Tank maintenance day

marie · #1 09-28-2007, 04:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Do you run phosban or anything like that?

The only thing I'm using is carbon

Delphinus · #2 09-28-2007, 04:48 AM

Ok I gotta ask then, what reactor media are you using?

The reason is, if I crank up my reactor, I found I would get more PO4. I would notice this because it really seems to inhibit SPS growth. Talk about your catch-22. So I wonder if I'm sitting on a bad batch of media or something..

Any refugium growing chaeto or macros maybe?

marie · #3 09-28-2007, 04:53 AM

I think my success is because I have more then normal (normal for most aquariums anyway) live zooplankton. I have 2 orchid dottybacks, a pair of mandarins, 2 pairs of cardinals, a pair of cleaner shrimp, a bunch of hermit crabs, snails and a very lively sandbed all pumping out babies to feed the corals. Even with the mandarins in the tank everything is covered with pods at night.

I do walk a very fine line between success and a tank full of algae. If I were to lose any of my herbivores I think I would be in trouble. At the moment I have 3 types of algae that I am keeping a close eye on, 2 of which don't seem to have anything eating them, bryopsis and brown wafer algae.
But at least somewhere in the system I can find turf algae, an unidentified red/brown macroalgae, dictyota, valonia, hair algae, bryopsis, caulerpa, brown wafer algae, that red cotton algae (the 3rd algae that I'm keeping an eye on, luckily I have a few turbos that eat it) and I also have the occasional appearance of cyano and the dreaded dinos.
So I have a tank that is rich in food type nutrients (I don't even try to stop detritus, It's all food to somebody) but it's low in nitrates and phosphates because the algae takes it up which in turn is taken up by my herbivores. It's as close to the real ocean as i can get it

Delphinus · #4 09-28-2007, 04:55 AM

Well you must be doing something right. If you have PO4 entering the tank it's coming out somehow. The growth pictures are awesome.

marie · #5 09-28-2007, 04:58 AM

The reactor media I'm using is just the fine caribsea A.R.M. stuff

marie · #6 09-28-2007, 05:12 AM

To show how efficient algae is at taking up nutrients, here is pic of my tank last year just after it sat with no fish in it for 8 weeks. It's also when I first discovered this wonderful red/brown macroalgae.
You can see how pale all the corals are (even the macroalgae was pale at this point) because they were starving. Growth was just about nil on everything except the algae.