@Subsea thanks for this thread. Not sure how I have over looked it for so long.
Matter cycling is right up my alley. Countless pieces of equipment and processes to artificially manage the ecosystem are not, so it’s not easy to find people to talk to here .
Once I get a chance to read through it, I’ll add more thoughts, but I did want to respond to something I saw somebody post early on re: pH and how it moves all over the place in our tanks. There is this idea that persists that because of the size of the ocean, it is a completely stable system. But it is not even close to the homogenous environment that it’s made out to be. Local environments based on depth, structure, influx of fresh water, etc can vary tremendously. Then when you zoom in to micro-environments, there is even more variability.
I was once trout fishing with a friend. It had been pretty hot, and he was worried the water temps were going to get too warm for the trout. We were standing in about 18” of water, and he took a temp reading. He said ‘This water is 70 degrees’. He was wearing waders and I was standing bare-legged, so I could feel the spring water welling up through the bottom. I said ‘Check the temp on the bottom’, and he held this thermometer down on the bottom. Brought it up and said ‘Oh, wow…61’. So in 18” of water, there was a 9 degree difference in temp. So was the stream 70 degrees, or 61? Both, obviously, with probably even more variation if you measured temp in all of the other zones.
Reefs are no different.
Matter cycling is right up my alley. Countless pieces of equipment and processes to artificially manage the ecosystem are not, so it’s not easy to find people to talk to here .
Once I get a chance to read through it, I’ll add more thoughts, but I did want to respond to something I saw somebody post early on re: pH and how it moves all over the place in our tanks. There is this idea that persists that because of the size of the ocean, it is a completely stable system. But it is not even close to the homogenous environment that it’s made out to be. Local environments based on depth, structure, influx of fresh water, etc can vary tremendously. Then when you zoom in to micro-environments, there is even more variability.
I was once trout fishing with a friend. It had been pretty hot, and he was worried the water temps were going to get too warm for the trout. We were standing in about 18” of water, and he took a temp reading. He said ‘This water is 70 degrees’. He was wearing waders and I was standing bare-legged, so I could feel the spring water welling up through the bottom. I said ‘Check the temp on the bottom’, and he held this thermometer down on the bottom. Brought it up and said ‘Oh, wow…61’. So in 18” of water, there was a 9 degree difference in temp. So was the stream 70 degrees, or 61? Both, obviously, with probably even more variation if you measured temp in all of the other zones.
Reefs are no different.