ca1ore
07/22/2014, 01:15 PM
OK, here are some pictures of my display and of my frag tank ... the former look very nice, the latter .... not so much ....
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r680/ca1ore/IMG_0735_zps84cf6eeb.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/ca1ore/media/IMG_0735_zps84cf6eeb.jpg.html)
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r680/ca1ore/IMG_0734_zps068c655c.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/ca1ore/media/IMG_0734_zps068c655c.jpg.html)
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r680/ca1ore/IMG_0779_zps58f01f0a.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/ca1ore/media/IMG_0779_zps58f01f0a.jpg.html)
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r680/ca1ore/IMG_0778_zps2a68d464.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/ca1ore/media/IMG_0778_zps2a68d464.jpg.html)
Guess what they have in common? ..... Give up?
They are on the same system and share the same water quality; yet, the display has no hair algae and the frag tank is strangling in it.
OK, maybe not a paradox, but certainly a conundrum. I see people here on RC lamenting their algae problems, with the resulting conformance of advice around lowering nutrients. And if nutrients are low some variation on 'well. the nutrients are tied up in all the algae'. Horse feathers, I say.
Aspire to low nutrients, certainly, though perhaps not zero .... but my own personal experience, and the above photo evidence, suggests that the pursuit of really low nutrients is a losing battle, and that under the right conditions, algae will still proliferate.
Guess what my display and frag tank don't have in common (or didn't until quite recently)?
The former has both verts and inverts that eat algae; the latter did not until I added a Sea Hare last weekend. Thus, my conclusion that the battle against GHA cannot be won without managing both to low nutrients and including an army of herbivores; and I'd suggest that perhaps the latter is more important.
It's rather comical - when I take one of my frag tiles and put it into the display, the tangs crowd around it, the hermits come a running, and within an hour it is completely cleaned of all algae.
Perhaps 25 years of reefing has told me what other folks already know, but for that one person who doesn't .....
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r680/ca1ore/IMG_0735_zps84cf6eeb.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/ca1ore/media/IMG_0735_zps84cf6eeb.jpg.html)
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r680/ca1ore/IMG_0734_zps068c655c.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/ca1ore/media/IMG_0734_zps068c655c.jpg.html)
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r680/ca1ore/IMG_0779_zps58f01f0a.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/ca1ore/media/IMG_0779_zps58f01f0a.jpg.html)
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/r680/ca1ore/IMG_0778_zps2a68d464.jpg (http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/ca1ore/media/IMG_0778_zps2a68d464.jpg.html)
Guess what they have in common? ..... Give up?
They are on the same system and share the same water quality; yet, the display has no hair algae and the frag tank is strangling in it.
OK, maybe not a paradox, but certainly a conundrum. I see people here on RC lamenting their algae problems, with the resulting conformance of advice around lowering nutrients. And if nutrients are low some variation on 'well. the nutrients are tied up in all the algae'. Horse feathers, I say.
Aspire to low nutrients, certainly, though perhaps not zero .... but my own personal experience, and the above photo evidence, suggests that the pursuit of really low nutrients is a losing battle, and that under the right conditions, algae will still proliferate.
Guess what my display and frag tank don't have in common (or didn't until quite recently)?
The former has both verts and inverts that eat algae; the latter did not until I added a Sea Hare last weekend. Thus, my conclusion that the battle against GHA cannot be won without managing both to low nutrients and including an army of herbivores; and I'd suggest that perhaps the latter is more important.
It's rather comical - when I take one of my frag tiles and put it into the display, the tangs crowd around it, the hermits come a running, and within an hour it is completely cleaned of all algae.
Perhaps 25 years of reefing has told me what other folks already know, but for that one person who doesn't .....