stevelasik
02/28/2005, 01:52 PM
First, I wanted to thank you for writing such an insightful article. It made for some great lunch-break reading.
I've been keeping marine aquariums to some extent for almost 20 years now, and have experienced exactly what you spoke of regarding the temperature & salinity "recommended" by nearly every book and LFS. All of these years, I had no reason to doubt these recommendations, especially considering their consistency among people I considered to be experts (or at the very least were passing along information from reliable sources).
I knew that both a temperature of 76F and specific gravity of 1.022 were lower than natural reef conditions, but was reassured that a lower temperature would "reduce the growth of undesirable types of algae", and a lower salinity would "reduce stress" in captive marine fish.
After reading your "Survivors" article, I decided to gradually adjust the temperture to 81F, and specific gravity to 1.025 in my nano-reef. After just 3 weeks of new conditions, I've noticed a remarkable change in most of the organisms in my tank. The fish & particularly the crabs are more active, the xenia pulse at a higher rate, and all of my soft & hard corals seem fuller. I have a small tree/leather coral (Paralemnalia sp.) that rarely opened before, and now is open and full about 90% of the time.
The biggest difference I noticed is in the animals resiliency after stress. Previously, when I performed a water change the fish became very nervous & darted around, the cleaner shrimp would hide for hours and refuse to eat for a day, and most of the corals would close or shrink up for as long as three days afterward. Since adjusting my temp & salinity, every animal in the tank is back to normal appearance within an hour of changing the water.
It shouldn't be so remarkable that adjusting the two most basic water parameters and placing these animals in conditions closer to their natural origin would create such results. What I cannot understand is why more of the folks responsible for promoting fish & reef keeping have not figured this out? How did these myths ever get started, and why are they so hard to break?
Anyway, thank you again for helping to improve the lives of the hobbyists as well as the animals involved by conveying accurate & scientifically supported information, and I hope more will realize the error of the "old ways".
I've been keeping marine aquariums to some extent for almost 20 years now, and have experienced exactly what you spoke of regarding the temperature & salinity "recommended" by nearly every book and LFS. All of these years, I had no reason to doubt these recommendations, especially considering their consistency among people I considered to be experts (or at the very least were passing along information from reliable sources).
I knew that both a temperature of 76F and specific gravity of 1.022 were lower than natural reef conditions, but was reassured that a lower temperature would "reduce the growth of undesirable types of algae", and a lower salinity would "reduce stress" in captive marine fish.
After reading your "Survivors" article, I decided to gradually adjust the temperture to 81F, and specific gravity to 1.025 in my nano-reef. After just 3 weeks of new conditions, I've noticed a remarkable change in most of the organisms in my tank. The fish & particularly the crabs are more active, the xenia pulse at a higher rate, and all of my soft & hard corals seem fuller. I have a small tree/leather coral (Paralemnalia sp.) that rarely opened before, and now is open and full about 90% of the time.
The biggest difference I noticed is in the animals resiliency after stress. Previously, when I performed a water change the fish became very nervous & darted around, the cleaner shrimp would hide for hours and refuse to eat for a day, and most of the corals would close or shrink up for as long as three days afterward. Since adjusting my temp & salinity, every animal in the tank is back to normal appearance within an hour of changing the water.
It shouldn't be so remarkable that adjusting the two most basic water parameters and placing these animals in conditions closer to their natural origin would create such results. What I cannot understand is why more of the folks responsible for promoting fish & reef keeping have not figured this out? How did these myths ever get started, and why are they so hard to break?
Anyway, thank you again for helping to improve the lives of the hobbyists as well as the animals involved by conveying accurate & scientifically supported information, and I hope more will realize the error of the "old ways".