Mixed reef with macro?

[Subsea]

Interesting indeed, so in a sense DOC from corals is better than DOC from algae? Or is the difference probly minute?

Lets park here for a bit. DOC IS COMPLICATED and it’s difficult to measure. Reef aquarium carbon dosing adds doc to grow bacteria to be removed by protein skimming as a form of nutrient export. I prefer the microbial loop to recycle carbon up the food chain. Protein skimming remove free swimming components of the microbial loop, that’s why I don’t use it.

In the last 5 years, I converted a 25 yr mature 30G EcoSystem mud/macro refugium into a Cryptic Refugium and a 25 yr mature 75G dsb Jaubert plenum into a 2” deep reverse flow undergravel filter with a cryptic void refugium.

PS: @dvgyfresh
Read the link on cryptic sponges and you will better understand DOC & DOM (reef snow).

Science | AAAS

science.sciencemag.org

Sponge Pump​

“Darwin's Paradox” asks how productive and diverse ecosystems like coral reefs thrive in the marine equivalent of a desert. De Goeij et al.(p. 108) now show that coral reef sponges are part of a highly efficient recycling pathway for dissolved organic matter (DOM), converting it, via rapid sponge-cell turnover, into cellular detritus that becomes food for reef consumers. DOM transfer through the sponge loop approaches the gross primary production rates required for the entire coral reef ecosystem.

Abstract​

Ever since Darwin’s early descriptions of coral reefs, scientists have debated how one of the world’s most productive and diverse ecosystems can thrive in the marine equivalent of a desert. It is an enigma how the flux of dissolved organic matter (DOM), the largest resource produced on reefs, is transferred to higher trophic levels. Here we show that sponges make DOM available to fauna by rapidly expelling filter cells as detritus that is subsequently consumed by reef fauna. This “sponge loop” was confirmed in aquarium and in situ food web experiments, using 13C- and 15N-enriched DOM. The DOM-sponge-fauna pathway explains why biological hot spots such as coral reefs persist in oligotrophic seas—the reef’s paradox—and has implications for reef ecosystem functioning and conservation strategies.

 

[jeffchapok]

You can have macro in your display.

Not if you have tangs!

You won't have it for long, anyway.

 

[Heres_doe_]

Ok just a quick update. I decided to go with dragons breath and put in about 2 tennis ball strands in the DT. Im a week it's brought down my phosphates .02. So it's working slowly but surely. My pods are in there. My mandarin is living eating pods from them. My emerald crabs clean off algae off them but don't even bother nipping them. So far so good.