(page 2) Algae Control - Taming the algae monster! Getting hair algae under control !

3 ways of Importing (Going into the tank) Nutrients into your System

The first way that some nutrients can go into the system are of course by feeding the fish, whether its by flake food or live food or frozen food or other different types of fish foods.

The second way that nutrients are imported into the tank is by feeding your corals supplementally with a liquid invertebrate food. We do not recommend these at all for beginners because they just end up as pollution. Probably far less than 1% of all the invertebrate liquid invertebrate food that you put into your tank action goes to the filter feeders. Most other corals cannot utilize filter foods. Its only the filter feeders such as feather dusters, and fan worms and things like that can. But this is a tremendous cause a pollution, and in your tank very little of the liquid food will be eaten by a coral. Most of the liquid food you squirt into the aquarium will go to feed bacteria or hair algae. We have huge colonies of feather dusters [insert picture of sump S2T2] and we NEVER feed any type of liquid food. We do however, mix up a coral mixture using a version of Bornemans coral food made from shellfish and marine fish.

The third way that nutrients get into your system is through the fresh water you use. Your initial salt water is mixed for a certain specific gravity. Your subsequent makeup water in the form of RO freshwater is used to replenish the evaporative loss for this saltwater.

Water is constantly evaporating from your aquarium. Because of evaporation the amount of water pure water (H2O) goes down, but the amount of salt and everything else dissolved stays the same. That's what causes a increase in the salinity of your tank. So in order to avoid increasing the salinity (because corals require a fairly narrow range for salinity) then what we do is we add freshwater back on a daily basis.

Reverse Osmosis and Deionization can pollute!
It is a common to get nutrients through reverse osmosis or deionization systems that are not working properly. This can be enormous source of pollution for your tank in a very short period of time. And so even if you controlling nutrients and not overfeeding your fish, you can have a nutrient problem. This one item is actually our number one mistake hobbyists make. You can read about it in our section on Top Ten Mistakes We Have Made.

You might think your reverse osmosis is working properly and you can still have hair algae. Then there's a very good possibility need to look at your reverse osmosis filter and make sure it is functioning properly. Of course the obvious way is by using a conductivity meter. And you need to make sure that your carbon prefilter your mechanical prefilter and your reverse osmosis membrane are functioning properly. A conductivity meter will tell you exactly how clean your filtered water is. So let's say that you got your conductivity meter set up and are getting a great reading and know your reverse osmosis water is good. Most major brand salt mixes in the hobby today that are available are very low in phosphates and very very low in nitrates so its safe to assume that they arent a source of pollution usually.

Exporting (removing) Nutrients from your System

We talked about how are the ways that nutrients get INTO your system. And now we want to talk about the way that nutrients get OUT of your system. Ideally you want to remove nutrients in an amount equal to or greater than the amount of nutrients going into your system. The number one way to export nutrients from a system is call a protein skimmer (aka foam fractionator)

Skimmers

Skimmers are a very, very efficient way to remove dissolved nutrients in your water. See the section on skimmers to see how they work.

Live Rock

Another way to remove nutrients is through the live rock in your tank. Live rock is great for removing items, particularly such as ammonia, and nitrates, and nitrates. The live rock provides the "house" where the bacteria live, that change (reduce) the toxic nutrients into non-toxic nutrients.

Live Sand

There are some draw backs to live sand as it gets older. Organic matter can build up in the sand over time, and feed nutrients back into the water. So even if you arent overfeeding, and your water quality is good, nutrients can come from the sand beds. Is you are using one of the macro algae mud filters,

Mud Filters

These can be a great way to export nutrients, and we do use them on some systems. Macro algaes grow in mud and can use up a lot of unwanted nutrients. Check out the section on mud filters.

Siphoning detritus

Detritus is usually packed with unwanted nutrients. Suctioning it out of your system regularly is helpful. But don't disturb your older sand bed too much or you may release nutrients or even toxins from the deep sand bed which can kill your livestock.

Some excellent articles have been written on this topic if you want to go into more detail. Or click the blue links on this page to take you to more detailed sections that relate to this topic.