Question about coral nutrient consumption and gorgonians

MixedFruitBasket · Sep 22, 2019

Sponges are animals, they produce waste too.

One of the most natural ways. you could reduce nutrients is more water changes. A small daily change would go a long way. Another way, in tank would be to use something like purigen or carbon to pull out organics. Macro algae would be the only other way I can think of if you wanted something alive and pretty. Do a planted tank. There are dozens of different kinds and they can be absolutely studding. Plants still make waste though but it's oxygen. It just happens to be usable to a large number of organisms on the planet.

We breath plant poo.... (well sorta)
Pleasant thought that...

KleineVampir · Sep 23, 2019

Yeah but that's really the beauty of plants though. Their byproducts are totally beneficial with basically no downside.

Also we owe our lives to algae even though we battle it in our tanks. Algae contributes something like 80% of the world's total oxygen.

DeniseAndy · Sep 28, 2019

Sorry took so long to reply. Gorgs are toxic to animals that eat them generally (flamingo snail eats gorgs). They have anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties as found by scientists and known by dolphins for much longer.

They also are terribly competitive for space and will wipe out many other corals. Seen it happen so many times. Maybe over time the captive bred ones are not so bad (think of poison dart frogs). Never actually measured it over the years I had them. I just know through self experiments and oops, accidents, my gorgs had killed (or damaged) many lps. Even being in same 210g tank over a foot away.

Good luck with your tank. Balance is key to our systems working well. The magic balance is ever changing. What fun would it be to find easily.

MixedFruitBasket · Sep 28, 2019

I only have softies so hopefully that’s not an issue for me. Some of th gorgs I e had for a long time with no problem but I will keep a look out for that. Sponges apparently do the same thing and give off toxins to kill nearby corals. So even the innocuous sponges we get on rocks can cause issues. I wonder why more corals don’t die from paly toxins off of zoanthids or even the sea anemones that produce it. I mean I’ve heard of the rare event but some tanks have a huge mix and you’d think those zoas would wipe out any sps or lps.