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Adding bacteria from the sea
- Thread starter Paul B
- Start date
Paul B
NJRC Member
Blange, this sounds like a ploy to get me to type all night ;D
I am diatoming my tank now so I have time to rant but we just had a 20 or so page thread on this subject that you are well aware of.
But while we are on the subject, I like it when I read a post and it says,
"my tank just cycled after two weeks and I am ready to put in fish and corals, How many tangs could I add?"
What is this obsession with cycles?, your tank is never cycled. It is only cycled to the extent of the load you put in there to cycle it. If you cycled it with a dead shrimp, then you can safely add a dead shrimp, and it will stay dead :-\
A tank continousely (I can never spell that) cycles to keep up with the load. Even my old tank will grow more bacteria if I add something. The bacteria "we need" only grow in proportion to the load. Everything in the tank is covered in bacteria but it takes time, months, maybe years, to get the correct proportions and that may only happen if we add fresh bacteria. (Yeah there I go again with the adding bacteria)
How many people here have DSBs and still have nitrates? Why is that?
Oh wait, maybe there are not the correct types of bacteria or the right amount.
Maybe the "worms" that roil the substrait croaked or stopped reproducing or maybe they just got bored. I don't really know. ???
We have to stop thinking of bacteria like they are there to help us and they will do that no matter what happens.
Most of those bacteria live out their lives doing other things than converting nitrates.
Some of them make bioluminescence like that u Tube link shows, some make hydrogen sulfide, some make anthrax and plague. Some give you athletes foot.
The reason that not all tanks are or remain healthy is because we don't know how to train all the different types of bacteria to do what we want. We don't even pay them.
If you have nitrates and you are not dumping whole containers of food in your tank, something is wrong. Your bacteria (if you are lucky) should take care of all of your nitrates. If they are not, then you can say that your tank is still not cycled, even if it is ten years old. Thats why we have a nitrogen cycle.
If you are changing 20% of your water every week and you still have nitrates, your DSB is probably doing absolutely nothing. You need to fix something.
If my old UG filter and ancient rocks can process all of the wastes from 30 fish
(along with mud) then everybody's tank with a more modern system should do better. I overfeed the hell out of my tank because many of the fish are small and they are breeding so I want all of them to eat and at any given time I can't find half of the fish.
Most people know that I have a problem with DSBs but thats just me. 27,283 people on here use one and I am the only one with, well, you know.
Anyway, have a great day.
Oh I looked in my reef and I found that I have dozens of tiny snails all over the place.
I don't know where they came from because, I don't have any snails in there that I know of except Long Island Sound mud snails and I have another tank of mud snail babies which these are not.
Wierd.
Oh and Blange, I am older and maybe wierder than you although I don't know how many beer cans, chains, bottles and asphalt rocks you have in your tank
But I guess we both are wierd, wierd is good. 8)
Paul B said:Blange, this sounds like a ploy to get me to type all night ;D
I am diatoming my tank now so I have time to rant but we just had a 20 or so page thread on this subject that you are well aware of.
Oh and Blange, I am older and maybe wierder than you although I don't know how many beer cans, chains, bottles and asphalt rocks you have in your tank
But I guess we both are wierd, wierd is good. 8)
Guilty as charged!
But thankfully you have the energy to post enough detail to make the points I'm usually too tired or busy entertaining my best friend Jack to make.
And that is, this whole reefing thing is a process that constantly changes and there is no one best/right/only way to deal with anything. Bacteria needs to be replenished, UGF's can work better than anything else under the right circumsatnces, good nutrition can save the world!
And BTW, I use to be the only one on the site with a working diatom until you showed up! ;D
Paul B
NJRC Member
Wow, I diden't know you were discussing the greatest skimmer ever made. I would have put my 5' model into the discussion. Of course, it's the greatest skimmer ever made and it cost about eight bucks.
It was built by Urchin Searchin Enterprise which is my company. ;D
I hope you are keeping those blackworms properly and not in the refrigerator like the LFS does ???
You should build a worm keeper like this one. Those worms need shallow moving water and food. You can put them in the refrigerator but they gradully lose their potency.
The only way to get shallow, moving water without using a pump is whit this arrangement.
There is an airline in the left tube that pushes water up the tube, it goes across the device and the worms to go down the tube on the right. There are a few rings of plastic window screen in there to give the worms something to cling to or they would circulate with the water, they may get dizy.
Put a few flakes in there for food which they will not eat but as the flakes rot it will make food for them. They stay fat and healthy.
To collect them just lift one of the screens and swirl it into "Fresh" water.
OK do we want to talk about building rocks from PVC now or is that a different thread :
It was built by Urchin Searchin Enterprise which is my company. ;D
I hope you are keeping those blackworms properly and not in the refrigerator like the LFS does ???
You should build a worm keeper like this one. Those worms need shallow moving water and food. You can put them in the refrigerator but they gradully lose their potency.
The only way to get shallow, moving water without using a pump is whit this arrangement.
There is an airline in the left tube that pushes water up the tube, it goes across the device and the worms to go down the tube on the right. There are a few rings of plastic window screen in there to give the worms something to cling to or they would circulate with the water, they may get dizy
.Put a few flakes in there for food which they will not eat but as the flakes rot it will make food for them. They stay fat and healthy.
To collect them just lift one of the screens and swirl it into "Fresh" water.
OK do we want to talk about building rocks from PVC now or is that a different thread :
blange3 said:
Yes sir Bill. I used to run my tanks like Paul's. Up until about 7 years ago when I discovered RC. From then, I thought I fell well behind in the times. I started adding all these fancy gadgets. They worked good for a few years. I started getting all the rare corals. You know about all the crashes since then.
.This year, I decided to go back to Old School. (without the UGF)I got rid of my reactors. (kalk and calc)Just mixing Kalk in my top-off. Corals never looked better.
Since living across the street from the beach, I've always collected things and added them to my tank, water included. I never even thought of if there were going to be negative or positive effects because I never had a problem. Once a year for about a month, we get this Red Garcia come in. My Tangs have gotten soo fat off this. Snails and hermits, I never run out of.
I went fishing and had a few left over killies. I threw them in my sump. After about a year, they turned into the prettiest yellow fish you ever saw.
The only things I never added were bottles or beer cans. ;D
I'll be setting up my 220gallon soon and thinking instead of using sand in the sump, to use mud in there instead. A friend of mine uses mud and I am impressed.
Paul, I have a pic. of one of my tanks from 30 years ago. (when Polaroid first came out with color film)I had it decorated with bleached corals and a few dyed ones for color. If I come across it, I'll post it.
Mike,
Bringing back the good ole days. I remember when I was young my dad had those bleached / colored corals in his FW tank full of guppies, platys, and mollies. Sometimes the old way is best. Since my upgrade the tank just doesn't seem to be doing well at all. I kind of regret it now but will work it out.
Bringing back the good ole days. I remember when I was young my dad had those bleached / colored corals in his FW tank full of guppies, platys, and mollies. Sometimes the old way is best. Since my upgrade the tank just doesn't seem to be doing well at all. I kind of regret it now but will work it out.
i've thought about the killie thing, has anyone else other than mike done this?
mikem said:
wow---slate bottom!!!! i had 2-- 55 gal slate bottom tanks---both set up with real salt water, taken from belmar, where i got sand, crabs,fish,pipefish,shrimp,baby blowfish,baby flounder---man, i could go on and on
it warms my heart to know that there's a few ' reefers ' out there that had slate bottom tanks, and had ' real ' salt water tanks and collected what they had in their tanks right from the sea.
My plan is to start up another ' real ' salt water tank, but that's not gonna happen till i redo the basement , which should be just about round the corner.
I seined for the fish i had collected for my tanks---killies, stickle back, spering, 4 differnet kinds of shrimp, hermit crabs, fiddler crabs, starfish,mussels,clams---damn---this brings back memories...
i always told my wife that once the basement was redone i would have a real salt water tank, a sea horse tank, a reef tank and a fish only tank---now after reading these past posts, the ich is getting worse---time to start planning!!!!
Paul B
NJRC Member
Mike, nice, I still have some of those dead corals. That tank I showed is still running, that is my reef now, I just transfered it all into a 100 gallon tank.
Those tanks came out in the 1800s, people used to collect ferns and plant them in there. People, especially wimen would walk in the shallow sea and collect fish and crustaceans, but those tanks did not hold water. Then they water proofed them by adding a wooden back and sealing it with tar.
There was no way to seal glass to glass. The slate was used on the bottom because there was no heat in the homes in those days and they used to put candles under the tank to heat it. Those were the first Saltwater tanks and they were in England.
I still collect that stuff ;D But do you know why they originally put slate bottoms on tanks?
Those tanks came out in the 1800s, people used to collect ferns and plant them in there. People, especially wimen would walk in the shallow sea and collect fish and crustaceans, but those tanks did not hold water. Then they water proofed them by adding a wooden back and sealing it with tar.
There was no way to seal glass to glass. The slate was used on the bottom because there was no heat in the homes in those days and they used to put candles under the tank to heat it. Those were the first Saltwater tanks and they were in England.
Paul B said:
didn't know that paul---right now my wife's using those 2 slate bottoms outside as sort of hot plates---when you have parties outside she uses them to put the food on---hot dishes etc---they still come in handy---but are they heavy!!!
i still have my 30 ft long seining net---have'nt used it in a loooooooooooooong time so its probably dry rotted---but hopfully this summer I'll get a tank set up and then go down to belmar and do some collecting.
i have a friend whose boat is docked at brown's marina and during low tide there are a few tide pools with tons of shrimp, small fish,and hermit crabs... a collectors delite!!!! now after reading ALL this talk bout natural salt water tanks---i cant wait