Nutrient Export

wicked demon

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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;
  • –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
Although most people do not like these issues, I am a big fan, here is why. These different "problems" are all the system dealing with an excess of nutrients in a healthy, and VISIBLE manner, they are consuming nutrients that would become toxic if allowed to build in the system, and letting you know at the same time. There are several ways to lower nutrients in the system, most of which are filtration, the easiest is feeding less and proper maintenance, and the most difficult is doing the research, and taking the steps required to provide a proper environment to maintain these majestic creatures.





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.
By doing regular water changes, emptying your skimmer cup, cleaning your filters, changing your chemical media, and allowing continued growth of certain filter feeders and plants you can ensure that potentially toxic nutrients get bound into living organisms or get removed from the system.
 
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Wijic

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This may be kind of a dumb question, but if you're using a refugium for nutrient export, can you 'reuse' the algae in it, or does it have to be completely removed from your system? That is, if I'm growing chaeto in my refugium and it reaches a size where I want to yank out a few handfuls, can I use some of that chaeto on a clip to feed a tang in the display tank? Or does the chaeto, because it's helping to export nutrients, need to be completely removed to do its job?
 
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wicked demon

wicked demon

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Either way is fine, as long as its not "extra feeding", by feeding the cheato to the fish you will be re-distributing the nutrients it has used for growth, its a balancing act, and you need to feed the fish somthing, no matter what it is, it will contribute nutrients in the same way.
The important factor is you system being able to recycle or remove the waste by using a host of different methods.
 
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