Turkey baster to rocks might be bad

Kerry but can you compare any of our tanks to the flow of a natural reef?

 

With regard to the chemical make up discrepancies of algal exudate, I suppose the ultimate answer would be to turn this inappropriate dissolved organic carbon into particulate organic matter (coral and micro fauna food) before it gets to the display. There could be several ways of doing this. Bio balls in the bottom of the ATS chamber may provide enough bacterial area for some benefit, or a good sized rubble pile in a sump or perhaps a skimmer filled up with spare screening material like this but with lots more screen material;

 

Thats impossible to simulate in a tank. I do have enough that it blows sand a touch and I need to spread it back every now and then which is about every 30 days if the clown or goby does not do it for me as they usually do. I figure that stuff that settles is food for something just as in the ocean, nothing goes unused.

 

Growing bacteria and it's predators and hence bacterial aggregates and micro fauna from Dissolved Organic Compounds. Zooxanthellae mainly produce sugars (the aforementioned reef DOC's) to power corals but not enough protein material to grow corals as I understand it. Therefore they need high protein foods to suppliment the zooxanthellae, which mainly supply energy, not protein.

 

Here's a good guide; not read it for a few years myself
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-07/eb/index.php

 

There really is little about our captive systems that resembles a natural reef. Sure we have some of the same basic life and biological mechanisms, but their interactions is vastly different in many (most) ways due to the differences in scale.

Turky baster bad? I am not going to weigh deeply into the debate other than to say that my for over 5 years my "non basted" reef thrived.... I would have argued with anybody who questioned my methodology, but at year 6 that came to a crashing halt. 2 Years later I am still fighting the aftermath (phosphate sequestration at a grand scale) of my husbandry practices. 6 months of GFO, lanthanum Chloride and counltess water changes did little to reverse the course. What atually helped? Placing 10 micron filter socks on the overflows and using power heads to blow off the rocks several times a day for a week. The amount of detritus recovered was stunning. Mind you, my display tank has tons of flow and detritus (piles of it) accumulates in lower flow area of the sump (where it is removed).

Did I harm other mechnaisms? I dunno... but for 6 years I never blew of my rocks (display or sump) and it is now a regular part of my maintenance.

 

Bud is a geat guy and it appears he has worked very hard to put this together.

There are numerous (countless) routes to a long term healthy system, the hard part is find that route (combination of methods) that yields perpetual success. Each of the countless filtration methods has pros and cons that have to be considered. The problem many of us have is that we settle on a system that appears to work, only to find out years later that we neglected to realize or account for a (obvious after the "crash") hole in our methodology. To that point (pre crash) we will argue our method is flawless, even if we do acknowledge other methods as being suitable as well. The longer the "good" run, the more emboldened we become. I am (was) in that boat. I will say that in my opinion, there is no "single" export method that is soley viable for perpetual success. I am firmly of the mindset that it takes a combination of methods (again depenendent on many variables including tank load, topology, husbandry schedules, practices etc.)

For 5 years I had a refugium with cheato. It was a detritus trap as well as a macro farm. When I took it offline (in an effort to combat the growing phosphate problem by ridding my system of detritus traps) my nitrates skyrocketed. Shortly after, I added an dump tray style scrubber (2 12"x12" screens). The scubber dropped the nitrates quickly and the coral is again (mostly) thriving in my system. The scrubber appears to be doing a much better job than the refiugium did, but I still have a large phosphate problem that I continue to combat. My display (within the last 4 weeks) has started to get overrun with GHA. I will likely be replacing the dump style scrubber with a waterfall type and moving to LEDs.

Each of our system is different. I personally don't see the harm in blowing off rocks, as I am certain that much of my long term problem (other than habitual and rampant overfeeding) was detritus accumulation and lack of mechanical filtration. Even in a "clean" system, it is amazing how much brown gunk can clog a filter sock or sponge in a matter of hours....

Ignoring the fact that their overflows are very undersized with regard to surface skimming (they are small and have teeth), I am not a glass holes fan by any measure simply because they have been less than flattering when asked by [their] customers about implementing my design with their products. But, yes, you could use their internal box and attach it to an external that incorporates my standpipe design. You however would be MUCH better off, just build your own internal box, making it as wide as possible. You could also make it shallower (front to back) to take up less realestate and go without teeth to maximize surface skimming and reduce noise.