Too much area for beneficial bacteria

[e34stx]

Morning peeps, I have a question many about maxspect bio spheres. My tank is around 6 months old and I’m really struggling with low nutrients. The corals look ok except from a torch that is slightly pale. The rocks have a small coating of brown algae that just brushes off easily. I recently got 6 turbo snails that seem to be taking care of it now.
I used quite a lot of biospheres to offset a minimal aqua scape with no sand. All my parameters are normal except 0 no3 and 0.02 po4. The tank is 150g with 10 small to medium fish that get around 2 cubes of mixed frozen food each day. Im wondering if I should start to remove some of the spheres to hopefully allow the nutrients to build up. I had also thought to slow dose some ammonium to elevate no3. I have just started using phosfeed with seems to be taking care of the po4.
Thanks

 

[Sophie"s mom]

If you don’t mind me asking, why minimal aquascape? It serves multiple functions. It gives fish a place to hide as well as biological filtering, as well as giving algae a place to grow for your CUC to eat. So just curious as to why you want it to be minimal.

 

[e34stx]

If you don’t mind me asking, why minimal aquascape? It serves multiple functions. It gives fish a place to hide as well as biological filtering, as well as giving algae a place to grow for your CUC to eat. So just curious as to why you want it to be minimal.

it’s not that minimal, just I see some scapes with lots of rock. I have made a few arches etc with caribsea rock. There are places for the fish to hide. I will post up a photo in a bit.

 

[e34stx]

See attached

 

[e34stx]

It would be worth mentioning I have been dosing sodium nitrate to try and elevate levels as well. I thought it would be worth asking about removing some of the bio spheres, I’m sure I put in 4kg worth which I think is far far too much.

On a good note, there is a handful of spots of coralline algae forming.

 

[Doctorgori]

It would be worth mentioning I have been dosing sodium nitrate to try and elevate levels as well. I thought it would be worth asking about removing some of the bio spheres, I’m sure I put in 4kg worth which I think is far far too much.

just my experience but I’m not sure it’s necessary to dose nitrate at this stage….I could be wrong
… As for the bacteria, I thought they sort grow “to the size of the tank” and occupy wherever they can…
More surface area won’t “dilute” their effectiveness nor cause any issue I’m aware of…
…I’ve always thought the “minimalist” aquascaped lacked adequate sleeping/escape zones IMO …or at least until corals grow out

 

[Sophie"s mom]

Well the coralline is certainly a good thing! Do you have the ability to get some actual live rock? Your scape does look good, but I personally feel like your tank and its inhabitants would really benefit from some live rock. Just my 2 cents. But it does look good so far. I honestly don’t really know about removing the biospheres

 

[e34stx]

I have a couple of bio spheres lol taken from an established aquarium. I think so many spheres are just bottoming out my nutrients. The po4 I think is just binding to my rock, hence why I’m having to dose that.

 

[e34stx]

just my experience but I’m not sure it’s necessary to dose nitrate at this stage….I could be wrong
… As for the bacteria, I thought they sort grow “to the size of the tank” and occupy wherever they can…
More surface area won’t “dilute” their effectiveness nor cause any issue I’m aware of…
…I’ve always thought the “minimalist” aquascaped lacked adequate sleeping/escape zones IMO …or at least until corals grow out

I was wondering if all the spheres are loaded with bacteria, they would consume it leaving very little for everything else? I maybe wrong..
I’m dosing to avoid completely bottoming out and getting dinos.

 

[brandon429]

Those spheres have no impact on anything you can measure in your tank if you removed them or added ten more pounds of them, they're neutral impact.

Reason why: all reef tanks on this site are grossly beyond the tanks bioload needs for surface area

We've all drastically overdone it: provided more surface area than needed. This is why ripping away everyone's sandbed plus any degree of rock they wanted to remove for the final scape assembly so far has harmed no reefs in the giant 60 page sandbed thread

Extra surface area isn't harming anyone's reef, and to remove extra surface area doesn't harm them either. Not a single parameter you can measure will be impacted.

 

[e34stx]

Those spheres have no impact on anything you can measure in your tank if you removed them or added ten more pounds of them, they're neutral impact.

Reason why: all reef tanks on this site are grossly beyond the tanks bioload needs for surface area

We've all drastically overdone it: provided more surface area than needed. This is why ripping away everyone's sandbed plus any degree of rock they wanted to remove for the final scape assembly so far has harmed no reefs in the giant 60 page sandbed thread

Extra surface area isn't harming anyone's reef, and to remove extra surface area doesn't harm them either. Not a single parameter you can measure will be impacted.

So you are saying they have zero impact on nutrients? I’m not sure about. My original thinking was the addition of these at the start. Overtime the bacteria consume nutrients from the water column, then multiply on whatever they can, in this case the spheres. They would continue to multiply until there is no more food, ie lack of nutrients. So to overcome this I could either dose nutrients or feed more. I’m asking if removing the bacteria homes, thus removing a wedge of the nutrient eating bacteria, I would mitigate the need to add excess nitrates back into the tank and hopefully balance the loading.

 

[e34stx]

just my experience but I’m not sure it’s necessary to dose nitrate at this stage….I could be wrong
… As for the bacteria, I thought they sort grow “to the size of the tank” and occupy wherever they can…
More surface area won’t “dilute” their effectiveness nor cause any issue I’m aware of…
…I’ve always thought the “minimalist” aquascaped lacked adequate sleeping/escape zones IMO …or at least until corals grow out

Hi, all the fish seem very happy and have their own hiding places. I’m not saying more would dilute their effectiveness, I’m say maybe they are too effective as there is so much..

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think it’s an appropriate plan to remove the media for a variety of reasons. I cannot see any downside if it is done slowly.

Can you show a picture of the minimal aquascaping and tank inhabitants?

 

[e34stx]

I think it’s an appropriate plan to remove the media for a variety of reasons. I cannot see any downside if it is done slowly.

Can you show a picture of the minimal aquascaping and tank inhabitants?

Thanks Randy, there is a photo above. I have 3x smallish chromis, 3x smallish anthias, 2 small clowns that host my scraper lol, a scarlet hawk Fish, a medium size sail fin tang and a medium/large gem tang.

 

[e34stx]

 

[e34stx]

There are several nooks and cranny’s and caves the fish hide in.

 

[RoanokeReef]

How many spheres are you using?

 

[RoanokeReef]

I think it’s an appropriate plan to remove the media for a variety of reasons. I cannot see any downside if it is done slowly.

Can you show a picture of the minimal aquascaping and tank inhabitants?

Can you expand on the reasons? Just curious.

 

[brandon429]

Dang man lol

You sure didn’t overdo the display surface area by a country mile

That’s one of the lower surface area reef displays I’ve seen, well done on the nsa scape. Very nice, very clean, and officially the lowest surface area reef tank I recall seeing. Heck I thought you’d have a 260lb saxby reef wall stack in there like most of us do

 

[Reign1]

So you are saying they have zero impact on nutrients? I’m not sure about. My original thinking was the addition of these at the start. Overtime the bacteria consume nutrients from the water column, then multiply on whatever they can, in this case the spheres. They would continue to multiply until there is no more food, ie lack of nutrients. So to overcome this I could either dose nutrients or feed more. I’m asking if removing the bacteria homes, thus removing a wedge of the nutrient eating bacteria, I would mitigate the need to add excess nitrates back into the tank and hopefully balance the loading.

My take on this is actually the opposite. Early aquariums and reefing many used wet/dry filters pretty much same concept as your biospheres. optimize surface area for nitrifying bacteria to grow in order to process fish waste/bioload. Problem as we progressed we realized this was really efficient and this created a "nitrate factory" where we started to have to increase water changes to dilute this buildup when keeping inhabitants that preferred a lower range of nitrate. Thus all the awesome DSB, PLENUMs, Nitrate reactors. etc.. We used to shoot for super low nutrients (nitrate) and now full circle modern thoughts we realize the coral actually use these nutrients for food and prefer a fair amount of nutrients.
I too am running BB and also minimal rockscape now but also added some (probably less than you have) live rock to the sump and some in tank to seed it. I have contemplated adding more Biosphere type media to my sump but really i ask myself why? Tank is cycled. My belief the nitrifying bacteria growth initally exponential then will reach a equilibrium. I personally dont belive removing or adding media with have any really adverse affects at this time. Only reason I think it could benefit you is to prevent detritus from building up on media by allowing more flow in sump. The algae you are seeing is likely part of your tank maturing.
Cool scape BTW, Looking forward to your tank growing out!!
cheers