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House of Laughter

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Ok folks, here is a link to the salt study that Eric Borneman and Kim Lowe completed for the MARSH Marine club out of Houston (sponsors of this years MACNA)

Keep in mind that these findings are preliminary and need further data collection and analysis and want to make sure before everyone jumps ship on IO that they understand the nature of the study, and all the moving parts.

Site with all the threads of the study

RC Discussion

Eric Borneman uses IO and so do I!

House
 
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ShaunW

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From: http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic45946-9-1.aspx

Yes, I am very sorry for the rush at the end, and I really would have liked some more time for both of us to describe what we observed.

Long and short of it is that at this point we have data but we have not done any analyses to see if there is any significant differences in the growth, reproduction or mortality of the corals, fish, echinoderms, gastropods, sponges, octocorals, zoanthids, corallimorphs, algae or other species compared to the control.

What we presented were some interesting things - such as what Frank mentioned... finding various micro and turf-algae, copepods, and other microbes in tanks triple washed with autoclaved substrate, purified water and salt. We saw clear trends in some of the salt brands in terms of turf and cyanobacteria continuing to thrive in some salts and not in others. We saw very clear differences in coralline coverage and foraminiferan growth and variations in successional species. I mistakenly kept saying bryozoan rather than foraminiferan in the talk...my bad. We also saw, in some cases, very heavy undeisrable algal growth month after month even after removing it after each water change despite very low measurable inorganic nutrients, and very little undesirable algae growth in some cases where inorganic nutrients were quite measurable. The difference, as Habib Sekha rightfully pointed out, is probably the unmeasurable organic components, but then the question is why the difference in the dynamics of nutrients varied given the same treatments.

Because the study literally ended the day before the conference, there was no way to analyze the results. I will say that, at least from being familiar with the data and the appearance of the tanks and the survival and appearance of the species that there are certainly some salts I would prefer to use in my tank and some that I probably wouldn't use again, even though I have used them for many years without any obvious negative effects. I have a feeling that the reason these differences are not observed by those using these salts, myself included, is that the complexity of the reef tank community is able to mitigate the good and bad aspects of the salts that became apparent in a more controlled environment.

BUT, and I STRESS BUT, the results once analyzed might very well show there are no significant differences between the salts and the control. It appears from a cursory look at the data that at least for some species there will be a significant difference. If there is, then I think it will be interesting to go back and run replicates of those tanks and species and look more carefully at what factors might be at work to cause the differences, either better or worse.

Anecdotally from our observations and the overall appearance and experience with the nine salts tested - in other words, if the average person came into the lab and had to pick a tank they would want to take home - they would probably throw Tank J (Instant Ocean) away because of the continuous heavy cyanobacterial growth with every batch, and would probably choose Tank F (Red Sea) because of the heavy coralline growth, booming amphipod population (I still have to count all of them!!!), tight ball of Chaetomorpha, and overall apparent health of the species. Yet, some of the other tanks had reproduction that exceeded Tank F in some species, and concurrently had less that other salts, too. The control was not without mortality, either, and had relatively low algal growth (corallines and turfs/cyano) but was the first to show strong foram growth.

Basically, there are a lot of things that happened, lots of data, pluses and minuses in each tank, and until we do the analyses, there really can't be an informed answer as to what salts are great or not so great.

Frank, I appreciate your offer. Rob Toonen and I spoke quite a bit last night as to how to approch the statstics, and I would like to talk with you about it as well. There are likely limitations to how much we can actually say and I need to think about how best to approach and get as much information out of what we did as possible. Some things are straightforward, others not so easy, and some may indicate something significant that will require more testing and replication.

The good thing is we have samples for further analyses and I would finally end this post by saying this is far from the definitive study. I hope it will be a platform that can be used for further work, comparison and discussion.
 

ShaunW

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The study that he performs sounds too complex with many variables present. Replicate testing is the only way to statistically verify results, so for the people in the audience, how many tanks per salt tested did he have set up?
 

ShaunW

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That's unfortunate, since statistically anything could happen once. Of the millions of chances of an event happening, how can he defend/deny that the one aberrant event didn't happen in his study. If I was a reviewer of his work for scientific publication I would demand additional testing and possibly a simplification of the system being tested such that all the possible variables can be minimized.
 
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An identical assortment of soft corals/gorgonians, a few clownfish, 2 types of algae--Chaetomorpha was one etc some snails and crabs. No skimmer can't recall what other kind of filtration carbon perhaps? Te details must be in that thread somewhere.

They made a real and sincere effort here and it was a huge undertaking for a club, but as you say there are alot of variables here and it needs to be replicated. Actually, 1st the data needs to be analyzed:)

Chances are, it never will be replicated and 2 things will most likely happen:
1) Large numbers of hobbyists will change what they are doing successfully in panic for reasons they don't really understand and
2) The study will be vilified by others for its inadequacies.

We have been down this road many, many times before.

Randy
 

House of Laughter

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I agree with you Randy on that they realy tried given thier resources and objective - that was to do it as if they were hobbiests - they bought salt from stores and used consumer-used test kits (salifert) etc. A great first try (well more than a first) and perhaps someone will fund or pick up the study - something the lab might be interested in Shaun?? I know I'd be interested in doing something like this - With all the salt types and all the testing that would need to be done, this could be a lifes work. :Yikes:

House
 

ShaunW

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An identical assortment of soft corals/gorgonians, a few clownfish, 2 types of algae--Chaetomorpha was one etc some snails and crabs. No skimmer can't recall what other kind of filtration carbon perhaps? Te details must be in that thread somewhere.
So these systems are indeed complex. Which can lead to many different variables. Did he QC for algae additions? besides chaeto?

They made a real and sincere effort here and it was a huge undertaking for a club, but as you say there are alot of variables here and it needs to be replicated. Actually, 1st the data needs to be analyzed:)

Chances are, it never will be replicated and 2 things will most likely happen:
1) Large numbers of hobbyists will change what they are doing successfully in panic for reasons they don't really understand and
2) The study will be vilified by others for its inadequacies.

We have been down this road many, many times before.


Randy
You are indeed correct and it is a great start. It is unfortunate that the reason why we have been down this road many times before is that the actually experiments are not performed to the proper scientific rigor each time. They should anticipate the potential critics and silence them before the experiment is performed through proper experimental design initially.

The rules: Keep it simple, test one variable at a time, have at least three replicates, provide both positive and negative controls.
 
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Not sure what QC means:) They did TRY to keep everyhing in each tank as identical as possible ( all fish from same brood, corals from same mother colonies algae from same source etc. You'll have to read the experiment protocol for all the details as I kinda of glazed over for alot of it:)

You make it sound so simple:) But I know you know it isn't. RD
 

wxl14

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While sounding like they did and ok job. The amount of variable from a scientific stand-point seem to be to large to duplicate in a constant basis. The test would be more efficient and more conclusive if they would of done just only a few salts in multiple tanks. But for a club this is a highly large scale test they attempted and at least the one thing they did prove is that they care seriously about this hobby. I am very impressed
 

ShaunW

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Not sure what QC means:) They did TRY to keep everyhing in each tank as identical as possible ( all fish from same brood, corals from same mother colonies algae from same source etc. You'll have to read the experiment protocol for all the details as I kinda of glazed over for alot of it:)

You make it sound so simple:) But I know you know it isn't. RD
Well he's in reality testing many different things. That's why it doesn't sound simple.

Incidentially what was his initial hypothesis?

From the experimental design, what he is testing in different salt mixes:
1. Fish viability.
a) due to the addition of a fish, different nutrient levels unless the feeding of said fish were QC.

2. Algae growth.
a) Here there are many different algae types to account for.

3. Coral growth and viability.

These are too many variables. Just pick one, i.e. algae growth in different salt mixes. Then ditch the fish and corals. Put some rock in different tanks (all the same weight and porous nature) and watch what happens with all tanks under the same conditions except for the salt.
 
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No you are right. I think they were trying to emulate what various salts do in a "typical " hobbyist situation thus the variety of organisms approach. Not sure of the formal hypothesis, but the talk was titled " The effects of various Synthetic Sea Salts in the Microenvironment"

I believe they have reams of data that haven't been analyzed yet.

Shimek's study used the approach you are suggesting using sea urchin larvae exclusively... you know how that one turned out. LOL.

This goes back to discussions we have had before. Even the well trained scientists don't have the time and or funding to do it slowly, multiple times etc. to yield results that are scientifically valid AND useful to hobbyists.
What we are left with by its nature is less than ideal in numerous ways.

In this case at least the authors are being very careful about having people draw conclusions prematurely... not that people are listening.
 
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cali_reef

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I think they simulated replication buy doing large water changes( I heard 80 to 100%) with the same salt mix regularly, the macro algae, coraline algae, other "bad" algae, fish weight gain and overall coral growth were the determining factor which brand was better.

They goal was to determin which brand was a better salt in comparison with natual sea water for a long term hobby use.
 

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