Too much area for beneficial bacteria

[BeanAnimal]

few people actually complete the nitrogen cycle (degassing nitrate) even with stacks of rocks

n the last 25 years of reefing was stacks of rocks, and that led into carbon dosing, pellets, plant uptake and six other means to handle increasing nitrate in the tanks.

You can't say that with certainty. it is pure conjecture.

Nonetheless, if we apply logic instead of hyperbole we may conclude that any anaerobic nitrifying bacteria present perform their biological task even if there are not enough to fully process the system load.

It would further follow that adding media that harbor these bacteria, as opposed to media that can't, would further add to denitrification. As such, removing said media would reduce it.

Therefore, the system with a less complete nitrogen system will require more alternative measures to remove it than the system with a more complete nitrogen system.

Your contention that, the addition or removal of media (be it solid or porous) has no measurable or meaningful affect, is not supported by the basic facts at hand.

 

[BeanAnimal]

deep sandbeds were also promised in older articles to denitrify, they usually don't, hence this coming trend to bb and high flow and almost no waste storage whatsoever.

The NNR functionality of DSBs were not merely "promised in older articles". Countless people ran and still run successful and functioning deep sand beds in their tanks, sumps or in remote closed buckets. etc.

Bare bottom is not a new trend, nor are low nutrient bare bottom systems with simple sumps. Each methodology has pros and cons.

You are derailing yet another thread with your rhetoric.

 

[e34stx]

A little update, I have been dosing 0.5ml 6x a day of 20g/400ml ammonium chloride and 2 scopes of phos-feed each day. My nitates are now 2.4 and my po4 is at zero. I’m assuming the rock etc is soaking this up, so will continue until I get somewhere between 0.05 and 0.1 ppm. I also scrubbed my rock work removing the brown Algae. I did notice the tank did stink a bit for a couple of hours. The smell has now gone and the tank looks a lot better aesthetically. My torch has started to get better dark purples as well as the gold looking more vibrant. Will update in a weeks time.

 

[Pod_01]

2 scopes of phos-feed each day

As I understand your test kits will not pick up/ measure the PO4 that is in phos feed so zero doesn’t mean it is not there. Also the form that it is in should prevent it from binding to rock, so not available to algae etc… but it is available to the bacteria/corals.
That is my understanding based on TM descriptions/ comments.

I have not used it but keep us updated, I am curious how well it works and I am curious if eventually you will measure PO4.
Just don’t overdose it.

 

[e34stx]

As I understand your test kits will not pick up/ measure the PO4 that is in phos feed so zero doesn’t mean it is not there. Also the form that it is in should prevent it from binding to rock, so not available to algae etc… but it is available to the bacteria/corals.
That is my understanding based on TM descriptions/ comments.

I have not used it but keep us updated, I am curious how well it works and I am curious if eventually you will measure PO4.
Just don’t overdose it.

Yeah I agree, I’m following their instructions. I did notice brown film developing on the glass more frequently since dosing, however that maybe from the nitrate.

 

[e34stx]

hi everyone, another update.
no3 is now at 4ppm, po4 still at 0. i noticed there are some tiny patches of green showing up here and there.
i thought i would take a sample of the brown algae and look under the microscope. i think they are dinos. please can you confirm if they are and what to do about them. thanks

 

[Freenow54]

I too want a minimalist scape. My thought was way less fish. Five or six small schooling ones and lots of coral. Did not think of it until now that coral need nutrients formed by rock as well. Thought only about three rocks. There will not be a sump as I am converting a fresh water tank, and did not plan for a sump when building the stand. Only planned on using fluval canister filters. There must be a way to keep the coral happy No?

 

[e34stx]

So I have Id these as sca, I have continued to increase nutrient levels, ordered some sodium silicate for dosing and slightly raised the temperature to 26c. Am I best leaving the rock work dirty or should I scrub the scape and glass to try and manually remove via the filter mat and uv? Thanks for any help.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So I have Id these as sca, I have continued to increase nutrient levels, ordered some sodium silicate for dosing and slightly raised the temperature to 26c. Am I best leaving the rock work dirty or should I scrub the scape and glass to try and manually remove via the filter mat and uv? Thanks for any help.

I would not scrub and scrape, but I'd remove as much as possible while not scraping away what may be under it.

 

[brandon429]

Must lower lighting levels/ intensity and reduce whites to zero or just 1% very low. That system doesn't need this much light at this growth phase, invasions will take the extra power. Be removing manually, allow none to build up mass, lower and sustain overall light power, then try different methods to hopefully prevent this new added work to maintain the scape

Consider reading the nuisance algae forum stickies on dinos. Look at the hundreds of pages of wrecked tanks they can't fix there, do opposite of what people do which is leave the growth in the tank to fester while focusing on ID instead of removal (species ID has nothing to do with being invasion free in reefing its useless info) and then they also began altering nitrate and phosphate, then their tanks turned into gha farms

Don't alter your nitrate and phosphate levels, do it by manual controls and light reduction. Your current corals will grow just as well under bluer less intense light and that will help slow invasion progress

 

[e34stx]

Must lower lighting levels/ intensity and reduce whites to zero or just 1% very low. That system doesn't need this much light at this growth phase, invasions will take the extra power. Be removing manually, allow none to build up mass, lower and sustain overall light power, then try different methods to hopefully prevent this new added work to maintain the scape

Consider reading the nuisance algae forum stickies on dinos. Look at the hundreds of pages of wrecked tanks they can't fix there, do opposite of what people do which is leave the growth in the tank to fester while focusing on ID instead of removal (species ID has nothing to do with being invasion free in reefing its useless info) and then they also began altering nitrate and phosphate, then their tanks turned into gha farms

Don't alter your nitrate and phosphate levels, do it by manual controls and light reduction. Your current corals will grow just as well under bluer less intense light and that will help slow invasion progress

Ok thanks, there seems to be a lot of conflicting info regarding no3 and po4 such as getting it to a reasonably elevated amount to encourage other algae growth to out compete the dinos. i will leave them at what they are now however they were low in the first place. i have cleaned the rockwork with a large plastic paintbrush which looks a lot better. the waterglass should be here friday to encourage i diatom bloom. i'm following Macks dino thread on facebook. thanks for your help.
just to add, it seems coraline algae has really started to take off in the last few days, im getting a fair bit on the bottom, gyres and silicone edge protectors.

 

[brandon429]

coralline is so neat, I can't get my system to grow it anymore after changing to kessil LED's but I miss it. that is the #2 algae-rejecting surface in reefing, #1 is the mouth of an lps coral/coral tissue in general other than zoanthid tissue and certain leather coral tissues. coral tissue from most lps and sps corals actively excludes primary producers like algae and matted invasions (but they can't all beat dinos, so I recommend early sustained disallowance until we get lucky and find the preventative balance)

 

[e34stx]

coralline is so neat, I can't get my system to grow it anymore after changing to kessil LED's but I miss it. that is the #2 algae-rejecting surface in reefing, #1 is the mouth of an lps coral/coral tissue in general other than zoanthid tissue and certain leather coral tissues. coral tissue from most lps and sps corals actively excludes primary producers like algae and matted invasions (but they can't all beat dinos, so I recommend early sustained disallowance until we get lucky and find the preventative balance)

I’m hoping the coralline and diatoms from the silicate dosing will outcompete the dinos. I did squirt my top gyre with some 3% h2o2 which dissolved the brown algae, I’m now thinking some of the algae is cyanno, unless it effects dinos as well.