Shower Thought: Waves are Nature's Protein Skimmer

stacksoner · Mar 3, 2020

Have you ever walked along a beach and noticed the foamy bubbles along the shoreline? I'm thinking that waves create the surface agitation that creates the foam it deposits on the shoreline---just like our skimmers. The best surfing locations are always on top of/very close to reefs, which makes me think that there is an evolutionary connection to why reefs developed in these locations. That'll do it for Tuesday, folks. Have a great day.

Reef-junky · Mar 3, 2020

The reefs force the waves to break in more of a consistent way because they don’t sift around like sand does that’s why a lot of good surf spots are over them. However there are reefs in pretty calm water or well below the surface. This is 100ft below the surface and pretty far from shore. I’m sure waves probably do something like a skimmer and add oxygen to the ocean but a reef doesn’t have to be that close to them.

Reef-junky · Mar 3, 2020

By the way the water above that reef before we went down 100ft.

AcroNem · Mar 3, 2020

That is correct.

Greybeard · Mar 3, 2020

Maybe... I doubt it has much of an impact.

350 Quintillion (that's 18 zeros...) Gallons of water and flow rates that make our tanks look like stagnant ponds might well have something to do with ocean water quality :D

R.Weller · Mar 4, 2020

slewrock1 said:
Have you ever walked along a beach and noticed the foamy bubbles along the shoreline? I'm thinking that waves create the surface agitation that creates the foam it deposits on the shoreline---just like our skimmers.

Yes! This is exactly why we also built a surge device & we're keeping the micro-bubbles that are created by an air-leak at the top of the syphon that force millions of these into the display tank every three minutes. This is in addition to our skimmer in the sump.

Cory · Apr 5, 2020

It doesnt mean that oceans are skimmed as a filtration method imo. The ocean is too big to have much effect. Not only that nothing leaves the ocean, it all stays there or is pushed on the land to a different system. The point is to see the Earth is a giant fish tank acting as an ecosystem from the suns power. Nobodys feeding the ocean. We feed our tanks. Thats why we need to export. The food chain doesnt truely exist in our tanks. Somewhere the food chain has a broken link in our tanks. It doesnt in the ocean though.