Lets talk about ecosystems

[Cory]

So ill just post these and you guys can think how our tanks relate or not. And we can start to see how our tanks have problems arise. Do you think our tanks are an ecosystem?

Microbial loop:

Coral reef ecosystem:

 

[jcolliii]

No - we have displays. Ecologies rely on primary production, high diversity and abundance that can't be replicated in even very large systems, and incredibly complex food webs, upwelling, tidal flushing, nutrient fluxes into and out of the system, complex biogeochemistry, and a level of environmental stability that would be very difficult to reproduce. Stop feeding and see how long your tanks will persist. Even fairly large, well thought out, carefully selected populations of marine organisms cannot self-maintain. Biosphere II's marine mesocosm (2,650 m^3 volume) couldn't self-sustain for very long without degradation, and that was carefully modeled by marine scientists to try and be self maintaining.

 

[Cory]

I agree our tanks will not be a self sustaining ecological system, but do they function or try to function how ecosystems come into play and work?

For example, if your nutrients get too high (no3 and po4) then hair algae or some other algae will consume it starting primary production. However, if there are no sea urchins to eat it, then it overwhelms our tanks with hair algae. Or if nutrients get too low by manipulating bacteria with vodka or vinegar or sugar, dinoflagellets bloom as weve seen. So our tanks respond to situations like an ecosystem does.

Now, we could limit this hair algae growth in various ways, reduced feeding, iron oxide po4 binder, sulphur denitrators, or protein skimmers, but it will still grow or try to. Why? Because hair algae are food for urchins/fish and phytoplankton food for zooplankton and zooplankton food for corals and small fish up the chain. Our tank life comes from the ecosystem and these animals evolved to use nutrient dynamics when presented.

So do we go at our tanks wrong by expecting skimmers/gfo/ to clean our tanks, when we should be trying more to emulate an a coral reef ecosystem more closely?

 

[Perry]

This is sort of my general goal, after failed attempts at sps corals, as last effort, I decided to try something completely different. My display, setup as a primary focus of growing mangroves.

I recently pulled my filter sock, and moved my skimmer after my fuge. The fuge, in the sump is a true fuge, no predators, and have copepods, ampipods, and mysis alive and multiplying. My eventual goal is to remove the skimmer, but not quite ready. I know the tank will never self sustain, but my hopes are to have a live food source available. Here is a pic of the fuge.

 

[jcolliii]

I understand the attractiveness of an ecological approach. But the diversity requirement is simply impractical in a home aquarium. And was not possible even in Biosphere with a giant pool and big heads drawing up the plan.

Healthy reef ecosystems don't have algea problems. Water parameters are stable over seasonal, yearly, and decadal timescales. Phosphate and nitrate are very stable, and very low. The reef is flushed every day with clean, clear, stable water supplied from the vast open ocean complete with thousands of species of live phyto and zooplankton. Sponges filter the water, and corals baffle the water and trap detritus. Algea grows - absolutely! But shoals of grazing fishes that rove from place to place, from day to day, keep it in check. A plethora of species eat it, and when there isn't enough, those myriad species of fish, shrimp, crabs, slugs, snails, and urchins die.

So many of the species that people consider pests have very complex relationships with lots of other species acting as both a source of food and a control on populations of other species. Montiporas and Acroporas would take over parts of the reef if they weren't eaten by parrotfish and flatworms and sea stars. Flatworms, nudibranchs, red bugs and other small animals make up prey for small-mouthed fish, while lots of non-'reef safe' fish graze on the corals and anemones. Dead fish and other animals are quickly done away with by all sorts of substrate-living scary-looking jawed worms. Such diversity cannot be replicated - we do not have ecosystems.

Playing devil's advocate here, I'd even go as far as to say that taking an ecosystem or ecological approach to a problem in a closed system may even be unethical. Let's say you have majanos - and so you want to do the natural control method... so you source some true peppermint shrimp. You buy four because you have a nem field growing. They eat them all down in four days. Now what? Those shrimp now have nothing to eat and begin to starve to death. They disappear, they crawl under your rocks, starve, and die. That, IMO, is unethical. In addition to how bad you should feel, now you also have a sudden ammonia spike that would be flushed by massive currents on the reef. But in a 16g reef aquarium, that raises ammonia, then nitrite, then nitrate. Now the cyano and bryopsis go wild. So, looking for another natural control, you throw in a bristletooth tang. Ugh.

Even well-intentioned ecological controls can have these unintended consequences. Knapweed and gall flies come to mind. Gall flies kill knapweed, so they were introduced to control the invasive weed. But... mice eat the fly larvae in the cold season and their numbers go through the roof when they should be dying off. That causes fleas and ticks to start the season earlier in the late winter because the mice would normally be dead... now we have a Lyme outbreak.

Ecosystems are diverse and elegant - and linked to other ecosystems as well. That elegance would be very difficult to replicate. Not saying not to try - just making a point about what we consider important versus undesirable in our tanks, and the decisions that we make. Food for thought.

 

[Cory]

Well i wouldn't dismiss the idea based on the Biosphere 2. As of this video coral hasnt been added yet. I wouldn't call that a failure.

 

[Cory]

And why i wouldnt call it a failure, from this:

"Even though there are some peculiar characteristics of the Biosphere coral reef, the coral reef biome functions as a recognizable coral reef community."

The Biosphere 2 coral reef biome
Author links open overlay panelM.J.AtkinsonaB.D.V.Marinof
Show more
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0925-8574(98)00096-2Get rights and content

Abstract
The Biosphere 2 coral reef biome is a large tank of living coral reef organisms (water volume of 2650 m3, water surface area of 711 m2 and 590 m2 of reef benthos). The water of the biome is characteristically very low in dissolved nutrients and phytoplankton. The present community of organisms is largely comprised of macroalgae, including 11 genera of green algae, eight genera of red algae, two genera of brown algae, and some blue-green algae. There are 25 genera of coral and two genera of sponges, but they do not dominate the benthos. Fish comprise 16 genera, with seven genera of echinoids and three genera of crustaceans. The coral reef biome water is presently monitored continuously for temperature, salinity, light, O2, and pCO2, and monitored daily to weekly for alkalinity, ΣCO2, pH, nutrients and δ13CDIC and δ18Owater values. There are a number of filtration devices, pumps and aerators which have been used in the past to manipulate water movement and composition, but at present the community has come to steady-state without this machinery. Diel changes in O2 and CO2 allow measurements of community metabolism under different experimental conditions of water chemistry, water motion, seasonal light changes, and temperature. Typical values for community metabolic parameters under steady state conditions are: gross production (P), ∼290 mmol C m−2 d−1, respiration (R), ∼270 mmol C m−2 d−1, P/R, ∼1.1 and community calcification, ∼23 mmol CaCO3 m−2 d−1, or only 8% of gross production. Calcification rate has been altered, 0–140 mmol CaCO3 m−2 d−1,, and is positively correlated to saturation state or CO3−2 concentration. The community metabolism values are about half of a natural tropical algal/coral reef flat, but typical of high latitude, shallow, coral reef lagoonal environments. Even though there are some peculiar characteristics of the Biosphere coral reef, the coral reef biome functions as a recognizable coral reef community. The Biosphere 2 coral reef system offers an excellent opportunity to test questions of how environmental factors influence processes at community and organismal scales.

 

[Cory]

This is sort of my general goal, after failed attempts at sps corals, as last effort, I decided to try something completely different. My display, setup as a primary focus of growing mangroves.

I recently pulled my filter sock, and moved my skimmer after my fuge. The fuge, in the sump is a true fuge, no predators, and have copepods, ampipods, and mysis alive and multiplying. My eventual goal is to remove the skimmer, but not quite ready. I know the tank will never self sustain, but my hopes are to have a live food source available. Here is a pic of the fuge.

How are your nutrients in this tank so far? I tried a mangrove but it died from being directly under an led (3" from a kessil ap700) in my tank. Id expect those roots to stop skimmate production eventually. If hair algae starts to grow, get some urchins. Maybe just 1 is enough for that tank.

 

[Perry]

How are your nutrients in this tank so far? I tried a mangrove but it died from being directly under an led (3" from a kessil ap700) in my tank. Id expect those roots to stop skimmate production eventually. If hair algae starts to grow, get some urchins. Maybe just 1 is enough for that tank.

I dose phyto and opposite days po4, currently 25ppm no3 and .1 po4. Yeah I have hair algae, but eventually the fuge or mangroves or both, should outcompete. I have turbo snails, urchins don't touch it, at least short spines.

 

[Cory]

I dose phyto and opposite days po4, currently 25ppm no3 and .1 po4. Yeah I have hair algae, but eventually the fuge or mangroves or both, should outcompete. I have turbo snails, urchins don't touch it, at least short spines.

The best ive found for hair algae are long spines, diadema.

Fwiw:
Ecological Importance
Diadema antillarum is still, in some tropical areas, one of the most abundant, widespread, and ecologically-important shallow-water sea urchins. ... This species is ecologically important because it consumes algae that can otherwise grow to such an extent that they can smother coral reefs.

 

[Perry]

The best ive found for hair algae are long spines, diadema.

Fwiw:
Ecological Importance
Diadema antillarum is still, in some tropical areas, one of the most abundant, widespread, and ecologically-important shallow-water sea urchins. ... This species is ecologically important because it consumes algae that can otherwise grow to such an extent that they can smother coral reefs.

I will add one soon and report back. Local LFS has a few, other one had shorts, which I picked up, but not doing much.

 

[Cory]

I will add one soon and report back. Local LFS has a few, other one had shorts, which I picked up, but not doing much.

Nice! Id see if you can take back those other urchins. Just so they dont starve. Iirc the smaller long spine urchins should live longer because they should be younger, try for a healthy small one. Im not sire their lifespan, but i think 2 to 5 years max iirc. If you needed strap some nori to a rock they will eat it. Also try and get a before picture of the algae problem.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Love the discussion.
I teach 5th graders about ecosystems in my programs. I use the little reef tank I travel with. I feel that our tanks are at some level an ecosystem. Since the definition varies:

Ecosystem, the complex of living organisms, their physical environment, and all their interrelationships in a particular unit of space.​

The simplest definition of an ecosystem is that it is a community or group of living organisms that live in and interact with each other in a specific environment.​

Although artificial ecosystems could be included with terrestrial, lentic and lotic, some feel it is important to environmentalism to examine man-made systems. Man-made systems include areas as large as beaches and forests, and those as small as terrariums, for example. Sometimes they are made to replenish the environment, and other times they are to help environmentalists learn.​

They may be man-made, but they do have multiple species and non-living thing sharing an area and using each other for nutrient cycles and survival. We have to provide some of the elements, but in natural ecosystem something is providing those elements too. We just provide the ones that we cannot have nature replicate in our homes.

 

[Cory]

Love the discussion.
I teach 5th graders about ecosystems in my programs. I use the little reef tank I travel with. I feel that our tanks are at some level an ecosystem. Since the definition varies:

Ecosystem, the complex of living organisms, their physical environment, and all their interrelationships in a particular unit of space.​

The simplest definition of an ecosystem is that it is a community or group of living organisms that live in and interact with each other in a specific environment.​

Although artificial ecosystems could be included with terrestrial, lentic and lotic, some feel it is important to environmentalism to examine man-made systems. Man-made systems include areas as large as beaches and forests, and those as small as terrariums, for example. Sometimes they are made to replenish the environment, and other times they are to help environmentalists learn.​

They may be man-made, but they do have multiple species and non-living thing sharing an area and using each other for nutrient cycles and survival. We have to provide some of the elements, but in natural ecosystem something is providing those elements too. We just provide the ones that we cannot have nature replicate in our homes.

My kids (3 of them) love the living room tank. I should try and teach them something lol. Got a pic of your little tank you want to share?

 

[Cory]

Playing devil's advocate here, I'd even go as far as to say that taking an ecosystem or ecological approach to a problem in a closed system may even be unethical. Let's say you have majanos - and so you want to do the natural control method... so you source some true peppermint shrimp. You buy four because you have a nem field growing. They eat them all down in four days. Now what? Those shrimp now have nothing to eat and begin to starve to death. They disappear, they crawl under your rocks, starve, and die. That, IMO, is unethical. In addition to how bad you should feel, now you also have a sudden ammonia spike that would be flushed by massive currents on the reef. But in a 16g reef aquarium, that raises ammonia, then nitrite, then nitrate. Now the cyano and bryopsis go wild. So, looking for another natural control, you throw in a bristletooth tang. Ugh.

The way i see it, is that our whole tanks are unethical. But at the same time, they dont suffer predation in our tanks, perhaps they would live longer in our tanks which is nice.

If you buy 4 peppermint shrimps to combat a large amount of aiptasia(to us not to a shrimp), then thats the unethical part, being impatient. But if you had an ecosystem balance of aiptaisa to shrimps going you should be able to sustain them. Perhaps a refugium for aiptasia so they can freely breed food for the shrimp. I wouldnt add those shrimp, id likely add bergia nudibranchs. Thus its all about control and balance in our tanks because they are so small.

The problem i see is people reccomend the wrong animals for the job. Got hair algae? Get a tang. And he gets a hippo tang, which have been found to mostly be planktivores. No, get an urchin, specifically a diadema urchin. Or a yellow tang. They love short hair algae. Certain things specialize in various reef foods.

Maybe we should be starting our tanks as a dense phytoplankton soup, then add pods to predate that phyto and reduce to clear water. Then add corals, then diadema urchins for any hair algae. Perhaps the old school bacterial cycle is made to work wrong, when phyto uses ammonia anyway.

 

[CoralClasher]

The way i see it, is that our whole tanks are unethical. But at the same time, they dont suffer predation in our tanks, perhaps they would live longer in our tanks which is nice.

If you buy 4 peppermint shrimps to combat a large amount of aiptasia(to us not to a shrimp), then thats the unethical part, being impatient. But if you had an ecosystem balance of aiptaisa to shrimps going you should be able to sustain them. Perhaps a refugium for aiptasia so they can freely breed food for the shrimp. I wouldnt add those shrimp, id likely add bergia nudibranchs. Thus its all about control and balance in our tanks because they are so small.

The problem i see is people reccomend the wrong animals for the job. Got hair algae? Get a tang. No, get an urchin, specifically a diadema urchin. Certain things specialize in various reef foods.

Maybe we should be starting our tanks as a hige phytoplankton soup, then add pods to eat that phyto. Then add corals, then diadema urchins for any hair algae. Perhaps the old school bacterial cycle is made to work wrong.

Lol I had the same thought. I started with growing green water outside then moved the green water inside and added macros.

 

[Cory]

Lol I had the same thought. I started with growing green water outside then moved the green water inside and added macros.

Wow thats interesting. Love feather caulerpa but cant find it here.

How did this go? Did they phyto dissapear after the live rock was added? Hows the pods in there?

 

[CoralClasher]

It’s still going good. The phytoplankton disappeared in about a week. Lots of pods. I’m just starting to get green hair algae and will add a clean up crew soon.

 

[Cory]

It’s still going good. The phytoplankton disappeared in about a week. Lots of pods. I’m just starting to get green hair algae and will add a clean up crew soon.

So we could assume the pods ate the phyto. You got primary production happening for the phytoplankton, and a primary predator of it from the pods.

But the pods will die and be recycled. f bacteria will eat them, so id try and add some coral to eat those pods instead of bacteria to predate them so they dont just rot and releae po4 and no3 back making an ever lasting algae-pod cycle. What we want is an algae-pod-coral cycle. But its up to you of course.

Next is filamentous algae primary production control. Your clean up crew will love it. As youve read, im biased towards diadema sea urchins for hair algae.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Here is a fairly recent shot of my little ecosystem. It has been running over 3 years with very little changes. Three fish, 4-5 crabs, pistol shrimp, snails, lots corals. Of course the lovely algae and cyano at times too.