ULNS feeding?

[Danh Ngo]

running ULNS with vinegar, AA, 2 part dosing. Feeding fish once a day and reef roid x2 a week. Should I increase my feeding schedule? NO3 around 0.25-0.5 want to raise to 1.5-2

 

[Reefin Dude]

why? the testable N and P is not what the coral wants. testing for it is fine if you want to know the values, but as long as the corals are getting organically bound N and P from the food itself, than they will be getting what they want. no need to "provide" nitrate as this messes up the balance of symbiosis in oligotrophic hermatypic organisms.

G~

 

[Danh Ngo]

why? the testable N and P is not what the coral wants. testing for it is fine if you want to know the values, but as long as the corals are getting organically bound N and P from the food itself, than they will be getting what they want. no need to "provide" nitrate as this messes up the balance of symbiosis in oligotrophic hermatypic organisms.

G~

Starting to see some dyno, so just try to have a small changes

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Starting to see some dyno, so just try to have a small changes

Carbon dosing IMO is a very efficient way to drop your nitrates, but not as great for phosphates. The problem when both get too low is dinos start popping up. What worked for me was raising my nitrates to 2.5-5 and keeping phosphates undetectable. If you don't want to increase the amount you are feeding then you can cut back on the carbon dosing. I stopped carbon dosing because I got things relatively balanced with ATS and macro algae.

 

[Reefin Dude]

how old is the system? sounds like your ULNS is bacterial based on elemental Carbon and not on detrital export, correct? where are the Dyno's starting to show up?

G~

 

[Danh Ngo]

how old is the system? sounds like your ULNS is bacterial based on elemental Carbon and not on detrital export, correct? where are the Dyno's starting to show up?

G~

1 about a year old, when I started to auto dose vinegar. I used to dose No3PO4x and no dynos. Just cut back half amount of Vinegar dose yesterday.

 

[Danh Ngo]

Carbon dosing IMO is a very efficient way to drop your nitrates, but not as great for phosphates. The problem when both get too low is dinos start popping up. What worked for me was raising my nitrates to 2.5-5 and keeping phosphates undetectable. If you don't want to increase the amount you are feeding then you can cut back on the carbon dosing. I stopped carbon dosing because I got things relatively balanced with ATS and macro algae.

Do you think that unbalanced in P ( low nitrate, high P) can cause dynos.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Do you think that unbalanced in P ( low nitrate, high P) can cause dynos.

For me I feel it did. Once you have them then it makes little difference eliminating the phosphates because they can derive energy purely from photosynthesis. Bringing my nitrates up definitely helped in almost eliminating them. Also all my zoas and LPS were a lot happier. SPS were happier when I had almost no nitrates.