Going Natural

[Paul B]

I don't use NSW for plankton, I filter out the plankton anyway. I use NSW because it is NSW and not "Fake" water. Your fish come from NSW, none of them come from ASW. I know that there is supposed to be all the elements present in ASW thats in the real stuff but I doubt it. Besides the obvious minerals like calcium, strontium, boron, magnesium etc, there are proteins and amino acids that will not be present in ASW because they are made by plants. Yes, I know some of these things are probably bad or not needed but aquatic life was designed to live with them. Of course you can keep a very healthy reef with ASW but if you live near the sea why would you not use it.
For plankton I go to a muddy beach at low tide and swirl rocks in a bucket. I get all sorts of creatures that I dump in. If I lift a rock in my tank I will find starfish, worms, shrimp, tiny snails, etc. I think this stuff is very important for the health of a tank. I think they should sell the stuff to inland aquarists or at least offer them affordable housing near a beach.
:lol:

Have a great day.
Paul

 

[Krish]

Well, Paul...Not all fish we have in our tanks come from NSW. A lot of people breed their fish in their own tanks with made up water and sell off the offspring. These same fish, probably will never see NSW in their lives just as some of the frags people trade daily won't see it, but still flourish. I totally understand, that all of what we have initially came from the ocean, but don't need NSW to thrive and do well, as we can see, is being done everyday. Nevertheless, I agree, that if you have NSW in your backyard then by all means use it, but then again you still have to be careful. You will be adding water into a closed system that doesn't have the entire ocean to dilute it. Say I dump a batch of crappy water in my tank, then the thing suffers. That's why I'm personally skeptical on what I add. Andrew can contest to this statement, that we have a guy here that has to continually go to the beach to get water for his corals to thrive and still (even using NSW) can't keep them. But in any event, I'd use NSW for all of the things you suggested (calcium, strontuim, boron, magnesium etc and free salt) but I'd have to filter out all of the nasties first to make sure nothing bad was being added to my small closed system.

 

[Krish]

Previously posted by Etanriley
Krish on the note of salinity I think acclimation is important

I forgot to comment on this one Andrew(LOL). We both are GUILTY when it comes to this. What we consider acclimation, isn't really true acclimation. Maybe you do a little more than me, but still isn't true acclimation(LOL) I float the fish for about 15 minutes, once the temp is close, in they go. I've never done the drip method you see suggested. The most I've ever done is add a little tank water in the bag with the fish to help them adjust a bit, but still it is only for like 15 mintues. I've never gotten ich doing this, but still doesn't make it right. I know acclimation proceedures vary from 1 hour on certain species all the way up to 8 hrs using the drip method through an airline tubing. I guess fish aren't all that sensitive after all when you think of it(LOL)

 

[Paul B]

Krish, you may be correct that there are people that breed fish, I have done it myself many times but the fish that you buy from a lfs will almost always be from NSW. There are no saltwater fish that are bred commercially that I know of because it is still cheaper to catch them. As I said, ASW is fine and you can have a great reef with it but if you can get the real stuff for free, why not?
I have been using NSW for over 30 years with no problem but I almost lost all of my livestock when my water company put zinc orthophosphate in the water to control corrosion in the pipes.
Krish, have a great day,

Paul

 

[Krish]

Krish, you may be correct that there are people that breed fish, I have done it myself many times but the fish that you buy from a lfs will almost always be from NSW. There are no saltwater fish that are bred commercially that I know of because it is still cheaper to catch them. As I said, ASW is fine and you can have a great reef with it but if you can get the real stuff for free, why not?
I have been using NSW for over 30 years with no problem but I almost lost all of my livestock when my water company put zinc orthophosphate in the water to control corrosion in the pipes.
Krish, have a great day,

Paul

That's cool Paul...Thanks for the info. I'll let Andrew be the guinea pig on this one:lol: As you may notice, I don't put very much in my tank at all even though I can get pretty much whatever I want. Andrew teases me about it all the time when we are out diving or playing in the puddles, why I don't put something we found in my tank. It honestly is a big joke between us! But what I don't do is definately not an indication that I think my way is right. Like you've said, you've been doing it for 35 years. I respect what you do...It's cool man. Maybe one of these days I may come around and venture a bit(LOL) Until then, ASW for me

BTW, why did you go back to tap water when you said you almost lost everything?

 

[plack]

In seattle there is not just city street runoff but more importantly to my thinking PCB'S and PBDE's pleas note I don't by any means consider myself an enviornmentalist but this link is by earthshare of washington

http://www.esw.org/earthpage/archives/airwater_pollutiontoxins/

 

[Paul B]

Krish the stuff they put in the tap water is not supposed to harm people. At the time I was not using a RO or DI, it was a long time ago. I just fed the tap water through a pipe of carbon. It worked for 25 years. But when that happened I got a RO/DI. New York City water is supposed to be the best in the nation because our water tunnels are 100 years old and nothing leaches out of them. Now we have a new system.
Paul

 

[Krish]

Krish the stuff they put in the tap water is not supposed to harm people. At the time I was not using a RO or DI, it was a long time ago. I just fed the tap water through a pipe of carbon. It worked for 25 years. But when that happened I got a RO/DI. New York City water is supposed to be the best in the nation because our water tunnels are 100 years old and nothing leaches out of them. Now we have a new system.
Paul

Wow...That's cool. Thanks for the reply

 

[ethanriley]

This was the kind of feedback I was looking for and honestly Paul you and I are in the same camp. I think one of the most overlooked items in coral wellfare is amino acid transfer as well as some of the simpler compounds that in reality salt companies are not willing to replicate. :?: I will note I have PM'd Anthony Calfo and Kevin Pockell before concerning brown outs in SPS and most of what we discussed we attributed to lighting or lack there of. Interestingly since I began this test with natural water I have noticed that some of my SPS are beginning to go back to their original color even as I plot the addition of metal halide lighting. I think the key point if this materializes to be a consistent improvement in coloration is that coral metabolism and natural sea water may be linked to coloration as well as lighting parameters and may reopen additional dialogue on proper supplementation. :idea: I love my boy Krish and if I can just get him to put part of the reef in his reef tank:evil: it would make me happy. YES I do tease him even more than Gabby.:badgrin: I think another relevant thread in concert with this one and defintiely should include your tank Paul is tank maturity and longevity. For someone to speak with authority as to the quality of their reef age of corals, size of corals, reproductivity, coloration and diversity of species must all play a role in contributing feedback. By the way that doesn't mean that if you have only been set up for three days not to contribute to this thread it just means weigh your opinion.:lol:

 

[ethanriley]

Mojo, Mike S, Nikki weigh in for us please

 

[Paul B]

Andrew, since you brought it up, I believe there are many things in NSW that we know nothing about. Some of them may be important, some not. What is in the sea that prevents copperbanded butterflies and moorish Idols to live in the Caribbean? Why are there no seafans in the south Pacific?
How come black coral is found off Hawaii ans a few other places but no where else? Why do black lipped oysters in Bora Bora make great pearls but
They hardly live any other place?
Maybe I am incorrect with some of these animals. But I have dove in most oceans and this is my observations.
Is there something in the sea that prevents these animals from living there, or is there something in the sea that is missing so these animals can't survive there. Should we be concerned about this? Could this be the reason we have a hard time keeping certain animals?
I don't know, but I am listening and am willing to learn if someone knows.
The oceans have been connected since before time, it is inconceivable to me that a butterfly could not swim a few thousand miles in 30 million years.
This is the stuff that keeps me up at night.
Just something to think about.
Have a good night.
Paul :idea:

 

[Krish]

The ocean definately's got it going on...Water alone ain't gonna make it right for us though(LOL) Too much other things to consider from all the different life forms living in it etc. I think though, that people have done a great job setting up and maintaining good replicas of nature. The only problem is, it is a constant "chore" that you can't really slack off from. Atlantis here in the Bahamas uses the ocean as it's filtration source. Water is pumped in and water is pumped out. The sun also provides natural light and photoperiod for the tanks...But, you still have divers down there daily in scuba gear cleaning it up a bit. It could get kinda discouraging if you really think about that

 

[Krish]

I just fed the tap water through a pipe of carbon. It worked for 25 years

Paul, I forgot to ask...Was this the reason for the occasional algae problems you had the first 25 years because of tap water? If so, do you think the algae trough or using the natural sea water or the combination of both, brought your tank around?

 

[Paul B]

Krish I doubt it. For the first ten years or so I did not have any algae.
After that I started to get cycles. It may be the age of the tank. I have nothing to compare it to because I don't know anyone with a tank old enough. Maybe all tanks get algae cycles after ten years. The algae was never a very big problem, it always disappeared. I do a lot of experimenting with different animals and foods. I also sometimes add some natural mud, any one of these things could lead to algae. My reef is an experiment and as such, things will happen. I can keep a pristine, clean, sterile tank but that is not my goal. My goal is to learn all I can and to do that I need good and bad things to happen.
Paul

 

[Krish]

Thanks for the reply Paul...It was just curiosity why I asked and nothing more

 

[ethanriley]

Paul I think I am going to change my name to mini me LOL!!! Krish will probably agree. I am one of those people that can never sit still my wife often finds it disturbing that I can sit in front of a tank for hours on end at night that to her only has two moving things of note a banded coral shrimp and a beaugregory. But that aside what I am continuing to notice is rapid change in my tank. Corraline has kicked into hyper drive and the algae is clearly dying and receding in areas. What is really interesting is that the refugium is really starting to grow a fair amount of corraline. The other thing I have always noted is that the secondary fauna in the refugium such as fan worms and tube worms doesn't fair as well if I move the live rock into the main tank ( I have two Wal-Mart 6500K bulbs over the refugium which I switched to 24 hours of daylight. I was rotating but the 24 hour seems to work better for the upper tank. Glad you clarified your comments on your algae cycles Paul it stands to reason no matter how much you clean and water change detritus WILL accumulate over 35 years and nitrate will rise and fall. So far I am liking the results of going natural. Incidentally, since I know the lead marine bioligist at Atlantis fairly well I can tell you a little bit about their system. They have a fish only system because that is what sells to the general public and they keep such a concentration of inches of fish per gallon that despite pumps circulating millions of gallons of fresh sea water per hour they do have an accumulation of nitrates and deal with diatom algae on a fairly regular basis. Krish's comment made me think about what Atlantis does to the water coming into the system and I remember Michelle telling me they have no U/V on the intakes but they do on the outflowing pumps. They are more worried about introducing pathogens (the nasties) back into the natural ecosystem than they are about introducing it into their "closed" system. She had said to me were it not for the fish concentration in the system they coud quite readily grow corals in their lagoons.

 

[Paul B]

Andrew, in some places it is a law that they must have UV on the outflow water.
As for watching the tank, I sometimes sit for hours with a magnifying glass, I am very lucky I married a good woman (33 years ago) she just thinks I am nuts. It's a good thing that this is just one of my hobbies or people would really think I was over the top.
My reef still changes all the time, a few months ago I had these tiny creatures that I could not identify all over the place, now they are gone and are replaced by a different animal.
As for coraline algae, that also comes and goes as does algae. If you keep a tank going long enough you will see all sorts of things happen that most people don't realize. If your reef is only up for a few years you will not notice these changes because some cycles last more than a couple of years.
As I said, sometimes I can keep SPS and sometimes I can keep LPS, mushrooms were tiny for years now they are huge, leather corals sometimes grow to cover everything then die for no apparent cause. Now I have gorgs everywhere. Some of them were tiny for years, then started to grow. This is one of those things I was talking about where different animals only live in certain oceans. We don't know why this happens yet. We need more very old reef tanks to study to make some kind of comparism.
Have a great day.
Paul

 

[ethanriley]

Paul, I married my good woman 15 years ago this November and she has been putting up with me for 17 and she also has decided I am nuts. i think one of the critical things i have noticed in maintaining a dynamic (changing) reef is not to over disturb it. For example my return tube on my over flow was caked with corraline and so I decided to clean it to seed the tank further with corraline. I used the same sanitized scrubber I always use for my returns and while I was cleaning noted the over flow was full of copepods. Now the corraline is spread nicely all over, but I had a bloom of cyno in the return tube and the overflow and the copepod population has dwindled again. It is worth repeating dont over react to changes in your tank as time does often cure all ills. So often I think we see cyno or see hair algae and we panic instead of questioning whether or not it is part of the maturation process. Does anybody out there keep a reef log. I have started maintaining mine and will soon put it online. i would be interested to see logs from people who have had their tanks say five years or more. I think by doing this we also set more realistic examples for new hobbyists

 

[NaH2O]

I think one of the most overlooked items in coral wellfare is amino acid transfer as well as some of the simpler compounds that in reality salt companies are not willing to replicate. :?:

Do you mean AA transfer through the coral tissue? or through ingestion of bacteria containing AAs? I don't think there is amino acid transfer to the corals, other than by ingesting bacteria that have taken in the amino acids.

I will note I have PM'd Anthony Calfo and Kevin Pockell before concerning brown outs in SPS and most of what we discussed we attributed to lighting or lack there of. Interestingly since I began this test with natural water I have noticed that some of my SPS are beginning to go back to their original color even as I plot the addition of metal halide lighting. I think the key point if this materializes to be a consistent improvement in coloration is that coral metabolism and natural sea water may be linked to coloration as well as lighting parameters and may reopen additional dialogue on proper supplementation. :idea:

Have you changed any aspect of your lighting (i.e. new bulbs or upgraded lighting, etc)? How have your water changes differed since you began using NSW? The improved coloration may be a combination of a few things....more frequent water changes, and/or allowing for less nutrients in the tank, and possibly lighting change. Maybe not necessarily because it is NSW vs. ASW. Don't get me wrong about NSW, as I'm sure there are pros and cons, just like ASW. Feel like posting up some tank pics, so we can watch the progress of your system with using NSW? I think pics showing before NSW use, and after NSW use will be beneficial to the thread.

Now, I need to go wrap my brain around some things in the thread like collecting water, plankton, etc.... and see if I can dig more information up on them.

 

[Boomer]

Paul

What is in the sea that prevents copperbanded butterflies and moorish Idols to live in the Caribbean?

Like any other animal, barriers. Why are there no Bald Egales, Cranes or Robins in England ? Why are there no Timber Wolves in Iowa, they are in Minnesota ? Or better yet, why are there Marine Lampreys living in Lake Superior and no CBB in the Atlantic ?

it is inconceivable to me that a butterfly could not swim a few thousand miles in 30 million years

Try this............There was no such fish then Do a search on fish of the Oligocene.

Not picking on you Paul but where did you get this from, it is waaaaaaayyyyy off

In the Bahamas you would have to do nothing because the water in the tropics is basically dead for all practical reasons. Meaning there is very little floating plankton in it.

You need to get out a map of the worlds oceans plankton counts. I have two sitting in front of me. You can not compare the life of the North Atlantic with that of the tropics, it is a different beast. A coral reef can strip a plankton population to 10 % over night.