why is change so difficult to accept

[george81]

Originally posted by phenom5
It's not that I dislike change, but I guess I'm in the if it ain't broke camp. I've been relatively successful doing things the way that I have been doing them for several years. Why would I go out and spend good money on the new, latest & greatest piece of equipment, or additive? To fix something that doesn't need fixing? No thanks.



No offense intended George, but I really dislike this argument. The differences between our tanks and the ocean are so vast, it's really apples to elephants. Sure, we try to emulate the ocean environment to the best of our abilities, but until we have tanks filled with a bagillion gallons of water, with a bagillion tons of sand, we aren't even close.

well....ummmm...whether or not a bagillion tons of sand...a bigillion tons of water or not denitrifying bacteria if given the right conditions will grow and take care of nitrates........i have seen many beautiful tanks that have zero nitrate issues because they have 1.5-2 lbs of porous live rock and utilize a deep sand bed..a refugium.. corals..mother nature will do it for you...everything in this hobby take time. like Eric Borneman says There are two major keys to success with reef aquaria:. Quarantine and Patience. The end (But, reading, light, food, and water flow don't hurt either)"

and the water change...while it is a good point.....when you do a water change you replenish what is absorbed out of the water....nutrient export is a benifit of water changes. my argument of natural was toward filtration and against stuff like sulfur..vodka...sugar.....and it can and has been done....

[phenom5]

well....ummmm...whether or not a bagillion tons of sand...a bigillion tons of water or not denitrifying bacteria if given the right conditions will grow and take care of nitrates........i have seen many beautiful tanks that have zero nitrate issues because they have 1.5-2 lbs of porous live rock and utilize a deep sand bed..a refugium.. corals..mother nature will do it for you...everything in this hobby take time. like Eric Borneman says There are two major keys to success with reef aquaria:. Quarantine and Patience. The end (But, reading, light, food, and water flow don't hurt either)"

I agree with a lot of things that you've said, I think this is a case of me not properly expressing myself. Here's the point that you lost me...

ets see.....has anyone seen that huge man made denitirfire in the ocean? i must have missed it........the denitrifier i see is liverock, sand and a perfectly balanced ecosystem. what we should all be striving to achieve with our tanks.

IMHO your logic in that is flawed. Your trying to compare our tanks to the ocean, which is not fair given the huge differences between the two. By that logic, would you make the same statements about protein skimmers? I've been to plenty of beaches...and dove plenty of reefs, but I've still yet to see a giant skimmer for the ocean. But I have seen lots of skimmate on those beaches. My point is, sometimes we have to use man-made "band-aids" to help us achieve our goal of emulating what mother nature does. Not that I'm endorsing or a condemning the use of di-nitratrafiers...no experience with them.

Cheers

[capn_hylinur]

Originally posted by greenbean36191
No. I didn't mean that the method is dangerous, though some others are. I meant the people who come up with the methods are dangerous. They read a tiny snippet of something that gives them a bright idea for some new method, but they don't do much research on the limitations or possible side effects. Someone read that mangroves are important for keeping water quality good for reefs and mangrove filters became all the rage even though they're of very little use in captivity. "Cryptic zone filtration" was just another example.

Basically I see new methods as useless/dangerous until proven otherwise (and a lot of times we already know the answer before a method makes its debut in the hobby). If that makes me resistant to change, that's fine. It also makes me resistant to killing my corals or wasting my money throwing new junk in the tank.

Well said as usual---and I think alot of the new "junk" are the result of the luring of the commercial side of this hobby.
Since I have stayed out of the LFS and spent more time on RC I have learned alot and developed more patience and appreciation of what I have.

Re: mangroves and "natural methods--would appreciate any input you have on these two threads:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1207565

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1258496

[Paul B]

Stubborn old salts may really just be the people that remember why people stopped doing things that way in the first place

Excuse me! Check Please.

Anyway I may be the "Oldest Salt" here. I have been keeping fish for almost 60 years and breeding them for 50.
I also remember when everything in this hobby was introduced. I have tried many of the products from the first Sanders counter current skimmer (Moses lent me his) to a calcium reactor.
I remember when people started feeding garlic and adding cleaner shrimp for ick. (and I don't remember much of anything)
I also run a UG filter but not like it was used in fresh water. I did change and run it very differently now as after many years of experimentation I found a better way to do it. I ran something like bio balls in the sixtees and they are still the most efficient method of converting ammonia albeit not the best way for our needs. This method has been used for sewage treatment for many decades and still is.
There is an almost unlimited number of items for sale that are intended to be an advantage to the health of our animals.
It seems that even with all of these "miracles" the same amount of people are having large problems and leaving the hobby. You would thing that with "Reef safe" ich cures, hair algae eliminators, de nitrates, calcium adders, phosphate reducers, 20,000K lamps, garlic, purple up, UV sterilizers, RO/DI, Chemi Clean, Red Slime Remover, Cyano Cure, Reef Crystals, refractometers, etc. that everyone would have SPS corals growing up their walls. But the truth is that although there are vastly more people in the hobby today as there were before these items were available and they still have the same problems. Just look up "Ich" or "Hair algae". People still add garlic or coral banded shrimp for ich, some people load up their reefs with snails to "eliminate" algae. These "cures" all work at times which is the reason these myths persist. The truth about ich and hair algae is that many times it disappears on it's own. How do I know? I have been getting cycles of hair algae for 30 years,
it has always gone away with no snails or sea hares.
Ich is tougher. It goes away in my tank as it always has but I know many people have problems with it.
This thread is about change, but I think the healthiest tanks are the ones that rely on the simpliest fact. Basically the owner of the tank has a real love for this hobby and more attention is spent on the basics like fresh or live food and compatible tankmates then new technology. If you know where your animals come from or better yet if you were able to observe them in the sea, you could more easily take care of their needs. There is a reason why you don't see all types of corals in the same place, why some areas are mainly only SPS corals and some areas harbor only anemones. Whatever these minor differences are, they also exist in our tanks in the form of circulation, lighting, plankton etc.
I was lucky enough to dive with moorish Idols in the South Pacific and from those few hours with them I learned vastly more than I learned from reading about them for 30 years. As a result I was able to keep one for five years. Five years is still dismal as life spans go and the fish died in an accident but I now think I can keep them forever. I believe there should be more emphasis on learning the habits of the animals in the sea so we can try to immitate it in a tank.
Sorry for rambling.
Paul
One more thing, my tank is no where as beautiful as many tanks here. Many of you guys do some really beautiful work and I in no way mean to infer that my "wierd" methods are better. Just different

[sanababit]

60 years huh??, i am deffinetly not going to argue with your post, jk, lol, great post btw