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A comment over on R.C. sparked my interest and I thought it might make for a good discussion here.

A lot of times reef keepers advocate the aggressive removal of nutrients from the water column - to prevent nitrate spikes and nuisance algae blooms. This is generally true for SPS set ups but what about those soft coral / general filter feeder oriented reefs?

I know that with my own tank, I am regularly dosing the water column with various combinations of mysis, cyclopeeze, rotifers and phytoplankton in order to feed various polyps, GSP's, mushrooms, coco worms and feather dusters, pipe organs, toadstools etc... only to turn around and attempt to skim it all back out some hours later! So far, my experience has been a fairly constant elevation in nitrate levels with very modest nuisance algae - kept in check by hermits snails and a lawn mower blenny worth his weight in gold. For nutrient conversion/export I combine skimming, carbon, P.W.C.'s, various macro algae crops and a R.D.S.B. (the jury's still out on that one though).

What experiences have other soft coral / general filter feeder oriented reef keepers had? What are your feeding strategies and how do you cope with your tanks accumulated nutrient load? Is this just salt water bulimia in disguise and/or should one simply chuck in the towel and go for the anorexic hard coral look???

Inquiring minds want to know.
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juggalos

Well currently I am going for the anorexic hard coral look. Quite frankly I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. While I did enjoy the mixed reef I had before (mostly LPS, a couple of softies and some SPS) I found it difficult to deal with the chemical warfare and I had to decide where I wanted to go with the tank (the softies just weren't happy even running carbon 24/7) and eventually chose SPS mostly based on availability at the time. I never really saw any "must have" softies or LPS when I was at the stores. Granted I am in the sticks here and the LFS at the time made for a day trip.

I've always had an affinity for growing algae, an underwater green thumb if you will (lord knows I can kill any terrestrial plant just by looking at it :rolleyes:). So the thought of feeding my reef all sorts of nutrients for the benefit of my corals would be a difficult road for me. However with the removal of my reluctance to spend money on equipment in this hobby (spending money on decent equipment the first time actually saves you money down the road, plus new toys are fun! :razz:). I think I might have been able to make a success of it and might put this to the test in my new nano that I'm slowly putting together.

Dale, I can tell you from experience that soft corals grow much better in the presence of higher nutrients.

When my tank crashed last october, I lost all my fish but 1, all my LPS & SPS corals, but all my softies grew like weeds.

Now that my tank is healthy again and the nutrients are less plentifull, my softies have almost stopped growing, even my xenia is no longer spreading.

I'd be interested in info on this too. Is there a thread on RC now?

I separated my tanks into LPS & softies so that I could maintain higher nutrient levels for my softies & better water quality for my LPS. Seems to work well for me.

My soft corals in my SPS barebottom have ceased to grow. Surely a testament to the effect of lacking nutrients.

Back in the day when I worked in my first pet store, the fish "wiz" at the time didn't believe in water changes.. As a result, the solitary saltwater display tank had nitrates around 900ppm (I measured this after she had left, and had to dilute the water with tapwater to get a reading with the test kit).. Let me tell you, the mushrooms in there grew like stink.
I'd say they reproduced in a couple of months what mine at home have in 2 years - and my water is far from pristine...

The only thing I don't dig about a high nutrient tank is having to deal with nuisance algae.

The way to have a high nutrient tank that is algae-free is to run a refugium and grow the algae there, use a variety of macro algaes that are fast growing and they will out-compete algae in the display tank for the nutrients.

I use chaeto, bubble, halimeda, and there is a bit of hair in there. All the algae in my tank is gone, and if there are any patches my foxface and tang clean it up in no time. I feed them with algae from the fuge actually, because there is so little algae in my display.

Go
 

Ahhh, nuisance algae.

Probably the one thing I look for the most in my tank. I am currently working on a theory that, like FW, higher forms of flora and fauna will out compete the simpler forms of algae for nutrients but, that is probably just wishful thinking :wink:. My LMB really is my hero! (hey, Rory slipped his post in before me!)

I don't know if there is a thread about this on R.C. per se. The topic came up in a loopy thread debating the benefits of macro algae refugiums vs A.T.S.'s. :rolleyes: In all the hubbub about 0 nitrate levels one poster chipped in that the inhabitants of his tank would be dead if that were the case - It got me laughing, and thinking.

Sometimes we speak in generalities with regards to "what is the best" yet so much of our hobby is based on specific circumstances dependent on livestock choices. Low nutrient load, high nutrient load, compact fluorescents, T-5's, halides etc...
I used to feel a little sheepish about my nutrient load (nitrates 20 - 40) around all the 0 nitrate talk until I understood the nature of my tank a little better - thus this thread. Hopefully others will also benefit and some folks can share their nutrient dosing/removal techniques.
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marijuana test

Then where are the pictures you keep saying you will post when your algae is gone - looks like it is!

I think everyone is missing the point, it doesn't take a higher nutrient level in the water to grow softies, I have grown them at high rates of growth in very nutrient lacking water, it takes high light, good water quality, and food, just like any other coral.

Now there are two ways to get the food, 1 have a high level of nutrients in your water and fight with algae unless you can find the perfect level of nutrients that the softies can have just enuf but it isn't enuf for algae.

Or you can set up a nutrient free system with higher flow and aggressive skimming. Now this is the part where most people get confused, just having a skimmer doesn't cut this set up, you need to be able to severally over skim. the idea behind this one is that you feed your corals a lot and your skimmer can remove the un eaten food before it breaks down and turns into algae fuel. another part of this is water flow, you have to have enuf so that you have now dead spots in the tank, and that it will keep all the junk suspended so the skimmer can remove it, unfortunately this usually means having to have a bare bottom tank.

Almost all of us operate somewhere between these two ideals, therefor we have algae and other problems. I have been moving to-wards the latter set up for about two years now, increasing tank flow, removing the sand bed, increasing flow again, and finally building my new skimmer which should be able to handle a tank 10X bigger than whats it is going to be used on.

so in my mind anyone who says you need nutrient rich water for softies, or that they do better under lower lighting, either honestly doesn't know any better or doesn't want to spend the money to upgrade lighting/equipment

Steve

I still think a higher nutrient tank will grow softies faster. Yes you can get them to grow well by feeding lots, and skimming lots, but I think they would grow faster if you fed lots, and skimmed less.

I feed a LOT, but because of my refugium and really heavy skimming, the softies don't get a chance to feed all the time like they did when my tank crashed an there was lots of nutrients available.

Is it just my tank or doesn't high nutrient + low light = brown corals. My softies look much better under high light with nitrates near 0 than they did at 20 ppm. IMO softies grow like weeds anyway.

Rob

Where did low light come from?

Under high lighting, the look of my corals didn't change between having high or low nutrients, just the growth was stunted once the nutrients were gone.

When I had high nutrients, my xenia went nuts, and my kenya tree dropped limbs to propagate almost every day. Now, the kenya tree has stopped dropping limbs, and the xenia are not spreading anymore.

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I think we need to consider the benifits of having softies even is SPS dominated systems. They act as nutrient sponges much like the various common macros we used for nutrient export. I have no macros in my tank, but enough softies to export enough nutrients to leave my tank algae free. IMO it is a symbiotic relationship between vastly different corals, they work well together.

I thought that in a high nutreint environment the corals can reach a point where they are unable regulate their zooxanthellae populations due to nitrates being so high they defuse into the coral. This causes an over population of zooxanthellae, which acually stesses the animal slowing down it's growth. I thought I read this somewhere, I could be wrong :confused:

Rob

Could be, but that would be a lot higher than the levesl we are talking about then.

Go
 

I thought nutrients were food?

There is this generalization that everything grown in our tanks is light Dependant - thus making waterborne nutrients unnecessary. Obviously, with certain soft corals and filter feeders this is not the case (how much light do my chili coral and tube worms need to thrive?). I think many reefers kill off or emaciate certain organisms by running "too" clean a system. Why intentionally starve a nutrient absorbing/filter feeding reef? Again, it is a case of distinguishing the specific needs of the livestock we keep.

I actually operate my tank somewhat as stircrazy suggests but there are limits (chosen/unchosen) to the amount of skimming/export possible IMHO.
One problem is that it is impractical to dose a tank to the nutrient density needed for some general filter feeding species if one is going to decrease the density to zero once again each time (I'm assuming large systems here). My vividreef live phytoplankton costs $20 a bottle and doesn't go far when dosing approx. 75G.'s of water. Some might add a little, thinking it's enough, but once diluted and only allowed to circulate for a short period the effects on the livestock is minimal.
It is also assumed that all the species in the tank will be feeding when one doses the tank. In my tank I find the livestock open and close on their own schedule.
I also don't know if it's very easy to go from nutrient dense to pristine like a yo yo unless one sets up a skeletonized reef ala SPS dominated displays (I'm going for the lush jungle look). I think it is a good idea to skim heavily but, other "passive" forms of mopping up nutrients/nitrates is a good idea too. I'm aiming for that balance stircrazy suggests.
FWIW, My routine is to dose the tank 2 - 3 times a week. I tee off my return line so that the flow feeds back into the sump like a closed loop. I allow my tank to sit for several hours and then return flow to the display. Display water movement is maintained by a closed loop circ. system.
I am slowly going B.B. (siphoning substrate out with each P.W.C.) mainly because my recirc sys. kicks up too much substrate when the blenny skates over it. I chickened out of B.B. initially because I wanted the substrate to cover my PVC piping but now I am confident that the coraline algae will look OK. One problem with going B.B. is that you lose the natural buffer that the crushed coral affords (I planned ahead for this by adding C.C. to my R.D.S.B.) Of course you can also counter this by using additives or a reactor. I also think one loses some sand borne scavengers that may aid in waste control (also not a problem if rock work access is planned for regular siphoning).

Whew!!! What a lot of work. May be those F.O.W.L.R. keepers know something I don't :mrgreen:
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herbalaire vaporizer

Don't worry so much about losing this buffer, there was a test done years ago with a BB a crushed coral and a DSB tank left to crash. the BB crashed first but it was only two weeks later when the DSB tank crashed. If I remember right the time frame was over a couple months.

even if it did help though, with the PH your water would have to drop to to release any significant amount of Ca you are going to have bigger problems than low Ca. Also if it did release Ca you have to think of all the other stuff bound in that sand, Phosphates, ect.

Steve