Escaping Old Tank Syndrome

[Reefin Dude]

Geoff This is you isn't it?

;Facepalm

G~

 

[User1]

One thing to consider is that most people treat the substrate, whatever media type, has an accessory or beauty thing rather than a part of the ecosystem. As above, so below is how I look at it. Treat it has part of the system and there will be no OTS. Plain and simple.

 

[Newb73]

Keeping your sand bed clean and rocks clean makes a lot of sense. My reef is still very young, only 2 months, but I do 2 gallon water changes every week, and vacuum sand bed and blow out rocks every water change. However, I think there is still merit to be had in the discussion that metals cause it. If you think about it, as @shred5 says, our equipment, as it detiorates, which even the best will do, has to go somewhere. And if you do small water changes, your never going to do anything to get those nutrients out. A 10% water will dilute it by 10%, which is negiligible. I think mabye combining both, doing a large - 75% water change once a year to basically restart your system, and then keeping everything clean may be a good practice.

Didn't RHF write up a study where doing even 1% per day achieved a dilution of dissolved content by almost 50% over 2 months??

 

[Mal Cameron]

It seems to me that old tank syndrome probably starts around 10 years. Thats how old my 400 lt tank has been running. No problems until more recently with elevated nitrate readings (25+) when previously always around zero. I do 30% water changes every 2 weeks and have been using a new product in Australia for nitrate reduction which seems to have worked. Been in th e hobby on and off since 1972 and can definitely say its easier than ever these days to be in marines. Cheers

 

[Reefin Dude]

One thing to consider is that most people treat the substrate, whatever media type, has an accessory or beauty thing rather than a part of the ecosystem. As above, so below is how I look at it. Treat it has part of the system and there will be no OTS. Plain and simple.

unfortunately. even if it is used for decoration only. it will still be a nutrient sink and regular maintenance will need to be done on it.

if you are saying clean it like your front glass on occasion, than yes, it is that simple.

G~

 

[shred5]

It seems to me that old tank syndrome probably starts around 10 years. Thats how old my 400 lt tank has been running. No problems until more recently with elevated nitrate readings (25+) when previously always around zero. I do 30% water changes every 2 weeks and have been using a new product in Australia for nitrate reduction which seems to have worked. Been in th e hobby on and off since 1972 and can definitely say its easier than ever these days to be in marines. Cheers

Been around lot longer than 10 years.. Shimek wrote about it in 2003 and he was not the first but it is the first reference of it that I found quickly on the internet.

still trying to blame metals.

about as long as it takes for a substrate to no longer be able to migrate detritus downward. becomes full. clogging the flow of easily available C.

G~

Just so you know I think it can be allot of things I just think part of the equation in heavy metals. Julian did a presentation on this once and brought up allot of things that could be part of it also ...Some of it I agree with others I do not because they are just causes of plain old crash not old tank syndrome.

;Facepalm

G~

Not sure what that means?

 

[Paul B]

I just had a thought... it may be stupid, but old tank syndrome happens when the small amount of elements start building up when we don't do large water changes, right? So, to escape this, should I set a schedule to do a large - 50% or more water change every 6 months? Or, mabye more often. Of course, you could always send in a Triton test but, this may be cheaper. Is it harmful to the livestock? Corals, fish, inverts, ect.

No, No, and No No. I have not found elements to build up and I think detritus is awesome.

The secret to controlling OTS lies in pico and nano reef studies where it doesn’t take ten yrs to show the effects of waste compounding and live rocks being plugged up with detritus.

This may be true, my Pico, mini Nano tank crashed in an hour due to a romane lettuce bloom that I fought for about 30 minutes. The tank used ozone, lighted refugium, skimmer and vodka dosine and even had a pod for a CUC

Paul Bs fifty year tank is a measure in OTS and myriad offsets it takes to get that old in a larger system, everything he does including diatom filtering, RUGF, constantly refreshing pods from the ocean, the e20yrs full take down bed cleaning, the ATS system in place, all of it is detritus mgmnt even if he’s about to disagree with me

I do not disagree with you. But I do think detritus is needed for a successful tank, along with a reverse undergravel system of course. If you run a DSB, figure on maybe a 12 year lifespan if the stars are with you and you fill the tank with four leaf clovers and rabbits feet.

Cool, it is great to see that reefing may finally be getting out of the dark ages of the early 2000's.

G~

2000's, I have socks older than that. I have them on now.

Several Authors think old tank syndrome is due to heavy metal build up.. I have had several conversation with Ron Shimek on this and I tend to agree. Some of them will bind and release after a while.

Ron and I started in this hobby the same year and I have always and still do totally disagree with that metal theory. Even though he has more degrees than a thermometer and I am a lug nut.
I have been collecting my water for decades in the Long Island Sound which has so many metals that you can't walk near it carrying a magnet or you will be instantly dragged into the water.
I probably still have some water in my tank from the 60s and maybe the 50s as my tank evolved from fresh to brackish to full salt and I don't remember ever totally emptying it and using new water.
My gravel has been there from the 60s at least as are some of my rocks. If metals didn't acumulate in my tank yet, i don't see it as a problem especially for people who use all RO/DI water and ASW.

No, the red growth on the rocks here is not cyano. That is a red algae that covers everything in the Long Island Sound and that is from the water there.

I started my tank with water from near here. See any metal?

Nothing wrong with water changes. How many people have said their tank look better after a water change?

I think that if your tank looks better after a water change something is severely wrong with your water. If your water degrades enough that you can see a change, that is IMO a tank ready to crash. I change about 20% of my water 4 or 5 times a year and I don't notice anything. The creatures look better for a while just because it stirs up the tank and brings out more food for the microscope eaters.

How old does a tank need to be to suffer from it? I think OTS is a fancy term for I'm too lazy to do anything to my tank and it crashed syndrome.

50 years and I agree with the lazy part. Unless you have a DSB, then forgetaboutit ;Drowning

When is the last time anyone saw a tank 15 to 20 years old

The last time I turned around!

Pauls offsets are awesome, I just can't get him to clearly state that storing detritus is a risk though I see bigtime work on his old tank to get detritus out. his writing confuses me a little, it wouldn't if he simply wrote "the reason my tank is fifty years old is due to how I manage detritus and its impacts"

Hello Brandon. I don't simply state anything because that would imply that there is one simple answer and I only know what I do and can't confirm that what anyone else does is bad. Maybe some of my practices are really bad but some other practices are so good that they overshadow the bad. I really don't know. But being i didn't go to college I have a lot of room in my bald head for common sense. My reverse UG filter allows oxygen to flow to all parts of my tank, nourishing the bacteria and other microscope creatures that live all the way down under the gravel and the bare space under there. Those lifeforms (like they say in Star Trek) are the heart of my tank and are supported in full only by having a RUGF. This was demonstrated in the fiftees by my mentor Robert Straughn but He didn't fully recognize the full function of a UG filter.
Detritus, in moderation is actually "needed" and not something to be cleaned out. But if you have a "regular" tank with any other substrate, you will see this detritus on the bottom where it does no good and just blows around. There is no detritus at all "seen" in my tank but the gravel is full of it.

Think of a stone wall in a stream. The water will run freely through the rocks. Now stuff the rocks with old tee shirts, maybe from a Grateful Dead concert. The water will still flow but much slower and detritus and life will build up on those shirts. Eventually larger creatures will start to live on that wall to eat the microscope life. Tiny tube worms will eventually cover all the spaces where water is still flowing. Those tube worms process wastes and make the water crystal clear by filtering out everything. That is what is happening in my Reverse UG filter. In time, years, those tee shirts will be too full of life and the water will flow to slow to support all the life on it and they will start to die. That is why every year or so, I stir up my gravel where I can reach with a diatom filter and suck it out. Try that with a DSB or BB.

After about 20 years I removed my rocks to aquascape and I lifter the UG plates because I was interested to see what was living under there. Hundreds of bristle worms, tube worms and jet black water. The water became so dirty that if there was a full grown Moose in there< I couldn't see it except for the antlers. It looked disgusting but the tank was very healthy.
It may have been around this time, but I am wildly guessing, that fireclown on the left which I still have is about 27 years old and he looks young there .



It is not to remove detritus, but to let more water flow as flowing water gives life. I think that was in the bible.
Under my UG filter is loaded with brittle stars, pods of all sorts, worms and tiny red tube worms by the millions. That equals a healthy tank.
My tank would look measurably better if I didn't have so many fish that got big and eat so much causing my nitrates to go through the roof but it doesn't seem to bother anything except I can't keep delicate corals.

In a few weeks I am moving and I will try to take everything in my tank to my new house and put it in a bigger tank. This move may not work because of a timing issue but this week it is 47 years old so if it dies, it had a good run.
I also believe a natural tank, with no long quarantines, not to much cleaning or tweeking, no added chemicals except calcium and alk and definitely no medications are part of the key.
Here is an article I wrote about OTS. If you don't want to read it I think Oprah is on, something about homeless, hairless cats.

This is all definitely my opinion of course and no cats or mooses were harmed writing this post.

http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/understanding-old-tank-syndrome-6440/

 

[shred5]

shred5 said: ↑
When is the last time anyone saw a tank 15 to 20 years old
The last time I turned around!

Yea yea You kind of cut something out I said unless from an old salt and I mean by that years in the hobby Experienced.... I think people like you and I are considered that.

 

[Paul B]

shred5 said: ↑
When is the last time anyone saw a tank 15 to 20 years old
The last time I turned around!

Yea yea You kind of cut something out I said unless from an old salt and I mean by that years in the hobby Experienced.... I think people like you and I are considered that.

Yes I know, I was just messing with you as we are both senile. My wife hates when I walk because I shed salt all over the hardwood floors.

 

[User1]

unfortunately. even if it is used for decoration only. it will still be a nutrient sink and regular maintenance will need to be done on it.

if you are saying clean it like your front glass on occasion, than yes, it is that simple.

G~

Sort of, yes. Tides and weather/storms take care of this on Earth so those with substrates should do similar. I believe that is what you mean and I would agree. I have my controller randomly turning on all pumps at the same time to 100% for this very reason. Along with me from time to time. I was also talking about the creatures living in the sand bed such has clams, worms, and other things to which I admit to know nothing about. Waste is waste I agree but my simple brain sees it has a food chain above the bed has below it. I can't say how long my system will run but I can say that the one failure I had was due to the ineptitude of Ca politics aka Enron and our power failures while on vacation. Even that probably could have been avoided had I asked people to stop by the house to check. Which brings us back to another thread here about how one measures success...

If I do my best, all that I can in this hobby, and treat the creatures I put in like I would if it was a dog or a bird or any other family pet, then that would be success to me. Mistakes will happen (like I mentioned above) but hopefully I will only make them once and learn from them. That is how I would measure success.

 

[Paul B]

IMO, if you have enough microscope life in your substrate, detritus will be degraded or in other words all the organic materials in it will be eaten by bacteria and other things leaving only empty shells and silica or coraline remnants of what it used to be. To me, this stuff is benign and does not affect anything except maybe clog something. As I said, my gravel is loaded with it and when I remove it in a few weeks to move, I will try to get a picture of it and it will be jet black. If it was a bad thing, my tank would have crashed years ago. I think anyway as I have no way to be sure.

 

[jda]

I think that this is real, but with too many variables and nuance to effectively quantify from one person to another.

I do like sand and I will have it in every tank - about 3 inches worth. Starting about year four, I start to vacuum about 25% of the sand every year so that by year eight it is all "clean." I also think that detritus is good, but can also become bad if it starts to gum-up the works for the microfauna. This time frame works for me and my fish load. After I do this, the cucumbers, conchs and other macro consumers always prefer the "cleaned area."

Also, there is only so much bad husbandry that aragonite can mask before it gets full. Phosphate, metals, etc. Water changes will still be key in this along with other things like GAC, etc. Aragonite will bind most metals... and the skimmer will get the rest that will bind to organics, so I have never thought that metals were a huge issue. GFO will also bind a lot of this, but this is more of a recent husbandry technique.

I have helped a few folks with overcome this by replacing the sand in intervals... slowly over a year or two. When we tested the used sand in a glass of fresh saltwater, the aragonite released P over 1.0PPM... it was bound like crazy. I just did an experiment where aragonite held more than 350x the amount of P that was in the water column, so this is a lot of non-exported phosphate. The rock will be bound-up like this too... and the local concentration is more than in the water which can inhibit breeding of microfauna and other inverts.

 

[JasPR]

I love hobbies. And in everyone I've ever been in, there are causal hobbyists, passing thru hobbyists, hard core hobbyists, commando hobbyists and obsessive compulsive hobbyists. So its not surprising that we spawn hobbyists in the marine hobby that MUST overdue everything! Lights, water changes, water chemistry, feeding, filtering, obsessive water treatment etc. In the end, the aquarium is a closed box in which things build over time. Water changes are inevitable. replacing sand and rising rock becomes practical with time as maintenance gets overwhelming. Its a hobby. If it is beginning to take days to get maintenance right-- take a deep breath--

 

[Reefin Dude]

I think that this is real, but with too many variables and nuance to effectively quantify from one person to another.

I do like sand and I will have it in every tank - about 3 inches worth. Starting about year four, I start to vacuum about 25% of the sand every year so that by year eight it is all "clean." I also think that detritus is good, but can also become bad if it starts to gum-up the works for the microfauna. This time frame works for me and my fish load. After I do this, the cucumbers, conchs and other macro consumers always prefer the "cleaned area."

Also, there is only so much bad husbandry that aragonite can mask before it gets full. Phosphate, metals, etc. Water changes will still be key in this along with other things like GAC, etc. Aragonite will bind most metals... and the skimmer will get the rest that will bind to organics, so I have never thought that metals were a huge issue. GFO will also bind a lot of this, but this is more of a recent husbandry technique.

I have helped a few folks with overcome this by replacing the sand in intervals... slowly over a year or two. When we tested the used sand in a glass of fresh saltwater, the aragonite released P over 1.0PPM... it was bound like crazy. I just did an experiment where aragonite held more than 350x the amount of P that was in the water column, so this is a lot of non-exported phosphate. The rock will be bound-up like this too... and the local concentration is more than in the water which can inhibit breeding of microfauna and other inverts.

+1

there is nothing wrong with keeping sand in your tank if you want it. one just needs to know that it is a tool. its pros and cons need to be understood. you need to adapt your system to utilize these pros and cons.

Sort of, yes. Tides and weather/storms take care of this on Earth so those with substrates should do similar. I believe that is what you mean and I would agree. I have my controller randomly turning on all pumps at the same time to 100% for this very reason. Along with me from time to time. I was also talking about the creatures living in the sand bed such has clams, worms, and other things to which I admit to know nothing about. Waste is waste I agree but my simple brain sees it has a food chain above the bed has below it. I can't say how long my system will run but I can say that the one failure I had was due to the ineptitude of Ca politics aka Enron and our power failures while on vacation. Even that probably could have been avoided had I asked people to stop by the house to check. Which brings us back to another thread here about how one measures success...

i think we are close. the point i was trying to make is that in nature the depth that is "disturbed" is far greater than the depth of our systems. the organisms also that dwell are much larger than what we can keep in our systems. because of this we need to do things different in order to replicate this. we need to do major cleanings or even full replacements of substrates on a regular basis. just it looks like the sand on our favorite beach does not change, does not mean that it is actually the same sand. in our systems, we have the same sand. the sand that you see now may have been several feed, if not several yards away a minute ago.

If I do my best, all that I can in this hobby, and treat the creatures I put in like I would if it was a dog or a bird or any other family pet, then that would be success to me. Mistakes will happen (like I mentioned above) but hopefully I will only make them once and learn from them. That is how I would measure success.

this is all i hope all of us are trying. aquatic critters are no different than our other pets. feed, water, and take care of their wastes.

I love hobbies. And in everyone I've ever been in, there are causal hobbyists, passing thru hobbyists, hard core hobbyists, commando hobbyists and obsessive compulsive hobbyists. So its not surprising that we spawn hobbyists in the marine hobby that MUST overdue everything! Lights, water changes, water chemistry, feeding, filtering, obsessive water treatment etc. In the end, the aquarium is a closed box in which things build over time. Water changes are inevitable. replacing sand and rising rock becomes practical with time as maintenance gets overwhelming. Its a hobby. If it is beginning to take days to get maintenance right-- take a deep breath--

not many hobbies deal with the life and death of organisms, but i do get what you are saying.

---------------------------------------------------

what is common knowledge of Borneman and Shimek here on REEF2REEF?

G~

 

[beaslbob]

What about those who had bare bottom?. I have know people who did that still had this happen.. Nicest reef tank I ever saw back in the day and one of the first real sps tanks.. You really only hear about old tank syndrome back in the day because people do not keep a tank long enough now. Back then bare-bottom was standard before Ron Shimek start the fad. And before bare bottom was crushed coral.

but then again I have seem people with DSB for 20 years also.

my point was the RELYING on DSB or water changes.

People with bare bottom tanks that are not balanced out and stabilized would have a slow build up of stuff. hence OTS

If the system is balanced out and stabilized with macro algae much less OTS.

But that's just me and my .02

 

[brandon429]

Shred

I do believe a bare bottom system can express eutrophication, all one has to do is let the live rock plug up all its pores with detritus, lower the system flow somehow (including possible too much rock/common back in the day) and introduce an invader and that's all she needs.

detritus keeps being at the root of the cause.

*I also agree with the stated point about people not keeping tanks long enough to truly see how it works, but that only applies to large tanks. Tiny reefs age at 6x the rate, you can reveal in a five year old pico reef what people have to wait 20 yrs to see in a 200+

micro tanks are literally the best models on the planet to make inferences about OTS from.

on the flipside-to make that bare bottom system run without old tank syndrome forever, no extra outside help from us needed, all one would have to do is any basic recurring water change along with occasional force dislodging/storm surge behavior and that live rock will run forever. we show it in many current working models of age defying micro reef tanks.

OTS is beaten, its controllable, it literally does not exist in pico reefing because we cheat the systems clean of the sludge mud. the best part is, we can replicate it in other's systems I don't need a one off/sole example to base the claim from. everyone's nano runs the same way if they're kept clean, the divergence in invasion and eutrophication after sixty months comes in the waste storage approach.

 

[Reefin Dude]

totally agree with any system can suffer from OTS if there are areas that are not able to be cleaned regularly.

on my current build i have a completely hollow LR structure with CLS outlets located in these hollow areas. i have 2 mounds and each mound will have about 4000gph flowing out from them. the nozzles for the CLS' are pointed downward to help push detritus out of the structure.

if the LR structure is solid enough and detritus is able to accumulate under it, then even a BB system can suffer from eutrophication (OTS).

G~

 

[jda]

Do not underestimate the amount of detritus that can clog up live rock without a host of microfauna to keep it clean. This can happen with or without sand. Some of that microfauna does not do very well with even sightly elevated N and P levels... which are popular in today's tanks. I fear that some of these will faster be on a path to some of these issues.

 

[Reefin Dude]

benthos are not able to clear out all detritus. they need it to live. if detritus was not present, than there would not be any benthos. the benthos we keep is not big enough to disrupt the substrate enough to allow detritus to exit it in any appreciable amount. all the benthos we keep do is wiggle the detritus deeper into the substrate (which is a good thing until it is full). they do not help in exporting it from the substrate in any appreciable amount. they do help export detritus from LR, but only if there is good random flow to wash it away after the benthos has "pushed" it out, at which point it falls into the substrate if present.

G~

 

[brandon429]

Geoff
Nobody posts about detritus being unawesome in the thread I'm about to kick up. been a one guy party so far

asking for nitrate results from a dredge sample.