Hi Switch..
Earlier I asked a question. It seems that from the following responses, you have provided what I can only assume are your thoughts on the subject.
which goes as follows.
Just one question at this point if i may..
Taking account that the top up on just about any open top tank far exceeds whats exchanged out via water changes over a month/year/years basis....
How does the algae control accumulations of everything thats coming in via your tap water besides N03 and Po4 ?......however hard you try (unless you change out the same as you add in top up on a monthly basis..which is alot)..you are always 'adding' (via using untreated tap water) pollutants, not taking them away..If your water change water is tap water as well, you effectively cancel out any removal.
IE what are the algae's utilisation abilities for the various heavy metals, pesticides, and a whole stack of other contaminants that are found to varying degrees in just about every non purified water source..
If your tap water has high Ca,Mg, levels etc which you are then adding to an already balanced salt mix...how are you then balancing (in the aquarium) core element levels such as the natural oceanic balance between Ca/Alk/Mg....?
ok, so thats a few questions....I lied...:tongue1:
later you replied..
dont know tapwater readings my tank is spotless u have to see it in person old camera y i said a lot of other factors go in to pic not sure how to answer the rest of ur question
And.
no i belive it but 2 plus years using just tap water so i think if i was poisoning my tank stuff would have died by now anyone want to test my tap water
And.
i will see if a lfs will test my tapwater
From what I can make of these responses to various questions, I can see that you haven't really grasped what I'm trying to say. You cant take your water to an LFS to test because they (the same as you) can only test for a very small number of elements (and possible contaminants) in a water sample, be that your tap water or your tank. What I'm talking here is the wide variety of contaminants that you (and the LFS) 'cant' test for that can accumulate to harmfull levels in a closed system from using un-treated water.
Just about any element or compound found in nature can be utilised or tolerated to varying degrees by any organisms present. but most also become a poison or at best harmful at higher concentrations than those normally encounterd...even those we normally consider 'essential' like magnesium....at levels around NSW (approx 1250-1350ppm) most corals are happy....raise those levels in excess of say 1600ppm and you start seeing detrimental effects. The same applies to most other elements...at natural levels, they are are either ignored, tolerated, or actually serve a purpose....at higher levels they start initiating adverse effects.
look up some research on metals, and you'll see factual evidence, that at certain levels some metals actually help the development of protective pigments in corals, at higher levels they can actually inhibit certain pigments so a coral is left unprotected from certain wavelengths or lacks the ability to utilise others..
The point here is that hobbyist test kits arent available for a great many contaminants that can be found in tapwater...so how can you monitor or control them?
In your previous posts on algae scrubbers you have basically said that running an algae scrubber allows you to run a tank on tap water...To make that claim you need 'factual evidence' that algae can utilise and control accumulations of this huge number of variables on an ongoing basis. To date I have never seen any scientific evidence to highlight this possibility. The fact a tank has run without crashing for a couple of years isn't evidence that this is the case either, nor is it a good idea to pass advice along to novices of such a nature, because it omits a huge array of variables such as local source water, sporadic groundworks interrupting and contaminating incoming water supplies, incoming ground toxins from spillages that make their way into pipelines etc....all of these factors and more can spell doom and gloom for any reeftank, no matter what filtration method it is running, be that natural, or artificial.
If anything..naturally filtered systems can actually be 'more' prone to the inhibiting nature of some untestable contaminants than artificially filtered systems because they rely solely on a well functioning balance in bio activity and breakdown...If a toxin gets in that inhibits either bacterial function or algae function you are effectively dead in the water with no form of export or conversion of harmful waste. or it can go the other way...High levels of incoming nutrients can lead to excessive bacterial explosions that can quickly deplete oxygen reserves causing mass fatalities (look up carbon source over dosing)
RO/DI at whatever cost takes away all of those possibilities/risks (or at least, to levels that are feasibly possible to maintain). You use the cost of RO/DI as an argument against using these apparatus, and infer that the professional community and authors etc are just jumping on a bandwagon passing on the same old advice time an time again.
No, they do it because time and time again its been 'proven' to work 'better' in terms of controling water chemistry, and offer more security to your stock than other methods...including ATS which is no 'better' at controling harmfull toxins and accumulations than any other...Hence the advice given.... and quite rightly so when it comes to putting in print advice to others...'fact' is the order of the day in such cases....not fiction, assumption, or opinion based on a single or handull of situations.
Now its rare i ever do this but im going to highlight something to you that is a common problem when people jump on a method, and start claiming that its the best way of running a reef. Or that it does X better than Y, or takes away the need for various equipment etc that is pretty much agreed 'throughout the community' as beneficial or essential, unless a system is specifically desighned and engineerd from the start to run without it.
You say this tank has been running two years without issue using tap water..
Now either....
During that time you have repeatedly swapped out corals etc, or you have a toxin in that system that is inhibiting the growth of your corals, Becouse at two years I'd expect (under normal circumstances) to see much much more growth than shown here.
To highlight..my old 6x2x2
2005..
2007..
What you see here is a simple example of no frills, no potions reefkeeping. Instant ocean salt, good light, heavy feeding, and the use of RO/DI for all incoming water..
Please dont take offence....
What i'm trying to highlight is that 'maybe' your idea of what a successfull reef 'can be' at two years old, isnt quite what you thought it is..
If the corals shown in your images are infact two years old, IME you have issues.... becouse corals grow rapidly under ideal conditions, far faster than shown in your images...
If they 'havent' been in the system for two years, then how can you claim that the use of tapwater hasnt harmed anything?...It hasnt been in there long enough to 'prove anything' either way....
Whilst I do applaud your enthusiasm for the method you have chosen, I'd say be mindfull, that just becouse a method doesnt end in disaster, doesnt mean its better than any other, nore does it mean that everything the pros have been telling you isnt worth the paper its written on. Also be mindfull that when passing on advice that goes against the accepted norms you have to think outside your own situation..that advice or opinion may be more detrimental than helpfull in many cases.
This has been proven with much of Santamonica's ramblings i'm affraid...There is some very good infoirmation there, but its also spatterd with innacuracies (some quite severe) and (to be quite honest) weak arguments against the use of certain equipment as though there is some huge conspracy...I know becouse ive had ramblings with him myself over some of these innacuracies, some of which he argued and got provenn wrong, others he simply ignored and refused to answer..
The truth is...There isnt any conspiracy, nor is there a single proffesional out there saying a skimmer is essential. Its just that its been shown and 'proven' over a great many years to have far more advantages than drawbacks if you want a successfull reef, to the degree its recommended as standard...there is no harm in that premis, and hence no need to go on the warpath to discredit the method (unless the origionator of the alternate method has an agenda themselves that is)
Instead of ATS being talked about in its own right as just another 'method' of nutrient control, its been turned into a battle with other methods..and an unessesery battle at that.
I could equally start a thread across the net saying that you can run a reef with No Skimmer, No ATS, No mechanical filtration, No carbon, No carbon dosing...etc etc...I know from a great many years playing with reeftanks that it can be done, but just becouse it can, doesnt mean that the money it saves on equipment makes it 'better' than other methods.
regards
Edit: for the record, most people who know me or have been to my presentations know that im a big advocate of natural filtration methods be that DSB, SSB, Cryptic zones, ATS, reed beds, and refugiums etc, and there arnt many i havent tried...so im by no means part of the skimmer essential brigade...but, i still advise thier use under most circumstances on average systems unless the user has a good understanding of natural processes, nutrient pathways, and has seen first hand what equates to a thriving reef, over a 'surviving' reef.
And for the record, I am not anti turf scrubber in the least. As noted earlier in the thread I run several non-skimmed full blown reefs myself (though not with scrubbers), but I'd NEVER recommend this approach to anyone remotely new to the hobby.
