PatrikS;13717 said:
Aha, I see, thanks Tom! I will try to dose for slightly more then 10 ppm (to compensate for denitrification issues). Thank you!
Well, go slow and note the differences, I know you saw lots of pearling in the other thread after dosing some KNO3.
Be careful with one tiem test, make sure that the rate of production can be maintained over a week or two.
You will need to make sure that the other parameters are stable over this same time course.
As production increases, so does uptake and demand.
Algae like plants, prefer CO2, at slower growth rates, this is not an issue, same with Fw plants.
As you increase things growth rates, then the demand for CO2 goes up as well.
These parameters often are interlinked and focusing on the whole picture rather than merely NO3 ppms is prudent.
Many reef and plant folks focus only on one thing many times, without tying them together well. Some will mumble something so dang general like it's "all about the balance", that's true, but being more specific about what a parameter's ranges are good for that balance is much more useful as well as understanding how one regulates the others.
Few tie them together like this.
Micromangement has it's trade offs............
As far as what you two have said on some other site, you may want to keep it there rather than bringing it to other sites. I have no issue either way with either of you. Rather, try to focus on what we can and do know, what test you can do, what observations you have made.
Attack the plants/macro algae etc, not the person.
Many folks believe things in this hobby and the less you know, the more prone most folks are to belief based thinking.
I think the issue where some has PO4 remover, a lot, and measures no PO4 and claims limiting PO4 = no algae, but still has algae is a good point.
I made the same comment about 10 years ago on the APD about FW planted tanks as did Steve Dixon who measured my tap water which was high in PO4.
You cannot beat most algae with limitation methods.
The focus should be on the corals themselves, what optimalizes their growth?
Rather than fear based approaches like the FW plants folks applied, some risk are required to break through such myths at times.
I know many folks that add PO4, in small amounts, adding more does not improve health of macros in general IME.
This does not induce pest algae in macro tanks, nor does higher levels of KNO3 dosing.
Now in a coral only tank with skimming, I'd say it might increase pest algae, at least one or the other nutrients, NO3 or PO4, both not both.
So if the system is strongly PO4 limited, adding more NO3 should not cause any issues, since the system in PO4 limited.
Taking that idea and applying it to coral or macro coral tanks, you can test with a bit safer methods
So you can explore the range of NO3 ppm without PO4 excesses.
Then repeat this with low/absent NO3 and moderately PO4's.
I did this with plants to show that excess NO3 would not induce algae, as well as Fe. Then I slowly combined both high NO3 and PO4, and Fe all together knowing what each would do individually.
I tried this with Marine plants, no issues other than with PO4 namely and with diatoms. NO3 went up to about 20ppm or so in the test I've done and 5-10 ppm appeared to do the best over several months(18 total) and PO4 of 0.2ppm or less.
Fe/trace seemed to have little effect over a wide range of dosing volume/rate/frequencies.
Ca and KH had strong impacts when they declined, I did not attempt to grow macros at higher levels than good reef building water parameters Ca at 400ppm etc.
I also have not tried to experiment with corals and macros together, but.......others have and I've helped ampify their refuguim systems a great deal with some KNO3 dosing and increased Trace dosing and a little PO4 pulsing.
If they have a good bioload, often there was no need for PO4 dosing.
This suggest that PO4 is not that strong of role player, but can be in some serverly limited tanks with no bioloads, PO4 remover, reef folks that starve their tanks.
Also, many reef folks ownign refugiums allow them to get much too over grown.
They do not prune and much like our planted tanks, when this is done, we have issues, the 3x more biomass needs 3x more nutrients but the refugium is not supplied from the main tank like that, thus many times some algae melt and sporulate in response to a dramatic depletion in nutrient levels.
Now, when the reef folks prune their weeds routinely and maintain stable biomass, they also maintain stable nutrient export.
I really wish they would understand that and tend the refugiums more often and maintain them, they would get the balance and more stable results/conditions in doing so.
I've present such ideas to various reef clubs as a speaker in the USA, they have been well recieved. I went around to the club's membership's tanks and fixed many pest algae related issues.
I do not need to know that much about coral to know something about the pest algae.
Everyone has reported increases in health of both the refugiums and the corals.
A few folks balked, I suggested some herbivores en mass, that worked well also.
One skimmer guy has a huge system(450 gal) and adds no food really, tanks works and he hit a decent balance with his bioload. He spent a lot of time, money and electric on it as well. Like a fish food only non CO2 planted tank, the balance is possible.
But often hard to hit unless you know what to look for and start the tank right from the start.
Obviously, I and many others prefer the macro refugium method.
But you may want to master both methods to fairly judge their prospective trade offs, and there are always trade offs with most methods.
Regards,
Tom Barr