nervousmonkey
LPS Lover, SPS Enabler
Before reading, please be forewarned that the following content contains some seriously stupid moments. You should be prepared to laugh and also to ask yourself, "what the h-ll was Lloyd thinking?". I fully expect to be laughed at on this one; self-effacing humor is sometimes the best kind of humor that exists, so please fire away. I have my flak jacket on.
I was reading through some R2R posts about AA's and ran across an old thread by the good Rev himself, @revhtree ; my story is after his question and comment from 2012:
OK, this a SUPER old thread, but I wanted to add something here which I had to learn the hard way. Overdosing AA's doesn't just cause algae. AA's seem to be relatively benign, right? They are the building blocks of life, so on and so forth... Since AA dosing is becoming more popular with so many good product lines available, I wanted to share what else can happen when one overdoses AA's...
A bit of background, I run a 40 gallon total system volume nano tank. RO skimmer, biopellets, a lot of LR, especially in sump, chaeto in sump, and that's about it for major things. Everything was going great with the biopellets. Undetectable levels of nitrates, PO4 running consistently at about 0.02 ppm, pretty heavy feeding and bioload, pH 8.3-8.4 during the day, 8.2 at night, no algae, no dinos and no cyano (though I had a dino problem when I started using biopellets). I also use soda lime in a BRS universal air filter connected to air intake of protein skimmer to counteract the CO2 and consequent downward drive of pH from the use of biopellets. Alkalinity seems to get used up pretty quick by the biopellets; I usually add Reef Fusion part 2 to keep alk at 7.5-8. Magnesium also gets used up, but I dose that as well to keep mag levels at 1300-1320. Calcium levels are generally 420-440.
So after doing some research and seeing what results people were getting from adding AA's to their tanks, I decided to try it out. BUT, instead of buying a known brand, I decided to buy a liquid amino acid supplement that listed all of the AA's they had in solution as well as everything else, which was little more than sodium chloride and water. If you want to look it up, it's Bragg's AA's. I don't have anything bad to say about them. I have to say that it evoked an immediate reaction on one of my micromussa, even with lights on it puffed up, tentacles came out and I could actually see into one of its mouths. I thought, "Sweet!" Let me just add a little more. I had done research and found that corals are actually quite well adapted to sensing AA's as well as uptaking the AA's. Quick rundown on that: although most corals do not need AA supplementation as they produce AA's themselves, and their zooxanthellae convert sodium carbonate via photosynthesis into AA's, then translocate those AA's to the host corals (verified through genetic sequencing which shows that zooxanthellae possess the genes for producing translocator proteins), corals can uptake AA's directly from the water column, and do so quite efficiently as well. So through direct biosynthesis, or indirectly through zooxanthellae, as well as feeding on plankton, which is another source of nitrogen uptake, corals can acquire most if not all amino acids. However, as stated above, corals can uptake AA's, which happen to be present in NSW at concentrations of 0.2-0.5 µmol/L, and moreover, this uptake can account for greater than 20% of corals nitrogen uptake. However, AA uptake rate increases by 6X when the total AA concentration is artificially raised to 8 µmol/L.!!
SO, being the super smart idiot that I am, I ran with the idea that, at least to a coral, if a little of something is good, then more is even better!! Hmmm. Bad life decision that one was. I did some math, and to figured out the weight of each amino acid per mole, then added everything and converted it until I could get to a total concentration of 8 µmol/L, then added that amount in grams, etc. Well, that was a lot of AA's and in looking back, my math was only incorrect by an order of magnitude. :mad: The issue of O/D'ing my tank on nothing more than 1970's hyped up health foods was compounded by my skimmer going crazy the night of the event and spilling everything over into my tank, including the heterotrophic bacteria that sucked up as much oxygen as possible and poisoned my tank. That sucked bad, no pun intended.
Getting back on track and with further brevity in mind, I dosed at night with lights off, woke up to a white cloudy tank, realized that I had a bacterial bloom and started mixing water. Changed as much as I could, but as you guys know, it made no difference. By the time I had walked back to my tub of salt mix, the little b@st@rds had multiplied again. So then onto checking parameters... Everything OK, not a trace of ammonia, so I thought I had escaped the worst. That was yesterday morning. By evening, my ammonia levels were higher than 8, no kidding. Nitrates at 5. Freaking out, and did 100% water change. Woke up to meteor shower cyphastrea RTN'ing, some SPS already fully RTN'ed; ammonia at 2 though and nitrates through the roof. Another W/C, but not 100%. Ammonia down to 2, nitrates down to 5 from close to 100. I just did an 80% W/C before writing this and ammonia is down to 0.25 and nitrates almost 0 but not quite. BUT, on a good note, there were no fish deaths. o_O
I'm not sure what the moral of the story is except for don't use non-reef safe anything, don't overdose anything and most importantly, please buy a Davy Jones Skimmate Locker from @AVAST Marine !!! One of those would have saved my tank, or at least, a skimmer that is going crazy into a DJSL might have mitigated the problem.
From a chemistry perspective, I understand how heterotrophic bacteria utilize AA's, but what I don't know is why such a high level of ammonia developed. There is no ammonia listed in the ingredients... I thought that the heterotrophs would utilize the carbon and the nitrogen present in a hefty dose of AA's. If that is the case, could such a high level of ammonia result from a massive die-off of the heterotrophs when their food source runs out? If not, and the heterotrophs are using the carbon present in AA's but not the nitrogen, or at least not in the C-N ratio present chemically for AA's, does the extra unused nitrogen get converted to waste as ammonia? I just don't get how I had such an incredibly high level of ammonia...
Additionally, did I compound the bacterial bloom by using biopellets? It seems that the answer to that is yes, since I am essentially cultivating the little critters in a reactor and when the bacterial spillover event occurred, millions of ready-to-reproduce critters (that can double every 20 minutes under ideal conditions, which I served up on a platter) emptied into my system. Alas, the lack of the DJSL...
What would you add @Randy Holmes-Farley ?
How careful do we truly need to be when dosing AA's? I would like to try again, lessons learned, but am wary of using AA's. I know that corals will use AA's, but I'm just not sure that they need to use them.
Thanks for listening...
Lloyd
I was reading through some R2R posts about AA's and ran across an old thread by the good Rev himself, @revhtree ; my story is after his question and comment from 2012:
\We are going to continue discussing the reef aquarium facts submitted by our members. Do you agree or disagree? What are your thoughts?
Fact #92
Do not overdose amino acids unless you like algae.
http://fishcare.blogliterature.com/fish-care/how-to-avoid-algae.html
Truth or False? What else might we need to learn on this subject? Please also share any pictures that may pertain to the subject. ;)
OK, this a SUPER old thread, but I wanted to add something here which I had to learn the hard way. Overdosing AA's doesn't just cause algae. AA's seem to be relatively benign, right? They are the building blocks of life, so on and so forth... Since AA dosing is becoming more popular with so many good product lines available, I wanted to share what else can happen when one overdoses AA's...
A bit of background, I run a 40 gallon total system volume nano tank. RO skimmer, biopellets, a lot of LR, especially in sump, chaeto in sump, and that's about it for major things. Everything was going great with the biopellets. Undetectable levels of nitrates, PO4 running consistently at about 0.02 ppm, pretty heavy feeding and bioload, pH 8.3-8.4 during the day, 8.2 at night, no algae, no dinos and no cyano (though I had a dino problem when I started using biopellets). I also use soda lime in a BRS universal air filter connected to air intake of protein skimmer to counteract the CO2 and consequent downward drive of pH from the use of biopellets. Alkalinity seems to get used up pretty quick by the biopellets; I usually add Reef Fusion part 2 to keep alk at 7.5-8. Magnesium also gets used up, but I dose that as well to keep mag levels at 1300-1320. Calcium levels are generally 420-440.
So after doing some research and seeing what results people were getting from adding AA's to their tanks, I decided to try it out. BUT, instead of buying a known brand, I decided to buy a liquid amino acid supplement that listed all of the AA's they had in solution as well as everything else, which was little more than sodium chloride and water. If you want to look it up, it's Bragg's AA's. I don't have anything bad to say about them. I have to say that it evoked an immediate reaction on one of my micromussa, even with lights on it puffed up, tentacles came out and I could actually see into one of its mouths. I thought, "Sweet!" Let me just add a little more. I had done research and found that corals are actually quite well adapted to sensing AA's as well as uptaking the AA's. Quick rundown on that: although most corals do not need AA supplementation as they produce AA's themselves, and their zooxanthellae convert sodium carbonate via photosynthesis into AA's, then translocate those AA's to the host corals (verified through genetic sequencing which shows that zooxanthellae possess the genes for producing translocator proteins), corals can uptake AA's directly from the water column, and do so quite efficiently as well. So through direct biosynthesis, or indirectly through zooxanthellae, as well as feeding on plankton, which is another source of nitrogen uptake, corals can acquire most if not all amino acids. However, as stated above, corals can uptake AA's, which happen to be present in NSW at concentrations of 0.2-0.5 µmol/L, and moreover, this uptake can account for greater than 20% of corals nitrogen uptake. However, AA uptake rate increases by 6X when the total AA concentration is artificially raised to 8 µmol/L.!!
SO, being the super smart idiot that I am, I ran with the idea that, at least to a coral, if a little of something is good, then more is even better!! Hmmm. Bad life decision that one was. I did some math, and to figured out the weight of each amino acid per mole, then added everything and converted it until I could get to a total concentration of 8 µmol/L, then added that amount in grams, etc. Well, that was a lot of AA's and in looking back, my math was only incorrect by an order of magnitude. :mad: The issue of O/D'ing my tank on nothing more than 1970's hyped up health foods was compounded by my skimmer going crazy the night of the event and spilling everything over into my tank, including the heterotrophic bacteria that sucked up as much oxygen as possible and poisoned my tank. That sucked bad, no pun intended.
Getting back on track and with further brevity in mind, I dosed at night with lights off, woke up to a white cloudy tank, realized that I had a bacterial bloom and started mixing water. Changed as much as I could, but as you guys know, it made no difference. By the time I had walked back to my tub of salt mix, the little b@st@rds had multiplied again. So then onto checking parameters... Everything OK, not a trace of ammonia, so I thought I had escaped the worst. That was yesterday morning. By evening, my ammonia levels were higher than 8, no kidding. Nitrates at 5. Freaking out, and did 100% water change. Woke up to meteor shower cyphastrea RTN'ing, some SPS already fully RTN'ed; ammonia at 2 though and nitrates through the roof. Another W/C, but not 100%. Ammonia down to 2, nitrates down to 5 from close to 100. I just did an 80% W/C before writing this and ammonia is down to 0.25 and nitrates almost 0 but not quite. BUT, on a good note, there were no fish deaths. o_O
I'm not sure what the moral of the story is except for don't use non-reef safe anything, don't overdose anything and most importantly, please buy a Davy Jones Skimmate Locker from @AVAST Marine !!! One of those would have saved my tank, or at least, a skimmer that is going crazy into a DJSL might have mitigated the problem.
From a chemistry perspective, I understand how heterotrophic bacteria utilize AA's, but what I don't know is why such a high level of ammonia developed. There is no ammonia listed in the ingredients... I thought that the heterotrophs would utilize the carbon and the nitrogen present in a hefty dose of AA's. If that is the case, could such a high level of ammonia result from a massive die-off of the heterotrophs when their food source runs out? If not, and the heterotrophs are using the carbon present in AA's but not the nitrogen, or at least not in the C-N ratio present chemically for AA's, does the extra unused nitrogen get converted to waste as ammonia? I just don't get how I had such an incredibly high level of ammonia...
Additionally, did I compound the bacterial bloom by using biopellets? It seems that the answer to that is yes, since I am essentially cultivating the little critters in a reactor and when the bacterial spillover event occurred, millions of ready-to-reproduce critters (that can double every 20 minutes under ideal conditions, which I served up on a platter) emptied into my system. Alas, the lack of the DJSL...
What would you add @Randy Holmes-Farley ?
How careful do we truly need to be when dosing AA's? I would like to try again, lessons learned, but am wary of using AA's. I know that corals will use AA's, but I'm just not sure that they need to use them.
Thanks for listening...
Lloyd
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