24/7 lighted refugium

[racer]

Has anyone here tried or had success with one of these for alge control?

[scpion]

I dun think normally a fuge's function is for algae control. U should address the root of the problem rather than try to move the "problem" out of sight. A fuge is for water purification/filtration. If U have excess algae issue, it would usually mean more maintenance work should have been done in the first place.IMO.RTR would be able to advice further.

[RTR]

I have to disagree w/the prior post, but only to a degree, not totally. High water quality really needs to be given. If your FW planted tank nitrate is not more than 10 -15 ppm at the time you do your regular partial, them your water quality is likely good. FW unplanted tanks can run lower nitrate, but planted tanks may need at least that level of nitrate for plant growth stability.

SW tanks set as FOWLR, a clean and well maintained skimmer adequate for the tank bioload, and a 24/7 lighted refucium is to me the best possible set-up. But the skimmer cannot do it all, and LR is slow to respond to bioload changes. Unlike the case in FW, plant and algae nutrient levels generated from feeding and the tank bioload (stocking level) should not result in significantly boosted nitrate and phosphate levels. The small routine changes in those plant and algae nutrients are smoothed out by the refugium's macroalgae slightly shifting its rate of growth and metabolism to keep as close to steady state as a semi-closed tank set-up can do. We cannot approach that level of waste nutrient clearance in FW without much larger vascular plant filters, as we lack the nutrient control of LR. LR can take nitrate back to N2 (dissolved nitrogen gas) which can diffuse out of the LR and out of the tank to the air.

In FW, tanks with plenums or DSB (not as safe and more space-consuming IMHO & IME) may have a similar nutrient removal systems operating. But IME and IMHO opinion, those tanks are a quite a bit trickier to set and operate smoothly, because in part they are even slower to respond than LR is in SW.

All of the above techniques do work and work well. BUT (very big "but") they all assume proper (i.e., highly conservative) stocking levels, some routine monitoring of water parameters (liquid-based testing), and good and appropriate feeding of the fish. If the system is over-stocked, carelessly maintained, erratically fed and especially inappropriately fed, those system will not, repeat not, compensate for those failures in basic tank set-up and care.

Over-stocked and improperly fed and/or maintained tanks will not operate well and smoothly, period. The advanced techniques may help them, but cannot and will not compensate for the basic issues of stocking and feeding. That is the real take=home lesson here.

Optimum set-ups will operate well if reasonably well maintained, and do certainly have a much wider margin of safety. That is logical and rational. But even optimum set-ups cannot compensate for basic care and feeding failures or lacks.

None of our set-ups are closed systems. To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet set a successful closed system which can operate indefinitely without care.

PS: The 24/7 lighting in SW is to block sexual reproduction of the commoner macroalgae species, and to even out the nutrient drain. Not all FW vascular plants can or will withstand 24/7 lighting. In FW systems I tend to duplicate tank setups for the vascular plant filters, operating on opposite light cycles where the display tank cannot be planted. Those provide easier operation.

HTH

[scpion]

All of the above techniques do work and work well. BUT (very big "but") they all assume proper (i.e., highly conservative) stocking levels, some routine monitoring of water parameters (liquid-based testing), and good and appropriate feeding of the fish. If the system is over-stocked, carelessly maintained, erratically fed and especially inappropriately fed, those system will not, repeat not, compensate for those failures in basic tank set-up and care.

Over-stocked and improperly fed and/or maintained tanks will not operate well and smoothly, period. The advanced techniques may help them, but cannot and will not compensate for the basic issues of stocking and feeding. That is the real take=home lesson here.

Optimum set-ups will operate well if reasonably well maintained, and do certainly have a much wider margin of safety. That is logical and rational. But even optimum set-ups cannot compensate for basic care and feeding failures or lacks.



HTH

This is what I meant. But, dear RTR Sir put it in a extremely professional way. Address the root of the "problem". I read "for algae control" so I assume there there is imbalance in the tank. I entirely agree with RTR's post, after reading it many times over though.

[RTR]

A "balanced tank" sounds easy and straight-forward. But I think that we all know that it is not. The devil is in the detail.

Captive systems are complex. They have a depressing tendency to degenerate if we just keep doing the same things over and over. Periodically we have to compare to how the tank was operating 3, 6, or 12 months ago to be certain we have stability and not slow degeneration.

The average hobbyist tends to look at this week versus last week. Certainly tank can go bad that fast, but it is usually a very slow downward trend that is not that easy to catch. How many folks tanks today compare to what they were 3, 6 or 12 mints ago? How about 3-10 years ago? Tank lifespan should always be in years, not weeks or months.

Biological systems are never static. They may either grow or degenerate or die. Either may be fast or slow. Hobbyists need to be aware of trends over longer time-frames. Days to weeks only matter if the system is just starting out. Once it matures, the changes tend to be slow to very slow. The hobbyist must then compensate for those just as they did for the much faster immature tank changes. When you deal with puffers (or other long lived fish), it is hard to be successful thinking only short term.

[kcartwright856]

RTR, I've been considering your words and, as always, they make a lot of sense to me.

Regarding the long-term trends of a tank, would you recommend a pad of paper as a log of sorts to make entries every few days as to what's going on in the tank?

If so, what would you recommend the entries to be? I assume each entry would be every time you're doing anything with the tank. Dates of water changes, parameters, temperatures, flora/fauna changes...

Would this help a beginner-to-moderate aquarist to spot long-term trends in the tank? Even short term, too, to be able to go back and see what happened in the past few days/weeks in case something goes wrong.

I hope I'm making sense.

[bertie 83]

You are absolutely correct kc. If you keep a book on tank params and look back over it regularly you could for example: see a gradual ph drop which you may not consider a problem with the small degree it dropped say over 3 months, but if not corrected could over say a year cause a crash. It's absolutely essential to keep a close eye on your tank. You never know.

[RTR]

You use whatever will likely work for you. A bound pad of paper can certainly work, but can also be frustrating.

My simplest notes on calendars, all in my own codes. I have multiple boxes of old calendars.

I also have multiple boxes of old bound "notebooks" written in permanent ink. Those are either experiments or significant histories of individual tanks. The latter may well include a lot of parameter detail.

But you have to remember that I am a fugitive from the laboratory- if it is not recorded in a "permanent form" it did not happen. I do periodically transfer raw data into Excel spreadsheets, which are both printed out and pasted into bound books along with absolutely off-line storage in electronic forms, but always backed up with external drives and whatever storage form is currently in use. Data is never more than temporarily in at-risk formats. Otherwise it is really difficult to cross-compare tank histories year to year.

I do not do a lot of routine testing on most tanks anymore - they are too predictable. But I do enough to be sure that they are where they should be, and if not then I can compensate. My oldest individual set-ups are pushing twenty years old now. Nobody can count on remembering data that old.

Our local water utility changed hands some years back and changed some of the water sources. That had some effects on the FW tank parameters. The old compiled spreadsheets let my check easily that my water parameters are still withing expected margins of the water supply at time, even if the source water is a bit different itself. I really am not too interested in exactly where particular parameters are on pH, GH, & KH. What matters is that the variation is still within one or two water partials of whatever the source water is at the time. Then I can be comfortable that I am not overstocked. over-feeding, or under-maintaining.

I cannot hold many tanks within one partial of the source water levels - the retirement tanks for old fish are among the few which are really stable over years. Most tanks be within two or at the worst three partials of the source water. The 3-patials from source levels are usually breeding or grow-out tanks for fry. Those require frequent extra care as the bioloads vary widely within a period of just weeks. Plus, they are usually overfed. When they get to what I consider the "danger" zone (three partials away from source water), I just do daily 50% partials until they are within one partial of the source water.

If you are not breeding fish, your life is a lot easier on keeping tanks under control. Or it should be if have learned something about stoking. I got over being greedy decades ago, but it was not easy. Everybody wants more...