10001110101
New member
Not to be a wet blanket, but I think all of this algae growth is unnecessary.
Sure you can let your natural nitrate reduction methods enhance by allowing tons of bacteria to grow and establish in LR and DSB etc... but as soon as you turn that skimmer on all that time you spent, is wasted.
Your Bio-load will be massively decreased once you have the skimmer turned on so a good portion of those bacteria are just going to die off anyways.
The tank will reach homeostasis, and it will go in either direction... (In essence you will be "reverse cycling" once the skimmer is operational)
Also I think there if I understand it correctly it seems like there's some faulty logic... The primary means of nitrate disposal in this situation is not, in fact, bacterial conversion of nitrate into nitrogen gas, rather it's nitrogen fixation and assimilation by the algae, the dissolved nitrates in the water column are being absorbed and used to form the structure of algal colonies you have created. Algae can grow and use this nitrogen much faster than bacteria can, there simply isn't all that much room in a tank even with a DSB for a high level of denitrification to take place. This is why on many established tanks, nitrate spikes are essentially "invisible" with a nitrate test kit, as the algae grows too fast in response to increased nitrate levels and the nitrates in the water column are summarily absorbed and fixed within the algae.
Were the algae to suddenly "die off" as the 12-week cycle theory suggests, it would merely break down the absorbed nitrogen in the algal cells and release them back into the water as ammonia, nitrite, then nitrate again! Once something is physically placed in the tank, it has to be physically removed from the tank as well! The percentage of nitrogen that gets exported as nitrogen gas is incredibly small compared to that which is used by various other forms of life... Most of us don't see how much nitrates get used up because they are consumed by the algae which are in turn quickly consumed by our CUC, or other methods of mechanical or chemical filtration and skimming.
So at the end of the day really I think all you have done here is wasted a lot of time and converted some cocktail shrimp's nitrogen into some algaes nitrogen, the nitrates will only be "removed" from the tank when you finally say screw it and scrape every last hair of that algae of the tank.
I would take any advice given from a supposed "guru" with a grain of salt.
Not trying to be critical, but I felt like this needed to be pointed out.
Otherwise your tank design is impeccable, I love the sump design, inline frag tank, and the the moonlight set up is awesome, I love how it highlights the two islands of rock.
Sure you can let your natural nitrate reduction methods enhance by allowing tons of bacteria to grow and establish in LR and DSB etc... but as soon as you turn that skimmer on all that time you spent, is wasted.
Your Bio-load will be massively decreased once you have the skimmer turned on so a good portion of those bacteria are just going to die off anyways.
The tank will reach homeostasis, and it will go in either direction... (In essence you will be "reverse cycling" once the skimmer is operational)
Also I think there if I understand it correctly it seems like there's some faulty logic... The primary means of nitrate disposal in this situation is not, in fact, bacterial conversion of nitrate into nitrogen gas, rather it's nitrogen fixation and assimilation by the algae, the dissolved nitrates in the water column are being absorbed and used to form the structure of algal colonies you have created. Algae can grow and use this nitrogen much faster than bacteria can, there simply isn't all that much room in a tank even with a DSB for a high level of denitrification to take place. This is why on many established tanks, nitrate spikes are essentially "invisible" with a nitrate test kit, as the algae grows too fast in response to increased nitrate levels and the nitrates in the water column are summarily absorbed and fixed within the algae.
Were the algae to suddenly "die off" as the 12-week cycle theory suggests, it would merely break down the absorbed nitrogen in the algal cells and release them back into the water as ammonia, nitrite, then nitrate again! Once something is physically placed in the tank, it has to be physically removed from the tank as well! The percentage of nitrogen that gets exported as nitrogen gas is incredibly small compared to that which is used by various other forms of life... Most of us don't see how much nitrates get used up because they are consumed by the algae which are in turn quickly consumed by our CUC, or other methods of mechanical or chemical filtration and skimming.
So at the end of the day really I think all you have done here is wasted a lot of time and converted some cocktail shrimp's nitrogen into some algaes nitrogen, the nitrates will only be "removed" from the tank when you finally say screw it and scrape every last hair of that algae of the tank.
I would take any advice given from a supposed "guru" with a grain of salt.
Not trying to be critical, but I felt like this needed to be pointed out.
Otherwise your tank design is impeccable, I love the sump design, inline frag tank, and the the moonlight set up is awesome, I love how it highlights the two islands of rock.
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