Dirty Water and Clean Water

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

The waters around reefs aren't necessarily nutrient poor because the nutrients aren't there. They're usually poor because reefs are such efficient ecosystems that nearly anything that can be consumed by an organism, is. Reefs are high energy and have a high biomass, so there is tight competition for any and all biologically available nutrients. I think some times people get confused when they talk about nutrient regimes, as when we say 'nutrient poor waters or soils' it's different than saying 'nutrient poor systems'. Reefs hold tons of nutrients in the form of biomass, and therefore, the waters they suck them out of don't.

The whole thing is a giant cycle, and when we talk about a tank as being 'low nutrient', we're only talking about half of it. A more accurate term for a low nutrient tank would be "high nutrient, with a tightly controlled input/consumption ratio", but I guess that's harder to type.

Very well put Adam, I think the only thing I can add is that no organism will thrive under "Dirty water" (Water that has high concentrations of NO2, NO3, NH3, PO4...). I personally see the term dirty water as water that has high concentrations of food particles available, while maintaining lower levels of dissolved organics.

This is not easy to achieve in a reef aquarium due to the nature of confinement but I believe the most successful tanks out there are ones who emulate this.