How is the sea like a tank

[Paul B]

Every time I dive I think of all the ways I can make my tank more like the sea I get overwhelmed.

First of all the sea is deep. Our animals know that they are in very shallow water and they would never venture into such shallow water if they had a choice. At the waters edge and in tide pools we find only tiny baby fish, you never find a full grown tang in water 2 feet deep.

The sea is full of plankton and baby fish, they are all over the place and fish never go hungry. Fish eat all day long and almost never get enough in one meal to fill them. Their intestines are very short and are designed to process a little food continousely.
Carnivores eat fresh "whole" fish.
Herbivores eat "mostly" fresh algae, but the algae in the sea is also full of pods, worms, shrimp and fish fry.

The sea is full of danger which gives the animals plenty of exercize. They are constantly fighting for food or escaping preditors. They are never just hanging out looking out the glass


The sea is constantly in motion, back and fourth motion, sometimes much more motion than we could ever provide in a tank. I have seen 12' brain corals toppled over after a storm. The same storm that deposited 30' sailboats up the side of a mountain.
These storms break off weak pieces of coral and make room for more. They also sweep debris out of coral pores. Corals can deal with storms by just closing and without storms, corals would be covered with detritus.

The sun does not instantly shine or go out as it does in most of our tanks, it also does not shine every day. Sometimes days go by with hardly any light.

Lightning hits the sea every few seconds. I don't know if that helps or hurts.

And the sea has every element on earth disolved into it as well as all the strains of bacteria. Some good, others not so good.

Of all of these things there are only a few we have control of.
I think we do a fairly good job but these factors are the reason some people have huge problems. We can't make up for the shallow water by providing more light but we can feed better, add bacteria from the sea, try better circulation, stir things up occasionally and know our limitations.

We can't always keep everything. But we try to keep the things we think we can keep.
Have a great day.
Paul

 

[Scooterman]

Well after 35 + years experience you've finally summed it up LOL!

But, we domesticate just about anything alive so I guess we try to do that with fish & coral also.

 

[Paul B]

We are trying Scoot

 

[Myteemouse]

I think we try to make a peice of the ocean ,
BUT, we try to make the peice that would be like our "garden of eden"
perfect day everyday.. without storms and clowds..

I do agree we don't feed fish enough but doing this would filthy our tanks very quickly.

 

[Paul B]

I do agree we don't feed fish enough but doing this would filthy our tanks very quickly.

Mytee, (can I call you Mytee?) I was trying to emphasize the fact that while we feed out fish, we often feed them the wrong foods and too much of them at once.

 

[Paul B]

See all of the tiny fry to the left of the nurse shark? They are all over the place on a healthy reef. This is what fish snack on all day. Whole, fresh fish, guts, skeleton and all.
From the Cayman Islands

 

[Myteemouse]

Oh I agree, I wish I could feed them salmon eggs and algae all day also.
Your soo right were are not even close to real ocean in our tanks,
Alot of us try to fool ourselves into thinking it's natural.
Even with corals and fish from all over the world in one tank LOL
Not too real!

 

[diverphil71]

Paul B. very well put. Nice post.

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

Excellent read Paul, i always enjoy reading whatever you put out there

 

[Paul B]

Thanks guys

 

[Scooterman]

I think this Sunday night, Discovery channel will have a show on the Great Barrier Reef, tune in, I love these shows.

 

[Paul B]

Everything in our tanks came at one time from a reef (except for an occasional home raised clownfish etc.) We don't have to duplicate a real reef to keep healthy animals but being all of our animals evolved for millinea on a real reef, they are genetically programed to utilize the substances on the reef for survival. The closer we can come to that, the better off our animals should be.
All fish are different and most people feed their animals the same thing. We can of course keep animals this way as most of us do but fish in the sea do not eat pieces of squid, clam, mysis, flakes and angel formula. I know it is convenient to feed these things as I feed them also, but a very important aspect of a fishes diet which is almost always overlooked is that fish in the sea eat "whole" fish. They need the bones and most important the fish oil stored in the liver. A fish can be 1/5th liver and most of that is oil. All of those foods I mentioned lack oil and calcium. This one item can keep our fish and corals in much better shape and possably, keep them safe from disease. Fish are not like us. We can sit on a couch, watch TV and eat potato chips for years and "seem" fairly healthy. We can also "breed" in that condition. Fish can not. You can keep damsels for years feeding just flakes but even though they will look healthy, they are not and they will not spawn.
Another overlooked factor in a captive tank is bacteria. Bacteria cover everything in a tank but it is the correct type of bacteria for our needs. No it is not. In captivity bacteria go through what the higher animals go through. The strongest survive. The strongest bacteria may be what the LFS has in his diseased tanks for years.
I myself add bacteria from the sea often during the year. I feel this bacteria is what has kept this tank healthy for 40 years.
Bacterial diversity is never mentioned in writings on this hobby but it is bacteria that keeps our tanks from crashing. If you have tochange water because your nitrates are high, your bacteria are not the correct type or you do not have the correct substrait for them to multiply. A tank should be self sufficient in reguard to nitrates but the bacteria will not work for us for free forever, they need replacements from the sea.
This is only my opinion but my opinion comes from almost 60 years of looking very closely at this stuff.
OK I was born 60 years ago but I did have a tank from when I was about two to now.

 

[Scooterman]

All fish are different and most people feed their animals the same thing. We can of course keep animals this way as most of us do but fish in the sea do not eat pieces of squid, clam, mysis, flakes and angel formula. I know it is convenient to feed these things as I feed them also, but a very important aspect of a fishes diet which is almost always overlooked is that fish in the sea eat "whole" fish. They need the bones and most important the fish oil stored in the liver. A fish can be 1/5th liver and most of that is oil.

If you ever read Lees forum, he has posted tons of this information & more you haven't mentioned, it is all there.

Bacterial diversity is never mentioned in writings on this hobby but it is bacteria that keeps our tanks from crashing.

This isn't true, Dr. Ron has published so much data on this subject, I'm surprised you've never read all of his publishings. It is out there but I do agree, most modern reefers don't read or care to learn this information.

 

[Paul B]

Scoot, me Lee and Ron all started about the same time. After so many years you start to think about this stuff deeper than normal