dkeller_nc
New member
Brett - Regarding your comment about "imbalanced nutrients", I've been reading through this thread on the advanced topics forum:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2210947
All sniping/arguing/name-calling in the thread aside, I'll have to say that this does make some degree of sense. All organisms will have roughly (very roughly!) the same proportion of the elements carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, and by definition food added to the tank is composed of organisms. Since nitrates are exported from the tank by anaerobic bacteria in the form of nitrogen gas and phosphate is only removed by active phosphate adsorption and/or water changes, I can see how one would wind up with a very nitrate-poor environment that has a fair bit of phosphate if the tank is heavily fed and water changes are infrequent.
To "rebalance" the nutrients, one would either have to greatly minimize the production of nitrates from dissolved organic compounds, or add nitrate to the tank in an inorganic form that contains no phosphates. Potentially, one could add inorganic nitrate, and export both nitrate and phosphate in the form of bacteria that are skimmed out.
Very interesting. But like anything else in the biology/chemistry world, "makes sense in theory" doesn't always translate into "works in practice".
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2210947
All sniping/arguing/name-calling in the thread aside, I'll have to say that this does make some degree of sense. All organisms will have roughly (very roughly!) the same proportion of the elements carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, and by definition food added to the tank is composed of organisms. Since nitrates are exported from the tank by anaerobic bacteria in the form of nitrogen gas and phosphate is only removed by active phosphate adsorption and/or water changes, I can see how one would wind up with a very nitrate-poor environment that has a fair bit of phosphate if the tank is heavily fed and water changes are infrequent.
To "rebalance" the nutrients, one would either have to greatly minimize the production of nitrates from dissolved organic compounds, or add nitrate to the tank in an inorganic form that contains no phosphates. Potentially, one could add inorganic nitrate, and export both nitrate and phosphate in the form of bacteria that are skimmed out.
Very interesting. But like anything else in the biology/chemistry world, "makes sense in theory" doesn't always translate into "works in practice".
