Resilience

... sorry, meant to get some close-ups...

 

It's not, Pelado. They're button polyps.

 

that is very cool! I bet those guys will really take off in your tank now!
I know I had some halloween zoas that were on my rock when my tank broke, the rock is now in a rubbermade container with SW, skimmer and powerhead. Hopefully I will have the same luck!

 

Very cool, wish I had some

 

It is amazing isn't it? In the "olden days" no one cured live rock in their tanks with their lights on. It was always done similar to how you did it. People got plenty of hitchhikers in spite of this.

 

Here's hoping you're right!

Do I have it right--that curing in the darkness helps flush the rocks of algaes? I read that this way promotes the biological side of filtration, while discouraging the photosynthetic side of things (algal growth).

I'm learning daily that those things you read usually aren't half as valuable as experience you pocket on your own.

As my mother-in-law says, "Bought sense is better than taught sense."

 

It is remarkable how resilient life is. Without that wonderful resilience we would not be able to wonder at your post. WAY COOL!!!!

 

I could not agree more with this! K+

 

Thanks!

 

Great Larry, now you've done it. You got me thinking about the fact that this hobby didn't used to promote algal growth on purpose and then you mentioned inexperience too. : On top of that, it was Walter Adey who did it. (He's not one of my favorite people. His work, which was entirely theoretical, sent this hobby down a very treacherous path IMO).

A number of years ago, people adopted the Berlin System which was the addition of a protein skimmer and live rock to a bare bottom tank. It was very successful and really helped spread this hobby. During this time, live rock was live because of the bacteria that it held and that was all. No one cared about pods, sponges, feather dusters, coralline, etc.

Circa 91, Walter Adey and Karen Loveland wrote a book called Dynamic Aquaria. Now all of the sudden, live rock was live because of all of the hitchhiking critters and their role in an ecosystem. Anyone could run a Berlin System. It was boring like driving across Kansas. Here's where hobby decided to no longer follow the straight and boring map. It thought it found a shortcut. Unfortunately, this shortcut involved travelling on pothole filled dirt roads, but it was more interesting. Now the goal was no longer to keep corals and fish alive and healthy, now we were supposed to build Mesocosms (a small enclosed ecosytem). Because of this, we were led to believe the various fallacies like;
---Hitchhiker sponges actually play a large role in the filtration of your tank and are important part of your own miniature ecosystem
---Hitchhiker featherdusters actually play a large role in the filtration of your tank and are important part of your own miniature ecosystem
---Pods actually play a large part yada, yada, yada
---Microalgaes are important because they are food for the various critters like pods and gammarus shrimp that are an important part of your miniature ecosystem. (This is where the lighting your rock to "Not destroy the life" came from).
I could go on and on, but this is why people were told to put refugiums above their tanks (pods and other critters would be killed by a return pump so they must go into the display tank by gravity only).
---Protein skimmers removed too much food that the critters in your ecosystem needed so they were now considered bad.
---In place of protein skimmers, one was to use Algal Turf Scrubbers which were gentle on the various critters that made up your ecosystem. (Note: Walter Adey had the patent on ATS's and really ripped off a friend of mine. However, the main reason I don't like him is that his methodology is HIGHLY flawed. Maybe it should be mentioned that Walter HAD NEVER HAD AN AQUARIUM.....NOT EVEN A FRESHWATER ONE). In spite of his lack of experience, this hobby went hook, line, and sinker for his ideas. .e. we had to have a DSB to provide food for our ecosystem. In fact, we were supposed to TARGET FEED OUR SANDBEDS so our critters in there didn't starve so they could then feed our sponges, and feather dusters, and corals. In the interest of full disclosure, I fell for this nonsense too. :-[

This is not an anti-DSB post. I've run them, I've run BB, I've run SSB, I've run mud, I've run skimmerless, I've run with UV, I've run without UV, yada, yada, yada. I don't really care what one chooses for their tank or for what reason. I'll help you with your tank no matter what you pick based on my experiences, not from what I've read. (I think that it's apparent from the above that I consider the worst form of filtration is a DSB. With that said, if one reads my debate with Covey on this forum, I'm pretty fair and honest with the pros/cons of any system so then my goal is to make whatever you choose better).