The UnOrthodox: Natural, Holistic, and Wholesome...

[PIPSTER]

Let's open a can of worms. This may be a little more advanced, but please leave it in the Discussion forum, more people need to look at this...

I want to look at natural means of reefing as opposed to mechanical\equipment based reefing.
The "traditional" reefing strategy employs heavy skimming, mechanical efforts to reduce nitrates and phosphates to absolute zero, and pellet or flake foods, maybe lots of water changes. They are often bare-bottom. In other words, it's kinda the artificial\mechanical way. If I were to exaggerate it, I would say it's an attempt to sterilize the tank without outright killing the fish or coral. Not saying there aren't successful ULNS tanks out there, but they're pretty much SPS only.

The way I want to discuss is skimmerless, or under-sized skimming, algae scrubbing, DSB, no or little water changes, running a little nitrates (~5ppm) and little phosphates. This would be foundational.

And here's some of the questions that have bothered me...
Reef areas in oceans have full food chains. Our traditional aquariums may have very little life other than bacteria on the rocks.
Why not try to allow as much viable food chain in our aquariums?
More plankton, more micro life, etc, for instance.
Fish can do just fine on fish food, but I think coral, at least other than SPS, benefit greatly from food and nutrients they draw straight out of the water column.

When I was looking at this, definitions of plankton and marine snow stood out. Diatoms? I thought everyone was trying to get rid of diatoms, but they are part of the basic foundation of the food chain. So there's an example we can discuss.

Another is when I clean my glass of algae, I think I'm feeding my corals. I see response from NPS corals, and the fish love chasing down pieces of floating algae.

I think there's a way of simplifying while adding more to our reef tanks. Instead of seeking to sterilize them, I think keeping the goods in the water column and letting live rock and sand and an algae scrubber take care of the bad guys makes a healthier tank. What say you?

[JammyBirch]

Ok i'll bite...

I am a firm believer of minimalist reefing, meaning minimal equipment and using natural methods to manage the bio-load of the system. That being said I still use a skimmer and I do water changes.

I do not use any other mechanical filter like sponges and/or filter socks...I even took the sponge out of my submersible return pump. I like the idea of a refugium, for macro algae and just a spot for more live rock that increases the bio-filter...I have a 4g fuge right now and it's packed with rock, pods, CUC and is fed by my ATS.

As for SPS tanks, my 25g nano is SPS dominant which most said it would fail within a year due to the difficulty of managing such a little water volume....buzzer sound...wrong...

I've had SPS for almost 2 years and they are thriving I frag corals every month or so...and my tank does not run ultra clean. I have detectable Nitrates, ~5-10ppm at all times. I experimented with limited water changes, I struggled in that realm to be honest. Nitrate got really high, 20-30ppm, coral growth and color changed dramatically...faded out.

I don't run elevated levels of calcium and alkalinity either...I run as close to natural sea water as I can...this switch away from the main stream SPS keeping method has served me well.

[dkeller_nc]

Keep in mind that "simple" and "natural" does not necessarily equal "wholesome". It's a common misconception, but nevertheless incorrect. There are many, many of examples in all sorts of subjects of why "natural" doesn't necessarily equal "healthy" or "wholesome".

With that out of the way, here are at least a few considerations towards your points.

The food chain - You are quite correct that the water column on a coral reef is not sterile. Folks sometimes incorrectly label a coral reef as a "nutrient poor" environment. Nothing could be further from the truth - there's an immense loading of nutrients in the water column in the form of zooplankton, and to a lesser extent, phytoplankton. This is particularly true at night, when vast swarms of copepods and other crustaceans ascend to the reef from deep waters, and are joined by billions of eggs and larval stages of fish, crusteceans, molluscs, coral and other families of creatures.

It is not currently possible to even come close to replicating this food web in our tanks. If you tried, you'd have the equivalent of a bucket of bait setting in the hot sun at the end of the dock for 4 or 5 days in a big hurry.

With respect to combining a skimmerless system with little or no water changes, it's certainly possible if the bioload is kept to a small fraction of what we typically think of as a nice reef tank. More could be kept in the tank if you were willing to use very large volumes of GAC that was changed very frequently, but of course this would be hugely expensive compared to a protein skimmer and be just as "artificial".

If you add in very frequent, fairly large water changes (perhaps 20% - 50% per week), it's certainly possible to maintain a fairly large bioload in skimmerless system. There's lots of examples of this in nano and pico size tanks, where many owners change 100% of the water every week.

[RocketEngineer]

There isn't anything traditional in this hobby, especially in the last 20 years. There are waves of fads that come and go, one strategy that goes in and out of style, the "latest and greatest" equipment trends. Folks find what does and doesn't work for their particular setup and adjust accordingly.

When it comes to the life on the rocks, I think you need to do more research and find "the good stuff". I've purchased true live rock several times recently and there is so much more than bacteria on it. Sponges galore, barnicles, feather dusters, pods, urchins, snails, muscles, clams, goronians, corals, porcelain crabs, and so much more all came as "hitchhikers". Sure you get some that you don't want like some of the more insidious macro algaes but I'll deal with that stuff just to get everything else.

What you are talking about is more biology over technology. It is a concept I agree with but there are severe limitations that must be contended with. Our systems are a few hundred gallons, maybe a thousand gallons at most. The reefs are billions of times bigger and they connect to the greater ocean which is larger still. Nutrients that are in small quantities in the ocean get rapidly depleted in our small setups. Other nutrients that get diluted in the huge volume of the ocean get concentrated in our systems and become problematic. The result is that our tiny close systems need outside inputs to balance them, whether that's additions of food or calcium/alkalinity additions. The tanks we keep are too small to be totally closed off. We can do various things to minimize our inputs but they will always need inputs to remain healthy long term.

In the end it is up to each aquarist to find the method that fits their life style and their tank. Me, I use a fair amount of biology to handle problems but also technology to make my setup less dependent on daily inputs from me. I don't do frequent water changes, I only dose kalk in my ATO and food in an auto feeder. I try to leave my system alone as much as possible. Sure, I've lost corals and have GHA all over but I also have coral colonies that grew from golf ball size to softball size. The most important things to me are keeping those creatures in my care as healthy as I can while enjoying my tank.

[Mr. Brooks]

There isn't anything natural about a coral reef in a glass box.

It all comes down to nutrients in, nutrients out. We have to strike a balance between the two using the method(s) of our choosing.

The general consensus these days is that a tiny amount of phosphate and a small amount of nitrate is healthy. Sterile isn't healthy but neither is filthy.

I'm personally planning on over-filtering my system so that I can over-feed my tank. You really can't do one without the other.

[Bent]

Originally Posted by Mr. Brooks

There isn't anything natural about a coral reef in a glass box.

This x1000. Plus I'll add nothing wholesome or holistic either.

I may get shot for saying this, but reef and fish keeping are an incredibly vain hobby. There is nothing positive about it other than the possibility of passing an interest in science and the ocean on to children.

The destruction that the aquarium trade causes far outweighs any possible good it does.

We as a whole:
1: waste ungodly amounts of water and power. (Which if you believe the science of man-made climate change, also contributes to the destruction of the reefs and the pollution of the ocean.)
2: contribute to the collection and inhumane treatment of ocean animals.
3: contribute to the destruction of the reefs through collection.

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

:hides:

[CStrickland]

It might be good to read up on methods that have already been tried, and the reasons why they are not more popular, rather than reinvent the wheel.

Some of the things you're describing as traditional seem fairly modern to me, and vice versa. I guess that's because of how fads come and go. To better understand the history of the hobby, I would recommend Delbeek and Sprung's book from the nineties calls "The Reef Aquarium." For specific historical info on early incarnations of some of the methods you mentioned: Jaubert and Shimek wrote interesting stuff about dsbs, though Calfo is more my speed; Walter Adey for turf scrubbers; and Mr. Eng on the idea of a natural reef. Just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's others.

Also, be careful not to oversimplify generally. Some of the things we keep come from wildly different ecosystems. I don't think mandarins are found on the reef crests with big colonies of acropora. if it were just a matter of replicating one thing, it would be easier.

[SeattleReefer]

Originally Posted by Bent

This x1000. Plus I'll add nothing wholesome or holistic either.

I may get shot for saying this, but reef and fish keeping are an incredibly vain hobby. There is nothing positive about it other than the possibility of passing an interest in science and the ocean on to children.

The destruction that the aquarium trade causes far outweighs any possible good it does.

We as a whole:
1: waste ungodly amounts of water and power. (Which if you believe the science of man-made climate change, also contributes to the destruction of the reefs and the pollution of the ocean.)
2: contribute to the collection and inhumane treatment of ocean animals.
3: contribute to the destruction of the reefs through collection.

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

:hides:

^ good post.

[PIPSTER]

Well, I am glad I got a few bites...

I think the first few responses highlight some of the similar things I've found. It's helpful to be able to read through different people's tank build threads and see what has worked good for different people with different reef tanks (SPS vs LPS, for example).

One of the things is running 5ppm nitrates seems to be more beneficial to SPS than zero. But it can't get too much higher than that. LPS seem to be starving if nitrates are absolute zero. Zoas like a bit of it, too.

I think tanks like PaulB's which have seawater from the ocean used for water changes have greater benefits, not just because of parameters, but because of all the "pond life" that is in that seawater. That's what I mean when I refer to "holistic" or "natural". A tank can survive on Instant Ocean "bucket salt", but to thrive, I think adding zooplankton, phyto, and other things that are in the "real' ocean help so much. Since I'm landlocked, I have to resort to adding these things. But I think our tanks have some of those things already...

I know people think it's a pain to scrape the glass every week, but I think it adds those micro-nutrients back into the water column, which serves as food for coral, pods, etc.
A lot of times it's like a powdery cloud that comes off the glass. If phytoplankton is little more than diatoms and this kind of algae, am I not essentially farming it in my tank?

Another point: who has tried live mysid shrimp in their tanks, or tried culturing them add as live food? What about trying to get a population of them growing in the rock?

What about feeder shrimp? I think they should be able to hide inside of lacy rock, but I haven't tried them because I can't figure out how big they actually grow, their survival chances, or if they will breed.

To be able to have living food, like copepods, in the tank helps eliminate the worries about bioloading and waste, because that's how it is in the ocean. There, it's not a big bucket of rotting bait. It's alive. They contribute to breaking down fish poop and other wastes, so they're double whammy good.

I agree that we have to add things to our tanks to keep them stable, and natural. I just think that, for instance, algae scrubbers are preferable to canister filters.

I'll take a breather and see what people have to say.

[dkeller_nc]

The dispersed algae that results from cleaning the glass with a scrubbing magnet does, in my opinion, contribute to the food available to filter feeders in the tank. But it's definitely not the same species make-up as phytoplankton in the ocean. In fact, most of the phyto preparations available to the hobbyist aren't the same species as phyto in the ocean, either. Nevertheless, I consider phyto additions beneficial to a reef tank, so I dose it a few times a week to encourage the growth of sponges in the rock and intentionally introduced feather duster worms.

With respect to actually culturing live food in the aquarium, it's true that one can maintain a refugium that encourages the growth of pods. In an extremely large tank, production of copepods and amphipods within the tank is sometimes enough to support a fish that feeds exclusively on benthic crustaceans (e.g., a mandarin dragonet).

However, there simply isn't enough production area that can be reasonably accommodated in a typical saltwater set-up to generate the high densities of food zooplankton & phytoplankton that one would see on a reef. And because substitutes for this, including freeze-dried, frozen, and liquid preparations of all sorts of zooplankton substitutes are now readily available, it's somewhat questionable whether it's worth it to try to culture live food within the display itself.

However, many of us do grow rotifers and copepods in dedicated culture set-ups, and harvest and add the live food to the display on a regular basis.

With respect to whether an algae scrubber is "better" than a bacterial-based nitrification/denitrification system, that's an endless debate. Personally I prefer the bacterial systems because it's much less work to maintain.

[PIPSTER]

Anybody put live feeder shrimp or mysid shrimp in their tank?

[Bent]

Originally Posted by PIPSTER

Anybody put live feeder shrimp or mysid shrimp in their tank?

I'm really considering putting some grass shrimp in mine.

But if you feed enough frozen mysis eventually you will get a population from the frozen eggs that hatch.

[Nano sapiens]

I've run a small mixed reef system for nearly eight years without any mechanical or chemical supplementation. System runs barely detectable NO3 and undectable PO4 (Salifert). Is it natural? Nope. It's just how I like to do things...

The philosophical debate in regards to reef keeping being beneficial, or not, is typical Ying and Yang. For every 'negative', one can find a 'positive'. After 30+ years in reef keeping, I still find joy and wonder in any well kept reef tank. That works for me

And I had a thriving Mysid population from feeding frozen, until I added a few Gobies...

[Reef Frog]

Mysis or mysid? All the brands I've seen are freshwater shrimp, usually from cold lakes in northern Canada. These wouldn't hatch in our reefs.

So what foods contain saltwater shrimp that will hatch in a saltwater system? Do the populations last, or do they disappear after a while?

[Nano sapiens]

Originally Posted by Reef Frog

Mysis or mysid? All the brands I've seen are freshwater shrimp, usually from cold lakes in northern Canada. These wouldn't hatch in our reefs.

So what foods contain saltwater shrimp that will hatch in a saltwater system? Do the populations last, or do they disappear after a while?

Brackish water frozen 'Mysids', as far as I know. What I do know for sure is that I didn't have any for years, then started feeding a smaller name brand Mysid (sorry, can't recall the name) and within about a month I noticed a small population that grew fairly large for such a small tank.

[CStrickland]

I would think it's similar to pods - you don't need many to start a population, but it is difficult to keep up with predator demand in most tanks without a sheltered fuge that has chaeto or condos to maintain the base. I've heard of populations starting from food too, iirc people got worried about ich transfer as well. IDK if it was a particular brand, or the luck of the draw.

[Bent]

Originally Posted by Reef Frog

Mysis or mysid? All the brands I've seen are freshwater shrimp, usually from cold lakes in northern Canada. These wouldn't hatch in our reefs.

So what foods contain saltwater shrimp that will hatch in a saltwater system? Do the populations last, or do they disappear after a while?

I just use the omega mysis from the petsmart fridge and I have a good population of them.

[PIPSTER]

Wow. I've never heard of hatching frozen mysis eggs.

Mysis is freshwater, and mysid is brine water, so I would think it would have to be mysid, but maybe hatching bypasses acclimation requirements.

My rock has many, many holes. It's very lacy. I would think I could have some feeder\grass shrimp as well as mysid. It's just trying to justify shipping costs and so on...

Those of you who had some live mysid\mysis, did you fish hunt them, or were able to feed on them that you could see?

[Theokie]

Originally Posted by PIPSTER

Wow. I've never heard of hatching frozen mysis eggs.

Mysis is freshwater, and mysid is brine water, so I would think it would have to be mysid, but maybe hatching bypasses acclimation requirements.

My rock has many, many holes. It's very lacy. I would think I could have some feeder\grass shrimp as well as mysid. It's just trying to justify shipping costs and so on...

Those of you who had some live mysid\mysis, did you fish hunt them, or were able to feed on them that you could see?

Mysis is the singular form
Mysid is Plural form

there are thousands of species that live in full fresh, brackish and full salt water

One common feature is that all brood their eggs in a pouch until they emerge as fully formed, but smaller, individuals.

All commercial producers Harvest from Freshwater lakes in either Canada, the Midwest and Scandinavia, as the fresh water species form large swarms that are easily harvested. They are actually an invasive species in Canada.

While the brackish and Saltwater species are better for marine organisms they are much harder to harvest, so not commercially viable, as they live near the substrate and are mixed in with other organisms fouling the catch.

If you can get live Mysid they are usually the Brackish/Salt Species Amerimysis Bahia, as they are wildly used in laboratory testing, so their is much information on cultivation of them.

Most likely your aquarium mysids came in on your rock or frag plug, as pretty much every mature tank will have some species of Mysid in it, given enough time.

[reefgeezer]

IME, the control of nitrogen compounds and inorganic phosphate, commonly called "nutrients", is much easier than it was many years ago. Extremely porous substrates (rock, DSB, etc.), ATS systems, lighted macro algae refugiums, GFO & other substances, and all kinds of other things have evolved to control these nutrients.

Due to this evolution, IMO, we sometimes lose track of other pollutants that are not controlled by any of the above methods. One in particular, excessive dissolved organic compounds (DOC) can really wreck a normally loaded system if no mechanism is included to control it. Low oxygen, depressed pH, and eventually an inability to control N & P can result from not controlling these compounds. In addition, Cyano, Dinos, and other pest can flourish in high DOC systems.

While some critters can help limit DOCs, skimmers and GAC are more efficient... IMO. FWIW, I've found skimmers to be effective at controlling DOCs with little in the way of moving parts or required maintenance. I've also found that some of the methods used to reduce nitrogen compounds can actually increase DOCs i.e. DSB, large amounts of rock, and macro algae refugiums.

As many have said before, none of the methods are "natural". IMO, a balance between biological and mechanical is required.

[d2mini]

I run a skimmer, because foam fractionation is natural.
Live Rock for biological filtration.
I run a large refugium for further natural nutrient reduction.
A little carbon is the only other thing I like to run.
And then finding a way (dosing, CaRx, etc) to add back natural elements that your coral are using up.
No DSB.

It doesn't get much more natural than this.

[PIPSTER]

Originally Posted by reefgeezer

IME, the control of nitrogen compounds and inorganic phosphate, commonly called "nutrients", is much easier than it was many years ago. Extremely porous substrates (rock, DSB, etc.), ATS systems, lighted macro algae refugiums, GFO & other substances, and all kinds of other things have evolved to control these nutrients.

Due to this evolution, IMO, we sometimes lose track of other pollutants that are not controlled by any of the above methods. One in particular, excessive dissolved organic compounds (DOC) can really wreck a normally loaded system if no mechanism is included to control it. Low oxygen, depressed pH, and eventually an inability to control N & P can result from not controlling these compounds. In addition, Cyano, Dinos, and other pest can flourish in high DOC systems.

While some critters can help limit DOCs, skimmers and GAC are more efficient... IMO. FWIW, I've found skimmers to be effective at controlling DOCs with little in the way of moving parts or required maintenance. I've also found that some of the methods used to reduce nitrogen compounds can actually increase DOCs i.e. DSB, large amounts of rock, and macro algae refugiums.

As many have said before, none of the methods are "natural". IMO, a balance between biological and mechanical is required.

This is the kind of thing I'm interested in discussing.
How much is too much DOC?
What types of DOC are there?

I think taking out 100% of DOCs by skimming like crazy takes away from coral thriving, perhaps with the exception of some SPS.

But how much is too much when it comes to DOCs, especially if one can keep nitrates and phosphates at low, healthy levels? DOCs are absorbed by most coral directly through their membranes.

It seems to me that there are more bacteria and other organisms that like to clean up than we give credit for. For instance everyone is familiar with cycling tanks for the nitrogen cycle. That involves the growth of the types of bacteria that take care of converting the ammonia to nitrites, and then to nitrates, and then hopefully to nitrogen gas.
But what about the bacteria that breaks down fish poop? I mean there's bacteria in the ocean that feed on oil spills, all that's needed is time for the bacteria to multiply enough to balance out the effects of whatever they are eating. So what else is out there?

Also, if I wasn't afraid of them taking over my tank, I would have a fuge full of xenias for their natural talent at reducing bioload.

[mokeyz]

Originally Posted by PIPSTER

Anybody put live feeder shrimp or mysid shrimp in their tank?

I have Mysids in both the refugium and display tank, they aren't a huge population but they have managed to thrive. I don't presently have any feeder shrimp but in a tank I used to have I had them both in the DT and fuge, they bred but I never attempted to raise the babies but clearly as with my peppermint shrimp and cleaner shrimp the fry contributed to the food chain.

I agree with you and though we can't emulate the ocean in all of its glory I think with enough phyto and zooplankton, light and flow we can come closer than some believe.

I started my Reefer 450 with live rock and live sand from Tampa Bay Saltwater, the amount of life that is present in both is extraordinary. I don't ever vacuum the sand, I run a skimmer every once in awhile but not regularly and most things are doing beautifully.

[dkeller_nc]

Pipster - One aspect of this that may be of use to you is to realize that no skimmer can remove 100% of the DOC in a given system. It doesn't matter how big it is, how small its bubbles are, nor the flow rate of air & water through the skimmer.

The reason for this is somewhat complex, but it has to do with physical chemistry. DOC is made of up of many different kinds of organic molecules, only some of which are surface-active and thus removable by a skimmer. Of the kinds that are surface-active, only a fractional amount of the total can be removed by a foam fractionator (e.g., a "skimmer").

Specifically, there is a concentration of surface-active molecules below which a stable foam head over the solution cannot exist. This concentration is called the Critical Micelle Limit, and the exact concentration depends on the chemical structure of the molecules in question.

Explaining precisely why this is the case is a highly technical discussion that's well beyond the scope of the discussion topic, but it is a well-studied aspect of physical chemistry that isn't "iffy".

So no matter how "well skimmed" your system is, a certain fraction of DOC will remain no matter what. This is why it's actually impossible to "over skim" a reef tank, despite what common knowledge from the forums might suggest.

[PIPSTER]

Some good info here...thanks for your participation!

How about the idea for those who dose nitrates to lower phosphates of feeding more?