Nutrient importing experiments results.

[liquidg]

Some years back I started trying to find an algae that would seriously remove all water pollutants out side of the nitrite cycle.

Meaning the bio community with in the system is fully capable of oxidising all waste to nitrogen, what’s left I was trying to find simple, full proof natural ways to achieve this!

The problem was that with out a skimmer,water changes and some extra gear and work,I could not find a natural way or ways of carrying out protein, phosphate, other nutrients and toxins removal to enable only simple and natural forms of filtration easy to maintain to leave the water spot on with out any water changes.

This was said to be impossible and lots still say it hasn’t happened.

Finally my spot on water is enabling the growing of semi hard to keep types of corals with multiple life forms beautifully, by the use of algae and simple bio communities.

The use of algae be reintroducing it dead, is my own idea and I see incredible results from this, that one I can never explain if you can’t allow horticulture into the mix of ideas.

I am done now, parasites are no more, all life exists beautifully in a sardine situation as in there is so much life in this small tank and algae area,the water parameters are in every test-
0 phosphates
0 nitrates
8 to 9 KH
32 drops to colour for calcium on a reef API test,not the best test kit,but it shows things are quite good in there.

The tests were for others, I look at how my tank life is doing for results and keep going until I find what I am looking for..

All done, believe it or not, hope it helps some one get to where I have, very, very cheaply.

http://southeastqueenslandm.aforumfr...control-algaes

[mtc1966]

interesting read would love to see a full tank shot

[Purple Rocks]

Im a strong believer of introducing nutrients, B vitamines, amino acids, fulvic acid, humic acid, carbohydrates and I also dose Fancy Molasses. I also agree there is alot of life everywhere in my tank with no algae issues and no fish diseases.

My friend tells me i just have beginners luck, and refuses to put any of my fertilizers in his tank, and always comments on the little "bugs" everywhere. He has brought me a total of 6 corals that i have brought back to life and returned to him. I have also watch him lose alot of coral/fish over this period of time. Even under "perfect conditions"

I think nutrient import is just as important as nutrient export, i think we need to spend more time thinking about this, But it seems that others doing the opposite do very well also, its weird.

Just my thoughts, Im gonna go into detail on what I do soon, because it has worked so well for me. Plus without pictures its hard to believe.

[liquidg]

Sorry I forgot I put this up.

This is the tank as of 24th of June 2012
No experimenting of late,just many algaes thriving is what i was aiming for.



These are the algae areas that control my waters.

http://southeastqueenslandm.aforumfr...every-wherelol

Any and all that have tried any thing on natural levels I would love to see it!

[nyquist]

Im considering expanding the volume of my refugium so I can house a reasonable amount of plant/algae life because I was as much of a natural export process as possible



I have a question: do you throw away a small percent of trimmings every month or something?

[pitmindi]

I am starting a 120 gallon macroalgae saltwater tank converted from my 120 gallon freshwater planted. I have a 34 gallon RSM seahorse tank with macroalgae aI am going to use the plants in there and try to have success in my big tank. I have about 4" of sand and dry rock and will add rock from my established tank after I have stabilized the salinity. Your tank is beautiful. I like the mixture of plants and corals. What is the lighting and salinity in your tank. What do you add to your tank and how often do you change the water? I dont plan on doing water changes and I dont have a refugium. Do you have any suggestions for me to try?

[jcmjoe]

What are your thoughts on C. prolifera? I currently have a refugium with Mangroves and cheato and just introduced about a softball sized amount of C. prolifera. I love the natural means of maintaining water quality and think your setup is awesome!

[liquidg]

Originally Posted by nyquist

Im considering expanding the volume of my refugium so I can house a reasonable amount of plant/algae life because I was as much of a natural export process as possible



I have a question: do you throw away a small percent of trimmings every month or something?

I trim it each 10 to 12 days, the trimmings are quite a lot, I put all that some other club members don’t want in hot tap water for few minutes then put it in a stocking bag and hang in my water at the back of the tank just before the algae area to allow its contents to go back into the water as it breaks down, as sought of mulch.

By day two of the dead algae reintroduced my corals a really colourful and all polyps are open.

It was just an idea but after six 10 months of that action, it was a very good idea.

I waste nothing!

[liquidg]

Originally Posted by pitmindi

I am starting a 120 gallon macroalgae saltwater tank converted from my 120 gallon freshwater planted. I have a 34 gallon RSM seahorse tank with macroalgae aI am going to use the plants in there and try to have success in my big tank. I have about 4" of sand and dry rock and will add rock from my established tank after I have stabilized the salinity. Your tank is beautiful. I like the mixture of plants and corals. What is the lighting and salinity in your tank. What do you add to your tank and how often do you change the water? I dont plan on doing water changes and I dont have a refugium. Do you have any suggestions for me to try?

I have 0 nitrate,0 phosphates,slainty 1.023,temp between 22c to 24c never any higher or lower.

I use 10 watt 2 foot T8 LED replacement tubes of 1.1 blue and white 1 watt diodes over the algae area with each second tube of the four with multiple quarter watt 1.1 royal blue and cool white 60 degree optic diodes.

I use the old xr-e 3 watt cree diodes of 1.1 blue and cool white with 90 degree optics over the tank.

I add iodine halogen complex,just lately manuka honey,high quality sediment from the shoreline and my home made total tank food mix.

The mix is 98 percent from the ocean, I add a lot of salt to it and put some in a little squeeze bottle and leave it next to the tank for my wife or me to give the tank a squirt of from 10 to 30 squirts per day.

I collect algae separate to my importing algae, the remove the benthic and planktonic life from it and kill the algae in hot water and add it to the water as well to break down.

I use cyano,any thing at all that contains algae cells.

That’s about it.

The filtration is quite complex though and it would start to fall down if it wasn’t for an idea I had around 20 years back and have used since then,of settling pre filters before my actual bio filter after the alga area.

It all works great,it took many years to get it right,but the work load from this is very little now and that suits me,lol.

[liquidg]

Originally Posted by jcmjoe

What are your thoughts on C. prolifera? I currently have a refugium with Mangroves and cheato and just introduced about a softball sized amount of C. prolifera. I love the natural means of maintaining water quality and think your setup is awesome!

I haven’t used that variety of caulerpa, I have found the more bulbus forms of the caulerpa,the better it extracts and converts.

My main remover of waste beyond the nitrite cycle for me is the local form of racemosa we found, well my wife found the first traces of it.

A month or so later we found an enormous patch of it, at least 50 meters across, two others wanted some a couple of months later so we went there collecting and it was all gone, summer temps killed it all off I realised later!

I learnt the hard way it dies off at 25c plus degrees.

The cuttings I passed all died off and mine was so close to going down when I thought that may be its temp sensitive, no one any where here or on the net had any idea why it was dieing in the aquariums after doing so well.

I put on the chiller and set it to 24c and it all came back and has flourished ever since and except for the club members that know me and mates, no one believes it does what it does or could be so temp sensitive.

The results say it all!

All my algae do far better at 22c as the lowest the tropical fish enjoy to 24c keeping the algae at max input and out put.

Plus my semi temperate life forms in the tank are far healthier with those temps.

[jcmjoe]

Thanks for the info!

[jcmjoe]

Have you ever had any of the Caulerpa species you use go sexual? I have heard of people running the lights on their fuge 24 hours a day. I would prefer running mine opposite of the DT. Thanks for any input.

[liquidg]

Originally Posted by jcmjoe

Have you ever had any of the Caulerpa species you use go sexual? I have heard of people running the lights on their fuge 24 hours a day. I would prefer running mine opposite of the DT. Thanks for any input.

Algae/caulerpa goes sexual when you are not providing the right conditions for it.

It suffers and as it dies it goes to spore to perpetuate the species, it’s just the natural preservation methods of them to continue its species upon its own death.

Bacteria based algae and chaeto is related to blue green algae, may suffer during the early stages of tank maturing.

All algae needs slight!! amounts of iodine to be present!

From attachments/roots to surface waters should not be deeper then 8 inches of water for adequate light colour penetration to enable robust photosynthesis and the lights no higher then 5 inches above the water.

All algae survive and import their best for the long term with temps between 22c up to 24c as I have found.

Caulerpa algae will get cyano grow on it and should be cleaned, I use my finger brushed over it when some starts to settle on it.

As with any plant life it has to be trimmed back or it will cover its self and weaken its lower reaches.

Every part of caulerpa absorbs osmotically (importing they call it to be trendy) and if those areas can not achieve photosynthesis by near no light,as they grow over their lower growth zones, that part weakens and eventualy dies!

Caulerpa algae needs continue lighting for no less then 12 hours and no greater then 20 hours per 24 hour cycle.

24 hour lighting adversely confuses the photosynthetic aspect of caulerpa and they go sexual in the long term!

I make sure my biological media is sufficient enough to oxidise the entire nitrite cycle to just nitrogen left, plant life flourishes with extra nitrogen!

With a sufficient bio filter not including live rock, I do not mature a tank with any live rock in it, my algae only has to remove and convert all proteins, toxins and phosphates, if the bio media didn’t oxidise all nitrate it would have to work on that as well and algae does not do well when nitrates are at high levels, it seems to become over worked and dies.

I have other ideas on nitrate affects upon algae but they are only ideas, the rest I have proven!

I have found some algae convert phosphates better, some proteins better and others toxins more so, as with phytoplankton, the variations are immense with in their massive communities, so it try to copy that, it seems to work well.

This CO 2 has to be blown off, I use a drip tray style dry section, cascaded waters,to blow off over abundant CO2 so that the algae else where with lights on it does not have to work to hard, algae does not do well with more CO2 then anything else when it absorbs the waters and its contents.


Algae does far better with no substrate but needs calcium based media to attach to on a raised egg crate floor to allow cleaning under it and the algae creates an acidic environment from excreted CO 2 at lights out to help break down that calcium at minuscule amounts to assist with its growth rate.

This is what I have found and I get complete nutrient and toxin removal to conversion via photosynthesis and some microbe assistance here and there amongst totally clean calcium media.

Every thing is used from my waters with well-managed plant forms as the oceans phytoplankton would carry out, that was my aim and its finally worked out that way.

[Plantbrain]

The organic carbon in the algae leeches back into the tank, this is great for bacteria in leaner limiting systems.

The periphyton on the maqcro algae also changes and finds new substrate also.

So while we tend to think green manure/mulch etc, there are a few other processes overall........going on. It's a bit more like soil ecosystem biogeochemistry, or wetland soil biogeochemistry really.

You could do a similar thing with microphytic algae on an ATS system.
These tend to be less trouble horticulturally and can tolerant lower nutrient levels.

I prefer macros though.

[liquidg]

All quite true I suppose, I am basing most of what I do on a nice marine biologist from the past advising on some things I was trying out and she was right, well from my out comes I am assuming she is right and yes I also prefer the algae’s functions to anything else and with out my over all NWMS it wouldn’t all complement each others functions and out comes and possibly fail.

It all works in conjunction with the bio filtration I call natural waste management, similar to what exits in land plants soil life to some degree, though they achieve most via a root system, the absorbsion through the algae’s membrane is wonderful.

I just finished the trials I have been carrying out comparing chaeto to my form of racemosa in the same conditions.

The chaeto could not bring the phosphates down to readable levels on a test, always off the scale.

After a few weeks of this form of racemosa growing vigorously it was down to 0.2,now near no traces of it!