Macroalgae Nitrate Export

[Megalodon]

Originally Posted by bioload

Day 2

Nice!

[Greenmaster]

he will probably be updating within 1-2 hours

[bioload]

Day 3

[bioload]

Originally Posted by Greenmaster

he will probably be updating within 1-2 hours

Nice call!

[Greenmaster]

Originally Posted by bioload

Nice call!

Seen you update the same time every day... but you were early today

Looks like all the nitrate is gone after 3 days... not that great of a phosphate scrubber by the looks of it, did a little but not much... maybe it would have been better with more light... what was the size of your macro-algae ball? And I see the colors but what was the number for the nitrate for intro?

[Sunee]

Very interesting. Pretty much what I would expect to see. I have done some research on terrestrial plants and for every 100 grams of N taken up only about 6.7 grams of P are used for growth with the caveat that all other essential nutrients are in adequate supply. I would expect that marine plants would have the same patterns of uptake but I could be wrong!

[bioload]

Originally Posted by Greenmaster

Seen you update the same time every day... but you were early today

Looks like all the nitrate is gone after 3 days... not that great of a phosphate scrubber by the looks of it, did a little but not much... maybe it would have been better with more light... what was the size of your macro-algae ball? And I see the colors but what was the number for the nitrate for intro?

Traffic was a bit lighter today

Amazing that something so simple works so well, no messing with flow, anaerobic zones, advection, biodiversity etc. Not to say that I won't be trying other methods, but I may finally be able to start adding some corals to my tank soon.

I've turned on the maxijet connected to the tank to exchange water and start over. This time I've added a 13w compact fluorescent that I will run 24/7....lets see how it goes.

Current Setup


Difficult to get numbers from the API Nitrate test kit.

0-10ppm (shades of yellow)
20ppm (orange)
40-160+ (shades of red)



There still is that phosphate problem though?

[bioload]

Originally Posted by Sunee

Very interesting. Pretty much what I would expect to see. I have done some research on terrestrial plants and for every 100 grams of N taken up only about 6.7 grams of P are used for growth with the caveat that all other essential nutrients are in adequate supply. I would expect that marine plants would have the same patterns of uptake but I could be wrong!

Hi Sunee, I wonder if the uptake of phosphates would increase if there was no Nitrate present?

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Originally Posted by bioload

Hi Sunee, I wonder if the uptake of phosphates would increase if there was no Nitrate present?

I doubt it. Plants consume Nitrates as plant food, so no nitrates would mean your macroalgae would have a very hard time, NOT that your phosphate uptake would increase.

[Doug]

FWIW, when I ran my turf scrubber, {turf algae}, on my 225g, there was never any nitrate or phosphate that was measurable by me. The turf algae seemed to be very good at removing phosphate.