#1 WHAT IF I TOLD YOU... Ammonia is causing your algae problems?

vetteguy53081 · Feb 21, 2019

Well written
I went through this and battled GHA for about 18 weeks. Just kept pulling it by hand and went after ammonia reduction and added Red Sea No3Po4 at 1.5 m/l per day and I am algae free. Had to be frustrated, yet patient and convince myself the GHA would not win the battle

wattson · Feb 21, 2019

Ill get a badgering about one this but ,,I actually dose Ammonia since theres not many fish and all corals are zoa/palys.. not much algae either..
My No3 is kept in the high 20's..I dose 70% No3 and 30% Urea ,,Get some film on glass that needs scraped once a week..
dont know if helps but everybody is usually open and plump, especailly when I dose ammonia .
Bare bottom tanks on one sump with high flow with T5 HO and MH for lights

brandon429 · Feb 21, 2019

I’ve heard of it before Wattson, reefs are hungry for ammonia it’s used fast and good feed it’s not bad at all. Clearly you’re not overdoing things and the conversion to plant mass rate is balanced, sounds good to me.

Fourstars · Feb 21, 2019

Great thread, and everyone has some valid points. Lesse’s Article is also excellent and I’ve started all my tanks this way for years, nothing really new except maybe the addition of Nitrate which makes perfect sense since it would be limited in a new tank. I personally run bare bottom tanks and diatomaceous filters with my water changes to keep the detritus under control and have run tanks for years without nitrate build up. I don’t think removeing to much detritus would ever be an issue in our enclosed boxes. I also agree the CUC is important and when my numbers start to decline I see an increase in algae.

Gregg @ ADP · Feb 21, 2019

jda said:
This thread kinda made me sad. While completely true that organisms can get nitrogen from ammonia, this is like chemistry and tank keeping 101. Does nobody ready Dr. Holmes-Farley's articles anymore, or Wet Web Media or Advance Aquarist? Everybody should know this stuff. ...seems like if there is not a BRS video on it, then it is not worth knowing.

/get off my lawn

I don’t have an opinion one way or the other on the methodology in the OP.

However, I don’t think it’s a matter of algae can get N from NH+4. I believe it is the preferred source, given the energetics involved. For algae to obtain the N from NO3, it must reduce it to NH+4, and that requires 2 separate enzymes to catalyze the reaction. Not nearly as energetically efficient and economical as simply catalyzing the NH+4.

In addition, for algae to get the NO3, that NO3 must first present itself to the algae. But what is it more likely to receive first? In order for NH+4 to be oxidized, it must first come in contact with benthic bacteria. OK...the algae are benthic, the bacteria are benthic, and for the NH+4 to be converted to NO3, it often has to go to the same place the algae is growing.

Wouldn’t the algae then generally have right of first refusal on NH+4?

Not at all arguing your post. Simply looking to the possibility that we might start to reframe our understanding of nitrification and the implications of algae utilizing NH+4.

How many threads do we see a week with people experiencing heavy algae biomass despite low NO3 and PO4 levels? The common refrain is that ‘the nutrients are locked up in the algae’. What if all that algae growth occurred without the NO3 ever showing up in the first place? What if there was a way to better manage NH+4 production in the first place?

Again, this is more @Lasse ‘s jam than mine, so I’ll defer to his thoughts.

Thales · Feb 22, 2019

---
Never mind. I'm out.

Belgian Anthias · Feb 22, 2019

Ammonium the cause of algae growth? Maybe! Nitrogen availability is one of the essential nutrients for all growth. As in a marine aquarium a skimmer removes constantly but very selective part of the building materials
and NH3 is produced constantly and released directly into the water column, immediately transformed to ammonium leaving +- 6% ammonia, in a marine aquarium nitrate will build up as the nitrogen can not be used up due to limited availability of other building materials . Slow growing bacteria (K-strategists) will nitrify free ammonia , reducing free ammonium this after the r-strategists have used up most available organic carbon producing bio-mass using part of the available building materials. Algae and other autotrophs will have to compete for building materials with the r-strategists , a competition which they can not win.

If it is ammonia which is responsible for algae growth everybody would have an algae problem.

Lasse · Feb 22, 2019

Now - a very interesting thing arise - whom catch the NH3/NH4 first algae or the nitrification bacteria. In first thought it must be the algae - they grow on the substrate, have a very large surface to the water - you can see that clearly. The algae produce oxygen too during the time there it is light. - I agree - in the first thought - algae will be the fist to catch free NH3/NH4 from both bacterial ammonification and fish excretion. But - in a second thought - what are we missing in the equation - I´m not sure that the algae get the first catch - i´m pretty sure that the nitrification rate is very high in the biomass of algae - especially during the light period.

+20 years ago I was involved in experimental waste water treatment and one of the most effective nitrification system we read about and in some way tested was through run channels loaded with dense population of Elodea spp.

The theoretical ideas - outlined in this article - are from thoughts in the planted tank hobby but I think that they are more just history for the moment. Remmeber - the planted tank´s people did not have access to CUC 10 years ago - today both shrimps and snails are in use.

Something change around 1/1 2013 when Diana Walstad publish her book - Ecology of the Planted Aquarium - I´m not sure the ammonium/algae theory is as strong as it was after that publication. Remeber - in a low pH environment with KH below 2 - 3 there is not much of nitrification going on - NH4 is the predominant species of inorganic N in such an environment.

Sincerely Lasse

Lasse · Feb 22, 2019

I must stress that I have no problems with the OP:s 8 advises (exception step 7 - remeber that around 20 % of every eaten algae´s nutrient and energy will be blocked as predator biomass. adding more grazers will take more nutrients out from circulation and blocked in more beatuful organism than algae

) when you have an algae issue. What I have problem with is the underlaying explanitions.

Sincerely Lasse

Fish_Sticks · Feb 22, 2019

Much was discussed, but a key focus of the discussion were different overall tank maintenance strategies.

This is an algae outbreak reaction strategy. Much different from an overall tank strategy.

Hopefully this will clear up any uncertainty that this should be a regular weekly tank routine. The last thing I want is for people to go to their tank that is performing well and suck out every last bit of detritus. I practice a hands off as much as possible approach to my overall tank strategy.

There are plenty of people who do this as a routine every month or every couple of weeks and that is fine if it works for them and helps their tank achieve balance. I believe these are mainly people who have an imbalanced bioload to filtration ratio, do not have a sump, high powered skimmer, or very much live rock to improve their bacterial filter and buffer against an algae epidemic. The ultimate goal is to have a balanced tank without having to occasionally export detritus, at least not every month. And remember, manageable amounts of algae are a good thing! Detritus is also a good thing, it is the life source for your tank!

From what has been mentioned in the discussions, it sounds like the answer lies in the hands of a balanced stock list, a good clean up crew, a good amount of healthy rock (im sure a little rock basting every now and again is a good thing

), and a balanced bioload/bacteria surface ratio. If you have all these things, you have a foundation for success and shouldn't have a need to export detritus - at least not every other month.

If by some chance you have all these good things and you're facing a huge algae outbreak, the answer may be to follow the algae outbreak control strategy and wait to see how your tank reacts... Then consider necessary adjustments to your overall tank strategy, your stock list, clean up crew, and re read the steps and other threads for inspiration on what could be altered to help your tank reach balance...

I've also requested this summary of sorts be added to both the article, and the main post.

I think I feel comfortable referring people in the algae help forum to this thread when they ask for help. Hopefully we can help some people out with their algae outbreak, and most importantly, getting them thinking about the big picture and overall tank strategy.

No article or thread is ever complete until it has a couple thousand people view and contribute their well thought out responses. Thanks again everyone for contributing.

jda · Feb 22, 2019

There were some studies a while back that show that the waterborne bacteria get most of the NH4 and within minutes. This is why organic carbon dosing raises these populations faster making them able to skimmed and removed - they have the first shot at any carbon source and also the fuel. It is just a proximity thing. You can study this with a really good ORP and oxygen probe and watch the oxygen levels decrease a little bit during feedings when the fish tend to excrete to make room for the new food - the oxygen levels drop as the bacteria get fuel and reproduce. Then, the corals will be happy to consume some ammonia too.

I don't know that I have ever seen a study that explicitly shows what parts of ammonia get to the corals or algae.

If anybody remembers back in the olden days - for me the 1990s in the US - we used to test ammonia all the time. I always wanted to see a tinge of yellow, but not too much. This eventually went away when people could not understand "throughput" and wanted to see a concrete residual number on a test kit... so the end result of nitrate was the thing that people tested for and worried about since it was more "concrete."

This is kinda off topic, but my answer to lots of algae issues are urchins, like Lasse likes to post about. They are voracious eaters, will eat macro, hair, anything and will even eat coralline once the soft algae is gone. I loaned 3 to a friend with bryopsis and they crushed it in about a month. I think that a lot of people dismiss them because they do eat coralline, but trust me when I tell you that everybody who is good at this hobby comes to hate coralline too. I get Pincushions from the Florida Keys from Reeftopia - they are white and pink, look good, hardy and long lived. They cannot really live in tanks with high poison (N and P) concentrations, but if you have lower levels, they will do quite well. My only irritation is that they sometimes pick up ill-mounted frags and carry them around the tank as decorations and protection. Unlike snails, they can live off of coralline and don't die off when the algae is all gone.

I do vacuum my sand starting in about year four and do about 1/4 of the sand every quarter. I do not believe that detritus is bad and totally believe that it is mostly benign, but I do think that it "gums up" the works not allowing the water to permeate to the lower depths and not allowing the conchs and cucumbers access to the whole depth. I also want the water to permeate so that there are not pockets and areas where the sand will have more phosphate bound than other places - this is where most of the phosphate release comes from.

Gregg @ ADP said:
How many threads do we see a week with people experiencing heavy algae biomass despite low NO3 and PO4 levels? The common refrain is that ‘the nutrients are locked up in the algae’. What if all that algae growth occurred without the NO3 ever showing up in the first place? What if there was a way to better manage NH+4 production in the first place?.

We do see a lot. For sure. Most of these are proximity issues... GHA on the rocks where the rocks are releasing terrestrial po4 still. I am going to argue until the day that I die that any tank with NSW level of N and P levels that has algae has consumer issues, not building block issues.

jda · Feb 22, 2019

One last point about "who grabs up the ammonia." If you have residual NO3 in your system, then your algae and corals are not getting all of the ammonia or else they would hold on to the nitrogen. This means that bacteria have gotten to the ammonia first. This is generalizing a bit.

Gregg @ ADP · Feb 22, 2019

jda said:
There were some studies a while back that show that the waterborne bacteria get most of the NH4 and within minutes. This is why organic carbon dosing raises these populations faster making them able to skimmed and removed - they have the first shot at any carbon source and also the fuel. It is just a proximity thing. You can study this with a really good ORP and oxygen probe and watch the oxygen levels decrease a little bit during feedings when the fish tend to excrete to make room for the new food - the oxygen levels drop as the bacteria get fuel and reproduce. Then, the corals will be happy to consume some ammonia too.

I don't know that I have ever seen a study that explicitly shows what parts of ammonia get to the corals or algae.

If anybody remembers back in the olden days - for me the 1990s in the US - we used to test ammonia all the time. I always wanted to see a tinge of yellow, but not too much. This eventually went away when people could not understand "throughput" and wanted to see a concrete residual number on a test kit... so the end result of nitrate was the thing that people tested for and worried about since it was more "concrete."

This is kinda off topic, but my answer to lots of algae issues are urchins, like Lasse likes to post about. They are voracious eaters, will eat macro, hair, anything and will even eat coralline once the soft algae is gone. I loaned 3 to a friend with bryopsis and they crushed it in about a month. I think that a lot of people dismiss them because they do eat coralline, but trust me when I tell you that everybody who is good at this hobby comes to hate coralline too. I get Pincushions from the Florida Keys from Reeftopia - they are white and pink, look good, hardy and long lived. They cannot really live in tanks with high poison (N and P) concentrations, but if you have lower levels, they will do quite well. My only irritation is that they sometimes pick up ill-mounted frags and carry them around the tank as decorations and protection. Unlike snails, they can live off of coralline and don't die off when the algae is all gone.

I do vacuum my sand starting in about year four and do about 1/4 of the sand every quarter. I do not believe that detritus is bad and totally believe that it is mostly benign, but I do think that it "gums up" the works not allowing the water to permeate to the lower depths and not allowing the conchs and cucumbers access to the whole depth. I also want the water to permeate so that there are not pockets and areas where the sand will have more phosphate bound than other places - this is where most of the phosphate release comes from.

We do see a lot. For sure. Most of these are proximity issues... GHA on the rocks where the rocks are releasing terrestrial po4 still. I am going to argue until the day that I die that any tank with NSW level of N and P levels that has algae has consumer issues, not building block issues.

I was under the impression that only a few species of heterotrophic bacteria would utilize NH+4, and even then, it was in the absence of other nitrogen-based energy sources (a condition unlikely to be encountered in an aquarium)

@Lasse ?

Also, I very much agree on the use of urchins. They’re tremendous algae grazers, they eat practically any kind of algae out there. Not sure if they eat most dinos and cyanos...they might, but that stuff grows back so fast nobody would ever know it’s been eaten.

jda · Feb 22, 2019

There is enough of whatever type of bacteria will use it, or else the N cycle would stall and never convert NH4 to NO3. I don't know what kind they are, or in what kind of numbers... but we all know that they exist... the nitrosomonas and the like.

Gregg @ ADP · Feb 22, 2019

jda said:
There is enough of whatever type of bacteria will use it, or else the N cycle would stall and never convert NH4 to NO3. I don't know what kind they are, or in what kind of numbers... but we all know that they exist... the nitrosomonas and the like.

Right, there are plenty of types of AOBs, but my understanding...and Lasse enlightened me about this awhile back...is that AOBs and NOBs are strictly benthic (with the exception of a limited number utilizing particles in the water column as a substrate), whereas many heterotrophic bacteria occupy the water column free of any substrate.

Of the heterotrophs in the water column (again, as I understand it...and I’m not particularly bright), only a limited number of kinds utilize NH+4 directly, and then it would be under lab conditions where no other N-based energy source is available. If they’re the ones using the NH+4 first, then they are the nitrifying bacteria...but we know they’re not. Those would be the Nitrosomonas, Nitrospira, Nitrobacter, et al.

Maybe we’re getting a bit into the minutiae here, and maybe it doesn’t really matter all that much. But definitely an interesting topic.

brandon429 · Feb 22, 2019

I still want to see production work, how is this info useable so that res publica can get control over tank algae better than current standards. We're about to get out to a 20 page theory thread and no cures

The title lists the causative and it's well reviewed biochem wise agreed. Now to test: make five algae challenge tanks comply across genera using the opposite of this causative. Total humbling ensues to the point we remain a pure theory thread I'm thinking. By page twenty, five cures, or I'm out. I know that's no loss lol but isn't winning skeptics like the third funnest aspect of this hobby? If someone said this in my algae thread Id love the challenge and post ten works, rounded up from more than one board

sde1500 · Feb 22, 2019

Gregg @ ADP said:
Also, I very much agree on the use of urchins. They’re tremendous algae grazers, they eat practically any kind of algae out there.

Yea I love my urchin. Thread has me thinking of really upping my CUC. 65g tank and it is currently an urchin, 3 scarlet hermits, and a starry blenny. Not the most effective crew. Definitely think the best method is balance tank nutrients with removal, either manual or through a bunch of algae eaters. And if you can stock the tank with things that eat the algae, why not do that instead of having to be too hands on with the tank. Some good sand stirring critters would be good too, cucumbers or conchs maybe.

Gregg @ ADP · Feb 22, 2019

brandon429 said:
I still want to see production work, how is this info useable so that res publica can get control over tank algae better than current standards. We're about to get out to a 20 page theory thread and no cures

The title lists the causative and it's well reviewed biochem wise agreed. Now to test: make five algae challenge tanks comply across genera using the opposite of this causative. Total humbling ensues to the point we remain a pure theory thread I'm thinking. By page twenty, five cures, or I'm out. I know that's no loss lol but isn't winning skeptics like the third funnest aspect of this hobby? If someone said this in my algae thread Id love the challenge and post ten works, rounded up from more than one board

Not really sure what the cure is if you can’t intercept or neutralize ammonia before either algae or nitrifiers get ahold of it.

jda · Feb 22, 2019

There is no cure. ...only a battle that has to be fought but never won.

There is a lot of ways to fight... for me, it is 3" sandbed which pretty much takes care of everything but just a trace of nitrate leaving what is left over to be fought for, along with the nh4. Even with this, without a few urchins and some astreas, I would have algae overrun my tank.

The only weapons that are universal are a good plan and patience.