I don't need no filter !!!

[reefkprz]

i've been digging for about an hour and I cant find any real source that provides actual evidence of signifigant nitrate reduction by xenia, just hobbyests saying they have "heard it". if there is a real source other than rumor for this info I would love to see it. one would think after many many years this wouldn't be something just figured out or a super secret, it in fact would become one of the best selling point for xenia and anyone that sold it would market it.

 

[just fishings]

As was posted earlier I do not have a dsb; I really went the other way with it. I used crushed coral with one bag of live sand to "fill in " some of the cracks. It is no more than an inch deep. When I set up the tank I didn't know about all this filtering needs ; like I said my first tank was a nano, everything was there. I have learn't alot and want to test some defferant ways of filtering. I have 11 defferent plant micros in my refugium now. MY thoughts have been based off of us as air breathing creatures; there are many defferent types of plants put togather to make our breathing world work. Would any one ...xenia or chaeto really be all that was needed to make a complete nitrate free system taking out other harmful traces as well?
I have been reading on other sites about these alge turf scrubbers you talked about and I feel it would be a great exchange for the bioballs; holding lest debre but allowing great surface space for algies and bactria to subside.
THANKS FOR ALL THE INPUT INTO THIS IDEA; GREAT DISCUSSIONS WITHOUT NO ONE FLAMING!!!

 

[reefkprz]

Originally Posted by just fishings
GREAT DISCUSSIONS WITHOUT NO ONE FLAMING!!!

I agree it is great that this discussion has kept a civil tone, I personnaly want to thank teen and viper and txreef for contributing great info and keeping it civil even if we are not seeing eye to eye on this yet.

 

[teen]

honestly, ive never read an article on chaeto or xenai and the benefits. the only reason im using them is because i have friends with BB tanks that use xenia in a fuge and they have awesome colors in the sps and 0 nitrates. one tank in particular, the guy has a 180 BB sps tank with vho lighting, a turboflotor skimmer, and fuge full of xenia. for that tank most people would have went with a euro skimmer or something of that type and MH. his tank has both amazing colors and growth, the colors are a bit on the light side(but still amazing none the less), which is usually an indicator of low nutrients. while im not giving all the credit to the xenia, im sure it has some impact on extracting nutrients.
also, if the xenai grows like crazy, which it most likely will, im hoping to sell it to a lfs and get some credit there.
JUSTFISHINGS- are you vaccuming the crushed coral? if not, i imagine you'll have nitrate problems in the future. how old/established is the tank?

 

[reefkprz]

personall expirience holds a lot of stock in my book, if people are using it in SPS tanks for this purpose it does make me inclined to believe it and look harder for backing info.
the thing that got me is
Originally Posted by ViPeR_930
IIRC, per unit mass, xenia takes up more nutrients than chaeto.
Where did this information come from? per unit mass, is saying that he knowing the specific unit mass of each knows for a fact that per mass, xenias consumption rate is higher than chaetos. I have not yet found anything anywhere stating the actuall consumption rate of xenia let alone comparing it on a mass based ratio to xenia. If he can state this I'm sure he can provide supporting information. on the same note my statement earlier may have been presumtuous stating that chaeto consumes more. I cant prove or disprove this so I apologize for that statement. I can prove the benifits and the fact that cheato consumes massive ammounts of nitrate and with its extraordinary growth rate is a definite signifigant reducer in nitrates. I have seen no proof of the same for xenia, I will keep looking and hope viper chimes back in with the source of this information.

 

[reefreak29]

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
personall expirience holds a lot of stock in my book, if people are using it in SPS tanks for this purpose it does make me inclined to believe it and look harder for backing info.
the thing that got me is
Where did this information come from? per unit mass, is saying that he knowing the specific unit mass of each knows for a fact that per mass, xenias consumption rate is higher than chaetos. I have not yet found anything anywhere stating the actuall consumption rate of xenia let alone comparing it on a mass based ratio to xenia. If he can state this I'm sure he can provide supporting information. on the same note my statement earlier may have been presumtuous stating that chaeto consumes more. I cant prove or disprove this so I apologize for that statement. I can prove the benifits and the fact that cheato consumes massive ammounts of nitrate and with its extraordinary growth rate is a definite signifigant reducer in nitrates. I have seen no proof of the same for xenia, I will keep looking and hope viper chimes back in with the source of this information.
just know from personal experience i use xenia for my sps tank and it works as far as i can tell

 

[just fishings]

TEEN I have had the tank running about a year and a month. It was a break down of two nano tanks I had running about 2 years with some other stuff added. I use to clean the crushed coral but I never get alge on it anymore so I stopped. Now for a tank cleaning I just suck some water out and replace it through my top-off. I don't have no alge anywhere. Clean the glass once a week because of the kidd...lol but on the inside maybe once every two weeks? It's not bad then I just want that crystal clear view!!!
If xenia does take out a good percentage of trates that may be why I never have to deal with them. I have it all over my DT!! I love the look of it's movement!

 

[reefkprz]

if nitrates have a serious impact on xenia or lack thereof that might explain why I have always had a hard time keeping it because I have run a nitrate free (or very close to it) system for years and have only just recently been able to keep xenia, though my test is still zero for nitrates.

 

[squidd]

I can't keep xenia alive in my BB SPS tank... but the mushrooms do fine...

 

[kalied20]

I got a 90 gallon with a +/-25 gallon refuge sump. I am not running a skimmer, I don't have any fancy stuff. I have a mixed tank with about 70 percent softies and 30 percent SPS and LPS. I have 14 fish in there....yep 14...
2 - Regal Tangs
1 - Japanesse Swallowtail Angel
3 - perc clowns
1 - GBTA
5 - medium sized Chromis
1 - six line Wrasse
1- golden headed sleeper goby
I have about 160 lbs. of live rock....mixed fiji and tonga. 60 lbs of live sand...and I mean live. My sand is full of feather dusters, bristle worms, spagetti worms, etc. The backs of my rocks are coved in mini feather dusters and worms. I supplement this cleaning crew with:
4 - extra large mexican turbos
1 - zebra snal
3 - serpent star fish
1 - brittle starfish
35 or so hermits
The Refuge has a 5 inch sand bed with more critters and is full of cheato. Have to cut that stuff about once a week....need is now...lol. I have also put in about 35 lbs of live rock rubble and know that there are tons of mini-brittle and asterea stars along with the biggest bristle worms you will probably see in an aquarium. I recently tossed in a fist size rock of anthelia coral that is growing like a weed. I didn't want it all over my display. It is growing like mad.
I feed my fish in the morning a little flake or pellet. At night I feed frozen foods or chopped up raw shrimp. The starfish love that stuff.
I do not add supplements, (till recently, get to that in a sec.) I change 15 gallons of water every two weeks. and scrap the coraline every week.
The only reason I started adding and supplements was that my LPS and SPS corals were surviving buy not by any means growing. I have decided to add calcium / alk / and mag via the "Two Part Solution" method.
Oh....I don't run a skimmer, but I am thinking about it. The only reason I am thinking about it is that I don't want to have to change the water as often. But not sure where I am going with that yet.
I got happy fish, happy corals, happy GBTA, and everything else. I will keep it this way as long as everything stay well.....happy watching....

 

[earlybird]

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
if nitrates have a serious impact on xenia or lack thereof that might explain why I have always had a hard time keeping it because I have run a nitrate free (or very close to it) system for years and have only just recently been able to keep xenia, though my test is still zero for nitrates.
ReefkprZ,
Have you tried running carbon free to see if it helps the xenia? Just a thought. I read in a book that xenia needs pH of 8.3 constant to thrive. I wonder how true that is?

 

[reefkprz]

I doubt it, because my last ph test as you saw on a different post was 7.9 and my xenia is currently spreading. but that may be the exception rather than the rule. I think more important than any other factor is no matter where your tank parameters are just keeping them stable plays the biggest role, in xenia health. but thats just my opinion.
its too bad viper never reposted to say where that info was from or to show any supporting evedince of the per weight statement. chalk another one up to unssupported myth/rumor.

 

[earlybird]

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
its too bad viper never reposted to say where that info was from or to show any supporting evedince of the per weight statement. chalk another one up to unssupported myth/rumor.
Last week I had a discussion with a friend on the space program. I'm for getting rid of it all together as I can't remember the last thing they've contributed to the world since Tang. I believe more effort and money needs to be put into ocean science. I'm amazed at how many new discoveries and unknown species we still have on Earth. :thinking:

 

[viper_930]

Sorry guys I must've missed this thread.
Here's a snippet from an article from Dr. Ronal L. Shimek, Ph. D.
"Aquarists often worry about the removal of nitrogen products from their systems, but it is clear that several of the export methods are fairly efficient at removing nitrogen compounds. On a per weight basis both skimmer sludge and Xenia export significant amounts of nitrogen, probably as protein in bacteria and tissue respectively. Comparisons utilizing carbohydrates are incomplete, but tend to indicate that Xenia was again the most efficient export of these materials.
Export efficiency may be measured in a couple of ways, however, and although on a per weight basis Xenia appears to be the best export mechanism, Caulerpa grows far faster in most tanks and it would accumulate a lot more of the needed export per unit time."
Google "ronald shimek down the drain" to read the full article. It's a long article with a lot of data so I haven't read the entire thing yet, but I'll get to it soon.

 

[reefkprz]

according to that article with the "one" piece he used for the study xenia consumed almost no Nitrate or nitrite but did consume a signifigant amount of ammonia nitrogen. definatly a good benifit but like I stated far earlier in this thread xenia does not consume signifigant amounts of nitrate. It does however throught the consumption of ammonia nitrogen leave less to be broken down into nitrate and so ipso facto leads to lower nitrates.
Viper
thank you for pointing me towards that article I liked it. great info on heavy metal reduction methodology.

 

[teen]

either way, it keeps your nitrates low. it may not directly feed on nitrates, but its still keeping them low or at zero.
i dont care how it gets done, as long as it gets done.

 

[reefkprz]

definatly! But, hey now we know, the dude with the PHD said so......

 

[aztec reef]

***)

 

[squidd]

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
definatly! But, hey now we know, the dude with the PHD said so......

Well I feel better...all these years and all I had was clean tank to show for it...But Now!!!

A "Dr" said so...

 

[teen]

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
definatly! But, hey now we know, the dude with the PHD said so......

lol, at least his articles get published