I'm fertilizing my tank

[Ink]

Another point.
I find it is not good when inorganics are zero and on glass panes appears a bacterial film in few hours.
I think, but haven't yet clear demonstration, that we can overtake this situation adding fishes, so to increase inorganics, or maybe reducing light; not scale down the skimmer or increase the food, this would increase organics and I think corals suffer from high organics level.
These my actual thoughts, still in development anyway.

Luca

 

[Subsea]

Ink,
With respect to SPS colors, you may be right about removing organic nutrients ASAP. I never bothered with SPS as I run skimmerless natural systems and get all the color that I want from softies.
I use herbivore fish and janitors to keep tank clean. I grow macro in my display tank to assist with removing organics. I have been dosing iron 10+ years. I don't test iron anymore. When the fast growing green macros change color from a dark green to a lighter color, they are lacking iron and I add iron. Iodine is more complicated so I don't dose it anymore. I feed my fish heavily. Food is high in algae which is high in iodine

Good fortune with your tank fertilizing.

 

[cb684]

Ink,
I have been thinking about that a lot lately. I read some interesting literature implying that imbalances between NO3 and PO4 may cause problems like cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates blooms...

http://dspace.ut.ee/bitstream/handle/10062/591/Tonno.pdf

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/107/m107p083.pdf

I was also wondering if the readily available carbon sources that you are dosing in your systems are not also part of the success you are heaving. The reason for that thought is that the Redfield ratio is C:N = 106:16:1 so carbon (organics) is important.

What is probably the case is that biopelets or acetic acid are a far more readily available and beneficial form of carbon for corals and other organisms, than other organic molecules that are removed by skimming or activated carbon.

It is also not clear for me why you believe you are removing organics by dosing carbons. I mean, obviously a bacteria has a lot of organics molecules, but I understand that we dose carbon (biopelets, ethanol, or acetic acid) as a source of carbon so the bacteria uses PO4 and NO3 from the system (the final export is organic, but we adding dosing the carbon source so we can export NH3 and PO4)... Anyways, this is something I will soon test in one of my systems (adding C:N in order to fertilize my corals).

 

[Ink]

Cb, I'll answer more extensively tomorrow. But heterotrophic bacteria transform organic matter into ammonia. They do not use ammonia, nitrate or phosphate. Make some research. I can also give You some links to read on this topic.

Luca

 

[Ink]

Try reading this, just to begin...
http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/ista/I... - Understanding Trophic Systems Ebeling.pdf

Luca

 

[Subsea]

Try reading this, just to begin...
http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/ista/I... - Understanding Trophic Systems Ebeling.pdf

Luca

Luca,
Very interesting article. I was involved with a study done with an indoor shrimp farm south of San Antoine. They developed a proprietary bacteria culture to use on a batch growth system. Once shrimp were harvested they replaced 100% of water and started with fresh bacteria culture and salt mix added to water from Aquifier. So as to minimize ground water used, the nutrient rich water was processed using sunlight and Ulva, which became a componant of the food mix, then the water was reused.

 

[cb684]

Luca,
Thank you for sharing. This sentence is from the first page of that presentation: "At high carbon to nitrogen (C/N) feed ratios, heterotrophic bacteria will assimilate ammonia-nitrogen directly from the water and produce cellular protein.". So I think we might be talking about the same thing since "organics" is a very broad term. My definition of "organics" is molecules with carbon. The three processes discussed in the presentation was phototrophic (using algae growth to uptake NH3 and the end product was increased biomass of algae. Autotrophic, using nitrifying bacteria to transform NH3 into NO3. In this case, there was no export of NO3, but it is stated that NO3 is less toxic than NH3. And finally the heterotrophic that will use a extra carbon source (so organic molecules) to use NH3 to increase heterotrophic bacteria biomass. In this case, these bacteria were eaten by the shrimp and caused increase shrimp production. With that said, it is also stated that the organics (carbon source) from feeding is can also be used (but is not enough, so more carbon needs to be added) to increase heterotrophic bacteria bioload.
Again, thank you for sharing.
CB

 

[Subsea]

Ken Feldman and Sanjay Joshi have written peer reviewed articles in Advanced Aquaria on bacteria counts in reef aquarium.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature

Conclusions of this article are:
Overall, the major conclusions from these water column bacteria removal experiments are

GAC (Granular Activated Carbon) filtration does not remove bacteria from the water column.
Protein skimming (bubbles) removes approximately 30 - 40% of the bacteria in the water column of carbon-treated or organic rich water, but the remainder is not susceptible to bubble-based removal.
Steady state bacteria populations in skimmed reef tank water are not subject to further skimmer-based bacteria removal - there is a baseline value that the skimmer will not go below.

Conclusions from earlier research articles are:
Our earlier research on the topic of carbon nutrient levels in marine aquaria (Feldman, 2008; Feldman, 2009; Feldman, 2010) has provided experimental documentation for four conclusions that impact on TOC management in our reef tanks:

Reef aquaria utilizing active filtration (GAC, skimming) maintain equilibrium TOC levels within the range found on healthy tropical reefs.
Protein skimming (i.e., bubbles) is not very effective at removing TOC from aquarium water, depleting typical reef tank water of only ~ 20 - 35% of the post-feeding TOC present.
GAC filtration is quite effective at stripping reef tank water of its TOC load, removing 60 - 85% of the TOC present.
And, quite intriguingly, the natural biological filtration, which starts with bacteria and other microbes, is remarkable in its capacity to remediate reef tank water of TOC, easily removing 50% or more of the post-feeding TOC increase in tank water.
Conclusions (2) and (3) describe the consequences of mechanical filtration on TOC levels, but the 4th conclusion emphasizes the importance of the "hidden" part of the remediation equation, bacterial predation, for gaining an understanding of the dynamics of carbon commerce in our aquaria. In fact, this observation, coupled with the advent of Carbon Dosing strategies for nutrient export, led to a new series of questions regarding the perhaps pivotal role of bacteria, or at least skimmable water column bacteria, in successful reef aquarium husbandry.

 

[cb684]

And, quite intriguingly, the natural biological filtration, which starts with bacteria and other microbes, is remarkable in its capacity to remediate reef tank water of TOC, easily removing 50% or more of the post-feeding TOC increase in tank water.

Thanks for sharing, great information. This last part is what actually increases NO3 and PO4, right? So that still needs to be exported one way or another, right?

 

[Tigé21v]

Tigè21v,
there are multiple demonstrations that ammonia is taken up faster than nitrate from zooxanthellae (they need to produce an enzyme to take up nitrate). Moreover it has been shown that corals too can directly absorb ammonia, but they can't nitrate.
Anyway I'm actually experimenting nitrate boluses, mainly because I'm afraid adding a large dose of ammonia in one shot can cause toxicity (I mean 1ppm in one shot).
If I'll found better to add small doses more frequently (I'm sure it is safe until 0,3ppm in one shot), I'll probably come back to ammonia. I have many experiments on my list.

Luca

Is this what you use?
http://www.amazon.com/Lorann-Oils-A...1451785337&sr=1-1&keywords=ammonium+carbonate
What rate do you mix and dose it?
Also, what grade of nitrate do you use? Do you have issues with it fully dissolving? I have some tech grade sodium nitrate
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HEWSLMG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00
I have some solids in the bottom of the container after mixing. I'm not sure if the solids are important or not, so I always shake it well before dosing. However, the solids make me leery of putting it on an automatic doser.

 

[Ink]

tigè,
based on my last observations, adding nitrate is not good. It feeds mainly algae. As said above, bacteria use ammonia only. Algae can use both ammonia and nitrate. Adding nitrate, You give advantage to algae only, which will have no competitors.
I think fishes is the simpler way to increase inorganic nitrogen producing ammonia. Herbivore fishes are best at producing ammonia and fight algae.

Luca

 

[Subsea]

Thanks for sharing, great information. This last part is what actually increases NO3 and PO4, right? So that still needs to be exported one way or another, right?

Either exported or assimilated back into biomass of bacteria, macro, fish or coral.
Most "new school" reefers skim to export bacteria and thus the above mentioned nutrients. Skimming combined with GAC filtration remove both inorganic and organic carbon, as well as nitrogen and phosphate.

I am "old school" and prefer numerous nutrient pathways to recycle nutrients back into tank inhabitants. I can choose to export nutrients by pruning and removing macro or I can feed to herbivore fish, which in turn produce ammonia and grow coral biomass.