Upwelling of nutrients

[Cory]

What if we need to dose our alkalinity solutions with po4/no3 to mimick deepwater upwelling of nutrients? Possible?

Perhaps corals need an influx of phosphate then a gradual decline to zero every day to grow. Po4 dose bumps up to .10ppm. Coral takes what little it can hold UNTIL po4 drops to zero then it can grow becaise high po4 inhibits calcification.

My tanks always low on po4. No3 is very high. I have to dose po4. Why not include it in the two part?

Just like the fish corals need a daily dose of "food" too like po4 or no3.
Thoughts?

 

[Gareth elliott]

i am not sure there is a ratio that you could use to always be able to dose together without one or the other ending up in excess to achieve the desired results of the other.
At least my experience dosing both no3 and po4 in the same solution. Eventually i ended up needing to separate, or my po4 rose well beyond my target to keep no3 on its respective target.

 

[VR28man]

On a "reef", the upswellings occur twice a day, when the tides bring in a lot of stuff up from the deeper waters. This stuff moves quickly through the high flow fore reef zone (where most of our acros and other SPS live, but they get their share of it as it flows trough) and into the interior, generally moderate flow lagoon zone of your typical coral reef system. I suppose some amount of that stuff goes out with the tides, along with any feces, nutrients from the land, etc. may accumulate in the lagoon. At the same time, depending on the geography, a lot of it may also accumulate and decay into seagrass or whatever might be in the lagoon.

Simulating an upswelling might be good if you choose your corals based on what zone you choose and design the zone around it. You'd have to time it twice a day, in theory, and in a closed system you should have a good way to export it. (unless you're running a lagoon biotope tank, and even then you might not want the algae and detritus that might accumulate).

And finally, the upswelling is not chemical PO4 or NO3. Nor is it amino acids (e.g. Acropower, etc.). It is zoo and maybe less so phytoplankton, copepods, etc. The closest simulation would be a huge feeding of coral foods, or even roifers, phyto, tiny zooplankton supplements, pods, baby brine, etc. If it's coral foods or anything else dead, this also raises the possibility that it will quickly become detritus.