Live Rock Saturation?

[ethanriley]

IMO I think analysis of live rock composition would be significant because I believe that the shed is more chemical than biological and that the way in which we supplement and the way in which we skim does affect the chemical composition of the rock. I support Mike in the "fact" that some of the shed is contributed by worms algae etc, but the volume of shed appears to me to be more than biological. Also i was thinking last night about liveforphysics comments and noted that my 12 gallon Nano (no skimmer) has never had as much shed as my 30 gal reef tank with heavy skimming

 

[ethanriley]

One negative of this shed to me is that it does appear to contirbute to DSB clogging and the development of cyno if you allow it to accumulate.

 

[Ed Hahn]

Do not want to sound like a add here, but here it goes. The word I see repeated is bacteria. I am gonna step on my toes or make someone happy here. Has anyone tried Zeovite system for removal of algae on Pukani rock around you? The seller for me is no algae. I see clean glass, which means low nutrients or organics. I am curious if people could use this system long enough to rid algae. After the algae is gone will it regenerate even more and be harder to kill? I want to believe in the animal trying to adapt becomes stronger theory. I wonder if you guys are making sponge reproduce because they are boiled? I have learned that change does sometimes promote corals to reproduce to survive. Awesome thread guys.

 

[ldrhawke]

Interesting thread.......what I don't understand is the concept of live rock being a problem because it may be part of the tanks bioload? Certainly it is part of the bio load. We takes weeks to seed the tanks and stabilize it with bacteria so it can support life more effectively and make it part of the bioload. The bacteria and algae on the rock isn't our enemy, it is what we have tried to develop to allow a complete biological cycle to stabilize and recycle all the waste to make the environment in the tank able to support life.

That is not to say the system cannot be gotten out of balance and excess heavy bacteria floc end up cover the rock and excess algae becomes a problem and makes the system look bad. But, I find the concept of boiling the live rock to kill the excess bacteria and drive out phosphate and nitrate contrary to what we are trying to do, keep the tank in balance. Not that boiling the rock or allowing it to sit in the dark for months won't clean it up and kill a lot of the bacteria.

The fact is after you've boiled the rock and set in the dark for months so it is nearly algae free, what makes your think you've solved the problem and you won't need to do it all over again 6 months or a year down the road.

The problem is what you are adding into your tank and the way your tank processes the water is causing the tank to get out of balance so excess algae becomes a problem. The algae is only becoming a problem because you have excess phosphates and nitrates in your system and/or the tank circulation is poor allowing pockets of waste to build up, and the algae is simply using the waste as a food source.

Actually the bacteria and algae are good. It is the biological filtration system that keeps things in balance. The tank needs both. It is only bad when you allow the system to get out of balance and it becomes unsightly.

Instead of boiling your rock, figure out how to reduce nutrient input and increase the removal of nitrates and phosphates, or both, to get the system in balance. Improve circulation. Improve filtration. You may need to use a phosphate remover it to get things back in balance or counter the excess you are adding with the food. Get a better skimmer. Reduce feeding. Reduce fish population. Check what you are feeding for excess phosphates. Add a few more critters than eat algae; Etc, etc, etc.

Excess algae and bacteria floc is only an indicator of a tank going array and getting out of balance. Boiling the rock is only a quick fix.

How many beautiful reef tanks that are tanks of the Month on a site that have we all seen that aren't covered with excess algae? I'll bet for the most part they don't boil their rock. They have figured out how to maintain a biological balance. Just another opinion

 

[ethanriley]

Interesting thread.......what I don't understand is the concept of live rock being a problem because it may be part of the tanks bioload? Certainly it is part of the bio load.

I don't think the intent was to identify live rock as a problem in being part of the bio-load I think one of the things that was being conveyed that most people don't consider the rock as part of the bio-load. IMO you are astute in considering part of the bio-load and though I support most of your commentary with regard to tried and true methods of controlling nusiance algae and nusinace bacteria (ie cyno). the intent of the thread is to discuss how theses tried and true methods such as skimming cured live rock supplementing etc. may contribute to redevelopment of the same nusiance problems we struggle to eradicate. Once upon a time trickle (wet dry) filters were considered the end all be all in filitration then we found they were nitrate bombs and we moved onto new methods of filtration. isn't possible that we need to explore more thouroughly how skimming live rock etc affects the balance of our systems. Good feedback but we need to go further. Wow this thread is getting super long i sense a split coming on!

 

[NaH2O]

The fact is after you've boiled the rock and set in the dark for months so it is nearly algae free, what makes your think you've solved the problem and you won't need to do it all over again 6 months or a year down the road.

I don't know that it won't be a problem 6 months or a year from now...I can tell you that since alot of the rock has been removed from the system, I have had an explosion of corraline algae on the rock that is in the tank right now.

Instead of boiling your rock, figure out how to reduce nutrient input and increase the removal of nitrates and phosphates, or both, to get the system in balance. Improve circulation. Improve filtration. You may need to use a phosphate remover it to get things back in balance or counter the excess you are adding with the food. Get a better skimmer. Reduce feeding. Reduce fish population. Check what you are feeding for excess phosphates. Add a few more critters than eat algae; Etc, etc, etc.

I've been through all of the steps to combat algae and reduce nutrients. I've tried it all...narrowing down sources. The only source was the heavily ladened spongey uncured rock. I barely feed my tank, and don't have a lot in the way of inputs, my fish load is small, husbandry good (blasting off live rock, siphoning detritus, siphoning up the sump, etc etc etc), as I'm very aware of these causing problems. Phosphates (even tested with the fancy Deltec kit) and nitrates have always been zero (I understand the algae using this will give a false negative), but I also tested pore water samples from the rock, and still negative. Circulation is crazy in my system...an Amp 3000 coming out of 4 outputs then switching via MBV to another 4 outputs every 5-7 minutes, combined with a sea swirl....all on a 120 gallon. Big skimmer on my system (EuroReef CS8-3), and tried a plethora of algae eating critters and nothing was helping. My long spined urchin had a body (not counting the spines) the size of a baseball , so you can imagine how long the spines were on it, and it made a dent in the algae, however, a very small dent.

I appreciate your opinion. I know we all strive to have live rock and biological filtration, but when that live rock is doing nothing but contributing to a problem, then why not boil it to clean it out so you can still use it? Cooking it will still maintain the bacterial populations, and boiling won't. I don't see the problem with taking pieces that are really gunked up with crud or were heavily covered in algae and boiling them as a "restart". The rock will be nice and cleaned out, ready to take on a new bacterial population, corraline algae and critters as soon as it enters the tank. In my particular case, I don't agree that boiling the rock is a quick fix or a bandaid. I suppose some folks may use it as such, but I wouldn't agree with that on my system.

As a side note, since I have removed a lot of the rock to cook and boil a few pieces, my tank has never looked cleaner. The water has never been so clear, and detritus is a minimum...coralline growing better on the rock now (always grew well on the tank, but not so much on the rock). I have added some of the sump rock pieces that were cooking back to the sump, in order to put them in the display when I remove a couple more pieces to cook. At that time I will also introduce a few pieces from the cooking bins and see how it goes!

 

[NaH2O]

Wow this thread is getting super long i sense a split coming on!

No way! I love these long ones, they kind of morph into different ideas and discussions...if we split it, then it becomes confusing...

 

[ethanriley]

LOL I was just kiddin. :razz: I REALLY think you have something here with the rock boiling THE WAY YOU DO IT it does not impare your bilogical filter it is like doing a water change for the rock. I bet it will also reduce pathogens as well!

 

[ethanriley]

Po and I were discussing something the other night regarding rock diffusion as well. you prove his point with the rock boiling and the result more aggressive corraline growth on the rock. By sanitizing the rock and reducing bacteria and nusiance algae levels you allow beneficial algae (corraline to get a better foothold and retard nusiance algae growth. It would be interesting to see if you could reduce the number of nessary water changes by boiling in rotation. I imagine this would be extremely challenging in larger tanks, but perhaps if you only did a section a month it might prove fruitful.

 

[ethanriley]

By unclogging the pores (saturated portions) you no doubt are increasing the surface area for beneficial bacteria and thus improving your nitrogen cycle

 

[ethanriley]

Does anyone know the formula for the chemical reaction between live rock and corraline when the corraline adheres to the rock? There must be a chemical reaction occurring. It would be interesting to see if phosphate in the rock which is released through boiling drops to such an extent it causes luxurious corraline growth.

 

[ldrhawke]

LOL I was just kiddin. :razz: I REALLY think you have something here with the rock boiling THE WAY YOU DO IT it does not impare your bilogical filter it is like doing a water change for the rock. I bet it will also reduce pathogens as well!

There are virtually billions of different stains of bacteria, and they are continuely evolving into new strains, many of which are an absolute necessity for larger life forms to exist. You would die in a matter of days without the bacteria in and on your body. The number of pathogenic bacteria are small and live within a very narrow band of temperature. They are always present even in a clean looking tank, but normally need a weaken host to attach to to spread. The problem with boiling rock is you kill a lot more good bacteria than bad. Bacteria is generally good.....not bad...

 

[ldrhawke]

I find it comical......people pay hundred of dollars to have coral rock shipped by air frt from far away reefs around the world, taking great effort to maintain the life on it, and then they boil it to kill everything on it. Wouldn't be easier to simply make your own rock out of cement to start.

There are easier and better ways to control algae. Just because you have tried unsuccessfully to get a reef tank back into balance for a few weeks or even months doesn't mean what you are doing isn't working. Chances are you took months or years to get it out of balance. Plus, a little algae isn't a bad thing.

If algae becomes a real problem, like some fern algaes can , it is normally excess waste and poor circulation in a tank that is causing it. Fern algaes are great at becoming their own filtration system and grabbing waste out of the water and feeding themselves, but even they will turn yellow and go away if you remove excess phosphates. It may take a month or two, but they will stop growing and eventually die.

Any live rock is always going to appear to have excess phosphate on it.....If it doesn't, it doesn't have any bacteria on it. Bacteria contain phosphates.

 

[ethanriley]

John yet again I don't disagree with what you said when it is used in context. No one is insinuatating that as soon as you get live rock in boil it and kill everything on it. Read the title of the thread LIVE ROCK SATURATION. By its very nature we are talking about a MATURE tank one that has accumulated a significant amount of waste decay decomposition whatever in the rock over a period of time.

Here is a thought DSB's age they get impacted with detritus waste nitrates etc and aneorbic pockets form. DON"T you think the same thing can happen with live rock? Me thinks me has a point here. Nikki is talking about refreshing her live rock by liberating it of impacted material detritus algae and what ever else. It would stand to reason if the rock is impacted with decay of algae whatever that there are anerobic pockets where beneficial bacteria are not growing and the porosity of the rock is adversely impacted making it a lousy filter and wonderful place for algae blooms cynblooms and whateve else. .

 

[ethanriley]

On another note bacteria whether good or bad cannot multiply to effective levels as you so accurately pointed out unless conditions for growth allow for them to multiply (ie. PH, temperature, food sources, oxygen or carbon dioxide depending on what type of bacteria to which you refer. Heres a thought if you boil rock to get rid of the bad and you add it back to the rock that has the good do you think the good might re-inhabit the boiled rock and mulitply at a faster rate allowing better aerobic respiration which in turn reduces nitrites ammonia. Me thinks me has another point here. She didn't boil all her rock only the pieces where adverse conditions on the rock surface (ie turf algae blooms) were not allowing her to achieve her goal. She also pointed out that this had a positive affect on the boiled rock in that she had more corraline growth than before. Me thinks that is my last point.

 

[NaH2O]

There are easier and better ways to control algae. Just because you have tried unsuccessfully to get a reef tank back into balance for a few weeks or even months doesn't mean what you are doing isn't working. Chances are you took months or years to get it out of balance. Plus, a little algae isn't a bad thing.

I don't expect you to know the history of my tank. This isn't something that I've been dealing with for a few weeks or months, and it isn't something that is due to the tank being out of balance for a few months, or lack of flow (I even blasted the heck out of the rock to try and keep the algae from feeding itself, and for the detritus to get picked up). Also, I didn't willy nilly try things and give up after a short time...I've been dealing with this for over a year, and this tank is only that old. When I removed the rock, I was very surprised by the amount of algae on the rock. I don't know if you have Pukani rock?? It is heavily laden with sponge, and I had a lot of it...uncured in my tank to cycle. One big piece I broke apart when I removed the rock from my system (last month), was completely hollow with only rubble in the middle. This means the entire rock was held together with sponge...that sponge died off during the tank cycle/rock curing. I've had some very experienced reefkeepers helping me on this for a very long time. The unfortunate part for me is I stocked my tank very slowly, so the algae didn't have much competition in the beginning, however, once they were introduced, it didn't make much difference in the long run. I understand that a little algae is not a big deal, and believe me, I would have been happy as a clam if it was a "little" algae. There is a post, I believe, in this thread somewhere that mojoreef gives his opinion on my rock.

To me I would say that your LR had an ammount of sponge in them and it take a long time for that material to disinagrate and then be used up by bacteria and simular. What you have seems to but just a larger longer lasting P cycle going from algae blooms to bacteria bloom. Got to remember the tank went with out preds for a long time to

I find it comical......people pay hundred of dollars to have coral rock shipped by air frt from far away reefs around the world, taking great effort to maintain the life on it, and then they boil it to kill everything on it. Wouldn't be easier to simply make your own rock out of cement to start.

No it wouldn't be easier for me to start out with homemade cement rock, and I'm not saying we should boil rocks straight out of the ocean. Some folks cure their rocks in bins (cooking it), I chose to cure it in my tank. Regarding the cement rock...first of all, I'm not all that handy, so my homemade rock would wind up resembling cow patties or Jabba the Hutt or something like that . Secondly, I'm not boiling ALL of my rock...some select pieces that were heavy with algae. The few pieces that were literally boilied will quickly become reseeded by bacteria and critters as soon as they are placed back in the tank....(and I believe there was someone that won TOTM on another board that has boiled a few old pieces of rock at one time or another). Third, cement rock doesn't have the same porousity as live rock does. The last point, the rock that is cooking in dark bins (not boiled) will still contain all the critters and bacterial populations....it is just changing the environment (from tank environment) to a new environment (cooking bins) where the algal driven system is turned into a bacterial driven system.

and to toss in another quote from mojoreef from earlier in the thread

Controling input we all know about so lets stick with nutrients bound in the rock. Bacteria will cycle nutrients while only using fractional amounts as energy so total relience on them will work but its going to take some time. With deeper collected rocks your going to get more nutrient content due mainly to the content of sponge, so physically removing them is a far quicker way to achieve your goal in this case, Scratch and snifff baby, lol.
For rocks that are just saturated (as in older rocks that are full of detritus) sometimes thiers just no way to catch it up the natural cycling way, unless you have a lot of time on your hands, So in those cases I tend to just boil the &((* out of it and call it a day.

 

[ldrhawke]

Sure you can take a few pieces of live rock that have algae on them and boil them to kill it. I do not see that it will do anything to remove any of what you consider saturated inside the pores. This is the first time I have heard of anyone actually boiling live rock to unsaturate it or kill algae. Other than kill algae and sterlize it, I don't believe it wiil drive off any excess nutrients deep in the pore space.

I understand the term cooking live rock in a separate tank. But even when you do that all you are really doing is limiting nutirents to the bacteria on the rock and forcing it to go after the remaining nutrients on the rock. Your starving the bacteria and forcing it to use what remains on the rock. The only thing keeping it in the dark does is keep the algae from getting light so it dies.

I've gone through all of the same excess algae problems as everyone else. And I have hand cleaned off small pockets of fern algae that will filter waste out to the water to get ride of their little collection of nutrients they collect to feed on also. I have very little algae problems anymore. I have found the only good way to limit it from happening is to control what I feed, filter out excess suspended waste, and good circulation.

I have watched my live rock clean itself up completely without having to boil or cook the rock. When you control and limit nutrients you are continuously cooking you rock and there is no need to remove it from the tank. Plus I have a single piece of live rock and I don't have a pot big enough to fit it in to boil it.....not that I ever would. It is 23" high by 16" wide.

I can understand if your tank gets so covered with algae the methods you describe are a quick fix, but I believe boiling rock and sterilizing does more harm than good. And I believe you can accomplish the same results as cooking the live rock, by leaving the rock in the tank, if you control tank parameters.

I'll restate what I commented on earlier. Do you really believe the reef keepers with these huge beautiful reef tanks filled with SPS and other coral, that are shown every month on different web site, pull all their rock once every 6 months or year and cook it or boil it. I don't think so. They simply have learned and now know how to control and maintain good tank parameters so it isn't a problem.......me thinks.

 

[ethanriley]

LOL I enjoy the dry wit. Again I am not saying that "they" do but it doesn't make them right and Nikki wrong. It is just a different approach me thinks LOL. Just try and boil one small piece of live rock you will be AMAZED at the number of pores that unclog in the rock. Similar priniciple to washing your face with hot water the pores unclog! Hit those same pores with a power head you get the surface dirt but you don't clear the clog. Clear the clog increase the surface area revitalize the bacteria increase the corraline adhesion sounds like a winner to me. Are we going to play nice now and agree to disagree

 

[ethanriley]

I would be interested to hear what drastic steps some of the big reefers do take?????? I like unorthodox methods because that is how one creates new ideas and the purpose I believe behind these forums are to have constructive debates over what may possibly achieve better results. I never ask any one to agree with me, but if you are going to tell me theories and hypothesis are wrong don't substanitate it by saying that just because Joe does it and it works everybody should do what Joe does. There are too many variables to support that methodology in proving ones point. I will note that even the big reefers tanks are dynamic and evolving and devolving. I have seen both on this forum and others, reefs of the month one month, and become HELP I can't figure out what I did. A VARIABLE altered. That is the beautiful thing about our hobby it is alway evolving. Ok I have philosphized long enough. Lets see Nikki's tank in another month/year/two years and see what happens who knows the big reefes may start boiling in rotation

 

[ethanriley]

"those who only walk where they see others footsteps never make new discoveries"