I have never thought about the lower light levels in deep water where many NPS corals live but in many cases, that is true. I hope that I have a handle on nutrients.
I am on my third high nutrient tank. The first was a filter feeder tank that ran well for about 8 or 10 years before I relocated. My second high nutrient tank set up ran well for about another 10 years.
I am starting over on my third tank after a crash that was caused by a self inflicted mechanical malfunction in the auto top-off system that started at the beginning of a vacation trip. I have hardware and rock and am rebuilding. I am getting ready to start a revamp of the aquascaping with less live rock.
In this second set up, I wanted to keep up with the N & P nutrients while feeding at extra high levels. I had too much rock in the tank and in a sump ...and I also use vodka for a short time. Despite having a happy healthy tank, my biggest problem with my second set up was that I had too much bacteria so that my algae coralline growth slowed and my scrubber didn't work as well as I would have liked.
This time I am having more faith in my first high nutrient tank. We didn't have enough food knowledge to work on the true NPS corals so we called them filter feeder tanks. I put tons of food in my old tank once a day. Just before "lights out", I would put so much food in the tank that I couldn't see 5 inches past the glass.
I never had nitrate or phosphate issues with my well designed ATS. I even added fish fertilizer when the tank ran too lean. Unfortunately, I got scared and tried lots of other things on my second set up because I read all the horror stories with these new fangled NPS tanks. After reading a book by the inventor in the early 90's, I designed my old scrubber, incorporating the applicable principles from the book and it worked great for me.
After reading about people using skimmers...and GFO ...and vodka ....and cheato ....and water changes too boot, I am just going to go to, what is for me, "old school". I'm going back to the same scrubber that was in set up one and two.
Don't get me wrong, all that other stuff works and works quite well but since I know how to get the most out of my scrubber, I will stick with it.
I am thinking that if an ATS doesn't work, it is probably too small or badly designed. It probably just needs to be bigger ...with more light and/or more surface area and/or more turbulent water flow. Those are the three basics of these contraptions.
Now for lighting, I am really trying to keep it off of the glass. I bought two of those 50 watt Chinese flood lamps with all blue LED's to get a deeper blue look. I have yanks out the T5 actinics because, for me, the light is to defuse. It goes everywhere, with no shimmer. I am working on designing light barriers that will do a good job of directing the light, only where I want it. Later, I will work on the white lighting.
As for feeding, I am working on a small zooplankton farm in the garage and plan to use peristaltic pumps to bomb the tank all day and night.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to spend any time on that stuff. I am better at designing than building.
