Is nutrient control an effective method of treating algae in a reef?

BRS
Jump to Last
View ReefStash's latest YouTube video!
Nutramar Foods
There are many iron chealating resins that could be used as a media. Have to look into it.
 
So ... As an addition, and already based on the readings I made, Desferrioxamine B is highly soluble in salt water and has already been used in many coral experiments, not demonstrating direct toxicity. However, being able to make the iron unavailable also to the zooxanthelas, there could be some consequence of bleaching if high doses were used in an aquarium, capable of overcoming the protection conferred by the coral to its zooxanthelas ... hence the prudence that must have the aquarist who is willing to try it, not exceeding the reasonable doses and keeping at hand the possibility of a large partial exchange of water in an emergency, in addition to activated carbon and an iron or aluminum media to remove desferrioxamine of the system and, if appropriate, have the possibility of dosing iron after the treatment, if any negative effects were perceived in the coloration of the corals that could be attributed to the effects of the drug.

It is not experiment to be tempted by inexperienced aquarists and, to repeat, there is so far no report I have read regarding this approach in reef aquariums; For now it's just an idea.

In their favor, it is believed that up to 95% of the iron available in seawater must be linked to siderophores and also some of the marine siderophores are ferrioxamines (which speaks in favor of this molecule), as siderophores are species-specific and the siderophores of a species allow this species to "reserve" the iron for itself, it is to be supposed that the introduction of an alien siderophore may have the effect of rendering the iron "free" unavailable for the microbiology of the aquarium, thus permitting , perhaps if it works, and if a good protocol is developed, control outbreaks of undesirable algae, dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria.

This is what is expected ...

Regards
 
rock_lobster said:
There are many iron chealating resins that could be used as a media. Have to look into it.
Click to expand...
Iron-chelating resins in a reactor could make good iron cleaning in the water column, but would not reach iron deposits on substrates and rocks, which is where problems usually develop. The advantage of a water-soluble chelating agent is that it goes where the iron is and binds it, rendering it unavailable, although physically it remains there.

Regards
 
Nutramar Foods
I apologize to everyone for the misuse of the purposes of the topic, by embarking on ideas of experimentation that, although related to the theme, do not answer the question ...

Going back to the center, I honestly think that mere nitrate and phosphate control alone would not be enough to control uncomfortable algae, and the examples of what I say are numerous, as well as the mere addition of more herbivores, in practice, it has also never been consistently effective in resolving the problem.

There are several sets of actions that can be taken when this question arises; there are several ways to treat, whether by mechanical, chemical or drug removal, that when associated with good maintenance practices, especially the focus on keeping parameters stable (rather than pursuing randomly established numbers that someone once set as a goal), many times can solve the problem and maintain the results, allowing hobbyst satisfaction and allowing the hobby to grow.

For my part, and contributing in my own way, I was fortunate enough that one day I could observe the effects of fluconazole on the algae in my aquarium, and after observing that there was a consistent cause / effect relationship, and that there was a mechanism of specific action that justified those effects, I was able to communicate my results to colleagues and today, thanks also to the reach of dissemination that these pages of R2R reach in our hobby, the treatment of infestation of Bryopsis with fluconazole is almost a worldwide standard (Google dixit).

I hope that one day, from topics like this and the efforts of all involved, we will also resolve, in a simple and quiet, and preferably "reef safe", the problems with dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria, so that we can all enjoy of our little pieces of ocean with the joys we deserve.

Greetings to all
 
ca1ore said:
I don't think that is even remotely true. OK, yes, views do get parroted by novice reefers without direct experience, but there are plenty of long-timers that have used UV and concluded it is not worth the cost and effort. I don't personally happen to agree, and I do run an oversized unit on my system at flow levels that are intended for parasite reduction; but I also have reasonable expectations for what it will and won't do.
Click to expand...

Definitely with proper use and proper expectation, cannot agree with you more. i.e. To expect it to rid a tank of ich is an unreasonable expectation. I don't really count people who improper use something because they did not use it as it was intended.

But honestly I am an avid uv sterilizer reefer and literally every time someone starts to discuss/argument with me about it being a waste of time, that person has never had experience with one. I'm sure there are people out there that have used one correctly and don't like it, but so far I have no encountered one in 10 years and change (I'm pretty sure you've been reefing longer from a previous discussion so I'm not saying 10 years to say I've been in it a long time. Just 10 years of saying I like using a uv and getting the response it doesn't work effectively and why is a long time to be not have encountered one person that actually used it correctly and didn't like it).

Also many benefit of a uv also goes unnoticed. So I think a lot of people will never know how much it was doing for them. (I say this in regards to say fish health killing parasites or lessening the continued population growth of parscite or disease that flows in the water column. You will never have a good understand how much benefit your uv did to aid in this).

And that's the end of my long winded shenanigans, I do agree I could have written "most of the time, in my experience" to clarify my experience over complete fact.
 
Luno said:
But honestly I am an avid uv sterilizer reefer and literally every time someone starts to discuss/argument with me about it being a waste of time, that person has never had experience with one. I'm sure there are people out there that have used one correctly and don't like it, but so far I have no encountered one in 10 years and change (I'm pretty sure you've been reefing longer from a previous discussion so I'm not saying 10 years to say I've been in it a long time. Just 10 years of saying I like using a uv and getting the response it doesn't work effectively and why is a long time to be not have encountered one person that actually used it correctly and didn't like it).
.
Click to expand...

My main reason to not use a UV is that I did not want to kill the bacteria that are present in the water. I choose to increase them with organic carbon dosing, and I'd prefer those that are suspended in the water to be skimmed out or eaten whole by various organisms, rather than break apart after passing through a UV, spilling their guts back into the water. :)
 
Fantastic thread!
My first thought here is that our tanks are almost never a replete growth medium for anything - phytoplankton, bacteria, diatoms, dinos, cyano etc. These are all exponential growers, that never get the chance to exponentially grow in our systems except for very brief unusual events that cause great hobbyist freak-out.
So to me the question is not - "is nutrient control effective?" - because it's always in effect!
The question to me is "which nutrients do we want to select as limiters/co-limiters?"
P is the standard for most of the hobby currently, it's effective but has well documented shortcomings.
N may be a better choice. Hans-werner makes a persuasive case (I still have questions though), and there's some cleverness the hobbyist can do to play keep away and hand certain forms of N to corals that are hard for algae to use.
Fe/trace as the limiting choice is a nice fix for a few really annoying problems - I suspect as we explore it more we'll find it's got drawbacks too. Just a hunch.
 
A thought experiment that keeps popping up in my head every time someone posts about how they had chaeto in a fuge but their water was too "clean" and chaeto just melted.
If you take that blob of chaeto and put it on a real thriving reef, will it melt? I seriously doubt it. So that tells me something important is missing or at least being aggressively contested and depleted.
Maybe important-good, maybe important-bad. Dunno.

(It's a thought experiment because I don't actually know what would happen to a blob of chaeto on a real reef, other than it would be devoured.)
 
Randy Holmes-Farley said:
My main reason to not use a UV is that I did not want to kill the bacteria that are present in the water. I choose to increase them with organic carbon dosing, and I'd prefer those that are suspended in the water to be skimmed out or eaten whole by various organisms, rather than break apart after passing through a UV, spilling their guts back into the water. :)
Click to expand...

I'm not a fan of UV usage outside of fix-it cases, but...

My impression is that UV is a lot more of an egg-scrambler than an egg-breaker or egg-popper...if you follow me. I thought it "just" mutated their DNA?

Would cell leakage really have been a significant problem? Seems like the UV filter's output could even be directed right to a skimmer inlet if needed. Do we know a lot about what difference UV could actually make?

(And aren't bacteria naturally leaky to begin with?)
 
www.dinkinsaquaticgardens.com
mcarroll said:
I'm not a fan of UV usage outside of fix-it cases, but...

My impression is that UV is a lot more of an egg-scrambler than an egg-breaker or egg-popper...if you follow me. I thought it "just" mutated their DNA?

Would cell leakage really have been a significant problem? Seems like the UV filter's output could even be directed right to a skimmer inlet if needed. Do we know a lot about what difference UV could actually make?

(And aren't bacteria naturally leaky to begin with?)
Click to expand...

Bacteria break open (lyse) and break up into smaller pieces after UV exposure in a time frame of minutes to hours. This paper shows a time from for a particular species after UV exposure:

CYTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF ULTRAVIOLET-IRRADIATED ESCHERICHIA COLI III.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC357935/?page=1
 
rock_lobster said:
I have always thought that the best way to fight algae is to control nutrients. Using these methods Ive lowered phosphate and nitrate to zero of very low and found that within weeks most of my coral were either bleached or dead. I started researching further and it turns out that coral actually like nutrients very much even many recent articles have shown that the old (0 nitrate 0 phos algae control) might be a terrible idea for a reef tank. Here is one good example:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5441187/#!po=46.2121

I think reefkeepers have been caught up on the idea that the pristine reefs dont have ANY algae and it is a pest that shouldnt be there.. However if you take a closer look at any reef you will see that there are 100s of billions of herbivores there in the same habitat that the coral is growing in. Therefore it should be obvious that all of these grazers are eating something and that the reefs pristine water isnt what prevents algae from growing.

Basically Ive heard this problem 1000s of times: "i have so much algae its taking over my tank" and response 2 is always "How is your nutrient control?" When in fact the correct response probably should be "how is your clean up crew?"

Not even a few years ago the goal in reef keeping was to keep nitrates at zero.. But now we are seeing that many of the most successful tanks have 10-20 or even higher nitrates.
Click to expand...


Very excellent points, in my setup, live oysters, clams, snails, refugium outside, etc.... throughout the 7 months, no out of control algea problem . Very little here there then gone. Nitrates 10 or below,. Sometimes 0. And other H2O perimeters low (PHO4,NO2)too. Clean up crew working. MHO
 
In regards to the redfield ratio is not a regulator for how much of each nitrient any particular organism takes up.

The atomic ratio C:N:P in phytoplankton is 106C:16N:1P, while bethnic plants (mean of 92 species) on average have a somewhat higher ratio of 550C:30N:1P. These ratios indicate that many seaweeds are more prone to N limitation than phytoplankton.
The ratio of two nutrients that is required for maximal growth of a seaweed is called the optimum ratio. As stated above, the average N:P ratio for seaweeds is 30N:1P with a range from 10:1 to 80:1
http://sailing-sea-farm.com/onewebme...v%C3%A6kst.pdf

Analysis of the annually-averaged 2001–2010 monthly nutrient data from 13 stations in the Venice Lagoon (Italy) shows that the concentrations of dissolved nitrogen (N) species, measured as total dissolved N (TDN), have increased over time while that of phosphorus (P) species, measured as total dissolved P (TDP) have decreased. During the study period, the TDN/TDP ratio in the lagoon rose from about 46:1 to 100:1 (by atoms), a level at which the growth of benthic macroalgae is favored over that of sea grasses.
http://levin.ucsd.edu/people/photos/...V180_33-41.pdf
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
Scrubber_steve said:
In regards to the redfield ratio is not a regulator for how much of each nitrient any particular organism takes up.

The atomic ratio C:N:p in phytoplankton is 106C:16N:1P, while bethnic plants (mean of 92 species) on average have a somewhat higher ratio of 550C:30N:1P. These ratios indicate that many seaweeds are more prone to N limitation than phytoplankton.
The ratio of two nutrients that is required for maximal growth of a seaweed is called the optimum ratio. As stated above, the average N:p ratio for seaweeds is 30N:1P with a range from 10:1 to 80:1
http://sailing-sea-farm.com/onewebme...v%C3%A6kst.pdf

Analysis of the annually-averaged 2001–2010 monthly nutrient data from 13 stations in the Venice Lagoon (Italy) shows that the concentrations of dissolved nitrogen (N) species, measured as total dissolved N (TDN), have increased over time while that of phosphorus (P) species, measured as total dissolved P (TDP) have decreased. During the study period, the TDN/TDP ratio in the lagoon rose from about 46:1 to 100:1 (by atoms), a level at which the growth of benthic macroalgae is favored over that of sea grasses.
http://levin.ucsd.edu/people/photos/...V180_33-41.pdf
Click to expand...

The second link does not work for me.
 
Last edited:
If one wants to favour the growth of a certain algae with a N:P ratio of 10:1 does this mean that an other not wanted algae with a N:P ratio of 16:1 will be growth limited when the N:P ratio in the water is kept at 10:1? Or is it the way that algae is able to use and store N or P ? Where does the N come from? From NH3, NH4, NO2 or NO3 to name some Nitrogen sources. How important is the nitrogen source used? Maybe the algae needing a ratio of 16:1 can provide its nitrogen starting at a much lower level or has more effective pathways to use the different nitrogen sources and will reach its 16 to 1 ratio much faster as the other may reach a ratio of 10 to 1? We consider fast growing algae as a nuisance . For example: when we remove ammonia fast using an effective bio filter transforming the ammonia into nitrate, will this limit algae growth or activate it? Will it favour certain types of algae and or limit the growth of others ?
 
Randy Holmes-Farley said:
My main reason to not use a UV is that I did not want to kill the bacteria that are present in the water. I choose to increase them with organic carbon dosing, and I'd prefer those that are suspended in the water to be skimmed out or eaten whole by various organisms, rather than break apart after passing through a UV, spilling their guts back into the water. :)
Click to expand...

In reading articles on coral nutrition on a wild reef, it is evident that bacteria transfer food from one food web to another. As the author points out > 60% of reef food is tied up in the microbial loop. Even after feeding heavy, I still add ammonia to keep up with demand of biofilter. With this type of a mature biofilter, would bacteria “spilling their guts” be another form of nutrient dosing?

Laissez les bonne temps roulee,
Patrick
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
Subsea said:
In reading articles on coral nutrition on a wild reef, it is evident that bacteria transfer food from one food web to another. As the author points out > 60% of reef food is tied up in the microbial loop. Even after feeding heavy, I still add ammonia to keep up with demand of biofilter. With this type of a mature biofilter, would bacteria “spilling their guts” be another form of nutrient dosing?

Laissez les bonne temps roulee,
Patrick
Click to expand...

Yes, if your tank is short on nutrients, there may be some benefit to higher photosynthetic organisms (at least those that do not feed on bacteria) of a UV killing bacteria in the water from that perspective. :)
 
Last edited:
BRS

IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%

  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%

  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%

  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
See comments…

New Posts

World Wide Corals
Nutramar Foods
Tidal Gardens
Deltec
Dinkins Aquatic Gardens
TCK Corals
Top Shelf Aquatics
Chewy.com
New Posts
Back
Top