Ron Shimek's recent article

[Tomzpc]

I'm curious what the rest of you guys in the area think of the latest article in Reefkeeping mag by Ron Shimek.

There's an interesting discussion going on here (http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=368302&perpage=25&pagenumber=1) that has some expert opinions weighing in.

Personally, I think that many of his points are just silly, for lack of a better word to describe them. He's still too fixed in his ways regarding deep sand beds (which cause more harm than good IMO) and now this? It's fine to challenge accepted beliefs and practices but I don't see anything in his article to suggest that he might be correct. I do, however, agree with the notion that most biological filtration occurs on surfaces and that the use of live rock is overstated(in terms of the amounts that we use in our systems), but to suggest that there is more filtration from a sand bed than by the rock in our tanks makes no sense to me.

[Meisen]

Umm well he is trying to substantiate what hes saying with data. Gotta love the guy for always questioning things.....isnt that the true nature of science? He does come up with some strange ideas but I personally love reading his stuff, even if its just to get my brain working a little bit.

I guess you (or he or anyone) could set up several identical reefs, some with only a sand bed and some with only live rock to see what happens over the long haul. I personally would expect both setups to do ok, surprising the heck out of everyone but I dont have the money or the space to do it.....

[skearse]

The only thing that I would throw into the mix would be the amount of surface area that the rock actually adds for the bio-filtration processes. For a given tank size, a sand bed (DSB or otherwise) is going to essentially give you available surface area equivalent to the length of the tank my the width of the tank (i.e, the area of the tank bottom). By adding LR, you are able to add to that area the vertical profile (ie, that visible from the front, sides & back of the tank) of the LR that projects off the sand bed, which would then significantly increase the total amount of area for bio-processing on the active surfaces, which then in turn adds to the amount of bio-load that the tank can support.

Again, this is only working with the supposition that bio-activity takes place on the surafces of the LR/sand, and not in the depths of either.

[andro]

I don't have much to add to this, but I always wondered when our rock gets covered in coraline algae then it lessenes the pores and essentially seals the rock, thus hindering filtration.

-Ian