Most of us know about the circle of life, it was made famous by a certain animated movie and Elton John made us all want to sing about it. So what does this mean to your reef? In said movie, they say when you die your body is returned to the earth and you make the grass grow and then animals eat the grass. There couldn’t be a better analogy for what is happening in your aquarium reef system. Death, organic decomposition, bacterial /chemical changes and nutrient redistribution are an essential element of a successful reef system. This referred to by aquarists as the reef "CYCLE".
Nutrient export is what separates a nasty brown algae filled tank from a beautiful, healthy successful coral reef aquarium. The best way to understand this concept is the circle of life. By feeding your fish, coral, and inverts you accelerate this circle because your adding dead or soon to be dead animals or plants to a confined biotope. This is where the "export" comes in. Uneaten food, livestock waste, and what ever dies ends up going thru stages of organic decay. This includes the anaerobic bacteria nitrogen chain (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate), phosphate, raw proteins, calcium, carbonate, aminos, etc…..
A lot of what decays into the water is useful by some life form in the system, for good or bad. Every thing uses aminos and proteins, and bacteria can complete the nitrogen chain, just not fast enough.
Excess nutrients can show them selves in a lot of different ways, here are some;
There are 3 types of filtration, mechanical, biological, and chemical, here are some examples and explanations;
Nutrient export is what separates a nasty brown algae filled tank from a beautiful, healthy successful coral reef aquarium. The best way to understand this concept is the circle of life. By feeding your fish, coral, and inverts you accelerate this circle because your adding dead or soon to be dead animals or plants to a confined biotope. This is where the "export" comes in. Uneaten food, livestock waste, and what ever dies ends up going thru stages of organic decay. This includes the anaerobic bacteria nitrogen chain (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate), phosphate, raw proteins, calcium, carbonate, aminos, etc…..
A lot of what decays into the water is useful by some life form in the system, for good or bad. Every thing uses aminos and proteins, and bacteria can complete the nitrogen chain, just not fast enough.
Excess nutrients can show them selves in a lot of different ways, here are some;
- –diatoms- brown film on sand and rocks, this is almost always present just not very visible and is a food source for many reef inhabitants
- –Hair algae or other algae growth
- –aiptasia- little brown anemones (if they are multiplying,- you are feeding them)
- –cyno bacteria- red, brown, or green slime
There are 3 types of filtration, mechanical, biological, and chemical, here are some examples and explanations;
- –Mechanical–
- –Protein skimmer; A good skimmer is a very useful piece of equipment, it bonds micro bubbles to proteins in the water to form a foam like scum which then rises up a riser tube to a collection cup.
- –Canister filter; These are filters that force water thru a series of chambers in a sealed canister that can contain a variety of particle filters and potentially chemical filtration.
- –Hang on back (H.O.B.); Similar in effect to a canister, pulls water into a chamber that hangs on the rim of the tank and forces flow thru a series of cartridges.
- –Chemical–
- –Activated carbon; single most effective chemical filter you can use, attracts many impurities from the water. Effective for 4-6 weeks, then needs to be removed.
- –Phosphate sponge; does what it says, removes phosphate, different products have different life spans.
- –Biological–
- –This encompasses the anaerobic bacterias, algae, sponges, feather dusters, vermeted snails, muscles, tunicates, and filter feeders of all kinds. They consume a range of suspended organics to broken down nitrates and are in my opinion the healthiest way to deal with nutrients, but this requires an elaborate refugium, and cryptic area of the reef containing some or all of the mentioned groups above.
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