Is the whole ULNS thing a dying fad? Thinking of moving away...

[2wheelsonly]

In my most recent exhausting battle with the pest trifecta of red bugs, AEFW and monti nudi's wiping out thousands of dollars of SPS corals and setting my tank back a year I started employing a "keep it simple stupid" approach.

I started off by stopping the use of all those expensive zeovit additives that I wasn't sure did anything or not.

Coral Snow - Gone
Zeo AAs - Gone
Coral Vitalizer - Gone
Flatworm Stop - Way to expensive for me to keep this up: $70 a month just for this is silly and after 3 months saw no positive effects.
Phols Xtra - Gone

I stopped feeding Oyster Feast
Set my Apex feeder to feed Spectrum pellets daily and I feed Reef Frenzy every other day.

The only additive I have left is prodibio and the problem with this is that I don't know what i'm really adding to the tank. It does an amazing job keeping my po3 low, maybe too low. I also use GFO for po4 as the prodibio lacks here.

My nitrates have always been around 0-1 according to salifert and 1.1 according to aquamedic testing. My ULR checker is showing 0.02 po4.

I don't run a refugium, I don't intend to...Iv'e gone down that road and I have no desire to grow those mangroves farms or balls of algae AT ALL. I run an oversized skimmer that skims very dry and I change the cup out every 2 weeks or so.

I feel like I have not seen an actual benefit from running ULNS; my corals were "ok" never great before the pest infestation. Now that I am practically starting over I am thinking about removing the prodibio but I have concerns my nutrients will get very high esp since I wont have a refugium.

Is this a bad thing? The eye opener for me was a recent trip to Orlando and seeing all those amazing tanks in the local stores like WWC. None of them did any type of carbon doing or zeovit; their tanks were amazing. Most of them just managed with water changes and lots of fish feeding while keep po4 below 0.08 and no3 around 10-15. I got alot of feedback and odd looks when asking about carbon dosing (like a "why do you do that lol" look). Not one person took zeovit seriously and it was more like a joke than anything.

My next venture I am moving away from red sea salt, going to instant ocean and focusing on bi-weekly water changes and heavy fish feeding. All dosing will stop. I am hoping this makes the hobby much less stressful. Instead of messing with chemicals i'm just going to focus on water changes to diagnose problems.

Does anyone else see the whole ULNS thing as a fad? It seems 2 years ago you couldn't open the forums without seeing some detailed carbon dosing spreadsheet or zeovit money sink setup.

It could also be that these LFS stores operate such large tanks that zeovit is not an option from a price standpoint. I know on my 300G + sump; running full zeo product line comes to around $350 per month.

 

[Grayhead]

I personally think the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. I am aiming for that area. I have a mixed reef, so 5ppm po3 benefits me. Also , I doubt reefs thrive in the wide with ultra low nutrients. Just my take.

 

[greaps]

Current 60 gallon total system is run with only a filter sock and every 1-2 week 15% water changes. Monti's are growing, soft corals look nice but are not growing, prolly need more nutrients. No hair algae, just a light diatom types on the glass that I clean every 5 days. Feed 2-5 times a day just a small pinch of pellets.

 

[Breadman03]

I'm fairly certain that ULNS was a goal to match ocean parameters, but it was found that the pendulum had swung beyond a point at which results were optimal. I think part of the issue is that while the ocean may have low NO3 and PO4, there is a lot of food in the water.

I've seen lots of recent posts where ~10ppm of NO3 and ~0.03ppm of PO4 seem to be a pretty sweet spot, and I think carbon dosing can be a useful tool for helping to maintain those levels with increased feeding. I've also been reading a bit about the balance between light intensity, alk and calcium levels, and NO3/PO4 levels. It seems like there is something of a correlation between them.

 

[reefgeezer]

IMHO... The levels of inorganic nitrate & phosphate (that measurable by our test kits) are more of an indicator rather than a goal in and of itself.

I believe that the actual goal is to insure that there is bioavailable nitrate & phosphate for the processes that need it. IMO, if you can measure ANY level of inorganic nitrate or phosphate, then there is enough available. If I'm correct, measuring 0 of either nitrate or phosphate could mean that some necessary processes would be limited.

So if by ULNS you mean 0 nitrate & phosphate, I's say the paradigm has shifted. If you consider something less than 5 ppm of nitrate and .03 ppm of phosphate UNLS, I'd say the paradigm is still intact.

FWIW, the parameters you posted seem just about right... and a big+1 to eliminating complexity.

 

[Timfish]

I really do hope so!

Charles Delbeek ""Our crystal clear aquaria do not come close to the nutrient loads that swirl around natural reefs. And so when we create low-nutrient water conditions, we still have to deal with the rest of a much more complex puzzle. Much like those who run their aquarium water temperature close to the thermal maximums of corals walk a narrow tight rope, I can't help but think that low-nutrient aquariums may be headed down a similar path." Coral Nov/Dec 2010, pg 127

J. E. N. Veron: "Imported nutrients are usually transported to reefs from rivers; but if there are no rivers, as with reefs remote from land masses, nutrients can only come from surface ocean circulation. Often this supply is poor, and thus the vast ocean expanses have been refered to as "nutrient deserts". The Indo-Pacific has many huge atolls in these supposed deserts which testify to the resilience of reefs, but the corals themselves may lack the lush appearance of those of more fertile waters. Many reefs have another major supply of inorganic nutrients as, under certain conditions, surface currents moving against a reef face may cause deep ocean water to be drawn to the surface. This "upwelled" water is often rich in phosphorus [2.0 mg/l] and other essential chemicals." Corals of Austrailia and the Indo-Pacific" pg 30

Looking at how PO4 levels go from a high of ~.7 mg/l away from reefs to an average of .13 mg/l (SD +/-.08) it' seems pretty obvious to me the reason is the corals are using it up. This data has been arounf for a couple decades so why we hobbyests have ignored it is beyond me.

 

[reefgeezer]

I think there are many processes that use or dilute inorganic nutrients in nature that are not available in a reef tank. I'm not sure most closed systems would have the capability to manage the levels mentioned above.

I'm not even sure corals use inorganic nutrients directly Like most, I have observed better color & growth when measurable inorganic nutrients are present. It could be that having inorganic nutrients available ensures that organic compounds can be formed that the corals use. Again though, I think that any measureable level ensures these compounds can be formed.

As with everything, there is a limit. I've also seen brightly colored corals surrounded by hair algae or growing very slowly due to poor calcification due to nutrient levels that are too high.

 

[tlc]

i stopped dosing all kinds of stuff and couldn't be happier. it seems like there are so many products on the market that sell vials of this and that and we reefers buy into all of it. I started reefing before anyone ever tested for po4 in there systems and I had amazing tanks. I tried a ulns system and failed. now my po4 is high. I have nitrates. there is visible poop and I couldn't be happier with the results I am achieving now..