needed Rock ... via Volume, not Lb

I know I'll have to do some work, I'm just attempting to figure out how to do the least amount. While I don't drink american beer ... I take my laziness to an upmost pride.

 

To do the least amount of work young Grasshopper one first needs to understand the amount of work that needs to be done

JohnO

 

that is why I'm asking questions and double checking what I read. Already I found out a few things that were not part of the "all in one guides"

 

As with everything my friend, stability is the key

Now the rest of this is going to be rather a bold statement and is just my own personal opinion, so don't hold it against me in the future LOL

You will often hear me talk about balance and about energy flows. I feel that it is better to start a tank with the minimum of energy. By energy I guess I mean biology and food input.

Minimum live rock and just a normal substrate. The live rock will contain enough bacteria to populate the tank to create a natural cycle of energy. It will, if it's good quality, also contain many other organisms which will populate the sand bed and other rocks.

Once the tank has cycled you can add a small fish, the energy input has now increase because you need to feed the fish and therefore the bacteria will increase albeit with a delay, but still the tank will drive towards a balance, it does this by itself, there is no intervention needed by you

(Before I go any further I just want to state that when I refer to "the tank " I mean a tank with proper circulation and protein skimming and/or other filtration. )

So, you now have a tank, a piece or two of live rock, some other rock and a fish. You will notice some diatoms forming, some brown algae and probably some green algae followed by some cyanobacteria eventually.

Because you haven't started the whole process with a large energy input by using a tank full of live rock and live sand these algae etc will have a very short life span.

If they don't recede, then you know there are other factors that may be of influence, such as your top up water etc.

Assuming you do see recession then you know you can add another fish. Go through the cycle again and see what the results are after a few weeks.

You can use this method until you are happy, it's just a wait and see approach which I was taught and has always worked for me.

If however you want instant results, then I can't help.

Cheers

John

 

Ok, went to old town LFS in chicago and I was talking to an employee (Nate).

He said the bioballs in this case would get filled filled up with diatoms (spelling) and become useless. He seemed to also believe that even in this case, it would be come a nitrate factory.

This this true? I'm seeing a lot of conflicting information.

To me, if a bioball is always submerged, it will be act like LR. If the balls become populated with the same stuff that LR is, shouldn't the same thing happen with LR? I thought the reason why bioballs in WetDry filters become nitrate factories is because they are exposed to air and water is trickled down them.

Are my assumptions correct? Is this guy just attempting to feed me wrong information and want to buy something totally wrong and underpowered so I have to buy something different in a month.

 

My understanding is this....

1) Diatoms need light to grow, don't they? Will you have that ?

2) Bioballs are nitrate factories because in order to process nitrates, you need Oxygen free water. The bioballs do not have this. However, rock, being porous, can have areas of oxygen free water where nitrate can be processed into gas an release from the water in the form of bubbles . Same with the sandbeds, the deeper you go, the less oxygen....

Anyone??

 

The term Nitrate factory is unfortunate and has become part of common reef terminology for all the wrong reasons :-(

If you follow the Nitrate factory rules then you would also call rocks and sand Nitrate factories.

The simple truth lies within the Nitrogen cycle and the fact is Nitrate is simply the end result of whatever you add to the tank as a fuel source.  Think about this for a moment, where does Nitrate come from?  Nothing you add contains pure Nitrate.  Nitrate comes from Nitrite, so in essence you will have high Nitrates as long as you are supply the fuel to cause the excess.

BL is quite correct too, the only biological way to complete the Nitrogen cycle is with oxygen free water.  The bacteria that live in the environment use the Nitrate as food and convert it to Nitrogen.  Other than water changes, the only other way I know of to reduce Nitrates is by a DSB or a de-nitrating device ( coil )

John

 

I was going to use a DSB in the fuge along with a de-nitrating coil.

I just don't want a wall of rock in my tank.

 

Using a DSB in the fuge/sump is a good idea, but I wouldn't get too panicky about Nitrate levels until you actually have them or see them coming

John

 

Well, the fact I doubt the main tank will have 1lb per gallon makes me worry.

I'm not worried about my tank getting over stocked, I'm more worried about my brother's 125 and his inability to research and chances of overstocking.

I'd rather have the system locked and loaded incase I can't make it out there to do maintance.