Help me understand

[Subsea]

@Token_Reefer

To better understand coral nutrition, I recommend reading Dana Riddle articles on coral nutrition.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1099128

Coral Nutrition, Part Two: Foods for Corals

While once reefkeepers believed lighting and chemical additives were all we needed to sustain corals, coral nutrition is now recognized as vital for a thriving captive reef. Dana Riddle delves into more detail about foods for coral.

reefs.com

Predation of Cyanobacteria, Bacteria, and Algae by Symbiodinium spp. (Zooxanthellae)!​

“Before continuing our study of coral nutrition, we’ll begin by examining the consumption of cyanobacteria, bacteria, and algae by zooxanthellae. Cyanobacteria, or cyanophyta, are a group of photosynthetic bacteria. They are sometimes called blue-green algae due to their color (cyan = blue.)”

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Let's say feeding is regular daily so the supply of each is steady; the availability is the same and is consumed. Or take the fish poop out the equation and those nutrients are dosed. If the coral consumes what's available, why does there have to detectable levels for them to live?

You make the false assumption that the N and P in the foods is "enough", regardless of how much it was. Why assume that?

 

[TokenReefer]

Well I wasn't meaning to imply that was enough for growth but...ohhh...so there's consumption required to simply live as well.. That makes sense

Excuse my ignorance...I don't know what I don't know.. thanks

 

[Subsea]

Well I wasn't meaning to imply that was enough for growth but...ohhh...so there's consumption required to simply live as well.. That makes sense

Excuse my ignorance...I don't know what I don't know.. thanks

With a marine engineering degree from The Texas Maritime Academy in Galveston and 50 years of Reefing, ”the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know”.

 

[Subsea]

Well I wasn't meaning to imply that was enough for growth but...ohhh...so there's consumption required to simply live as well.. That makes sense

Excuse my ignorance...I don't know what I don't know.. thanks

There are different levels to living for fish & corals:

Reproduction is the highest level.
Looking good with Healthy immune system is the next highest level.
Looking good but weak immune system.
Looking bad

 

[TokenReefer]

There are different levels to living for fish & corals:

Reproduction is the highest level.
Healthy immune system is the next highest level.
Looking good but weak immune system.
Looking bad

I can wrap my head around this. thank you. now back to my homework lol

 

[Timfish]

@Timfish
Can you find the link that shows how some coral uses Cyanobacteria to perform nitrogen fixation when nitrogen is limited in bulk water.

Here's some links Pat. Just to clarify I'm reading your comment regarding nitrogen in bulk water as including PON, DON and DIN but not N2 which is what diazotrophs are using to convert to DIN. Here's three papers looking at this process.

Discovery of symbiotic nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria in corals - PubMed

Colonies of the Caribbean coral Montastraea cavernosa exhibit a solar-stimulated orange-red fluorescence that is spectrally similar to a variety of fluorescent proteins expressed by corals. The source of this fluorescence is phycoerythrin in unicellular, nonheterocystis, symbiotic cyanobacteria...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Diazotrophs: a non-negligible source of nitrogen for the tropical coral Stylophora pistillata - PubMed

Corals are mixotrophs: they are able to fix inorganic carbon through the activity of their symbiotic dinoflagellates and to gain nitrogen from predation on plankton and uptake of dissolved organic and inorganic nutrients. They also live in close association with diverse diazotrophic communities...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/mBio.02058-16