importance of allowing pod population to mature

[FUA]

Recently I was listening to a podcast of 120gallons.com. The guest speaker, whose name slips me now, was talking about the importance of allowing a tank, along with its beneficials (ie:amphipods, copepods, benthic animals, and bacteria), to mature before adding a single fish or invertabrate. I remember being not less than attacked in a negative fashion for uttering this notion in a previous thread. The fact is nothing happens quickly in a reef tank and I have been running a tank since last spring with a sump without fish or invertabrates. I have a remote DSB with chaeto and a section which I term a bentic zone that is unlit, with an incredible amount of sponces and tunictes thriving. I have so many little critters in the macro algae that I can't even find pictures or descriptions of half of them anywhere. the display portion of the tank is not illuminated so that I don't see any undesirable algaes for the time being.

My point is that awsome things are happening in my tank and it is all do to patience. I've started a few other tanks and it is my feeling that by adding fish prematurely has led to the decimation of any kind of pod population. All I am suggesting is that if you have the patience to try this out and let us know if you have similar results. Obviously this would be a lengthy experiement before any results are noticed so please post from time to time to keep the tread alive. Also, since I know there are probably plenty of people gritting there teeth right now and couldn't disagree with my anymore. I welcome critisicism or opposition of any sort just to keep things interesting. So please post.

andrew

[Sk8r]

My own experience agrees with you: I was fortunate enough on my penultimate setup [moved this spring] to get some really old live rock that wasn't cured. It cycled very fast, and I counted 57 species that rapidly made that tank very, very live. It grew corals like gangbusters, and the fish were healthy.

The move killed my rock [2 week delay in barrels] and I had to start over, and then finally put half-cured rock straight into the tank and just let the skimmer deal with it. Real mess. Ropes of dead slime and inverts. I was so mad I just put it in and skimmed like crazy...figured I might have to wait a while on this one.
Nope. Cycled, again, real fast, week and 3 days, and I'm thinking maybe there were some 'good guys' still alive deep in that rock.

Hard to tell, since I boarded my corals and fish at the lfs, and life came back with them. I lost all but one sps, but all the lfs and soft coral came through.

Just recently, though, I've seen an asterina, a stomatella---I've had tons of micro-brittle-stars since the move-in of the boarded rock. I got several situations under control [kalk/flow management in new setup] and am now just starting to see that surviving sps perk up.

So there are a lot of variables in my situation. But I have a very grungy fuge with hermits and snails [and a couple of lost pistol shrimp from the display] and I regard the return of my small pest sponges and asterinas as a very good sign. The two things that I know survived the semi-cooking? Grape caulerpa [fuge got it] and aiptasia [peps ate it.]

Pods I have plenty of, but I've only seen a couple of amphipods yet, and totally lost my little colony of mysis shrimp [which was inside one rock] and my 4 10" bristleworms---almost all my bristleworms. I'm trying to grow replacements.

Micro dusters I have. But I lost all the vermetids and spirobids [had a lot] and am trying to increase the diversity while having corals and fish...not as easy as increasing it before you get them, imho.

One pest I was glad to lose was the ich parasite---showed up in, of course, a rabbit, very briefly, in, of course, my display: tank ran for 8 more months with no further incidence of ich, despite the exposure of my display tank, and has come through with none ever breaking out in my lfs-boarded fishes. I wonder what happened to the sandbased parasite...whether sandbased life or the corals themselves may have sucked it up, over time. Which is a whole other topic, but I think unwanted parasites and other pests have to be addressed in considering a 'very live' tank. I've, thank goodness, had no flukes, nor cirolanid, any other such pest, show up. But I keep mostly fishes that naturally live close to the sandbed or in the rocks, and they may have natural defenses, compared to the open-water fishes: the mandarin certainly does, with her heavy slime coat.

Just some random thoughts on the goods and ills of tanks with a lot of species.

[FUA]

thanks for your insight, Very interesting sub-topic of the fact that maybe undesirables will flourish in this approach. Glad to hear of all your bio-diversity. Unfortuneatly I was only able to seed dead(dry) rock with maybe just ten percent live-rock. Sounds like your approach witht the un-cured live-rock and heavy skimming coupled with time to mature is the way to go. Reef On!!!!!!

[Logzor]

I agree completely with the need of high tank diversity. I began saltwater just over 4 months ago with a 55 gallon tank.

Here is my tank today:

http://www.cincyreef.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10398

I consider it a decent tank for someone that knew nothing of saltwater reefing 5 months ago.

One of my advantages, I new believe, was that I got my live rock and sand (even some water) from no less than 5 different mature reef tanks. This allowed many different pods, sponges, featherdusters, algaes, and worms to comes together and create a very diverse system and allow me to quickly add corals and fish into the system that I now run, with no sump, that has sps, lps, and softies.

[FUA]

tank looks great logzor. I have considered doing the same thing(getting rock and sand from multilple mature tanks) by trading frags from my tanks.

[Sk8r]

Ha. Very NICE tank, there.

Here's a notion. There would be, perhaps, some benefit to a club from holding a 'rock swap', with everybody to bring a 3 oz rock and trade.

The members would have to swear on a stack of Reefing Magazines that they had had no ich outbreaks, flatworm, or red bug; but I think that members who thus confess might happily TAKE small gifts of diversity from other club members.

Sure, you'd spread some undesirables, but IMHO a very biodiverse tank can survive that handily; you might get a few 'blooms' as some hitherto undergrown specimens hits hog heaven in some other tank... but I think it would be a good thing over all.

Since most clubs tend to cluster around a great lfs, there's already some biological similarity in club tanks, but insofar as people have done a little mail order, there is diversity.

Just a thought.

[FUA]

great thoughts Sk8r, I will bring this idea to my local club cdmas.org

[Sk8r]

Lol! I hope my suggestion doesn't get me lynched as the whole club comes down with unnameable parasites...gotta hope you know who to trust! But in some measure it's no worse than dealing with the average lfs.

[aninjaatemyshoe]

It would be a great idea to swap rock, assuming we're talking about rock that has been properly handled, quarranteened and matured. Garf does something similar with their "reef-grunge."

I think the real problem is that, no matter what you do, the biodiversity will decline in your tank as time goes. As a closed system, you're dealing with less than ideal conditions. Certain species will outcompete others and take over and gradually you will have fewer and fewer species. The problem is worsened when you have things like planktivorous fish and predatory corals that will quickly do away with things like copepods. The only real solution to this is to refresh your tank with new live rock every now and then.

[mokeyz]

The biodiversity does change as a tank ages but not just from time but due to conditions in the tanks parameters. Nutrient blooms will bring back dormant animals and plants, things come and go.

I agree that bringing in new rock helps as does adding "new" live sand to replace erosion. I think a good thing, and I'm going to try it is taking a bit of rock, sand and water from your refugium or tank and setting up a small tank with no "real" predators. Add some chaeto and you should have a continuous supply of flora and fauna to re-supply your main system.

marlene

[Sk8r]

I've been thinking about adding some grunge to my fuge---just out of curiosity to see if there are some species in it I don't have. I can't get the mini-dusters to grow in the tank above---either they don't like much light, or the current is too much up there. But mini-brittle stars I have way many off. They like to snag cyclopeeze out of the current.
Blue sponge, big one, check, one little, maybe sponge, maybe bryozoan.
One vermetid. How did I do that?
One asterina.
One stomatella.
Some sort of yellow sponge in the sump, but not upstairs.
Far more variety of hermits than I'd normally accept, but a knowledgeable reefer sold them to me, and they ARE micros, despite one having a fairly formidable claw. Can't hurt anything.
I want more dove snails.
I know I've got two escaped pistol shrimp down there somewhere.
Haven't seen any spiorbids, however, since the move.