no harm, they're under insulating biofilm. you could drain your tank for half a day, refill it, and it would still be cycled
sounds like a crazy claim aware
google this
simon garratt's intertidal reef at 6 months
and that pulls up a man who drained his sps reef for six hours a day, with coral
when we read about the weakness of bacteria online, how finicky they are, that's not a remark about bacteria set in place on rocks under a biofilm
weakness is a character of teased out bac on slides, or in suspension within a mix of bottled bac. Once added to a tank with substrate and fed, in a few days the bac are simply set and fixed in place and it takes true insult to kill them, antibiotics pretty much. reasonable air contact or light salinity shifting matters little at all.
to me the comparison seems pertinent because it’s quite a salinity extreme to have no salinity but air several times a day, then instantly back to saline.
