Nutrient Export

[SantaMonica]

What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.

So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients come from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.

Then the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on them consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crew, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

So whenever you have algae "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then, there is a problem).

So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals

 

[Chichas01]

yes yes we all know; algae turf scrubber. http://www.reeffrontiers.com/thread...le-turf-and-slime-algae?highlight=santamonica

do we really need a new thread?

 

[tike]

+1^ If you REALLY want people to check it out again just bump the old thread........................

 

[kpiotrowski]

I don't think its fair to jump to the conclusion that santamonica want to talk about ats......but then again I'm not getting what he/she is talking about.

so, where is this thread going? constant water changers? sulphur denitrator?

I almost put an ats on my 300g build but it came down to size needed to be effective vs evaportion rates. I already evap 5g a day. to run water over a surface area 16 to 20 sqaure feet, and bake it with light, surely would increase that evap rate greatly! .... not talking about a tv dinner tray stuck on the side of the glass with an airstone and light here! that ats may be helpful in a 10g nano system, but for more average tanks 75g...120g and up, you need some serious surface area to be effective!

just too easy to add a large algea fuge instead of huge ats imo.

 

[Terrance]

If I remember correctly from Floyd's studies last year, ATS relies on amount of feedings. For feedings of 1 cube of food daily, a 5x5 inch is adequate. A 120g or larger can be fed with 1 cube of food daily and rely on a 5x5" screen (lit on one side) for proper nutrient export.

But yeah I think I know where Santa Monica is heading with this thread lol

 

[N1Husker]

I made one, but took it out. It was causing a bunch of brown algae on the inside of my protein skimmer. I turned to a clean up crew and they keep it mowed down. They are keeping it pretty clean now.

 

[kpiotrowski]

I made one, but took it out. It was causing a bunch of brown algae on the inside of my protein skimmer. I turned to a clean up crew and they keep it mowed down. They are keeping it pretty clean now.

yeah, you should never expose you skimmer to light like that if you don't want to grow algea...even coraline.

 

[kpiotrowski]

If I remember correctly from Floyd's studies last year, ATS relies on amount of feedings. For feedings of 1 cube of food daily, a 5x5 inch is adequate. A 120g or larger can be fed with 1 cube of food daily and rely on a 5x5" screen (lit on one side) for proper nutrient export.

But yeah I think I know where Santa Monica is heading with this thread lol

seriouly? help me here? we are feeding cubes of food to algea turf scrubber surfaces? really?

please direct me to this study!

sounds rediculous!

 

[Terrance]

Screen size based on amount of feeding your fish. Subsequently, the ATS will grow and absorb the pollution from the feeding. There is a very long thread on RC regarding this.

 

[Scooterman]

You want nutrient export then do just that, export it, siphon it out, skim it, WC it out. You feed your tank you need to clean up the poop, plain and simple, It is a glass box, it can't go away on its own. The better you're at export the better your tank will look and function.

 

[kpiotrowski]

If I remember correctly from Floyd's studies last year, ATS relies on amount of feedings. For feedings of 1 cube of food daily, a 5x5 inch is adequate. A 120g or larger can be fed with 1 cube of food daily and rely on a 5x5" screen (lit on one side) for proper nutrient export.

But yeah I think I know where Santa Monica is heading with this thread lol

when you said above that "ATS relies on amount of feedings" I misread that someone did a study where they were feeding their ats cubes of food. wouldn't be the stupidest thing ive heard yet lol, but is why I asked to see the study.

So, an ATS relies on amount of feedings? Not as true as to say an ATS relies on light and oxygen.

 

[spieszak]

when you said above that "ATS relies on amount of feedings" I misread that someone did a study where they were feeding their ats cubes of food. wouldn't be the stupidest thing ive heard yet lol, but is why I asked to see the study.

So, an ATS relies on amount of feedings? Not as true as to say an ATS relies on light and oxygen.

The theory as I understand it places a ratio between the surface area needed for the ATS to the amount of food being placed in the tank. So for each x amount of food, you need a YxY area of screen to 'compensate' for that feeding. Its just an attempt to be more specific than the '4 sq. inches of screen per gallon' that most recommended when people first started DIY'ing them. So its a rule of thumb for the 'size' of the scrubber... the only reason the feedings matter at all is to 'calculate' how much screen you need to pull out the excess from the amount of food you are adding to the tank.