Nitrates are a great source of food for a mixed reef including SPS !!!

[Zoofan]

I am just coming out of a year or more of trying to crush my nitrates with the idea of doing away with my algae. However, it really didn't make much of a dent in the algae. So after really thinking about the issue and being kind of lost on what the issue was it became clear that I didn't have enough algea eating animals. The whole system is about 275g and I only had 2 Tangs, and through my own ignorance I bought many snails that really didn't even eat the type of algae in my tank. I also noticed that my zoanthids have not done nearly as well, this could be due to going from MH to LED's, hard for me to say for sure. However, once I decided to stop doing water changes for awhile I notied the Zoanthids doing better and the algae levels being about the same. I have since added 4 more Tang's and 2 algae eating blennies so we will see how it works out but there is starting to be less algae.

I think I had so much algae that any time a nitrate got released it was quickly consumed by the algae in the tank, creating low levels in the water but not allowing for the skimmer or water changes to have a lot of affect. I am thinking that by turning over the algae into fish waste maybe this will help with exporting the waste. I have played with many different parameters over the past few years, trying different things but I now see nitrates as only small piece to the puzzle.

Mike

[Zoofan]

A few more observations, I have a Stylophora that a friend gave me, we keep them under the same ligths, he has not done a water change since December and I have done multiple changes, his has outgrown mine by a lot! He basically broke it in half and gave me a piece so the same coral. It should be noted he does feed his corals and I don't, which could be the obvious difference in growth but my point is his water quality you would suspect is not as good as mine, or maybe our definition of "good water" is off base. So, maybe nitrates is not really the molecule that is responsible for growth but likely what ever process leads to higher nitrates also leads to other waste material in the water that is converted to coral. Studies have shown if you exclude algae eaters from a area of a healthy natural reef you will have algae over growing the corals in a few weeks. Not sure what all this means but the system is way more complex then the surface that our test kits scratch.

[Zoofan]

One other thing, sorry but this thread got my brain moving today. I have seen reefers with algae scrubbers who get their nitrates down to basically zero and also claim to have excellent growth with corals. So that makes me think the nitrate is not the food source. It would seem like water changes, skimming and other things we do to remove nitrates also removes what is actually driving growth. I am really leaning towards just doing a big algae scrubber on my next tank.

Mike

[Davie118]

I can understand we remove good and bad when water changes are performed. If we could remove the bad and still raise every level of mineral we need for a reef to thrive that is the idea we want. It is easier said than done though. The tank will find a balance one way or another. We often keep throwing off that balance as we attempt to keep changing things. I am guilty of this fault all the time. Everything settles down and I keep adding equipment or biologics and the cycle to maintain balance starts again.