DSB or BB?

[madmac]

Things that rely on bacteria for food and are not photosynthetic would survive, like sponges/tunicates/tube worms. Crabs/worms are tough. Try tis out. Seal the container to prevent air, this will cause an o2 drain and the resulting aerobic dieoff will cause and ammonium spike. Aft 2 day, open and hand pick out the crabs/worms...most will surface out of their hiding place, some wud still be half-dead. Change water and do again for 2 days. This will wipe most of your nasties... but ur sponges etc wont survive.

[andysho]

Cook the rocks in boiling water~everything will sure die out Lol

just joking

[dreamzcape]

hmmz....ok...if there's aerobic dieoff...then i think aerobic bacteria will also be affected if the container is completey sealed and not exposed to light right? will anaerobic bacteria build up then?

[madmac]

Anaerobic will thrive in those conditions, ...but pls do not extent for longer than 2 days... otherwise you'll get an even bigger problem, i'm thinking the extensive formation of H2S...

[iantoh]

hi,

A question to bro Ian, or any1 out there ...

does the Aqua Medic Denirator system acts like a DSB?

The system description seems like a "DSB" to me ..

Any comments?

cheers

hi everyone, pls forgive my long post.

not sure if others agree that this is the key element to cooking liverocks, but i think the most important part to cooking is the total water change. that is, to change the water so that all the dissolved nutrients (and the shedded detritus) are removed so that the bacteria have little to nothing in the water column to feed on. with new clean water added in, and without sufficient dissolved nutrients to feed the bacteria, the bacteria will then be forced to work on the nutrients and organics trapped deeper within the rocks. eventually, the rocks should stop shedding any significant amounts of dirt.

if one doesnt change the water and merely leaves the rocks sitting in a dark tub or tank with the same pool of water, perhaps even a year wont complete the cooking process, because that basically replicating the normal curing process of allowing die-offs to decompose, without actually forcing bacteria to work overtime and process the trapped nutrients like PO4 inside the rocks.

actually, i used to love my DSB. i mean, when i first began reefing, nitrates were always the issue, so it was a lifesaver. but with the better flow and skimming we have now, nitrates become less of an issue, and PO4 takes over as the troublemaker. and microalgaes always grow up from the sandbed's edges, so going BB is really just a solution to the problems of DSB. i think both if done properly result in balanced systems. most of the TOTMs are all SB tanks, so its not like the DSB is bad, just that they are different approaches.

i just finished setting up my new system today and the plumbings took me three days to get done, what with the having to wait till next morning to go back to the DIY store to get more pipes, valves, etc, and the overflow imbalances to correct. i'm damn worried now about my display tank overflowing when im at work or something, but sigh.. shall keep my fingers crossed and hope everything goes well.

if it overflows, my parents will have a field day.

i think, as an experiment, i shall go BB with partially cooked rocks. my rocks have only been cooking a week so far, but theyve been with me ages now, and anyways, i'm fine with the macros that i plant intentionally, just not the diatoms. plus we dont get southdown sand here to guarantee we dont introduce silicates via our sandbed.

if my nitrates become an issue, then i'll just add sand. its easier to convert this way than from DSB to BB.

bro zephyros,

there are lots of bros here who have better experience with regards to denitrators so hopefully they'll join in and answer your query, but from the little i know about denitrators, youre right in saying that they essentially replicate the final stages of the nitrogen cycle by converting nitrates back into oxygen and nitrogen gas by allowing bacteria to colonize the denitrator's inner tubes and bioballs. ive not used them though, because i worry about the drip rate tunings, as too much oxygen in the denitrator and youll get more aerobic bacterias (as opposed to anaerobic bacterias), actually increasing your nitrates rather than lowering it, whilst if theres too little oxygen going in, hydrogen sulfides will forms. so i think a DSB is far easier.

im planning to grow chaeto for nitrate export in a BB system. i'm not sure how my nitrate levels will go since ive not gone BB before, but will see how it pans out and improvise from there i guess. i'm going to borrow my gf's cam and take some photos soon ya. so do check out my tank thread when it comes up ya!

cheers everyone!

ian

Hi bro zeph,

[dreamzcape]

oh oh please do show tank pics and anything you have to highlight...mabbe even water parameters if you're really bored. I do agree with the idea that you need to change the water because in my opinion but the water change i think can't be too drastic. I see 2 scenarios here...

1)Doing a full water change and getting rid of the detritus to allow the bacteria to work on detritus still stuck deep in the rock pores, which i think does work.

2)Partial water change so that there's still some nutrients left in the water for the bacteria to work on. This of course is based on assumption that there is no detritus deep in the rock for the bacteria to take care off.

But I think in both cases worms and crabs will still cause shedding of liverock material leading one to think that the rocks are still not fully cooked.

Scenario 3 of keeping the same water, i think the bacteria will eventually multiply to clear all the nutrients, but once that is done, the bacteria have nothing to feed on and slowly the bacterial population reaches an equilibrium where rate of nutrients caused by bacterial die-off = rate of consumption by remaining bacteria.

Opinions anyone?