[reefkprZ]

Quote: Originally Posted by ShaunW BTW I do have a day job that keeps me very busy, so if you do want an answer specific from me you would have to display patience or PM me directly.

I do understand that you have a job that keeps you busy. I figured anyone would understand that I wasnt pressing when I stated "I'm not in a rush, I'm just curious" the other parts of my posts were to try and get other members involved.
you seem a little offended, and I am sorry if you are, though absolutly no offense was intended and I dont know how I did it.

[ShaunW]

Quote: Originally Posted by reefkprZ you seem a little offended, and I am sorry if you are, though absolutly no offense was intended and I dont know how I did it.

I am not offended at all, . Please don't take that away from my post. I am really happy to discuss microbiology.

My post above is just stating the fact that during the day I do academic research (microbiology) at Cornell University and often find it difficult to find the time to get on MR.

	Manhattan Reefs Manhattan Reefs, the best aquarium community on Planet Earth!

[ShaunW]

Quote: Originally Posted by reefkprZ I ran an unnofficial/very unscientific expiriment some months ago to see if I could visually notice a difference in my tank from week to week while running my skimmer on one week and off the next. in the corals I did not notice ANy difference that I could pick out. the only visible difference was my front glass seemed to aquire the "film of obscurity" quicker by about half a day to a day towards the end of the skimmerless week. I would guess due to a slow build up of available phosphates to be consumed. I then ran skimmer-less for an entire month (due to a skimmer malfunction that I was to lazy to repair). I did not notice any difference in the appearance of my tank and inhabitants other than the aforementioned "film of obscurity" having to be cleared every day instead of every 3-4 days at the end of the month.

I am not sure how old you tank is, but once a reef tank has cycled with nitrite undetectable, the bacterial population has become established. From there it will obviously fluctuate with different species gaining greater space and venturing into new niches while others will lose out. But in general once the establishment has been made and the conditions within stabilized (temp, light cycle, nutrients, etc) the population will also stabilize. So my point is that I don't think that running skimmerless or not will make very little difference with all things being equal (no changes in nutrients). Now if you were to run skimmerless and provide a C-source or have a nitrate or phosphate spike then the effects would be different.

The interesting question is how long does it take and really how dynamic is the bacterial population over time? My belief is that it doesn't stabilize completely until the tank is really mature, i.e. more than 2 years old and much of the surface area within is established with either coral or bacterial biofilms. This is why "old" tanks are always more healthy.

[ShaunW]

I posted this elsewhere concerning SPS health, but in terms of bacterial population dynamics and flux the Redfield ratio IMO affects it greatly. Especially within an aquarium, since nutrient conditions can change rapidly.

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/...-up-sps-8.html

Many of the quick fixes in the hobby such as vodka dosing and amino acid additions are really just manual adjustment to the inorganic ratio with the hope of changing the organic.

I realize that this thread is about bacterial removal by skimmers, but everything is related IMO and talking about one thing can't be done without discussing the whole system from a bacterial point of view.

	SPS Small Polyped Scleractinians - Sometimes known as Small Polyped Stony corals. These are hard corals that have extremely small polyps. They are typically on the difficult side and require Metal Halide lighting or dense Power Compact or T5 arrays. These corals are prized for their rareness and ability to be easily fragged into multiple colonies.

[reefkprZ]

I agree, I want to focus on the organic portion not nescesarily just bacteria, but as needs may demand we delve into other subjects to clarify or make a broader veiw of the subject. I have a pretty comprehensive list of what elements a skimmer is capable of removing in trace and large amounts, but it seems the organic side is still pretty vague even among experts. obviously individual tanks with their own developed systems will have different availabilities of various strains of organism.

I wonder if running a skimmer may actually dictate (in part) weather ceartain species of microfauna or bacteria dominate, if one species is very hardy but very prone to getting skimmed, its not going to fare very well in a heavily skimmed tank, and a maybe weaker strand may come out dominant by it resistance to skimming, or maybe it would take the "skimm prone" species longer to fully establish. (yes these are the weird little things that keep me up at night)

I have to admit my strengths lie mostly in coral propagation, not bacterial strains other than the occasional mention of the petri dish that our corals are with vibrio and pseudomonas and such on them to make others aware of the very real caution they should use when handeling corals. I really know very little solid about the bacteria that are in our tanks. I am familiar with the nitrogen cycle etc.

[reefkprZ]

Quote: Originally Posted by ShaunW The interesting question is how long does it take and really how dynamic is the bacterial population over time? My belief is that it doesn't stabilize completely until the tank is really mature, i.e. more than 2 years old and much of the surface area within is established with either coral or bacterial biofilms. This is why "old" tanks are always more healthy.

I would have to say at minimum it takes about a year of very little change for a tank to become mature. a tank cant really fully balance out untill things stop changing dramaticaly. I.E. once you've reached the full amount of LR your going to add maturing really begins, as long as you keep building up LR your adding more area, more bacterial strains, microfauna, macrofauna, microalgae, macroalgaes etc this all has to balance out into dominant populations. and like you said after about 2 years a tank can generally considered mature because the most dramatic changes usually happen with the first year as well as nutrient influx and export becomes habitual or, maybe better said the tanks owner falls into a semi-ritual of habit for the care of their tank. interest in tanks tend to wax or wane depending on the person after a year a person generally falls into about the habits they are going to keep for the duration (this is a generalization of course), so once things all hit an even stride, the persons feeding habits, fish population (bioload), waterchange habits, equipment maintinence, a tank truly matures obviously its maturing the whole time, but once a tank truly begins to stabilize, the maturation process accellerates.

honestly I think overall the dynamics of bacteria diminishes over time as well as biodiversity of microfauna, this is one reason I have always kept the habit of replacing one large rock every couple of months to keep introducing new populations of microfauna, bacteria etc, to keep my biodiversity higher even if only for a short time. As the strongest tend to survive, the strongest may not be the most efficient detritivors, but simply the hardiest.

thanks for providing those links. I tend to research the heck right out of any new information I find, unfortunatly a lot of the info I want is under lock and key at research institutes and constantly run into brick walls when i find the info I want is going to cost 14$ just to read an article that may or may not actually be what I am looking for.

[ShaunW]

Quote: Originally Posted by reefkprZ I have a pretty comprehensive list of what elements a skimmer is capable of removing in trace and large amounts, but it seems the organic side is still pretty vague even among experts. obviously individual tanks with their own developed systems will have different availabilities of various strains of organism.

Could you list out what you have found? other than this info below?
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...ture/index.php

Quote: Originally Posted by reefkprZ I wonder if running a skimmer may actually dictate (in part) weather ceartain species of microfauna or bacteria dominate, if one species is very hardy but very prone to getting skimmed, its not going to fare very well in a heavily skimmed tank, and a maybe weaker strand may come out dominant by it resistance to skimming, or maybe it would take the "skimm prone" species longer to fully establish. (yes these are the weird little things that keep me up at night)

My personal belief, and since nobody knows it is just speculation, is that bacteria don't get removed by skimmers as efficiently as aquarists believe. They are neutrally charged, hydrophilic and small (1 micron). Since foam fractionation are most efficient at removing charged, amphipathic and/or hydrophobic molecules, bacteria not being this way would not be easily removed.

[ShaunW]

Quote: Originally Posted by reefkprZ honestly I think overall the dynamics of bacteria diminishes over time as well as biodiversity of microfauna, this is one reason I have always kept the habit of replacing one large rock every couple of months to keep introducing new populations of microfauna, bacteria etc, to keep my biodiversity higher even if only for a short time. As the strongest tend to survive, the strongest may not be the most efficient detritivors, but simply the hardiest.

I actually believe the opposite. Once the tank is established doesn't necessarily mean the the total bacterial population isn't changing dynamically over time.

Let talk about a reef tank that has a deep sand bed, live rock that isn't removed or added too, 2 years old, mixed reef with SPS, LPS, zoos and xenia. After two years the DSB will be established with Facultative anaerobes and strict anaerobic bacteria. Nitrate will start to be released to the system and the DSB is converting it to nitrogen gas. In terms of bacteria population, it will flux according to the available nutrients. The greatest restriction on this flux is surface area for bacteria to attach too. However, bacteria have relationships with corals. SPS corals have more bacteria per unit volume than that of the water column in the wild. Therefore the coral mass represents a HUGE source of bacterial activity and mass and can IMO substitute for even a DSB in nitrate recycling if enough SPS corals are present.

So as the aquarium grows in terms of corals, the bacterial population itself is also going to grow.

Quote: Originally Posted by reefkprZ thanks for providing those links. I tend to research the heck right out of any new information I find, unfortunatly a lot of the info I want is under lock and key at research institutes and constantly run into brick walls when i find the info I want is going to cost 14$ just to read an article that may or may not actually be what I am looking for.

My pleasure, .

	SPS Small Polyped Scleractinians - Sometimes known as Small Polyped Stony corals. These are hard corals that have extremely small polyps. They are typically on the difficult side and require Metal Halide lighting or dense Power Compact or T5 arrays. These corals are prized for their rareness and ability to be easily fragged into multiple colonies.

	LPS Large Polyped Stony corals – In the aquarium hobby this is a common division of the species of stony corals based upon the visual assessment of the size of the polyps. Corals in this category were among the first stony corals to be kept successfully in captivity and include many very beautiful species. Commonly kept Genera include Euphyllia (hammer/frogspawn coral), Favia (brain coral), Plerogyra (bubble coral), Lobophyllia (meat/tooth coral), and Caulastrea (candycane coral). LPS corals also include the popular solitary non-colonial stony corals such as Fungia (plate coral), Cynarina (button coral), Trachyphyllia (open brain coral), and Herpolitha (tongue coral). Like their SPS counterparts, LPS corals require good water quality, intense lighting of the appropriate spectrum, adequate water movement and regular supplementation of calcium.

[reefkprZ]

I think I misspoke when i said dynamics of bacteria diminishes.

I wasnt implying that bacterial numbers diminish, as you said the numbers wax and wane due to available nutrients. I was trying to say that possibly diversification diminishes, out of 24,000 (random number) strains of bacteria in one tank after say two years the strongest 20,000 will still be there while the weakest 4,000 will have died out being overtaken by the stronger strains. a DSb in a reef will of course take longer to mature as it has more surface area overall to colonize as well as differing environments. same thing with microfauna say, tiger amphipods, they corner an ceartain ecological nich in our tanks a weaker amphipod introduced at the same time may compete for a while but due to standard fluctuations in our tanks as well as competition from the tiger amphipods ends up dying out completly.

IE say in a fish tank you put two gold fish (bacterial strain a) and two guppies (bacterial strain b). at first neither really dominates but the goldfish being hardier has a better chance at survival, while the guppies can out breed the goldfish. eventually the gold fish may be the only fish in the tank due to its ability to outgrow and consume the guppy no matter how many babies it has. see what I'm saying.

or am i way off base here, and bacterial strains keep diversifying over time? (this is the type of info I am really looking for)