ULNS or a bit of NO3?

[jda]

I find this hobby to be pretty easy if I do four basic things and let them do their jobs without getting in their way. I use a few inches of sand that will denitrify, use a good amount of real live rock from the pacific that filters the water and also denitrifies, use MH light to be the very closest to sunlight that it gets, and lastly, change water at a reasonable clip. I do have one tank with a fuge, but the other one has no room... but I would count a fuge as a fifth important thing.

I realize that this approach takes patience... which is not available in spades anymore.

Every time that I have moved away from this approach, stuff gets harder... especially without real live rock and sand.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So I just looked over the one on phosphate and it looks like the iron is acting as a buffer for the phosphate level thereby maintaining an equilibrium. Would that be different from what happens in our tanks in that we’re adding “clean” media and deliberately shifting the equilibrium? Would saturated or mostly saturated media create a different equilibrium from fresh stuff?

Saturated media would release phosphate to the tank.

 

[Yas]

I addressed just this sentiment in another thread! This hobby IS hard! Name another one where your trying to re-create an entire ecosystem. Your trying to do what it takes an entire ocean to do in nature. I think if we just cut ourselves some slack, allow for how hard this can be that fewer of us would get so discouraged and our overall enjoyment would be better. You did not fail, you learned one way it would not work, then tried another. Isn't that just life? Your fine, your just learning, that's all.

Thank you for your kind comments. Yes, I agree. Sharing some useful tips could help many. Well, I feel like I'm still in the maze, but the inputs I got here are at least helpful for me to have different perspectives, which is still good to me.

 

[Yas]

That!
Re a previous post #4.
No water changes, manual dosing and manual evaporation top up.
I have 2 refugiums ( display refugium and one in the sump) and a skimmer.
I don't test so I have no idea where my phosphates and nitrates are, I watch my macro algae.
The current tank is only 28 months old, it was designed to run as low maintenance as possible (note, I didn't use the word "natural"!).
My sps do probably grow slower than in a lot of tanks, as long as they are happy and healthy I don't mind, I can wait!
Took this earlier for another reason!

DSC_0006 by sshipuk, on Flickr

Hey, your tank looks awesome! Those are the colors I want to see in my tank. Watching macro algae is a good practice, I guess. As someone said in this thread that when chaeto is alive, it must be consuming something even when no nutrient is detected. There are of course many different methods for balancing it, but the good thing about using macro algae is that they may relatively flexibly work in a tank without severely deviating from the entire ecosystem in the tank.