What is your reefing unpopular opinion?

Tired

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Vibrant will also definitely do serious damage to your biodiversity, and impede the ability of beneficial algae to get established and prevent further pest algae outbreaks. It's like burning your crops down to get rid of mice, and then going right back to throwing corn all over the ground and leaving brush piles everywhere.
 

MnFish1

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Speaking of brandon: Bottled bacteria is a great product! ;)
I think some here (or I am) missing the point of the question. So its getting confusing knowing what people really think. I believe the OP was saying - what is 'Your 'unpopular opinion'' i.e. an opinion you have that goes against what most other people say.

My 'unpopular opinion' is that I disagree with the phrase 'nothing good happens fast in this hobby'. You can do a lot of things 'quickly' if you know what you're doing. Bacteria is bacteria whether its been in your tank for 6 hours or 6 months.

I also think you can put an anemone in a tank as soon as the tank is stable - there is no magic 'date'. Same with SPS. Its all about stability and knowing how to maintain it IMHO.

Lets face it - companies that are breeding angels, tangs, etc - or raising coral - are not using tanks that have been established for some number of decades - and likely - they are using near sterile conditions.
 

LiveFreeAndReef

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I think some here (or I am) missing the point of the question. So its getting confusing knowing what people really think. I believe the OP was saying - what is 'Your 'unpopular opinion'' i.e. an opinion you have that goes against what most other people say.

My 'unpopular opinion' is that I disagree with the phrase 'nothing good happens fast in this hobby'. You can do a lot of things 'quickly' if you know what you're doing. Bacteria is bacteria whether its been in your tank for 6 hours or 6 months.

I also think you can put an anemone in a tank as soon as the tank is stable - there is no magic 'date'. Same with SPS. Its all about stability and knowing how to maintain it IMHO.

Lets face it - companies that are breeding angels, tangs, etc - or raising coral - are not using tanks that have been established for some number of decades - and likely - they are using near sterile conditions.
I'm honored you choose my post to quote :cool:
 

MnFish1

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I accidentally did that in my last aquascape but when I looked and saw there were no hiding spaces for the fish, I changed the scape because I felt bad. Hiding spots should be paramount. Obviously you don’t want it to look terrible but do both, not just looks.
I might be wrong but - it is my impression that a negative space aqua space is designed to have corals attached - which as they grow - supply hiding spaces for the fish. To me an 'aquascape' is the starting blocks - the coral grows and provides the beauty.
 

MnFish1

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We can easily control N and P these days without a water change. Making weekly water changes a band aid to hide a lack of filtration.

I would suggest that N and P control are not 'easy' these days. There is all of the testing required, the cost of the stuff you're using to control them (GFO, etc), the chance your chaeto is going to die off, etc etc etc. The electricity for all of the pumps for various reactors etc. BTW - I don't disagree with any of these things. I just wouldn't call it 'easy'. Water changes - on a weekly or every other week basis are in fact 'easy'.
 

MnFish1

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You can run it to toilet tank(s), store in rain barrel(s) to water landscaping (what we did), store it for vehicle or gear rinse, discharge into a pool, run it to a watering can for your house plants, use for ponds, use for older top load washers, and more.

When there's the option of easily washing filter socks, yes.
I have thought about this - there is no way I could do any of these things realistically. Probably the best way to conserve RO water is to just use a double system - where the initial wastewater is put through another system. In fact, though - the amount of waste water produced from RODI lets say to make 50 gallons of water is about 200 gallons. I do that every couple weeks. thats the equivalent of an average shower/day. Now - if you want to talk about wasting water - the POOL would be #1. :)
 

MnFish1

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He would be able to say I pee on it if he pours it! He wanted to have a story to share
you can easily pee into a tank as an ammonia source - urine is sterile (usually), its just water, salt, ammonia some potassium etc - nothing (except perhaps for medications you might be taking) is going to hurt the tank. FYI - the ammonia in urine is between .7-2 ppm on average. So - you're not adding much
 

NoahLikesFish

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First, you must peel back every layer and look at the very reasons we do water changes. Nutrient control and "replenish" elements. Maybe we do a water change so we can vacuum the sand or suck out some detritus but that doesn't need to be weekly and if we really want to, we can just syphon into a filter sock and recycle the water back into the sump.

We can easily control N and P these days without a water change. Making weekly water changes a band aid to hide a lack of filtration.

No salt on the market contains all the proper elements. (I am working on a massive ICP salt test but it's a lot of money and time. Plus, we'd have to revisit it every few months since each batch of salt made is slightly different.) Any salt that actually contains a lot of the trace elements doesn't elevate them so you're not actually replenishing them. Let's do some super simple math. All numbers are made up.

I start with 100ppm of element X and my tank consumes 20ppm in one week. I have 80ppm of X. I make up a 10% water change that contains 100ppm of X. I perform my water change. Well, 90% of my water is still 80ppm and the 10% I changed is at 100ppm. So they mix and leave me with 82ppm of X. I'm still 18ppm short. So week 2 goes on and my tank goes from 82 to 70. I do water change and now have 73ppm.

Water changes don't replenish the vast majority of elements.

Now the one thing water changes do do is dilute toxins and other things we can't test for. They absolutely have a place here. So 3-4 water changes a year is all that is truly needed. You can clean the sand during these and dilute toxins. 30% or so is a good number to shoot for.
reactors arent filtration, they are just unnatural ways to replicate natural processes. making a tube filled with weird media is different from a seagrass bed.
 

NoahLikesFish

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Ammonia kills living things.

The point of liverock is for all the benecicial life you get with it.

Its counter productive to spend so much money on established liverock to then add ammonia to kill the beneficial life within it from the critters you get to a portion of the bacteria.

We use ammonia to kill bacteria on surfaces, disinfecting/sterilization, that very same thing will happen with a portion of bacteria on liverock and definitely will kill any beneficial critters

use live rock and dont use dry rock.
 

MnFish1

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Ammonia kills living things.

The point of liverock is for all the benecicial life you get with it.

Its counter productive to spend so much money on established liverock to then add ammonia to kill the beneficial life within it from the critters you get to a portion of the bacteria.

We use ammonia to kill bacteria on surfaces, disinfecting/sterilization, that very same thing will happen with a portion of bacteria on liverock and definitely will kill any beneficial critters

use live rock and dont use dry rock.
I don't think anyone with common sense would add ammonia to live rock
 

MnFish1

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Ammonia kills living things.

The point of liverock is for all the benecicial life you get with it.

Its counter productive to spend so much money on established liverock to then add ammonia to kill the beneficial life within it from the critters you get to a portion of the bacteria.

We use ammonia to kill bacteria on surfaces, disinfecting/sterilization, that very same thing will happen with a portion of bacteria on liverock and definitely will kill any beneficial critters

use live rock and dont use dry rock.
PS - ammonia is food for living things - right?
 

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