. Something we’ve been trying to explain to you across five threads.

Adding more speculative causes for hypothetical nitrate increases is par for the course and points back to the core issue of this and the rest of the threads. Your "experiments" have no protocols, no controls and no means to measure the things that you are speculating about, let alone building other arguments and your "body of research" and findings on.

Are you telling me or asking?

 

[buruskeee]

I want to follow this thread, because any data point is better than no data points, but this OP is filled with tons of arrogance.

There are many people trying to help guide and define a way to make this useful, but the OP wants so bad to be some pioneer and make a name for themself. Most of the well known names go through the scrutiny that this is only fractionally being put through, but instead of welcoming in that scrutiny and attacking it head on, the OP is basically covering the ears and singing “la-la-la” and skating around it all.

From reading through this and the critique - the title has zero to do with the exploration of what’s being done here. For the OP to still try to convince it’s still on topic is enough to tune out.

That’s my $0.02 - take it how you’d like.

 

[Peace River]

R2R was founded on the simple premise to develop a warm, friendly, suitable place to gather and discuss this hobby for people of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels. The “Be Nice” policy is something we take very seriously.

We highly encourage healthy debate here and understand not everyone will agree on all issues. In fact, we value healthy and even lively discussion of hobby issues and questions...this actually leads to advancements in our hobby, so we ALL win through these debates. What we will not tolerate is the negativity, name calling, belittling attitude towards other members or the topics being discussed. We are not asking you to cease debating your positions. What we are asking is that you do so in a healthy, respectful manner.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I want to follow this thread, because any data point is better than no data points, but this OP is filled with tons of arrogance.

There are many people trying to help guide and define a way to make this useful, but the OP wants so bad to be some pioneer and make a name for themself. Most of the well known names go through the scrutiny that this is only fractionally being put through, but instead of welcoming in that scrutiny and attacking it head on, the OP is basically covering the ears and singing “la-la-la” and skating around it all.

From reading through this and the critique - the title has zero to do with the exploration of what’s being done here. For the OP to still try to convince it’s still on topic is enough to tune out.

That’s my $0.02 - take it how you’d like.

Could you point me out to anyone actually helping?
As far as the thread goes only been able to do one update.
As for trying to get a name for myself, is that really important? I’m just a aquarist with a glass box that likes to explore, is anything wrong with that?

 

[buruskeee]

Could you point me out to anyone actually helping?

There has been plenty of questions that were avoided, and instead combatted with defensive retorts.

I’ve been trying to follow and awaiting many of the questions being asked to take note and keep in mind for future reference in seeing the results. But to none available.

I think if this thread started with just “hey everyone, I’m going to try a slightly different nuanced method and see if I can bypass the uglies, if successful maybe someone can attempt to repeat it” and that’s as far as the claims went, I think many here would just follow along as well without much scrutiny.

This thread is just very confusing - from the title, to what’s been observed, to the defensiveness to potentially beneficial critiques made by members here.

 

[sixty_reefer]

There has been plenty of questions that were avoided, and instead combatted with defensive retorts.

I’ve been trying to follow and awaiting many of the questions being asked to take note and keep in mind for future reference in seeing the results. But to none available.

I think if this thread started with just “hey everyone, I’m going to try a slightly different nuanced method and see if I can bypass the uglies, if successful maybe someone can attempt to repeat it” and that’s as far as the claims went, I think many here would just follow along as well without much scrutiny.

This thread is just very confusing - from the title, to what’s been observed, to the defensiveness to potentially beneficial critiques made by members here.

That’s not what you said, you stated I’ve refused and ignored help. Please point me to where was anyone helping!

Quote

“here are many people trying to help guide and define a way to make this useful, but the OP wants so bad to be some pioneer and make a name for themself. Most of the well known names go through the scrutiny that this is only fractionally being put through, but instead of welcoming in that scrutiny and attacking it head on, the OP is basically covering the ears and singing “la-la-la” and skating around it all.“

 

[Peace River]

Let’s move past what someone did or didn’t say or critiquing others’ communication approaches and move forward to discussing the question/topic. I truly believe that this can be a useful conversation.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Let’s move past what someone did or didn’t say or critiquing others’ communication approaches and move forward to discussing the question/topic. I truly believe that this can be a useful conversation.

I really don’t mind having a civilised discussion with anyone on this forum, I do apologies but if someone is going to call me a liar, arrogant or insinuating that im refusing help. It’s difficult to carry on discussing without a context or clarification.

On the first page, I did asks one of the participants to wait a few months until the testing was done prior to discussion. I was asked questions regarding my thoughts behind this experiment and I’ve tried to answer to the best of my abilities.
I don’t mind carrying on the discussion, but if someone is going to call me out personally I would expect at least that some context or a reason is added.

On a previous thread, I’ve been criticised due to have two green badges. Maybe a option to hide them should be available as some folks may not like it.

 

[Peace River]

Why are moderators bullying op now too? What’s going on around here?

Thanks for the input. No intentional bullying here. Members on both sides of the conversation made comments about what was previously said after they were encouraged to focus on the topic and move forward. My input was directed toward everyone involved (not just the OP). I could have closed the thread, but I chose nudge everyone toward a positive outcome. I continue to be hopeful, but I also realize that it may soon be time to put a period in this thread.

 

[buruskeee]

That’s not what you said, you stated I’ve refused and ignored help. Please point me to where was anyone helping!

There’s been a question more than one person has asked numerous different ways that I think is very important in trying to follow what you’re doing, but you have been defensive and never tried to answer the question. I think this thread can have tons of value if there’s honest critiquing (questions that aren’t blatantly trying to derail you) as well as attempts at answering those. Scrutiny produces learning material, afterall - where it’s in success or failure, there’s always something to discover.

I too, would like to know what is the mechanism to qualify, quantify, and control the compounds when it comes to Nitrogen in all its forms, and how it can fuel growth. We DO want to be able to repeat findings, yeah?

 

[Dan_P]

Excellent experiment Sixty. Tank is looking great. I've done similar experiments over the years and I come to the same conclusions as you. I have some ideas.

Any chance that you share your experimental results?

I believe that corporations already know ALL of this information. It's in their benefit if we don't learn this.

MMM, that sounds like a conspiracy theory. I suspect the companies supporting the aquarium trade generally can’t afford to perform research nor even to have experts on their staff.

. If we connect the cycle and complete it in the way that we want then we can get a known outcome.

What does this mean? What is “connect the cycle”? What is “complete the cycle”?

Bacteria as well has been decoded by corporations since like the 70's and 80's.

What does this mean? How are bacteria decoded?

 

[lakai]

Just let the guy do his thing,