What are major components to stable biological filtration? The BRS/WWC System Ep7 | BRStv

I want in on any thread regarding stability of a filtration system.

Sand paradigm analysis, can't wait to see coming up, beginning now. Thanks for posting, filtration biology is hot topic

So good
I'm linking to sand rinse thread.

You mentioned detritus as a challenge, an issue to consider, which aligns with big threads where we flip/clean/uninvade people's sandbed without killing the tank, I'm in.

You mentioned inability to stop a cycle, only time moderates, I'm in full buy in and I'm only a third through

Solid sound microbiology here.

Finished it, excellent.

Good video!

@gcarroll I was checking out your rockscape in your thread but man it looks nice here.

Very nice presentation and congratulations to the crew at BRS, but let's be frank about this ... there is really nothing new that we haven't known about for +20 years already. Those of us that have been around some time will have read this in books by Calfo, Fenner, Delbeek, Sprung, and Borneman amongst others. Yep, we used to have books back then ;-) .

Streetcred said:

Very nice presentation and congratulations to the crew at BRS, but let's be frank about this ... there is really nothing new that we haven't known about for +20 years already. Those of us that have been around some time will have read this in books by Calfo, Fenner, Delbeek, Sprung, and Borneman amongst others. Yep, we used to have books back then ;-) .

Click to expand...

That is BY FAR my favorite thing about this series. No gimmicky stuff, no super $$$$ extras, just good old fashioned reef practices.

I agree that this is really a back to basics approach so far. I have always found the "Zen approach" to work best for me. It's all about balance.
Regarding sand:
I have always had sand in my tanks, starting with a plenum dsb about 20 or so years ago. That was a super stable, successful setup. I have just torn down my most recent tank, a 10 year old 29 gallon skimmer-less nano-reef. In the end, the sand became too much of a nutrient sink and the tank started to become too unstable.
My lfs has an 800 gallon bare bottom display tank that I didn't like at first, but once the corals started growing in, looks really sharp. So I'm thinking a 33- 90 gallon bare bottom cube for the next tank.

18:46 - we've seen this sand vac tube in the series several times now. I like how narrow it is compared to the one I have. Name? Source?

Example of a thread which will be against the tenets from the video.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/detritus-is-it-as-bad-as-some-make-out.300047/page-9#post-4987476

Every poster above is I love detritus, it doesn’t cause issues, and anyone who says it does isn’t earning their proper portions of marine snow. It’s neat to collect contrasting views on matters to see where we all wind up in five years

It would appear from the video that the most stable component to biofiltration isn’t the actual substrate, it’s the maintenance of it.

Man, I’m caught in the middle. I have to agree with almost everything said, but there’s just something about sand that is so appealing. However, the thought of a white or black Starboard bottom is super tempting. Having powerheads on the bottom of the tank with heavy flow is exciting. Not having to stir the sand...man...decisions decisions!

Ryan or Randy...what is the flat cut rock in the video? I forgot. Looks like Marco. That really make a BB tank appealing.

brandon429 said:

It would appear from the video that the most stable component to biofiltration isn’t the actual substrate, it’s the maintenance of it.

Click to expand...

And what we've generally seen in these types of sand bed maintenance threads is that the larger tanks generally have less, or in some cases even no aquarist maintenance at all. The reason that this works is largely due to the large area for the detritus to settle into (aka 'large nutrient sink') and efficient sand sifting organisms that are possible to keep long term in these larger systems that do the 'heavy lifting', so to speak. So the takeaway for me is that sand bed maintenance is a must, but it's just a matter of 'who is doing it'. Typically, in most mid sized tanks a combination of both the organisms and the aquarist is utilized and in small tanks it's done primarily by aquarist.

Ralph.

Thanks for the video. Enjoyed it. The main takeaway for me was they key words you used success and stability. However, that is pretty hard to measure and we all do it differently. Sort of like how you measure a planet I do like how you suggested if you set up a tank say without substrate then you should consider some other things to compensate. That is pretty well said which gets back to the hobbyist and their need for proper planning and understanding of their end state or goal. If they don't know what they are going to keep with regards to animals and corals then they are already limiting their chances of success. Just how I see it.

Some hot topics covered in the video especially around substrate. I for one lean on the side of using deep sand beds. Always have, always will. If Mother Nature thinks it is important to put in our oceans then it must be OK for my reef. Simple answer I know but back to my comment about understanding the bigger picture of what you plan to keep. Some corals prefer substrate based on their location in the wild such as Elegance corals and clams. It doesn't give one a free pass to ignore it and believe it self maintains but it is part of that reefers responsibility. Back to compensating - I have to think twice before taking a vacuum to my bed due to the amount of life in it such as spaghetti worms.

While I use dry rock (ordered 150 lbs of dry Pukani from you earlier in the year - thank you btw) personally speaking it takes too long to mature and it isn't something I would use ever again let alone recommend. The topic of the video is biological filtration and the use of dry rock, even using products like Dr. Tims, take a long time to mature. While the initial cycle can be accelerated using off the shelf products to process ammonia we all know there is so much more to the biological filter that takes time to establish. Time necessary to spread life, worms, sponges, and other fauna. Often one thinks just because they can process ammonia in 24 hours they are done and can start adding fish and corals. Soon threads are started asking why are fish or corals looking bad or dead. Having used live rock from Fiji years past and dry rock recently I believe it will take a year or two for the dry rock to mature to what I received from Fiji in 2000.

Again - I enjoyed the video and you covered some pretty interesting points while clearly explaining if you do X you need to take Y into consideration. I think that is great.

Edit: I wish in one of the tanks you used live rock from TBS or KP. I think that would have been really worth while since both are aqua cultured and environment friendly.

Enjoyed the video and looking forward to how this all progresses.

Feedback to video content/comments:

1. The video mentioned that in a shallow ~ 1" sand bed turning it over would likely reduce the efficiency of the aerobic bacteria. Due to the process of advection into the substrate (especially in a high-flow SPS type aquarium), I do not see this as an issue even with a fine sand substrate. Not disturbing the upper layer of the substrate in any way (meaning no sand sifting/processing organisms or aquarist vacuuming/stirring, etc.) for an extended period of time would be a concern as it would reduce the advective flow of water into the substrate (due to the clogging with detritus, benthic algae and biofilm), alter the composition/change the ratios of the bacteria populations and reduce the efficiency of the resident bacteria.

2. Photosynthetic corals and their resident zooxanthellae utilize ammonia, but I'm not sure if this has an bearing on the corals' resistance to ammonia buildup (might just a consequence of the physiological differences between cnidarians and fish).

3. Taking a page from the original Berlin setups, larger sand/small rubble could be utilized instead of the typical fine grain sand in fashion today. In these early systems live rock rubble of 3/8"-1/2" was typically used and an Engineer Goby was recommended to help keep the rubble clear of excessive detritus buildup. If I wanted to utilize a loose-type aquarium substrate in an SPS dominated aquarium that wouldn't get blown around in the high-flow environment, I'd consider a coarser sand and/or very small rubble type material and utilize a power vacuum if the tank were too small for larger sand sifting animals.

Ralph.

Heres a topic im interested in knowing for a future video:

Can a macroalgae filter remove the need to cycle the tank?

As in does macroalgae remove ammonia fast enough that waiting for the nitrogen cycle isnt even necessary.

Agreed

brandon429 said:

Example of a thread which will be against the tenets from the video.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/detritus-is-it-as-bad-as-some-make-out.300047/page-9#post-4987476

Every poster above is I love detritus, it doesn’t cause issues, and anyone who says it does isn’t earning their proper portions of marine snow. It’s neat to collect contrasting views on matters to see where we all wind up in five years

Click to expand...

The referenced thread is absolutely *not* "against the tenets from the video".

As discussed ad nauseam, many reefers don't consider detritus as any more "harmful" than nitrate or phosphate or dissolved organic carbon or algae or bacteria or whatever else might accumulate in your tank over time. Detritus is simply another source of carbon - let's call it undissolved organic carbon. Carbon is not bad. People dose carbon. As Ralph just noted above - it is the maintenance and husbandry of the tank that matters. Don't let stuff build up. Anything you let build up in an unbalanced way can be bad. Manual detritus removal by the aquarist may be the best approach for a pico tank. But not always the best approach for a large tank. I have not removed a speck of detritus from my tank in 30 years. I have worms to do that for me. I feel certain the worms will still be on the job 5 years from now.

The video simply notes that it is best not to let detritus build up in a sand bad. That is good advice which I would absolutely agree with. Which is why I have a mostly bare bottom tank. The video does not contradict anything I and others have posted in the linked thread.

Since worms make whole waste pellets and don’t just absorb all they eat into new body mass, i take your statement to mean that since your B.B. tank has strong flow, the detritus you’d normally compile in the corners is caught up in filters and when filters are cleaned, detritus is removed. In thirty years you’d have a brown reef if detritus was never removed

All animals including worms make detritus. Live rock sitting in a white bucket pumps it out into the bucket by the hour as little dark pellets... no animals eat it without contributing more. If you don’t have socks or catch pads for any detritus that browns over time and you clean or remove/replace, for example only water filtration like skimming all these decades, I’m impressed but surely there’s export in some direct physical way? If you are saying you have a method where manual export isn’t required that’s opposite of the video here, the arrangements that break down detritus internally for you indefinitely should be featured. It’s something other than worms though, and it should be a scalable approach where someone with a forty gallon can model it long term. (dilution is doing all the work/claimed/ but you don’t have to go to pico level volume to prove it)

Paul has to clear his detritus stores occasionally using the diatom filter siphoning, like the vid above

To be honest, all I got out of this video is that if you want a lot of flow for SPS corals, you can't have sand.

Otherwise, I don't think learned much new. Also, many people with sand beds don't vacuum them, and have very good success. My sand bed is kept clean with a sand sifting Diamond Goby, a starfish and several Nassarius snails.