- We biome cycled 12 different tank styles for six months
in hopes of making the ugly stage a thing of the past
today we find out what each approach is,
why we selected them, and how the experiment is run.
This is BRS TV Investigates.
It's time to learn something new
about cycling and reef tanks.
From this point on, when I say cycling
I'm no longer referring
to the nitrogen cycle and ammonia, which is easy.
Biome cycling is a different term
that also considers health, diversity,
and balance of all the scene and unseen microorganisms
in the tank, specifically exploring the microbiome
of bacterial films and micro crustaceans,
the different roles they have
and the benefit or contributions they make
to avoiding the uglies and producing a pristine tank.
The reefing hobby started on wet live rock from the ocean
which came with natural biofilms, micro crustaceans or pods.
We were biome cycling back then
and we just didn't know it because it was effortless
but there were issues then as well
they were just different, slimes, invasive,
often impossible control, algae, nutrients,
decane organics that fed the algae, pest anemones,
fish and coral parasites, much of which you will see
in this experiment.
Today, 90% of reefers are starting with dry rock,
often referred to as a sterile approach,
partially to avoid common pest introduction.
And because it's more ecologically friendly
but also because most countries
have just stopped exporting ocean based live rock.
The pursuit of this experiment is the best
of both wet and dry worlds.
A low cost easy way to start a tank without the uglies.
These are the 12 experiment tanks for this round
we decided to avoid the biomes in a bottle products
and focus on fairly natural approaches of seeding biome.
We're also not including crabs, snails, or any cleanup crew,
or any utilitarian fish for this phase of the experiment.
The goal is a clear window
into the microbiome, effects of pest introduction,
biofilms and pods, or micro crustaceans
without the interference of larger organisms.
If we do this right, the cleanup crew
and fish will become the final polish,
rather than a frontline defense.
Tank one, what we're calling the control, dry rock,
dry sand, and no obvious sources of biome seeding.
The sterile method.
The presumption is this will be the most challenging method
but it doesn't pan out that way.
In fact, in one important area, it comes out as the best.
Tank two, dry rock, dry sand,
but inst the tank with corals to seed the biome.
I think there's a lot of fans of this approach.
It should seed both bacterial biofilms
as well as micro crustaceans like pods.
We found in some areas that it does work well
but in the end, I think you'll agree,
not necessarily the best method
or most reliable.
Tank number three, dry rock,
but ocean direct live sand,
ocean direct claims to be different than other live sands
because it's unsifted, moist, ocean sand,
that brings a microbiome with the seedier tank.
With this experiment there's strong DNA based evidence
to support that it lives up to these claims.
I'm now a believer.
However, ocean direct is not a source of micro crustaceans
which turns out to be a challenge
with one of the pests.
Tank four, real reef manufactured rock,
moist, purple, which hides the uglies,
and cured in seawater, which may have some life.
No question that hides mistakes
and looks best for a good portion of the experiment
but there's DNA testing
which gives a window into why minimal effort
into microbiome creates challenges later.
Tank five, dry rock, dry sand, but dark cured live rubble
from an established tank placed in the experiment tank sump.
This method should introduce desirable bacterial biofilms
and micro crustaceans, but also should avoid
many of the photosynthetically uglies
because it hasn't been exposed to light
for a prolonged period of time.
This approach turned out to be one of the top performers
and potentially an easy to replicate solution as well.
Tank six, 100% established rock and sand
from an established tank move directly
into the experiment tank.
Well, a hundred percent established rock and sand
may seem like the best and it does fend off
some of the worst pests but I'll never move sand
from one tank to another without cleaning it
because it's just a pile of stirred up organics
that fuel problems in the tank.
Tank seven, dry rock, dry sand
but we mixed in two cups
a small amount of sand from an established tank.
This is the one I was rooting for
because a couple cups of sand is cheap and easy,
but it turned out to be the primary infector
of one of the biggest problems here.
It reinforces why I'd never used sand from an existing tank
without cleaning it and effectively sterilizing it first.
Take eight, wet Indonesian live rock, and dry sand,
historically wet live rock the most popular
but it didn't prove to be the gold standard
that we expected.
You'll see clear reasons as to why this tank
almost certainly would've done better.
If we had performed a prolonged dark cure
before using that rock and a hammer size cleanup crew.
Tank nine, gulf live rock, wet rock shipped in water
filled with sponges and easily the most live of live rocks.
This is what I used on my own first tank successfully,
no question it does add a wider array of organisms
to the reef tank biome, but with some caveats
it was not an easy journey.
I'd still recommend this to a lot of people
with a guidance that you should dark cure at first
which is a tough pill to swallow
because a lot of what makes the rock cool won't make it.
Without the dark cure I'd go into this knowing
that your utilitarian fish, cleanup crew, and filtration
will be working overtime.
Tank 10, Aqua forest,
and the life source or reef mud method.
This is likely going to make the second round of tests
because the AquaBiomics eDNA testing results
suggested it might be one of the easiest
and cheapest ways to see to balance biome to the rock, sand,
and other surfaces in the tank.
Results fairly similar to the ocean direct sand.
I've never been a big believer in dosing reef mud
to a reef tank, but the data is forcing me
to reconsider how this tool could be used.
Tank 11, dry rock, dry sand,
but a hundred percent of the water
coming from our most established tank here
with the BRS 160.
I'll just say I won't do this again.
For the most part, it added the bad without the good
I doubt many people would rely on this
as the primary microbiome donor in most tanks.
Tank 12, ceramic marine pure bricks
from a very established tank,
presumably one of the better biome donor surfaces.
We see a couple of things here,
even though the brick was in a dark sump of the donor tank.
When we put it in the lit tank, it seeded a lot
of photosynthetics and had a rough start, but when it counts
the approach comes through.
Good news because this could also be
a very scalable approach to solving the uglies.
The big question is how are we going
to evaluate these 12 tanks?
We look at five important elements
that make up the tank's microbiome,
starting with biome diversity
using AquaBiomics environmental DNA testing
to give a diversity score, which essentially measures
how many different components of microbiome are in the tank.
It's true that most long term established tanks
have a fairly diverse microbiome,
something that is measurable
and that will compare against established tanks here
like the BRS 160, Steve's tank and the 900.
However, diversity seems to be more
of a long term destination
than something that you can create overnight,
even with the livest rock out there.
There's also a dark side.
Well, diversity sounds good.
We'll find out that more doesn't always mean better.
Sometimes diversity just means more uglies.
Next, biome balance, also using the AquaBiomics
environmental DNA testing
but this time giving a balance score,
mean that it's the right things.
They're in the right balance with each other
in similar to the average tanks that they test.
This is tested against hundreds of healthy
other microbiomes to find a typical makeup
of a healthy tank.
There's a focus on five biome families
that make up most of the balanced biome
after that visual results with LPS lighting settings
or moderate light energy, does a tank look visually good?
Because that's what most of us care about.
How does a tank perform when we turn the lights on
in six weeks of lighting tune to 75 to 150 range?
What kind of photosynthetic pests do we see materialize
and fuel the growth?
How do the visual results correlate to the DNA testing?
Then we up the game with visual results
with SPS lighting settings
when we double to triple the light energy, what happens?
The answer is more light causes totally different
photosynthetic pests to emerge and faster,
likely why some of the approaches
like instant tanking work well on lower light LPS tanks
but don't work reliably on SPS tanks.
Then maybe the most exciting stage of the experiment
where we simulate the inevitable introduction
of pest organisms, can the 12 different microbiomes
we create stand up to the addition of these pest organisms?
The answer is only for due
and they share some defining characteristics
common to established tanks.
We might be able to create much faster
and even more reliable results
by taking what we learned here
and using more deliberate methods to biome cycle our tanks.
What we learned starts with the environmental DNA testing
by AquaBiomics, you'll see which options
are the most diverse or balanced.
What good looks like, what bad looks like,
and how to know the difference.
All that in the next episode, right here.