Is it possible to have too much biological filtration??

[bruno3047]

You’re definitely right with the science and it’s something I’ve considered for years. But we really aren’t keeping biome specific systems in every way. We’re modifying the variables to get the outcome we want. This includes water temps as well. We’re mixing and matching species from different locales and depths and then claiming the “ocean” as a baseline for perfection but then modifying where we feel necessary.

In this case I’d like my nitrates higher than zero to bring out the bright colors in the corals.

Great. This way if your corals start dying, you’ll have an idea why. Instead of being one of those poor souls that come on this board and post “my corals are dying and I have no idea why”.

 

[bruno3047]

Corals consume nitrates and phosphates as well. Or maybe you’ve small amounts of Dino’s that are consuming same with biological filtration. This is something interesting I thought only two things consume nitrates and phosphates. Corals and algae.

Certain kinds of bacteria also consume nitrate and phosphates. Denitrifying bacteria consume nitrates, and phosphorus-eating bacteria consume phosphates.

 

[Danroo]

Certain kinds of bacteria also consume nitrate and phosphates. Denitrifying bacteria consume nitrates, and phosphorus-eating bacteria consume phosphates.

My tank doesn’t consists of denitrifying bacteria which is great for me, my parameters don’t get more that 5 ppm nitrates and 0.03 phosphates in two weeks. Phosphates might reach to 0.1 and nitrate from 2.5 to 5. It’s been like this for almost year now and I’m happy with it. Algae grows for my cleanup crew. Nutrients ho to my corals instead to algae.

 

[bruno3047]

Corals consume nitrates and phosphates as well. Or maybe you’ve small amounts of Dino’s that are consuming same with biological filtration. This is something interesting I thought only two things consume nitrates and phosphates. Corals and algae.

I hate to disappoint you but if your tank has live rock, then I’m pretty sure that it has both kinds of bacteria. Denitrifying and phosphorus-eating. Now whether or not they are present in sufficient quantities to make a difference, is another question.

 

[KevinC]

I’ve got a 60 gallon cube and I’m starting to wonder if I have too much biological filtration.

I had a strange very aggressive algae outbreak that seemed to thrive off of water and light alone. My nitrates and phosphates were at zero, corals were growing but very little color, so I dosed fluconazole. It worked great! Rid the tank of the algae completely. But, my nitrates and phosphates never rebounded like I thought they would.

I started feeding more aggressively but nothing except a bit more color from my corals. Finally I decided to do an experiment, I turned off my skimmer, had it on but low enough to not collect any skim just keep the water oxygenated, and did no water changes for a month. I also increased feeding.

In that month the color in my corals improved a lot, no algae grew (still had fluconazole in the system), and my nitrates/phosphates barely moved.

At the end of the month I got the skimmer collecting skim again, started my water changes back up, and the color of the corals dialed back. One coral died (unsure if it was related).

Here’s my setup:

- 60 cube
- No sand
- 3 bio bricks in the sump
- Reef Octopus Regal 150-s skimmer
- SPS system with multiple acros and montipora + a handful of zoas
- Kole Tang, two clowns, yellow wrasse, green wrasse, and starry blenny
- feed them around 3/4-1 cube of carnivore cuisine or Rod’s reef food equivalent. Add a small sheet of Nori once or twice a week
- Half cup of carbon changed every other week (wasn’t running when fluconazole was in the system)

Interested to hear thoughts on this.

Yo I have the same 60g sps setup, one bio brick, 2x your fish load, sandbed, and I was still battling low nutrient. When I dosed flux rx with skimmer off, I too notice better color and improvement!

it wasn't until I upped my feeding to 3 cubes a day and occasional pellets did I manage to bring my nutrient up and finally dialed back to 2 cubes a day for 10-15 nitrate and 0.05 phosphate.

Anyways I think there's probably just too much bacteria at work or something, and would suggest only keeping one biobrick, and just feed more, dosing (nitrate and phosphate) and keep doing it until it stabilized

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Good point. I don’t at the moment but can set one up pretty quickly. Was thinking about removing them in halves or thirds, slowly, so as not to throw the system out of balance too quickly.

Slower is better in this hobby, so if you want to start by removing only 1 brick (or less), that's reasonable. My personal experience is that when I first set up my tank, I added a bunch of Matrix (a liter!) to a filter bag and plopped it in my sump, wanting to have media available to seed a quarantine tank periodically. Well, I didn't use qt that much and ended up keeping most of the Matrix in my system. I was testing 0 nitrates no matter how much I fed and how infrequently I did water changes. One of my mentors said I had a very efficient bio filter and that all my nitrates we're being converted. Once I removed some of the Matrix, I was able to increase my nutrients and my LPS were a lot happier.

 

[Travis Gohr]

It’s settled. Going to set some baseline parameters and run the tank for a month at those parameters and test regularly. Then slowly start removing bio bricks and continue testing. Will update when I have some data and results.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’ve got a 60 gallon cube and I’m starting to wonder if I have too much biological filtration.

That's a very complicated question involving lots of different issues, IMO.

At its most simplistic level, you say that nitrate and phosphate are stable, but not what the levels are (at least I didn't see it). Obviously that matters.

Getting into more depth, some organisms, including some corals, will preferentially consume ammonia over nitrate. It's not clear in any given tank how much N they get from ammonia and how much they get from nitrate (and other things like organics they metabolize themselves).

Thus, having more ammonia reducing capacity compared to less may be undesirable from the standpoint of a coral in the tank. Say, if "more" capacity stabilizes ammonia at 0.01 ppm and less stabilizes at 0.02 ppm, the latter may be better.

Also on the more complicated side is where the ammonia reducing capacity is relative to denitrifying capacity. On a bioball, all ammonia converted to nitrate is released to the water as nitrate (or nitrite). On live sand or porous rock, some of the nitrate produced may diffuse inward, not outward, and be reduce (say, to N2) without ever entering the water column.

 

[Travis Gohr]

That's a very complicated question involving lots of different issues, IMO.

At its most simplistic level, you say that nitrate and phosphate are stable, but not what the levels are (at least I didn't see it). Obviously that matters.

Getting into more depth, some organisms, including some corals, will preferentially consume ammonia over nitrate. It's not clear in any given tank how much N they get from ammonia and how much they get from nitrate (and other things like organics they metabolize themselves).

Thus, having more ammonia reducing capacity compared to less may be undesirable from the standpoint of a coral in the tank. Say, if "more" capacity stabilizes ammonia at 0.01 ppm and less stabilizes at 0.02 ppm, the latter may be better.

Also on the more complicated side is where the ammonia reducing capacity is relative to denitrifying capacity. On a bioball, all ammonia converted to nitrate is released to the water as nitrate (or nitrite). On live sand or porous rock, some of the nitrate produced may diffuse inward, not outward, and be reduce (say, to N2) without ever entering the water column.

Looking back at my chart since last July nitrates have consistently been at 0 ppm with two separate peaks at 1 ppm during the month long test I mentioned. Phosphates have consistently been near .02 with a couple of random bumps to .03 or .04.

Thanks for the insight! I’ve been curious how denitrifying works in relation to biobricks in particular. Any danger in cutting one open? Should I expect it to have the same effect as disturbing a deep sand bed??

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Looking back at my chart since last July nitrates have consistently been at 0 ppm with two separate peaks at 1 ppm during the month long test I mentioned. Phosphates have consistently been near .02 with a couple of random bumps to .03 or .04.

Thanks for the insight! I’ve been curious how denitrifying works in relation to biobricks in particular. Any danger in cutting one open? Should I expect it to have the same effect as disturbing a deep sand bed??

Too low, IMO.

If nothing else, it's a substantial risk for dinos.

I'd feed more, and if that seems to raise P too much and not get nitrate detectable, I'd dose nitrate.

If you cut a brick, do it outside the tank. You do not want to either release hydrogel sulfide (if any is present) or haver it crumble to bits in the water (sometimes happens).

I'm not sure what you'd learn from cutting it, but it won't make much difference to the whole tank.

Personally, I'd remove them all stepwise. One every few days and see if nitrate rises.

 

[Travis Gohr]

Too low, IMO.

If nothing else, it's a substantial risk for dinos.

I'd feed more, and if that seems to raise P too much and not get nitrate detectable, I'd dose nitrate.

If you cut a brick, do it outside the tank. You do not want to either release hydrogel sulfide (if any is present) or haver it crumble to bits in the water (sometimes happens).

I'm not sure what you'd learn from cutting it, but it won't make much difference to the whole tank.

Personally, I'd remove them all stepwise. One every few days and see if nitrate rises.

I tried the increased feeding route to the point where I felt like I was just haphazardly dumping food into the tank and nitrates didn’t budge.

In your suggestion for removing the bricks, separating by a few days isn’t too quick?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I tried the increased feeding route to the point where I felt like I was just haphazardly dumping food into the tank and nitrates didn’t budge.

In your suggestion for removing the bricks, separating by a few days isn’t too quick?

I don't think so, but if you want to be cautious, go slower or monitor ammonia.

I would not want to keep nitrate low for long.

 

[Subsea]

A skimmer is not a biofilter. It removes dissolved organic from the water, basically dissolved fish food and poo.

A biofilter is the bacteria that coverts ammonia to nitrite/nitrate, and that will balance out according to the bio load.

so by turning off the skimmer you basically left more food in the water for the corals.

Protein skimmers also remove bacteria, which is how carbon dosing works.

 

[Subsea]

Definitely considered that! In that case it would be on par (puns for everyone!) with the corals showing more color when under higher par lighting to protect themselves from the light.

but now we’re getting away from the point of this post…

As a rule in the ocean, coral will turn brown to protect themselves from intense uv rays. Talk with @DanaRiddle about that.

Charles Delbrick commented on seeing colorful corals in ultra low nutrient system for SPS just before they died.

 

[Travis Gohr]

As a rule in the ocean, coral will turn brown to protect themselves from intense uv rays. Talk with @DanaRiddle about that. Charles Delbrick commented on seeing colorful corals in ultra low nutrient system for SPS just before they died.

Mine did turn a strange fluorescent color during a bout of really low nutrients. Upped them quick and they went back to regular pale lol

 

[Subsea]

Mine did turn a strange fluorescent color during a bout of really low nutrients. Upped them quick and they went back to regular pale lol

Red macroalgae has an orange florescent look
as it dies.

 

[landlubber]

a tank without nutrients (Phosphate at zero, Nitrate at zero) is a ticking timebomb for Dino's and starves your corals. i would honestly rather have levels slightly high than completely deficient.

 

[Pntbll687]

sounds like you're growing more bacteria that's consuming nitrates than anything else. You could remove a brick and see what happens to the nitrates. Or just dose nitrates so you get something on the tests.

You'll be surprised how much you need to consistently dose in order to keep a reading of 2-5ppm.

 

[Travis Gohr]

Took some before photos, tested nitrate and phosphate levels, and now it’s time to remove the first brick.

nitrate- 0
Phosphate- .02