Old tank syndrome is vanquished in reefing now

[brandon429]

He uses a very diversified system animals and flow balanced and his corals and system longevity surely show it.
Plus I like that Lasse has a work thread: his multi step tank approach can be replicated by others, and gets reported back live time as a good vs bad system.

Feel free to link that if anyone knows his reef steps thread. Lasse knows to account for eutrophication in his builds/accepted alternate options from him welcomed.

His approach is absolutely opposite of deep, invasive cleaning its more traditional in the sense the main parts stay in tank, unremoved. He has a very nuanced way of balancing that all for sure.

 

[Reefr]

He uses a very diversified system animals and flow balanced and his corals and system longevity surely show it.
Plus I like that Lasse has a work thread: his multi step tank approach can be replicated by others, and gets reported back live time as a good vs bad system.

Feel free to link that if anyone knows his reef steps thread. Lasse knows to account for eutrophication in his builds/accepted alternate options from him welcomed.

His approach is absolutely opposite of deep, invasive cleaning its more traditional in the sense the main parts stay in tank, unremoved. He has a very nuanced way of balancing that all for sure.

Agreed.
I'm sure he'll chime in but here is his build thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lasses-dream-build.246188/

 

[Aqua Man]

One of the major posters discussing was a guy from TRT (Geoff, I believe) that started discussing eutrophication long before and then joined the argument on RC

Good stuff! I remember reading those threads a few years ago. Another good one was Reef keeping made easy. I choose Bare bottom because of those threads. Better safe than sorry.

i literally dont know anyone that keeps reef tanks who hasn’t moved homes in the last five years.

I moved my tank across the room around 6 years ago! Moving a reef to another house doesn’t sound like fun at all.

 

[howaboutme]

Good stuff! I remember reading those threads a few years ago. Another good one was Reef keeping made easy. I choose Bare bottom because of those threads. Better safe than sorry.

I moved my tank across the room around 6 years ago! Moving a reef to another house doesn’t sound like fun at all.

Yes! Reef Keeping made easy was the thread I read all the way through when I first started. Of course, back then (~8 or so years ago), the thread wasn't as long and still going strong. In fact, I'm going to link it here for anyone else. I know today we are into instant gratification but those 2 "old school" threads are so worth browsing.

Link to TRT thread (the first post has a TOC that links to individual subject matters so you can skip a lot of the banter):

Reefkeeping made easy- what was not explained.

www.thereeftank.com

For those interested in more history of reefing, Geoff, the thread starter ended up joining RC as "ReeferDud" or something to battle the old RC heads in that DSB thread I posted earlier. It really is a great history lesson for anyone that are truly into the "how" and "why" in addition to the pretty pictures.

Very glad there are a few folks here that remember those good ole times! Thanks for the run down memory lane.

 

[brandon429]

Excellence. I like every form of tank aging reviews to be linked here thats really great for expanding our references


Am reading now

 

[brandon429]

Also handy: they’re working In 2010 we now have a decade of hindsight to check predictions. What he and Elegance coral are typing seems to have held up pretty darn well considering today’s practices

bare bottom tanks were not the rage in 2010. That’s a darn good thread to be linked here. Makes me struggle to recall what Geoff and I originally disagreed on to warrant the big boot: oh yeah it was whether or not peroxide causes a recycle or loss of filtration bacteria


double handy: we also have ten years and half a million reefs dosing peroxide routinely now for various reasons heh, guess we know how the filtration thing turned out. No need to be guessing, now there are logs of posts to go through and everybody knows if you dose peroxide it doesn’t recycle the tank. But in 2010...


not a prob, rtr is where it’s at anyway I got lucky they allow free thinkers. Any crazy claims will be quashed by the market/responses and findings from readers not the mods.

 

[howaboutme]

I remember when R2R got started and that was one of the key points admin wanted to layout is that you can have any opinion including opinions that originated on or are referencing from other forums and they are all welcomed here.

I think that the topic back then was so controversial is because we didn't have time at our disposal. The DSB proponents (I think) just have not set their tanks up for long enough to experience the entire life of a DSB. The nice thing about Geoff's arguments is that he backs them up with references and direct links to scientific arguments leaving it up to us to determine our own course of actions.

 

[brandon429]

And I can understand the risk/pressures mods feel to protect communities from bad practices/potential harm (hey, dump this in your tank- two hundred reefs die, digital revolt risk, bad info on their site logged) that makes sense. In the end it turns out free market was best balance for reef discovery and even rtr can attest that has major fine balance challenges occasionally just the same.

 

[piranhaman00]

TLDR;

OTS is caused by plugging microbe growth areas, solve with mixing sand up and moving/shaking rocks.

 

[MnFish1]

Would be curious about the best methods people use to keep the sandbed clean.

I know there’s a strong debate with arguments in both sides between a sandbed and bare bottom tanks.

I’ve always been in the camp that I keep a reef tank because I love the ocean and marine life and want to experience that in my home (since I can’t scuba dive as much as I’d like to) and I just couldn’t imagine a reef tank without sand.

my routine involves:
- stirring the sandbed 2x/week with an old kent algae scraper with long handle, getting detritus suspended so that the filter socks and skimmer can export
- use a strainer with a handle 4x/year I found on Amazon that does a great job of sifting out the inevitable larger pieces of rock and coral that fall on the sand and make it look ugly
- vacuum 1x/year but have been remiss with this one the last couple of years

I never stir the sand bed(like that) - I use a Python - and go through my whole sand bed maybe once/month. I vacuum my sump maybe every 2-3 months. The python takes up ALL the waste - leaving the sand. I will also do something similar to reeferbud - I blow other detritus, etc - off my rocks and let the filter socks take care of it

 

[brandon429]

Pirhana

You took a tldr summary and made it up to fit what you'd like to read, but that doesn't match work thread proof. Shaking rocks in the tank can kill fish, we export here, I've never had anyone release clouds in the tank, that's Paul's choice and advice

You haven't managed anyone's tanks like that we can see in threads. We apply rules here that are used in other people's threads vs made up rules. Paul aerates his sandbed by sitting it on a flow grid elevated off the floor of the reef, nobody else does this, disturbing other people's sand like that can kill their fish or coral


If I get a large reef that’s what I’ll do as well. That and open rock scapes locked together in some way such that if a bad growth happens down on the bottom areas I can just lift the stacks up for direct access anyway somehow.

 

[nereefpat]

I have not experienced 'old tank syndrome' in any form on my long-term systems. I tend to believe that what people describe as OTS is just Lazy Reefer Syndrome. People quit doing maintainance and end up with nitrogen/phosphate/algae issues.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Yes! Reef Keeping made easy was the thread I read all the way through when I first started. Of course, back then (~8 or so years ago), the thread wasn't as long and still going strong. In fact, I'm going to link it here for anyone else. I know today we are into instant gratification but those 2 "old school" threads are so worth browsing.

Link to TRT thread (the first post has a TOC that links to individual subject matters so you can skip a lot of the banter):

Reefkeeping made easy- what was not explained.

www.thereeftank.com

For those interested in more history of reefing, Geoff, the thread starter ended up joining RC as "ReeferDud" or something to battle the old RC heads in that DSB thread I posted earlier. It really is a great history lesson for anyone that are truly into the "how" and "why" in addition to the pretty pictures.

Very glad there are a few folks here that remember those good ole times! Thanks for the run down memory lane.

Yeah, this was a really interesting thread and still largely relevant today. And after all is 'analyzed, scrutinized, hypothesized, dissected, read, said and done', this little exchange condenses the whole thread into a few simple points:

Electroman: based upon that it seems, from what I have gathered, that all we need to keep a successful tank is good flow, good light, a good skimmer, frequent water changes, and lastly good maintenance. basically limit nuitrient input and maximise the removal of all the leftover junk. anyway thats what i got out of all this so far.

Geoff: you are correct. it actually is that easy to run a reef system. we are making it harder on ourselves with all of these phosphate bandaids (referring to carbon dosing, etc.).

Considering the very effective methods of nutrient control that we can achieve nowadays, the only thing I would word differently is that one should strive for more of a balance between input and output, rather than 'minimum input and maximum output' to prevent nutrient starvation of a system.

 

[ApoIsland]

Right now I guarantee in fifteen places a reader is feeling short changed by the description of OTS offered here. They have a decades old system, zero bed maintenance and tank of the month quality corals and highly diverse reef loading, they’re thinking my system isn’t eutrophic you jerk. I acknowledge those systems


small caveat

i literally dont know anyone that keeps reef tanks who hasn’t moved homes in the last five years. I know they’re out there, but not in my circle and to me this is reflective of about 80-90% of all reefs, disassembly soon required.

even the owners of full internal waste processing tanks agree you can easily kill the system by destratifying the bed incorrectly


so the change we are bringing about is either keeping that waste well aerated, and less toxic, or system designs that do not store it- that way moves and certain upgrades aren’t breath holding moments for three thousand or more in investment.


I agree if you have innate top level reefing skill AND you are ok with zonation so dangerous it takes a fifty page work thread to handle interventions, and you don’t plan on moving for 10+ years, no upgrades either, then you have a 10%-20% chance of success by designing old school bed on the bottom total storage reefs and the benefit will be no-work design, light if any water changes for twenty years, you've read about those kinds

Reefing clean has a 100% safety track record, it wastes lots of water as the export vector as a negative, but it allows unlimited home moves and upgrades and it allows total access to the whole system for hand guiding with no risk; this means less willing takedowns due to months of uglies. On the old rules, we had to let uglies take over all reefs by rule and hundreds of owners just gave up on the wait, they were invaded the whole time.


nobody is downing old school design but it doesn’t match today’s accessibility requirements.

I know plenty of people in my reefing community that have been in the same place for 5 years.....too bad their tanks don't make it that long . Seems like the people who move around a bit definitely have longer lived tanks.

I credit my 10 year reefing success with no skimmer or any mechanical filtration almost solely to the fact I have moved 3 times in 10 years, and also moved the location of the tank within the same home another 2 times during that span. That's 5 rip cleans in 10 years. The large amount of waste that comes out of the sand and rock after just a year or two of build up time is incredible.

It's a full days worth of work every couple years but somehow I oddly look forward to it. The tank never looks better than it does those first few weeks after a good rip clean. I'm two years into the current location and thinking to use the need to catch and rehome a Kole tang as an excuse for my next tear down fairly soon.

 

[Nano sapiens]

I have not experienced 'old tank syndrome' in any form on my long-term systems. I tend to believe that what people describe as OTS is just Lazy Reefer Syndrome. People quit doing maintainance and end up with nitrogen/phosphate/algae issues.

I also believe that LRS is a leading cause of what we call OTS.

I would add LOAK (Lack of Awareness and Knowledge) to the list, which is quite different from knowing what needs to be done...and not doing it.

 

[brandon429]

Ralph I’ve never seen your nano taken apart, sitting on the counter classic rip clean style yet your sandbed is white not blanketed in waste


you can’t see live rock due to coral loading, which is how it should be in nature too and all that’s in about twelve gallons so what’s your export method and timing, it’s the mini model of how people prefer to run large tanks

it appears when you clean it doesn’t require disassembly that’s what people want on large scale setups

 

[Nano sapiens]

Ralph I’ve never seen your nano taken apart, sitting on the counter classic rip clean style yet your sandbed is white not blanketed in waste


you can’t see live rock due to coral loading, which is how it should be in nature too and all that’s in about twelve gallons so what’s your export method and timing, it’s the mini model of how people prefer to run large tanks

it appears when you clean it doesn’t require disassembly that’s what people want on large scale setups

Correct, I don't remove the rock structure all at once to vacuum. I used to remove a rock and deep clean underneath every 2 months on average which works out to deep cleaning ~1/6th of the sand bed at a time, but in the last 2 years or so I've been high-pressure blasting underneath rock with a turkey baster and then capturing the detritus in a temporarily installed filter sock. The end effect is similar, so by the end of a year I will have completed one full deep cleaning cycle of the whole sand bed. The benefit of not removing (or having to reposition rock) is that the main structure orientation stays stable 'as is' (corals do not have to readjust to a different orientation after each deep clean) and there is no risk of having coral/other organisms dry up (always an issue with thin and highly porous branching coral such as Seriatopora).

In addition, I perform a shallow surface vacuuming of the visible areas on a weekly basis with the water change. The amount of detritus I see tends to influence how much I feed, so that's my loose 'input/output' balance equation

Having run a 'hands-off' 55g system in the past (yay, cyano, algae and other nasty issues), if I were to set up a larger tank again I would substitute the turkey baster with a small powerhead and a flexible tube extension in order to use a similar blast/capture method on a select section of the tank every couple of months.

 

[brandon429]

surely you have to add back a few handfuls of sand over time is that right/mine inevitably get pulled out little by little and I notice my rock scape sitting much lower

 

[Nano sapiens]

surely you have to add back a few handfuls of sand over time is that right/mine inevitably get pulled out little by little and I notice my rock scape sitting much lower

Well, maybe every 2-3 years or so I'll gradually replace a 1/2 cup full. I installed a valve on my gravel vac so that I can precisely control the flow, so I typically have very little sand uptake. And dissolution is very minimal since I always have higher pH (via Kalkwasser) and quite stable alk/cal.

 

[brandon429]

hey nice call I didn't account for dissolution in mine its probably large degree

staved off water changes, no skim, no dosing, higher acid conditions and a little bit of waste storage until rip clean resets them/makes sense. perhaps without sand my alk would be unacceptable, that's lucky.