How would this upgrade work?

[LondonReefer]

Hi all,

I'm looking to buy an IM fusion nano 10 and set it up an easy coral mixed reef, with a pair of clowns. Appreciate the clowns are a bit heavy for the tank, but my lfs seems happy to switch larger ones out for younger ones/grown on fry and I wouldn't object to further upgrades.

I've also got a reef jar, that was started with live rock, that is a few months old and seems quite stable. Easy sps are growing a lot, loads of Coraline, pods etc etc. An old pic of this is below

I suspect you wouldn't want much more live rock in the nano 10 that what is packed into this jar. If I bought live sand, dosed with bacteria and switched the rock and coral over to the IM, could I turn my lights (tuna blue a80) on straight away and add fish? I would continue to do very large water changes once a week. Wanting to avoid a second cycle, loads of algae and dead coral...

Thanks for any help

 

[LondonReefer]

Just to clarify, I'm not fussed on when I add the fish, more fussed on getting lights on straight away to keep the corals okay

 

[LondonReefer]

Nobody got any thoughts?

 

[Super Fly]

when I upgraded from 60 cube to 93 cube, I used the same sump and lights (turning them on full at same schedule) with no minicycle or issue with livestock. Then again, didn't have too many corals at that time. Also moved same LR from old tank, only new was sand.

 

[LondonReefer]

Thanks very much for the help! Cool, that's good to hear. Think I'm going to give it a go. Lfs has some CB clowns that are 3cm long so don't think that will be a major bioload to start

 

[brandon429]

well done, we have use for your thread in another cycle conrol tracking thread, be sure n update.

Yes that degree of live rock and coral above will carry fish, though its not adapted to them. That much surface area can simply carry more bioloading than what it currently carries. bacteria do not ramp up to surfaces, they work harder on increased bioload on the surface they already occupy.

 

[LondonReefer]

Thanks for the reply Brandon.

Yep that makes perfect sense and is in line with what I was thinking. The jar sees very very little ammonia production and as such wouldn't be best placed to deal with ammonia (through fish) alone. I'd be intending to dose a bottle of Dr Tim's too.

The more I think about it, I'm thinking this would work... Take the rock and coral and drop it into the nuvo with lights on. No additional anything, including no sand. In my mind that's just like increasing the volume of water in the jar and the flow. There will however be surface area in the back compartment sponges etc that will populate a bit. Wait a week to see for any issues re algae etc. After a week, dose Dr Tim's and drop the clowns in, alongside maybe a snail or hermit

 

[brandon429]

Just read you’re adding extra sand, that’ll work

 

[LondonReefer]

Well I'm on the fence. Part of me wonders whether two very small slows could be supported by the sand and not much live rock for a couple of weeks for the tank to establish a little and then move the coral and rock over
But I'm also not convinced I want sand. What would be the benefit to the upgrade of having sand? Specifically I mean the ease of switching over with no cycle etc, I'm familiar with sand/bare bottom debates

 

[brandon429]

Sand’s only benefit here is an attachment point for bacteria you’re about to add.

the live rock is already full of bac, it can’t hold more. If you move that to a new tank it already can carry fish it doesn’t need more bacteria, it’s not the case that the rocks need to, or can, take on more bac to handle new bioload, that’s a forum myth. They can handle fish right now, as is. Live rock does not down-regulate bacteria without fish, and then up-regulate bacteria with fish

live rock maintains its bacteria independently from the presented bioload.


adding sand if dry was attachment points for bacteria so that if you paid for bottle bac it had somewhere to attach. But if the sand was wet already then that’s full of cycling bac too, like the live rock, and added bacteria will just swirl in the water and be phased out with each water change back to the same state you had before adding bottle bac.
you don’t need sand or bottle bac, that’s enough live rock for two clowns. But if you did add bac anyway, it needed a place to attach that wasn’t already cycled, so it didn’t have to just float around in the water.

 

[LondonReefer]

Thanks for the response, much appreciated. That's all very helpful and I generally follow all of that reasoning.

I'm not sure I completely follow the logic of the rock being saturated with bacteria though. Say we grow bacteria on agar, you will get a population explosion until all food is consumed, after which, the population would drastically reduce. In my jar, I would imagine the population regulates such that the amount of ammonia produced by the pods, bristleworms, flatworms (lol) and reef roids sustains them..these bacteria must be constantly multiplying and dying (in the loosest sense that bacteria can die). I would imagine that should increased ammonia be produced, the already established bacteria colony could very quickly multiply to reach a new equilibrium. That completely agrees with the no need to add bacteria idea. Albeit, I have an opened bottle from when I first set the jar up, so there's a school of thought that says why not add it.

I'm leaning towards no sand I think, will just make maintenance easier.

Tank and ato are also ordered and arriving tomorrow. With any luck we could have this fully setup Sunday, clowns included

 

[Super Fly]

The only potential reaction would be coral placement in new tank, i.e. water flow & if their distance to light changes dramatically then some corals may close for few days as they adapt. When I installed a new sump to my 93 cube, the green nephthea wasn't happy and remained closed for a week or 2.
Curious about ur reef jar & how u were able to sustain all that coral, did u have any water flow?

 

[brandon429]

"I would imagine that should increased ammonia be produced, the already established bacteria colony could very quickly multiply to reach a new equilibrium"


that part doesn't occur. I know how crazy that sounds, but our sand rinse thread proves it. If live rock develops more bacteria, stacked on top of bacteria, then the wastewater sees LESS surface area than it did before the addition, not less, because stacking layers upon folded surface area decreases surface area by using up space water can flow.

wastewater does not permeate bioslicks stuck to filter surface area; it glides over the top of the slick on through the channels in the rocks. stacking more bac lowers surface area contact by closing off otherwise open channels for flow.


the opposite of what people think bacteria do is what bacteria do in filter systems. the more bacteria you stack on top of existing bac, the less wastewater contacts surface area, filtration -decreases- not increases.

but if you add new surface area, spread out, and colonize that with new bac, then it increases filter efficiency. You can never boost your rocks by adding more bac, only more rocks or dry sand.

none of this will impact your tank move much, as you already have enough surface area/ but if this rule above was untrue, we could not remove sandbeds for five years in a row, presenting 20 fish back to rocks alone that never developed without sand, and skip all the cycles.

the rocks kept the same number of bacteria relatively speaking whether there was fish, no fish, sand, no sand, six canister filters attached and then removed, none of that affects live rock's ability to instantly carry more bioload with the bacteria already in place, using up all the space.

 

[brandon429]

example:

this letter: W

that's a cross section of live rock, water flowing in the two V channels and up under it, bacteria stuck all around.

if you fill in those channels with more bac, you lose surface area, it becomes and "O" soon which is less surface area. no more internal area contact, just external, wastewater is filtered less.

the most surface area that - W - section can present is when it has the fewest bacteria, in the fastest currents of water keeping channels open.


adding more bacteria to established rock decreases filter efficiency, and wastes the purchase, it doesn't increase it. to increase filter efficiency we must clean out clogged channels, or add more surface area. filters work oppositely of how most people think they work. we have been thinking that rocks will allow stacking of bacteria to match a bioload, but that's actually not occurring, so the sand rinse thread always shows rocks handling a much increased bioloading just fine, in every case, we didn't give time for new bacteria to attach even if it works that way.

 

[LondonReefer]

The only potential reaction would be coral placement in new tank, i.e. water flow & if their distance to light changes dramatically then some corals may close for few days as they adapt. When I installed a new sump to my 93 cube, the green nephthea wasn't happy and remained closed for a week or 2.
Curious about ur reef jar & how u were able to sustain all that coral, did u have any water flow?

Thanks very much for the comments. I'll be using the same light and same rough tank height so hopefully will minimise that. I'll document it all anyway

Brandon is the pro to answer your question. I've also got a thread on it in the nano forum. In short, it's a jar with some rocks, a light, an air stone, and weekly 100% water changes. They are unbelievably easy to maintain. I'll be sad to move it over to the IM, but I want a pair of clowns and I don't want loads of tanks (got a couple of freshwater) - think it's too easy to get loads of tanks all over the place lol

 

[LondonReefer]

example:

this letter: W

that's a cross section of live rock, water flowing in the two V channels and up under it, bacteria stuck all around.

if you fill in those channels with more bac, you lose surface area, it becomes and "O" soon which is less surface area. no more internal area contact, just external, wastewater is filtered less.

the most surface area that - W - section can present is when it has the fewest bacteria, in the fastest currents of water keeping channels open.


adding more bacteria to established rock decreases filter efficiency, and wastes the purchase, it doesn't increase it. to increase filter efficiency we must clean out clogged channels, or add more surface area. filters work oppositely of how most people think they work. we have been thinking that rocks will allow stacking of bacteria to match a bioload, but that's actually not occurring, so the sand rinse thread always shows rocks handling a much increased bioloading just fine, in every case, we didn't give time for new bacteria to attach even if it works that way.

Thanks a lot for the more detailed explanation, I'll check that thread out after work. That all makes perfect sense assuming there is enough food to keep bacteria alive on all surfaces right? I'd be curious to know what bacteria/available area levels (ie number per square unit of area) looked like for very low bio load environments - i.e. what is it all feeding on, if it always populates available surface. I guess in my first reply I was arguing that half of the area has bacteria and half doesn't (because there isn't enough food), when more food comes all areas will be populated. But you're telling me all area is already populated?

 

[brandon429]

100% certain its all used up agreed, to be post-cycle is to have all surface area used up


its not possible for contaminated surfaces underwater to remain free of bac, when we do not feed, they're still feeding from natural sources

check this neat thread out

DJ puts live rocks in a garage for three years, no fish, no feed at all, only topoff awaiting reuse one day. he oxidation proofs them, they maintained fish-level oxidation ability via these mechanisms, fascinating mechanisms!!

Nano Build - Might start a Nano... 15gal Column (Need advice)

Hello I have a 110gal mixed reef that's doing pretty good. It's 5 years old and i'm happy with it. I have a LARGE maroon clown that decided to knock down large rocks so i'm rescaping the right side of that tank. I have a snowflake clown that has lived in the sump for the past year because the...

www.reef2reef.com

live rock kept wet will feed its bacteria, gain more to replace losses from the environment, and not ever starve. he could have gone fallow 30 yrs and retested. sounds like hyperbole but with each year waited out, more accumulations, gnats, flies, skin cells, animal dander (all degrade into trace ammonia cycling) pile up

aerial wind current and dealing in nonsterile water, containers and surfaces constantly vectors in bacteria that are not related to reefing, but will boon in any water source until they die of osmotic mismatch losing out to salty environ pulling out water from them

but they'll boon temporarily because they landed in water, then die, then rot into trace ammonia for nitrifiers nearby

I bet unassisted filter bac have 100 feed pathways.

its a pure guess as to whether that live rock will carry fish, a custom call admitted. it can though, thats a mighty fine pico and very very dense in surface area, quite powerful yes

the specific safe thing to do if concerned about the custom call is add bottle bac plus more surface area, sand or rock

 

[LondonReefer]

Sorry for the late reply here. Have been through the thread, read the above comments, gone away and thought about this, and come up with some thoughts.

In thinking who to ask about what's going on here, I reached about the head of the bacterial lab where I did my masters research project (bacterial spore adhesion)... Who also loves discus. We've had a long chat about this, as I was sceptical about bacteria working harder and being on all surfaces at the max biofilm density (my interpretation of your comments). In short, I think your findings are correct. I would like to point out the quiescent state as I think that's key here too. The question remains to me, why can't I triple bioload in one day without having blooms etc. if we have lots of these bacteria ready to jump out that state.

I should say this is all opinion/theory but I would hold the thoughts of the guy I spoke to in very high regard with this.

Key notes:

"I have wondered what’s going on at the bacterial level. Let’s say you have sufficient surface area and colonised bacteria to cope with the ammonia generated in the tank. That suggests to me that ammonia is probably the growth limiting nutrient. If you add a second filter but the ammonia levels remain constant would you expect bacteria to colonise the new filter medium? Yes, absolutely. Does that mean you now have twice as many bacteria? If ammonia is limiting then I doubt it - you’ll have patchier biofilms of bugs on both filter surfaces. Or... you may have twice as many bacteria but metabolising/growing at half the growth rate. I think the reality is probably somewhere inbetween - more bugs but respiring at a reduced rate. I think this is a good situation as your filters are then able to adapt quickly to ammonium spikes, say by adding more fish."

"So to answer your question (I think) lower bioloads will have lower density biofilms - I’ve seen this myself when looking at bottled bacteria products and filter media under the microscope. The population will increase with a sustained increase in nutrients, but maybe not by as much as you would expect. Equally, going from high to low will see a reduction in number - but many of the bugs will enter a quiescent state, just biding their time until nutrient availability increases. The key is to have plenty of surface area available to colonise as and when required. Hence why I use two filters stuffed with biological media. Hope that makes sense!"

Any questions for the chap, let me know.

Hope the above is as helpful for others as I found it

My nuvo fusion and ATO have arrived, which is great. But we are having the electrician come in to fix some bits this week, so I don't want to set the tanks up only to have power cut. We will wait until next week. Will put a build thread together too. Goal will be to take the learnings from the vase and scale it up. Probably going to get a snail, pair of clowns and that's it for now. The big focus will be on higher water changes, bare bottom too.