brandon429
Active member
You know Simon its just anyone's guess until we get someone to actually run some work to see. you make me want to try and test that theory about re released N and P with at least something simple
find some distilled water that does not register phosphate
(some does). rip out a huge portion of reef green hair algae/whatever genus and treat it with peroxide, then rinse it really really well after treatment before its started to degrade. tiny animals/detrital stores/epibenthics on the algae might be phosphate contaminants for the test ideally the algae should be clean so that we are testing the internal stores
have a control cup of the same water untreated
as the algae dies in the treated cup, test the water for phosphate and nitrate, I predict none will show.
Its not that I think algae doesn't include N and P, its just debatable whether or not thats in soluble forms as the plant matrix breaks down and how much we are talking about initially inside the algae. so, we should measure it to see at least w a simple test for starters.
Im sure someone has done dessication and dry weight analysis of algae X major consituent ratios, perhaps some googling will tell
additionally it always seemed to me ridiculous to pointfully remove some dying plant mass while we inject meat mass into our tanks via feed. thats a huge amount of N and P coming in and just a tiny amount exported, even if the algae does release its N and P it pales in comparison to the continuity of input at least thats my guess.
That guess is partly fueled by the fact most of the algae treaters on the nano reef forum simply let it die in the tank. And their tank looks great now, and they've used peroxide as spot treats when needed. none of that loop indicated decaying algae being a significant source of N and P anyway...
find some distilled water that does not register phosphate

have a control cup of the same water untreated
as the algae dies in the treated cup, test the water for phosphate and nitrate, I predict none will show.
Its not that I think algae doesn't include N and P, its just debatable whether or not thats in soluble forms as the plant matrix breaks down and how much we are talking about initially inside the algae. so, we should measure it to see at least w a simple test for starters.
Im sure someone has done dessication and dry weight analysis of algae X major consituent ratios, perhaps some googling will tell
additionally it always seemed to me ridiculous to pointfully remove some dying plant mass while we inject meat mass into our tanks via feed. thats a huge amount of N and P coming in and just a tiny amount exported, even if the algae does release its N and P it pales in comparison to the continuity of input at least thats my guess.
That guess is partly fueled by the fact most of the algae treaters on the nano reef forum simply let it die in the tank. And their tank looks great now, and they've used peroxide as spot treats when needed. none of that loop indicated decaying algae being a significant source of N and P anyway...