To clarify above statement on why nitrification / surface area filters aren’t impacting your water change frequency: our water changes in reefing are aimed at either replenishing lost components of newly made water or exporting waste components that are well past the free ammonia stage of filtration, usually both reasons set our intervention dates.
any reef tank here handles it’s current ammonia-producing bioload just fine on the rocks alone, nobody here in display reefs are doing water changes in response to rising ammonia. Same for nitrite
having bioballs or high surface area filters isn’t changing ammonia controls in reefing, the rates of turnover are the same in the tank with or without filters (any seneye owner knows this) as long as the display has strong current and the live rocks are set in the display, directly in the contact area.
regarding nitrate, excess surface area filters sometimes trap and retain detritus in highly oxygenated canisters or HOB filters: nitrate isn’t consumed in these filters and in many cases they may produce more for the system if cleaning of the filters is less common than water changes or not very thorough when cleaned.
using pass through filters to hold GFO or specific adsorption media for nitrate may indeed affect water change frequency, just not media floss or bioballs or siporax media or any high surface area media designed for nitrification, thats a constant which runs independent of the attached filters.
Loftreef’s rebuild shot shows the power of live rock very well: does not require fifteen pounds, two good chunks will run any degree of fish and corals and cuc that can reasonably fit into the scape. The rocks are right in the middle of wastewater production, contact area, there’s strong flow. That reef could have three external filters hooked up to it right now ran for two years, instantly get disconnected plus the sandbed removed, and the rocks are still beyond what the tank needs to convert all ammonia on any seneye. These claims are in direct opposition to how we’ve been trained but that’s the night and day difference between old and new cycling science. We all have been trained to constantly assume bacteria are in insufficient numbers, so we buy more.
old cycling science would never never ever state that instantly disconnecting filters has no effect on systemic ammonia conversion rates in reefing
but we’ve got to forgive them, they’re using pre seneye data. Before seneye, every .25 reading seen in ammonia testing (all of them lol) meant a quarter of the bacteria were dead. the replacements had to come from somewhere, so bottle bac sellers met the concern.
Loftreef’s clean, restored surface area nano runs .002-.009 ppm nh3 on seneye, with or without filters, with or without sand, and so does any other display tank using common live rock in the display. Because of this linked performance in all reefs, we are free to design them uniquely or in our case here, clean them uniquely and know the outcome ability even if seneye isn’t present.
After cleaning, your reef will run the same range but only on seneye; the other kits most likely will overread and tempt the purchase of more bacteria.
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