Quote:
Originally Posted by Animal-Chin
Very cool article. Its funny, I've been running a super low nutrient tank for almost a year now where my nitrates are about 2 and even though I have almost no algae of any kind left in the tank I do feel my coral have suffered. I know the trend and the advice on most sites in the last few years have been to reduce nitrates to almost 0 but I'm thinking its not really great for your coral.
I'm slowly removing a spoon full of biopellets a day until my reactor is empty and I'm going back to my old refugium that would keep my nitrates around 5-10 and see if my coral react better. My coral used to grow like weeds and have awesome color when I had some nitrate in the water.
|
I'm on the same page as you. My tank has been unintentionally ULNS since day one pretty much, there were peeks of hope at times when my fish load was decent enough to hold some measurable nutrients until I removed the fish to treat Ich, and then only put a few back in. I've been adding Pohl's Xtra for months and recently KNO3 trying to prevent my Acros from dying from lack of nutrients, but having trouble since I also don't have PO4. Now I'm scrambling to get some fish in there because I've had enough of this crap, but I'm picky with fish, and this is frustrating!
First world problems...
Fish load is so important - you need the right amount, and not just any fish - you need fish that do a job so you can keep low-nutrient algae at bay (like Bubble Algae). I'm starting to think that just having a good number of fish that swim around pecking at the rock disturbing things makes a world of difference. FISH - magic ingredient!