Reefers may over-rely on personal experience to accept or reject truth

[RichReef]

Really? You didn't know from somewhere that corals need light? calcium? Alkalinity? sources of nutrients?

It may sound ridiculous, but some of those were hard won bits of information determined by the failures of early reefers.

I'm sorry. You are correct. I was looking beyond the basics when I replied. I could have been more specific. I was speaking about the trials and errors of products I use for dosing, ATS vs Fuge, LED vs MH ....... ect .... What works for me and my tank. Being able to tell what my tank needs just by looking at the corals ....

My real intention was to point out how we all treat each other.

You are correct in the point that I did in fact ride the backs of others to start out.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

So I came across a random thread today. I really wish I could copy and paste to link it, but I haven’t really figured out how to do that. Just curious what others think about it fitting in with this discussion. It’s titled quote Aiptasia kryptonite? Basically, well Aiptasia of course, but the gist is that someone’s skimmer went crazy and micro bubbles got into the display. They let the skimmer go nuts for a week or two I think, because they’re lazy. Guess what? Aiptasia is gone! Micro bubbles kill Aiptasia. Another poster, same thing happened to me. It’s true, micro bubbles kill Aiptasia. The kicker was a line about it being a secret the Aiptasia chemical guys don’t want you to know as they’ll lose money! I just couldn’t, even as much of a jerk as I am, contribute to that thread..

 

[Sean Clark]

So I came across a random thread today. I really wish I could copy and paste to link it, but I haven’t really figured out how to do that. Just curious what others think about it fitting in with this discussion. It’s titled quote Aiptasia kryptonite? Basically, well Aiptasia of course, but the gist is that someone’s skimmer went crazy and micro bubbles got into the display. They let the skimmer go nuts for a week or two I think, because they’re lazy. Guess what? Aiptasia is gone! Micro bubbles kill Aiptasia. Another poster, same thing happened to me. It’s true, micro bubbles kill Aiptasia. The kicker was a line about it being a secret the Aiptasia chemical guys don’t want you to know as they’ll lose money! I just couldn’t, even as much of a jerk as I am, contribute to that thread..

This one?
Thread 'Aiptasia Kryptonite?' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/aiptasia-kryptonite.948425/

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

This one?
Thread 'Aiptasia Kryptonite?' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/aiptasia-kryptonite.948425/

That’s it! Thanks. I tried to summarize it the best I could purely off my rotting brain

 

[Dan_P]

What?

Like I referenced - there is ample scientific evidence that dinoflagellates - and specifically the ones that are common problems in reef tanks - have competitive advantage in low phosphorus environments. This is not "a common truth made by aquarists".

I assume you are referring to this paper​

Responses of Marine Diatom-Dinoflagellate Competition to Multiple Environmental Drivers: Abundance, Elemental, and Biochemical Aspects​

Wasn’t this study looking at diatom vs dinoflagellate? Right?

What we learned is under which conditions dinoflagellates do better than diatoms. Don’t we have to assume that dinoflagellates have hundreds of competitors in an aquarium? We really can’t say dinoflagellates out compete them all, though it does make one wonder.

The other problems with the “low phosphate causes dinoflagellates” hypothesis are, and these are just the kind of things we would need to look into if wanted to put this hypothesis of firm footing

1) we really do not have the data to say how often it occur when phosphate is low, 100% or 10% of the time. With the size of the hobby and availability of the internet, I have to wonder if it happened only 1% of the time, it would still be big news with many cries for help.

2) we really do not have data about how often dinoflagellates are misidentified or a co-infection with something else

3) we have yet to demonstrate that low phosphate is more than a correlation. One reason that it might be is that while dinoflagellate populations might grow quickly, the conditions, whatever they are, could have started the dinoflagellate growth to increase weeks before the measured phosphate became depleted. Very few aquarists rarely trend their nutrient data in fine enough detail AND make the kind of detailed observation of aquarium surfaces to be sure that dinoflagellate growth had anything to do with low phosphate.

4) and lastly, but not finally, the susceptibility of the human mind to suggestion makes it possible that many reports of dinoflagellates with low phosphate don’t really exist.

 

[62518161]

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

This one?
Thread 'Aiptasia Kryptonite?' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/aiptasia-kryptonite.948425/

I messed up and offered an opinion as to an alternate explanation as I was worried about a possible future loss of livestock. I’m sure I will regret it. Totally fits with personal experience trumping common sense and science, of which I have neither

 

[sixty_reefer]

What?

Like I referenced - there is ample scientific evidence that dinoflagellates - and specifically the ones that are common problems in reef tanks - have competitive advantage in low phosphorus environments. This is not "a common truth made by aquarists".

I don't think your definition of science matches the commonly accepted one - as your argument here doesn't make a lot of sense - and you're making a lot of statements that are categorically false.

Don’t take me wrong, you are providing a scientific truth for a particular event, not a scientific truth for the particular cause.

for example I could start a thread called:

“shorter nitrifying bacteria cycles could have systems more prone to have dinoflagellates”

I could provide scientific truths on how heterotrophic bacteria can compete with nitrifying bacteria for space, scientific truth on how heterotrophic bacteria is not as effective at oxidising ammonia and scientific truth on some species of phytoplankton blooming with increasing nitrogen levels and I could reference observations that older reefers observed not as many cases of dinoflagellates in systems that took months to cycle and build up nitrifying bacteria vs new systems that add bacteria in a bottle and add fish in the space of a day or two.

I would have a lot of scientific truth in the debate for specific points although the main point “ what phenomenon causes dinoflagellates to bloom in aquaria” would just be a theory not an actual scientific truth as per Randy definition.

 

[Garf]

Don’t take me wrong, you are providing a scientific truth for a particular event, not a scientific truth for the particular cause.

for example I could start a thread called:

“shorter nitrifying bacteria cycles could have systems more prone to have dinoflagellates”

I could provide scientific truths on how heterotrophic bacteria can compete with nitrifying bacteria for space, scientific truth on how heterotrophic bacteria is not as effective at oxidising ammonia and scientific truth on some species of phytoplankton blooming with increasing nitrogen levels and I could reference observations that older reefers observed not as many cases of dinoflagellates in systems that took months to cycle and build up nitrifying bacteria vs new systems that add bacteria in a bottle and add fish in the space of a day or two.

I would have a lot of scientific truth in the debate for specific points although the main point “ what phenomenon causes dinoflagellates to bloom in aquaria” would just be a theory not an actual scientific truth as per Randy definition.

Or perhaps something really simple like a lack of predators, lol.

B.S. - Page 3

Todays the day I start my Bacterial Scrubber. Gonna be simple to get experiment going; 1) clean skimmer and pump with HCL. 2) rough up screen in form it into a cylinder, to go neatly into the skimmer body. Perhaps heat it to form shape. 3) fix my air pump to the DIY co2 generator and feed...

algaescrubber.net

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thank you for the clarification and the examples, I wouldn’t describe some of my questions as confusing, they just illustrate that this zombie thread may have been awaken without fully understanding the title and not understanding the difference between scientific truth and aquarists theory’s that may not be accepted by all due to not having a scientific truth connected to them.
It’s important to clarify the difference imo for a more substantial conversation of the subject at hand, unfortunately my understanding of chemistry is limited and I wouldn’t be able to contribute further

Here's a distinction between these two ideas:

1. going against mainstream hobby belief (I do that all the time; example: my decades long railing against strontium dosing utility),

and

2. going against accepted scientific principles (I do not recall doing it, and would only do that with great caution)

 

[Hans-Werner]

The other problems with the “low phosphate causes dinoflagellates” hypothesis are, and these are just the kind of things we would need to look into if wanted to put this hypothesis of firm footing

1) we really do not have the data to say how often it occur when phosphate is low, 100% or 10% of the time. With the size of the hobby and availability of the internet, I have to wonder if it happened only 1% of the time, it would still be big news with many cries for help.

In my eyes it would be a huge progress if we would get away from "nutrients" to specific nutrient(s). The outcomes may be very different, depending from the nutrient. Please keep in mind, micronutrients (usually called trace elements) are also nutrients.

In my eyes talking generally about "nutrients" doesn't help much and will never give an description of the situation adequate to be reproduced or reproducible at all.

@92Miata , the article on phosphorus is brand new, just in time!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

unfortunately my understanding of chemistry is limited and I wouldn’t be able to contribute further

I gave four chemistry examples because they are the easiest to prove or disprove, but the basic idea extends to many areas of reefing: biology, lighting, electrical issues, benefits of various husbandry practices (microbubbles etc.).

Some are not as clear cut as others, but still fit the rationale to be concerned that personal experiences are unduly coloring interpretations.

Here's an example that some might debate, but which, IMO, warrants a very strong look at the supporting idea before believing it, and having done so, I believe it is such a misapplication of personal experiences that either conflicts with what is known, or is being conveniently and incorrectly extrapolated from situations where it has an effect to get users to use it scenarios where it will not (a sadly common hobby vendor tactic)

Seachem Prime. Let's ignore the important debate over ammonia and nitrite utility, and focus in on their nitrate claims:

Stated by Seachem with no caveats whatsoever: "Detoxifies ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate"

And what is their evidence for detoxifying something that is not very toxic and very difficult to bind to begin with:

This from their FAQ:
"How does Prime® make a difference in reducing nitrates?

A: The detoxification of nitrite and nitrate by Prime® (when used at elevated levels) is not well understood from a mechanistic standpoint. The most likely explanation is that the nitrite and nitrate is removed in a manner similar to the way ammonia is removed; i.e. it is bound and held in a inert state until such time that bacteria in the biological filter are able to take a hold of it, break it apart and use it. Two other possible scenarios are reduction to nitrogen (N2) gas or conversion into a benign organic nitrogen compound.

I wish we had some more "concrete" explanation, but the end result is the same, it does actually detoxify nitrite and nitrate. This was unexpected chemically and thus initially we were not even aware of this, however we received numerous reports from customers stating that when they overdosed with Prime® they were able to reduce or eliminate the high death rates they experienced when their nitrite and nitrate levels were high. We have received enough reports to date to ensure that this is no fluke and is in fact a verifiable function of the product.

Seachem - Prime

seachem.com

Thus, the evidence of utility is that some customers report it is useful. Not that they actually ran any tests whatsoever. Why would they: it might fail and they'd lose the claim.

The high death rates (of fish, presumably?) in elevated nitrate? How do these customers know they had nitrate high enough to rapidly kill fish? They read it on facebook? Who knows? Anyway, If one takes a very best case analysis and assumes someone actually had nitrate high enough to kill fish rapidly, added Prime, and then found they did not die rapidly, how high would that have to be?

Two things would have to happen for the product to function as expected:

1. The chemical in Prime would need to bind nitrate and reduce its biological activity
and
2. There needs to be enough to do this action to a large fraction of the nitrate present.

Requirement 1. As to part 1, it is extraordinarily difficult to bind nitrate from seawater. There just are no chemical handles that allow one to readily distinguish it from all of the other negatively charged ions in seawater, some of which are present at vastly higher concentrations (e.g., chloride and sulfate).

An example of how hard it is to bind with a chemical can be seen in the solubility of nitrate salts. Nitrate is remarkably distinct from almost anything else likely to be in seawater in that ALL simple metal salts of nitrate are soluble. That cannot be said of even chloride, bromide or sulfate, which are very soluble.

OK, so let's wildly accept that Seachem stumbled onto something that does actually bind nitrate from seawater, and move onto number 2.

Requirement 2. In order to know if requirement 2 can possibly be met, we need to know how much nitrate we are talking about. Let's assume that binding half of the nitrate present is a cut off for being useful.

How much needs to be present?

Here's from my most recent nitrate article:

Fish, it seems, are not very sensitive to nitrate. Most researchers find little toxicity13. One group that studied a variety of species of fish larvae report:

“Judging from its effect on 1st-feeding, unionized NH3 is a potential hazard in the rearing tank; NO2– and NO3– are nontoxic at levels likely encountered in practical marine fish culture.”14

Here's a post from a professor who looked into nitrate toxicity:

Reef Central Online Community - View Single Post - Can High Nitrates Hurt Health of Fish in FOWLR?

Reef Central is dedicated to the marine reef aquarium hobby. Learn about reef aquarium setup and maintenance, and view coral and marine fish photos. Visit our online community and discuss and chat with hobbyists of all levels from beginner to advanced.

www.reefcentral.com

Maybe it's an accepted belief, but it's not close to being correct scientifically. And there are a LOT of papers on nitrate toxicity in saltwater from just a quick pubmed search.

The lowest LC-50 I could find for nitrate toxicity in a marine environment (for fish) was over 500 mg NO3-N / L. That is about 2200 ppm NO3.

OK, so now we have some hard science data to look at. Seachem Prime needs to bind over 1,000 ppm of nitrate to have the effect that it says customers reported in reducing high death rates.

Could it do that? Let's look.

Recommended dose is "1 capful (5 mL) for each 200 L (50 US gallons) of new water. " They say for nitrite reduction, use 5x normal. They do not specify a nitrate-impacting dose, but let's say it is twice the nitrite dose since they mention overdosing. That would be 50 mL per 200 L.

We do not have any idea of the concentration of active ingredient in Seachem Prime, but it obviously is not over 100%. It is probably more like 5 to 10%, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it has zero water in it.

50 mL is about 50 g. Put that in 200 L and the concentration is 0.25 g/L, or 250 ppm.

Thus, Seachem would have us believe that this product is so incredibly powerful and 100% concentrated that each molecule in it can bind and detoxify four times its weight in nitrate.

Nitrate has a molecular weight of 62. Thus this super ingredient in Seachem Prime that is present at 100% concentration in the bottle has a molecular weight of only 16. I can identiy in a few minutes every molecule or atom or ion with a molecular weight of 16 or less, and none will bind nitrate.

FAIL!

That was a lot of work. Something reefers in a shop worrying about nitrate are certainly not going to do. Thus it is a win for Seachem to make the sales claim, without ANY data of their own, or any plausible way it would have this effect.

Sadly, it is a triumph of marketing over science reality based on what is almost certainly an inappropriate interpretation and extrapolation of personal experiences.

 

[sixty_reefer]

It’s a

Or perhaps something really simple like a lack of predators, lol.

It was an example not something to debate on here

 

[Sean Clark]

I use cranberries as a filter on the output of my Ozone reactor because they have strong antioxidant properties.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

I use cranberries as a filter on the output of my Ozone reactor because they have strong antioxidant properties.

They have to be dried, and only sourced from Wisconsin

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I use cranberries as a filter on the output of my Ozone reactor because they have strong antioxidant properties.

Does it give your tank a Christmas look? lol

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Does it give your tank a Christmas look? lol

It goes with the poinsettias growing next to the mangroves, and the candy canes used to mix kalkwasser

 

[Sean Clark]

Does it give your tank a Christmas look? lol

Yes. But that is only a tertiary benefit.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Is it just me, or is the difficulty with interpreting scientific studies buried in the details? For example, I believe there are a lot of dinoflagellates & not all are pests. Would it be fair to think that what applied to the subjects of this study might not apply to all?

Zooxanthellae are a type of dinoflagellates, so you are absolutely right. But it's generally assumed that when someone is having a problem with dinos, it's one of the "bad" types.

 

[Dan_P]

Is it just me, or is the difficulty with interpreting scientific studies buried in the details? For example, I believe there are a lot of dinoflagellates & not all are pests. Would it be fair to think that what applied to the subjects of this study might not apply to all?

You are not alone.

The problem with these one off reports that land on our door step is that we have virtually no way to evaluate their relevance. For example, we have blooms of benthic organisms in our aquaria, but most studies are done with pelagic organisms and under pelagic conditions. The biology of the microorganisms might not even be the same, one being free floating with easy access to nutrients and the other bound in a biofilm with nutrients slowly diffusing to them. Different enzyme systems might be involved in free floating vs biofilm environments. And what does it mean to the aquarium nuisance organism growth that pelagic dinoflagellates kick butt of pelagic diatoms? Is this information even relevant to life in or on a biofilm?

I am not in any way discounting the value of the information and thank the contributor, but I am certainly not caught in the enthusiasm about its potential relevance.