UK_Pete
Active Member
Paul, first, whats a 'travelling man on an eastwards path'? Thats been bugging me all night 
As for the tank, that is interesting isent it. Sounds like everything apart from nitrate is on target. I reread the thread from the start and had a few thoughts. First, ceramic balls media in HOB, is it likely to be denitrifying? Probably not I guess, so you would expect nitrate to build up quite fast. Regardless, if you want to go directly to say 1 or 2 ppm instantly, you could dose a little inorganic nitrate and be there immediately. So one route would seem to be do that. If you are getting good results in the DT, and those parameters look similar to Glenns who reports success with them, you would expect that to be successful. One difference though is that Glenn does also dose carbon while maintaining those parameters (as you do in the DT). If after adding nitrate you get polyp happiness within a day or two thats a clue you can gain in a short time.
OTOH if your main tank is carbon dosed and you are moving corals from it to the QT, and they are used to a different (carbon dosed) environment, it does occur to me that they might be taking a downturn because of the change. A carbon dosed tank might have a quite different nutrient profile (IE more particulate and organic nutrients, aminos, etc, which are not measurable). It could be that they are used to higher total (including organic) nutrients maybe. Or, maybe, corals really do benefit from organics in the water, and the tank is just too sterile for their needs. Is that what a 'mature' tank is perhaps, a tank where the sand bed becomes full enough of bacteria and detritus that it starts adding significant organics back to the water?
Another thought was that if you are growing coralline fast, the tank basic can't be that off chemistry wise. My experience is that coralline does need some nutes too (I have watched it grow and shrink back as I played with nutes). Red sea coral pro is high alk and I wonder if your test kit might be off and the alk is actually high enough to harm the corals, especially if the alk seems to be depleting that fast (unless it can be explained by the coralline). Maybe you should try 7 dkh, or your DT alk level, (Randys tip for those using high alk salt was to add muratic acid to reduce alk in your WC mixing container, not to the tank, and aerate for a day to make pH return to normal). 20% hydrochloric acid (muratic acid) added in the ratio 0.059 ml per litre WC water will drop alk by 1 dkh (0.22 ml per gallon).
As far as the tank settling down goes, 10 months seems quite long, and many nano owners seem to be able to stock well before that with success.
Aminos add nitrogen without P btw, and I believe many now use aminos as organic nitrogen supplement. It wont be measurable on the test kit but apparently SPS respond well to aminos.
And re adding vinegar = removing nitrate - it will change the nitrate, which you can measure with the kit, into unmeasurable organic forms of nitrogen like aminos, biomass etc, that corals also utilise, not remove the nitrogen as such, unless you skim or use enough GAC to remove the organics. And skimming is debatable as to how effectively it removes the organic nitrogen. So making it probably more similar to the GBR reef water, which has unmeasurable (by our kits) nitrate, but 70 ppb nitrogen in the form of organics. Unless you are skimming or your GAC is taking all that bacteria and organic nitrogen out, it wont actually remove the nitrogen. Whether organic forms of nutrients like nitrogen are required by corals I don't know, but the more I read, the more convinced I become that they play a part, maybe a large part. Considering the natural reefs have far more organic nitrogen than inorganic nitrate, my current aim is to try to create that environment hence the bias towards carbon dosing at the moment
As for the tank, that is interesting isent it. Sounds like everything apart from nitrate is on target. I reread the thread from the start and had a few thoughts. First, ceramic balls media in HOB, is it likely to be denitrifying? Probably not I guess, so you would expect nitrate to build up quite fast. Regardless, if you want to go directly to say 1 or 2 ppm instantly, you could dose a little inorganic nitrate and be there immediately. So one route would seem to be do that. If you are getting good results in the DT, and those parameters look similar to Glenns who reports success with them, you would expect that to be successful. One difference though is that Glenn does also dose carbon while maintaining those parameters (as you do in the DT). If after adding nitrate you get polyp happiness within a day or two thats a clue you can gain in a short time.
OTOH if your main tank is carbon dosed and you are moving corals from it to the QT, and they are used to a different (carbon dosed) environment, it does occur to me that they might be taking a downturn because of the change. A carbon dosed tank might have a quite different nutrient profile (IE more particulate and organic nutrients, aminos, etc, which are not measurable). It could be that they are used to higher total (including organic) nutrients maybe. Or, maybe, corals really do benefit from organics in the water, and the tank is just too sterile for their needs. Is that what a 'mature' tank is perhaps, a tank where the sand bed becomes full enough of bacteria and detritus that it starts adding significant organics back to the water?
Another thought was that if you are growing coralline fast, the tank basic can't be that off chemistry wise. My experience is that coralline does need some nutes too (I have watched it grow and shrink back as I played with nutes). Red sea coral pro is high alk and I wonder if your test kit might be off and the alk is actually high enough to harm the corals, especially if the alk seems to be depleting that fast (unless it can be explained by the coralline). Maybe you should try 7 dkh, or your DT alk level, (Randys tip for those using high alk salt was to add muratic acid to reduce alk in your WC mixing container, not to the tank, and aerate for a day to make pH return to normal). 20% hydrochloric acid (muratic acid) added in the ratio 0.059 ml per litre WC water will drop alk by 1 dkh (0.22 ml per gallon).
As far as the tank settling down goes, 10 months seems quite long, and many nano owners seem to be able to stock well before that with success.
Aminos add nitrogen without P btw, and I believe many now use aminos as organic nitrogen supplement. It wont be measurable on the test kit but apparently SPS respond well to aminos.
And re adding vinegar = removing nitrate - it will change the nitrate, which you can measure with the kit, into unmeasurable organic forms of nitrogen like aminos, biomass etc, that corals also utilise, not remove the nitrogen as such, unless you skim or use enough GAC to remove the organics. And skimming is debatable as to how effectively it removes the organic nitrogen. So making it probably more similar to the GBR reef water, which has unmeasurable (by our kits) nitrate, but 70 ppb nitrogen in the form of organics. Unless you are skimming or your GAC is taking all that bacteria and organic nitrogen out, it wont actually remove the nitrogen. Whether organic forms of nutrients like nitrogen are required by corals I don't know, but the more I read, the more convinced I become that they play a part, maybe a large part. Considering the natural reefs have far more organic nitrogen than inorganic nitrate, my current aim is to try to create that environment hence the bias towards carbon dosing at the moment
