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Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, I now live in California where I am a marine
biologist at UC Davis. Aside from keeping reef tanks at home while I
was growing up, I gained much of my early experience in aquarium-related jobs.
I tried every position I could find, including a stint as a marine mammal
trainer at a large public aquarium facility, private aquarium maintenance,
and retail pet sales. After completing my zoology degree at the University
of Alberta, I went on to get a Masters in marine biology from the University
of North Carolina, and a Ph.D. in population biology from the University of
California.
Despite the fact that I study invertebrate zoology professionally, I still
consider myself a hobbyist, and enjoy maintaining and writing about reef aquaria
as a result of my fascination with these animals.
I have done research on jellyfish, shrimp, corals, sponges, sea slugs, polychaete
worms, crabs, and barnacles, and have bred and raised many different species
of marine invertebrates for my research, and now have more than 25 years of
experience with tanks at home.
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| Rob has just accepted a faculty
position at the Hawaii
Institute of Marine Biology (http://www.hawaii.edu/HIMB/), and will move
there to begin his new appointment as a Professor of Marine Biology a month
after the 2003 IMAC meeting. |
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There has been considerable debate, both in presentations and in print, over
the relative benefits of deep sandbeds and plenum-based systems for nutrient
processing in reef aquaria. Despite strong opinions about the advantages or
potential dangers of alternate designs on both sides of the argument, there
are currently no data to evaluate the validity of any position for or against
plenum- or deep sandbed-based systems. This is due to the simple fact that
no one to date has done a controlled and replicated experiment to test the
capacity of various sediments and aquarium designs to process nitrogenous
wastes.
I believe strongly that reef keeping needs to advance beyond the era of fad
designs and strong opinions and begin to demand experimental rather than anecdotal
evidence of the relative performance of any given design or product. Thus,
together with my research assistant Christopher Wee, I am currently running
an experiment to provide such data on the relative performance of sandbeds
in reef aquaria. Chris and I have set up a series of experimental nano-tanks
to compare the relative nutrient processing capacity of coarse (crushed coral)
and fine (Southdown sand) sediments, in deep (3") and shallow (1") beds, either
without (DSB) or with a plenum. There are 3 replicate tanks for each combination
of these factors for a total of 24 aquaria being used in this comparison experiment,
and they will continue to run until just prior to the meeting.
In my presentation, I will be discussing the results of this experiment,
discussing some ideas on the ultimate causes of the observed similarities
and differences, and making a plea for hobbyists to demand an experimental
result be presented to advance a new methodology or product in the hobby.
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