My notes from Bob Fenner

[RGibson]

liveforphysics it would been a good thing if Bob had told you were to buy the coral skeletons for used in the reactor. Ralph

 

[liveforphysics]

Bags of 1/2" coral chunks seem to be commonly available as most petco stores. Crappy pet stores seem to sell it as substraight material.

 

[DonW]

liveforphysics it would been a good thing if Bob had told you were to buy the coral skeletons for used in the reactor. Ralph

I'm pretty sure that would be schuran media. Premium Aquatics also has their own bulk. Ive got some at home I'll check to see if its just eroded skeletons.

Don

 

[wrightme43]

On the RODI note this is what his book says.
Pg 95.
Likewise, corals and other delicate invertebrates are considered by many to demand purified source water.
One thing I have found consistent in life, is that people only hear what they want to hear.

 

[wave98]

With the water thing, he was quite clear about what he meant. He commented that the tap water he gets in his city was water that even LA didnt want (thats gotta be low). He said that if you have a well for water, you should have it analized to ensure there is nothing toxic in it before useing it, and then use it

And this is supposed to mean that "No amount" of Phosphate or Nitrate or alkalinity is going to present a problem ? Yeah, right. :lol: Did Bob explain what he considered to be toxic ?

I supose if we break it down with logic, there are 3 options for you guys.

#1 Bob is lying to us along with Calfo in some giant conspiricy to cause aquariums to do poorly.

#2 Your (the non-beliver) personal knowledge, insight, schooling, experience, practice, is much greater than Bobs & Calfos, so you may toss aside the statement confident in the belief that you know better.

#3 Maybe they dont make up these things they say. If I remember right, before he said it at the lecture, he said something like "now, this is going to make all of you protest and say no no no Bob".

#1 Bob is not lying to us. The conspiracy is coming from somewhere else, and for a different objective.

#2 This sounds like a spiritual thing, reminiscent of Shimek.

#3 Maybe information needs to be disseminated. Taken carefully in context, and reviewed for the meaningful content that might be filtered out of it.

The "translation" here, leaves a lot to be desired.

> Barry

 

[jlehigh]

Wow this took on a life of it's own...

Remember folks... in communication there are senders and receivers The same message could be delivered 20 more times and each time people will come away with a unique interpretation..

Unfortunately I wasnt there, but orally delivered knowlege is very different in nature than the written word.

I was totally bummed to miss this event.. Everyone I talked to has said it was awesome..

BTW shouldnt this be in the PSAS forum?

 

[liveforphysics]

Wrightme43- He said the same thing that the book says. He said many belive they demand a purified water source, however, if your tap water is good enough for you and your pets, its good enough for your fish tanks. That is basically a word for word quote from his lecture. I know about 100 other people were there also listening when he said that, and there was a bit of a collective gasp followed by quiet mumbleing from the audience.

Hell, I dont give a damn if you guys use RoDi, this isnt about me. I think it helps stimulate the economy, and in the grand scheme, our biggest aquariums dont use even the amount of water 1 person uses to shower, so I dont find the waste water from RoDi to be a big issue. I am just trying to repeat back info I got from the lecture. I didnt find any ambiguity in what he said about RoDi, I think he made it quite clear. This is why I am repeating it as clear as I can.


As soon as he gets back to me, I will have him come onto this forum and make clarify for you guys straight from the horses mouth.

So please, lets not let all the other exellent info be washed aside. If you were at the lecture, and you heard something other than my above quoted statements reguarding RoDi usage, then please tell me if I forgot something. I dont think I did.

Also, if you were at the lecture, feel free to add more points he used in his lecture. I know my little list cant be covering everything.

 

[liveforphysics]

I waited 3 days for it to appear in the PSAS forum, but nothing happened.

I stuck it here in general because it gets the highest amount of traffic, and should help the largest amount of people.

 

[reedman]

This is a good location for the thread. Higher traffic and better info sharing. I distinctly remember Bob saying that if you can drink your tap water that it is good enough for your aquarium. It doesn't mean I am going to stop using my RODI unit.

There were a few other things that I think people need to understand. Bob freely admitted that there were always a few "magical" tanks out there that defied the "rules" of reefkeeping. People that had all the wrong fish, didn't change water, and on and on. He said this was to be considered and anomoly and if we came across one of these tanks we should get some of the sand/water/macro algae to put in our tanks to try to spread the "magic".

Biodiversity was a very big item with Bob. This was especially true with algaes and microfauna.

The underlying message in the talk was that you will have algae of some sort in your tank at all times....get used to it. You can try to fight it constantly (a losing battle in Bob's opinion) or you can encourage the algae you like to discourage the types you don't like. A refugium is one example of this. Another example was having one or more eye-appealing macro algae in the display. A final choice was to have a good group of algae grazing fish or other critters to keep the algae in check.

This was a great talk and one that I think surprised a lot of people. I really hope Bob comes over to talk a little about this, but if not I'm sure you could post in the wetwebmedia site and get all the answers you are looking for.

Please don't nay-say what was said if you weren't there. Ask for a further explanation and we'll do what we can, but there were some very unexpected statements made by Bob and they are just being shared here for everyone's benefit.

 

[liveforphysics]

I'm glad you have a good memory Reed.

Thanks for bringing up that comunity sand thing, no reason to put it off. Being president you might like to arange it. If everybody just volenteers a couple handfuls, I cant imagine the bio diversity we will get. I know for my personal sand, I took a scoop of live sand from maui, kauaii, cancun and florida, along with a scoop from every LFS with a healthy reef that I visit.

What a valuable tool for PSAS members it will be to have access to a handfull of comunity sand when starting a fresh tank. I bet every members tank will improve, and cyclinig times on new tanks should be greatly cut.

 

[reedman]

What a valuable tool for PSAS members it will be to have access to a handfull of comunity sand when starting a fresh tank. I bet every members tank will improve, and cyclinig times on new tanks should be greatly cut.

I think this is a great idea. we used to do this, but so many people went to BB tanks that the interest died back. In the past we had everyone bring a cup to the frag swap and dump it in a tank. The fauna would mix during the swap and when people were ready to leave they scooped out a new mix of sand. My only concern with this now would be preventing the spread of things like red bugs and flat worms. That aside, if there is enough interest I think we could get a tank for this at the frag swap in May.

 

[Skimmy]

frankly, i find the whole "you dont need ro/di water" thing as poor advice, especially considering everyones different/changing water quality, simple as that.
considering the amount of money we all invest in our reefs, why WOULDNT you use ro/di water??? no good reason at all.

other than that, i thought his presentation was excellent, way more informative than bornemann's or calfo's presentations.

i think it's pretty useless for us to argue about his methodology if the guy isnt around to explain/defend himself personally, i dont really want to hear about someones interpetations of what they thought he said.

 

[Curtswearing]

12. You should perodically run good carbon. Carbon is used up within 5mins of being in a real reef tank, not just water with blue dye in it that they test with. He recomended useing it weekly (if I remember correctly, might have been every 2 weeks, help somebody?)

13. A tablespoon of some brands of carbon works better than buckets of others. If you dont store your carbon in an air tight container, its junk. He was really suprized to hear that our club didnt do large group buys on a pallet of carbon.

I'm very tired and very stressed due to tax season. There are a number of points that I disagree with on this thread and some of them have previously been addressed. I'm mainly posting at this point to be subscribed to this thread.

I"m quite tired right now but I'm going to discuss the carbon points because a lot of people are discussing many of the other issues. Carbon is quite misunderstood IMO when it comes to a reef tank. On point 12---I think you might have misunderstood him as it is not used up within 5 minutes. Within 2 weeks it will no longer serve as carbon, it will be another biofilter like LR so I see what he's saying there (unless you interfere). That's why I recommend using smaller amounts and changing it out frequently as opposed to large amounts left in for a long time.

On point 13---I completely agree. The Molasses #, Iodine #, Angstrom #, etc. varies greatly between carbons. There are comparative studies in RF's library for those interested in maximizing their carbon. However, the "airtight" thing is a little weird IMO. However, this could also be a misunderstanding. If you want to maximize your carbon, you want to dearate it for 24 hours. If possible, do it with RO/DI water to remove the phosphates at the same time.

 

[reedman]

The key message that Bob was trying to make on the length of time carbon is useful (I think) is that it will clear the water for a short period of time. The useful time that the company's are quoting is based on blue dye, not usefulness in the reef tank.

I found the statement that carbon is only usedful for 5 minutes or so to be a tough pill to swallow myself. I run it continuosly in a fluidized reactor and only change it once every 2 weeks to a month. I feel it keeps the water column clear this way and it's changed often enough not to cause light shock after a change out.

 

[Krish]

I personally have always run my carbon for 3 weeks before a change, but then again I'm weird and never had a bio-load to talk about. I could probably go literally 6 weeks without exhausting carbon, but for someone else with a full blown reef and huge bio-load, they may exhaust it in 1 week. I figure you couldn't put a time limit on carbon because of factors like these...But then again, what do I know?

 

[dnjan]

I think this is a great idea. we used to do this, but so many people went to BB tanks that the interest died back. In the past we had everyone bring a cup to the frag swap and dump it in a tank. The fauna would mix during the swap and when people were ready to leave they scooped out a new mix of sand. My only concern with this now would be preventing the spread of things like red bugs and flat worms. That aside, if there is enough interest I think we could get a tank for this at the frag swap in May.

If I remember correctly, one of the last times PSAS did this, the donated sand was aged (and lightly fed) for a couple of months to make sure that any parasites had died due to a lack of hosts. I believe the "sand swap" wasn't long after a speaker on fish diseases ...

 

[reedman]

You could be right on this Don. It was one of my first meetings and it was a frag swap at Fragman's place. I remember the tank sitting there with sand in it and people adding to it.

 

[liveforphysics]

Ok, Bob replied. He says he isnt insterested in posting on our forums, so I will just post the emails (he said I had permission to). If I would have known he wouldnt answer in person, I would have been more specific with the emails.


"Hi, its Luke, we met at the PSAS lecture
Hi, its Luke.
<Hey Luke!> >
We went to outback together with some other folks after the
exellent lecture you gave.

anyways...
I made a new thread regarding some points from your lecture, and quite as I
suspected, people simply dont believe/understand that you encouraged us to
use tap water in our aquariums.
<I do... and do>

Anyways, its a medium sized (10,000 members) forum that's really quite
pleasent and laid back. If you wouldnt mind spending the time to make/post
a paragraph reguarding your thoughts on the importance of RoDi, I know
myself and a few thousand other people would really bennifit from it.
thanks a bunch bob
-Luke
<Where? BobF>

I dont know if i remembered to give you the link in my last email, but here
it is if I forgot.
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13177
<Oh, yes... MikeO's work. Don't have time/interest in more work on the Net
Luke... you're welcome to post/quote my input... BobF>




So, here I am posting his input, which was simple.


If you want me to ask him more in depth, I certianly will, since it didnt work out for him to come on the forum and reply himself. I will not ask something like, "my water is x hundred TDS, should I use it in my tank? I'm confident his answer would be something like, umm, dont drink that water, and dont use water you dont drink."

 

[liveforphysics]

Now, with reguards to carbon, lets do our own testing. If we volenteer some carbon, I will do a test measureing time and clarity of water electronicly.

As far as storeing it in an air tight container, that seems like a duh thing to me. I breath through carbon filters when I weld bad things, or work with dangerous chemical fumes. Fresh carbon really helps a ton, after simply being unwraped and sat out on the counter for a day or two, it's just like haveing no carbon in your mask.

I mean, carbon obvously absorbs particles from the air, so why fill it up in advance?

As far as carbon being a phosphate source (I would have to see a test myself), I would switch carbon brands. If we wana do a test like this, I volenteer. I'm quite used to performing research testing.

-Luke

 

[Llarian]

So, um, this RO thing is all well and good, but its probably the least useful thing he said in the entire lecture, since nobody is going to change their ways based on it I'm sure, given how cheap RO is.

Did anybody ever find out from him what he has against kalk? If not, I'll email and ask, but I'd really like more clarification on that point in particular.

-Dylan