Its time for ecology education

[Cory]

So who can guess the first and most important thing on a natural coral reef? Starts with s.

 

[helen ann]

Stony Corals

 

[Jack Eskay]

Salt lol

 

[Coastie Reefer]

Sunlight?

 

[Ljaus]

Symbiosis

 

[Cory]

Sunlight

Yes it starts with sunlight. Without the sun, there is no heat, there is no night and day, and there is no life.

 

[Cory]

Who can guess the second most important thing on a coral reef? Is starts with w.

 

[Coastie Reefer]

Water

 

[Diesel]

Wonder where this is going................ as this hobby ain't rocket science

 

[Cory]

Water

Yep you guessed it. Water is obviously the 2nd most important thing. Without it nothing can swim and grow.

 

[Cory]

So what would be the third most important thing to make a coral reef? Starts with r

 

[Cory]

Wonder where this is going................ as this hobby ain't rocket science

Thats what you think

 

[jasonb87]

Rocks

 

[Cory]

Yes the third most important thing is rock. Without rock you dont have a place to hold everything. And we dont get the minerals that form in the sea, giving it a salinity of 35ppt.

 

[Diesel]

Thats what you think

That's what we all think but you don't know it yet

 

[Cory]

So if you have those three important things, sunlight, rock, and water, you have the basics of a coral reef, and conditions for life.

1. You have a strong foundation for growth. Rocks are solid and allow a strong surface for coral to grow on, so they don't get blown away by waves caused by the suns energy.

2. You have energy and heat, from the sun. Without energy nothing can live. The sun provides all the energy on Earth. And the heat to give the sea a warm temperature.

3. You have a medium in which to live, called water. The medium is not so dense like rock that nothing could really move if it was surrounded by it, (imagine living in a box made of rock,) but lighter and easier to move through.

The three are your basic three components of a coral reef, and without them it wont exist.

One could say air would be a fourth component, and it is very important too.

But from just rock, water and sun, the atmosphere of Earth was made by living things evolving and adapting over millions, perhaps trillions of years, that created an atmosphere called air.

So when evaluating your reef aquarium for problems, you can resort back to the basic 3, or rather 4 components of a coral reef.

Is it my rock?

Is it my water?

Is it my light?

Is it the air?

Now if you dont start with good water/salt you wont have a successful reef. Or if yoh top up evaporated water with tap water. Same with rock it needs to be impurity free, or at least mostly. Copper in your rock would be leathal to coral. Same with the air in your reef, needs to be clean, unaltered air. You dont want your skimmer pumping in hydrogen sulphide gas. And your light, if its too close to your reef, it can burn coral. These are just some examples.

The next part will get into the life that creates its system and how they help one another.

 

[Newb73]

Still wating for the part about thrust vectoring

 

[Cory]

Still wating for the part about thrust vectoring

Is that something you do when the lights are out?

 

[Diesel]

That is really nice but without the fifth factor there is nothing................ you have just the three............ oh wait four............ well just do three.
Light.......Rock...........Water........ (air), that's it!!

In my class in order to get what you want and it needs to sustain as what we have on earth those three or four ain't enough to have a reef.
LRW is just a bunch of rock with water you can see cause the light.
You have to create a ECO-system and for that you need a carbon source.......... like fish.
You can box in a piece of the ocean but if you leave the fifth factor out you have nothing.
You need fish as some kind of carbon source to create a ECO-system that sustain it self ........... they will give you bacteria.
You can install the biggest filter system you can find but if you take fish away it will never work on you.

 

[Newb73]

Is that something you do when the lights are out?

If you will read the WHOLE thread somone said its not rocket science snd the author said "thats what you think"....