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Pseudoscience and reefing: why so much bad information (semi rant)

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richiev

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The info out there on reefing drives me insane. There's so much info that just doesn't make any sense at all, but everywhere it's cargo culted. I find it very frustrating because most of the info seems completely bad, info that seems somewhat good gets shot down (unless it reconfirms myths), and actual info on what works or doesn't isn't investigated.

The biggest two that drive me nuts recently are algae control and dinos. The first one being dinos and low nutrients. That low phosphate and nitrate lead to dino outbreaks, but the solution is higher levels. The second that algae spikes come from P+N being at wrong ratios, and if you get them right the algae problems go away.

Those statements make absolutely no sense. Starting with dinos, the theory is dinos are really good at surviving at low levels, better than everything else, and take over at 0. That seems plausible. The follow up though that by raising levels you lead other things to take over makes no sense.

That's like saying an open flame is really good at burning gas, so if you want less flame toss in some burning coals. If dinos are great at growing at low levels, they're also going to be great at growing at high levels. I can buy that increasing levels limits indirectly some other resource, but that's not what people say.

Next up algae. If algae is in the tank, and there's nutrients, algae will grow. If it grows at 1N it's also going to grow at 10N. Having other coral in the tank isn't going to change that. There's always going to be Nitrate available on the water column for the algae to eat. Even if you have a fuge or a turf scrubber or ...

My personal theory is the real answer to all this is predators and some other resource is a limiter. Algae only being reduced by having a ton of healthy coral that shade out the algae, and a bunch of herbivores. Dinos being blocked by other things fighting for some resource we all aren't tracking (not N nor P), and being consumed by a predator like pods or diatoms or other.

Anyone else think the theories out there make absolutely no sense? Any other theories that drive people insane?
 
I think for the most part, the people "investigating" this are hobbiests who are trying their best but have no real training/ knowledge.

This is my (also untrained) thought/understanding. Dinos can survive with low nutrients, while other algae/ corals can not. Raising nutrients allows other things to live. While I agree with you that this doesn't mean dino wouldn't also live, I disagree with your analogy of the flame and coals. Adding more fuel to a literal fire, leads to more fire. Sure. But adding more nutrients leads to more than only more dinos. While dino still lives with increased nutrients, there is more diversity, and it is not allowed to take over.

Think of it this way, If you only allow(low nutrients) red cars (dinos) into a parking lot, the lot is quickly overrun with red cars. If you let any color car in (increased nutrients) you don't really notice the red cars standing out, because there is a mix. It's the same with dino in the aquarium.

I believe this is why dinos are more of a "new tank" issue. And more prevalent these days because people are starting tanks with "clean" dry rock. There isn't enough diversity in corals and other organisms to keep the balance.
 
The fundamental problem is that reefing inherently includes quite a bit of science, and also appeals to people with that bent, but there isn’t enough incentive to drive real scientific investigations. So people fill in the gaps with what they have, which is largely anecdote, extrapolation, bias, and ego.

If the questions involved were truly high-stakes, like human healthcare or agriculture, then we would get money and expertise focused on the questions and would get some reliable answers. Not that that would stop people from saying crazy stuff too :)

It does bug me when people hear something and then start parroting it like it is the well-known and obvious truth, sometimes aggressively. Enough people repeat the same unproven claim and all of a sudden it feels proven. This is not good for new ideas or the hobby. It’s good to stay humble and try to put more faith in ideas with more real supporting evidence and less in those with less.
 
Meshmez said:
I think for the most part, the people "investigating" this are hobbiests who are trying their best but have no real training/ knowledge.

This is my (also untrained) thought/understanding. Dinos can survive with low nutrients, while other algae/ corals can not. Raising nutrients allows other things to live. While I agree with you that this doesn't mean dino wouldn't also live, I disagree with your analogy of the flame and coals. Adding more fuel to a literal fire, leads to more fire. Sure. But adding more nutrients leads to more than only more dinos. While dino still lives with increased nutrients, there is more diversity, and it is not allowed to take over.

Think of it this way, If you only allow(low nutrients) red cars (dinos) into a parking lot, the lot is quickly overrun with red cars. If you let any color car in (increased nutrients) you don't really notice the red cars standing out, because there is a mix. It's the same with dino in the aquarium.

I believe this is why dinos are more of a "new tank" issue. And more prevalent these days because people are starting tanks with "clean" dry rock. There isn't enough diversity in corals and other organisms to keep the balance.
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In your analogy the parking lot slots is a constrained resource. For that reasoning to work, there must be a constrained resource. The constrained resource cannot be N nor P, if by definition the fix to dinos is increase N and P.
 
richiev said:
In your analogy the parking lot slots is a constrained resource. For that reasoning to work, there must be a constrained resource. The constrained resource cannot be N nor P, if by definition the fix to dinos is increase N and P.
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Correct, I'm saying my understanding is it's not a constrained resource issue at all. At least not in the sense that Dinos are better at taking nutrients than other organisms. If that were the case, your analogy of adding fuel to the fire would apply. Dinos can survive in the lack of N and P when other organisms can't. Therefore, when nothing else can live, dinos take over. Increasing (or making available) N and P allows other organisms to live and compete for space and nutrients, thus not allowing dinos to multiply out of control.

In my analogy, only red cars (dinos) are allowed to exist in the parking lot. Once the parking lot is opened to other colored cars (nutrients are made available allowing other organisms to live) the lot becomes mixed, and red cars don't stand out.

I don't believe the thought is that increasing N and P kills dinos, rather it allows other organisms to exist to displace dinos as the dominant organism.
 
Meshmez said:
Correct, I'm saying my understanding is it's not a constrained resource issue at all. At least not in the sense that Dinos are better at taking nutrients than other organisms. If that were the case, your analogy of adding fuel to the fire would apply. Dinos can survive in the lack of N and P when other organisms can't. Therefore, when nothing else can live, dinos take over. Increasing (or making available) N and P allows other organisms to live and compete for space and nutrients, thus not allowing dinos to multiply out of control.

In my analogy, only red cars (dinos) are allowed to exist in the parking lot. Once the parking lot is opened to other colored cars (nutrients are made available allowing other organisms to live) the lot becomes mixed, and red cars don't stand out.

I don't believe the thought is that increasing N and P kills dinos, rather it allows other organisms to exist to displace dinos as the dominant organism.
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I do agree with pieces of that, and I don't mean to hyper-focus on dinos, but that final part is the aspect that makes that the N+P theory for dinos in particular fall apart, and by relationship similarly I feel the statements around algae fall apart.

If dinos can survive well at low N+P, they can survive well at high N+P. I personally have seen exactly that when battling them. If you have dinos, and you add more N+P, you're going to have even more dinos.

For something else to be dominant, it either must be:
  1. predating on the thing it's dominating
  2. out competing the thing it's dominating for some resource
    1. dinos cannot be getting out competed for N+P, because there's always measurable N+P in this treatment (plus earlier we said dinos are great at eating any N+P that's available)
  3. <something completely different>
My point being everyone says raising N+P causes dinos to be out competed, but no one says what that means. What are they being out competed for?

Same thing with algae. Unless you're running a ULNS then a turf scrubber or refugium or skimmer isn't preventing algae growth by reducing N+P. All those can help prevent the tank from getting N=100, P=5, but if you're running N=10, P=0.1 then you always have N&P that algae can eat. So either something in there is eating the algae OR there's some other hidden thing being constrained somehow.
 
While we are talking about theories that bug us, mine is that you need a low nutrient tank to grow sps. Keeps people from feeding their animals enough imo.
 
richiev said:
I do agree with pieces of that, and I don't mean to hyper-focus on dinos, but that final part is the aspect that makes that the N+P theory for dinos in particular fall apart, and by relationship similarly I feel the statements around algae fall apart.

If dinos can survive well at low N+P, they can survive well at high N+P. I personally have seen exactly that when battling them. If you have dinos, and you add more N+P, you're going to have even more dinos.

For something else to be dominant, it either must be:
  1. predating on the thing it's dominating
  2. out competing the thing it's dominating for some resource
    1. dinos cannot be getting out competed for N+P, because there's always measurable N+P in this treatment (plus earlier we said dinos are great at eating any N+P that's available)
  3. <something completely different>
My point being everyone says raising N+P causes dinos to be out competed, but no one says what that means. What are they being out competed for?

Same thing with algae. Unless you're running a ULNS then a turf scrubber or refugium or skimmer isn't preventing algae growth by reducing N+P. All those can help prevent the tank from getting N=100, P=5, but if you're running N=10, P=0.1 then you always have N&P that algae can eat. So either something in there is eating the algae OR there's some other hidden thing being constrained somehow.
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I think the dropping nutrients to fight algae thing is wrong. So I agree with you there.

So back to dinos. Your point #2. I don't necessarily think dinos is "great at eating any N+P available." In fact I think that's how it gets outcompeted at higher N+P. Dino is great at surviving when N and/or P is scarce. Other organisms are NOT great at surviving when N and/or P are scarce.

I believe the theory is when N+P hit a certain lower limit, other organisms cant grow. However dino CAN live and grow on low or no N+P. When N+P drop below that limit for a long enough time, dino is the only thing that lives, and it multiplies and takes over. Increasing N+P above that threshold allows other organisms to live and grow again.

And I think I just realized the thing you're saying is missing... Dino is outcompeted for space. Those other organisms are able to grow faster and take the real estate that dino needs. Other organisms are able to take up rock surface, and suppress dino. This is why it's frequently recommended to also dose pods, phyto etc. Some even dose silicates, to promote diatoms. Diatoms take up space, and are easy to let burn themselves out once silicate dosing is removed. It's trading one issue for another, but algae isnt toxic like some dinos, and there are animals that will eat it.
 
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Meshmez said:
And I think I just realized the thing you're saying is missing... Dino is outcompeted for space. Those other organisms are able to grow faster and take the real estate that dino needs. Other organisms are able to take up rock surface, and suppress dino. This is why it's frequently recommended to also dose pods, phyto etc. Some even dose silicates, to promote diatoms. Diatoms take up space, and are easy to let burn themselves out once silicate dosing is removed. It's trading one issue for another, but algae isnt toxic like some dinos, and there are animals that will eat it.
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I think we're aligned now :).

I also thought maybe it was a space thing, but what's making me think that's not true (at least with dinos) is they grow all over the algae in my tank. The Mack's dino group on FB is overflowing with pseudoscience, but does has some good stuff mixed in there too (you might've shared that link to me at one point). One of the good things is I think there was a video linked of diatoms predating on some form of dino. However I can't remember where that link was.

Some day, when I move down to some place cheap with copious solar panels and quit all jobs, I'll do a BRS style experiment on dinos. I feel like this just needs a decent test put together and dinos could be put to bed. Grab a bunch of dinos, and prove they can grow like crazy with N&P. Have a second tank with some dinos and a bunch of diatoms and see what happens. Another with pods. Another ...

It just feels ... doable.

Or if someone out there *cough* @MolaMola *cough* had some free student laborers and space in a classroom maybe they could do it as an experiment! I'd even provide free dinos! I'd even pay for supplies!
 
richiev said:
Or if someone out there *cough* @MolaMola *cough* had some free student laborers and space in a classroom maybe they could do it as an experiment! I'd even provide free dinos! I'd even pay for supplies!
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What we have is nuisance algae (in the eye of the beholder) of all types in one tank as well as an overrun of cyano and foraminiferans in another tank. I have to say when school started and students fed tanks much more food at one time than I did over summer, algae took off. Also, I am on Team Herbivore. Sadly, much of my free labor consists of unskilled laborers who cannot or will not conduct proper investigating or restrict tools to designated tanks. Plus, as soon as I ask for orders to be sent, we are embarking on both algae and plankton cultures, which sounded great at the time but I am not so sure now with my two current classes. Space is already going to be an issue since I have five other "real" classes who require space for activities. But...there is always room for more tanks at @NanoCrazed !
 
Meshmez said:
Sure, and there is a ton of biodiversity that we generally don't have in new, dry rock started tanks
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Absolutely - strategy for algae management for a new tank is different from a mature tank due to benthic succession. In our tanks, not taking into account benthic succession is, IMO, what causes uglies and stress about algae.
I was more referring to the idea that we need to show that algae and dinos grow with n and p. We know this, even if the hobby tends to forget.
Meshmez said:
But even in wild reefs, aren't there times when certain algae take over?
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Yes, mostly when herbivores are not present, or have been fished out. Any reef ecology course goes over the idea that if you fence herbivores off of a section of reef, algae will grow. People get excited about eutrophication because it looks so gross, but they often let slide the idea that the herbiores have also been over fished or left the area for other reasons like the diamdema die off. This is the case I am presenting in my current talk.
 
I didn’t read everything above so maybe already has been said, but I saw a couple posts that were asking what constrained resource is being competed for besides nutrients.

The answer is habitat, eg surfaces.

And of course access to light energy for photosynthesis (which is also the main carbon source) but I think that is already assumed.
 
The Dinos doing worse at higher nutrient levels isn't that weird an ecological concept. Cacti for example doing better in arid (i.e. low nutrient) conditions but get out competed by other plants under non-arid conditions. Organisms often have a preferred set of conditions (a niche). But to really prove that you'd need a controlled experiment: several control and experimental tanks and you'd need to measure and manipulate conditions as precisely as possible. Most reefers are running an experiment but without a control; they can really only observe the impact of changes. So if people have success getting of dinos by increasing nutrients a logical conclusion is that dinos are out-competed by other microrganisms who utilize abundant nutrients better.
It's doesn't it's correct but it's not illogical. On the other hand you do have counter arguments like red tides that seem to occur with sudden increases in nutrients and may be composed of a particular dino species. Suffice biology/ecology is complicated with many factors and organisms to consider.
 
As for the why there is so much bad info out there, my theory is relatively new hobbyists parroting what they have read instead of being scientists and actually testing the theory in controlled environments. I am sure we all have seen people with 6 months experience spouting falsehoods like they know what they are talking about without knowing the why behind the subject matter.


Thanks @Thales for having a video for literally every major question someone has asked recently! Much easier to give an answer, then also have a well thought out video help explain.
 
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