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- Nutrient control and stability for most people
it's just more simple than it seems.
The primary input of nitrate and phosphate
into the tank it's just food.
Meaning if you put more food in
there'll be more nitrate and phosphate,
if you put less in, there'll be less.
This is an obvious lever, but it's also often missed.
And when you get good at this you can use food control
to control phosphate, and nitrate,
independently of each other.
However, historically, the goals for nutrients
were really not all that clear.
It used to be feed as little as humanly possible
so we could avoid elevated nitrate
and phosphate in the tank.
Many people only feeding a few pellets every couple of days.
However, during that period of time,
fish were mysteriously dying all the time as well.
Fast forward to today and food really isn't about
nitrate and phosphate anymore
because filtration has caught up with the ability to feed
and now food is really about fish nutrition
and caring for the nutritional needs of the animal.
And now when we're thinking about
how do we take care of that animal,
we're watching the fish for signs of health,
growth, size, color, wounds, and open sores,
telling us when we're meeting
the needs of the fish and animal.
We're also now addressing the obvious
active fish that swim around a lot,
and burn a lot of calories, simply need more food,
and once we address that they just simply stop dying
and it's not really a big surprise after the fact.
However, we're now even putting more nitrogen,
and phosphorus, or food in the tank,
and so we need to test and find out if it's stable.
If it is stable,
and inside of a range that you're comfortable with,
congratulations, you probably don't need to do anything.
However, it's unstable,
and you're finding that increased amount of food
is causing perpetually rising nitrate and phosphate,
you do need to solve, and as long as it fits
the nutritional needs of the fish
you can actually just lower
the amount of food you put in the tank
and it's as simple as that.
But also you may find
that just one of these things is rising.
Meaning, nitrate is stable, but phosphate is rising,
or phosphate is stable, and nitrates rising,
you can solve for that as well.
Selecting a different food
probably the tool that you'll use to fix for that
because different foods
have different phosphate to nitrate ratios in them
and you can match this to your problem that you're having.
So for instance, if you're finding
that phosphate is actually really stable in your tank,
it doesn't change a lot,
but over time nitrate is rising,
you can solve for that by selecting something
with a lower nitrogen to phosphorous ratio food.
In this case, in most cases,
it would actually be a dry food
that would have that type of ratio.
So if you have stable phosphate, but elevated nitrate,
maybe try some dry foods,
or just try different foods to solve for that issue.
However, probably more common than that
is actually the inverse of that problem
where nitrates actually fairly stable,
but we are constantly having a problem with rising phosphate
and we just can't get it to meet our goals.
So in that case, try something with a lower phosphate ratio.
In this case, it's frozen foods
that typically have a lower content of phosphate,
so again, if you're having a problem
where stable nitrate, but rising phosphate,
frozen foods are probably one of the best answers,
at least one to try.
Pay attention to what's in it read the packaging.
It could be seafood, algae, terrestrial foods,
animals, grains, or fruits,
all of these things will have
different contents of nitrogen and phosphorous
and when you add them to the tank,
have a different input ratio.
And you can change these things.
I'm not saying play mad scientist
where you wanna check it every week,
or even a month, but quarterly
consider changing your food to match your needs.
But again, if both of these elements are rising
you probably just want to stop feeding so much.
It's really about feeding the right amount,
then scale back if it makes sense,
however, it doesn't mean you have to hurt
the nutritional needs of the fish,
there are other ways to actually solve
and make sure that they're still getting that nutrition.
The biggest opportunity, or at least cheapest opportunity,
is probably a feeding ring that just floats on the surface
of the water and stops all the fish food
from going directly down the drain.
The ring holds it in and allows the fish to feed out of it.
This alone might allow you to feed
as much as half as much food
and still get the nutrition to the fish.
Another tool that many of us have overlooked
is the feed modes in our controllers,
powerheads and return pumps,
these things again may allow you to feed half as much
while still getting
the same amount of nutrition to your fish
and half of the nitrogen and phosphorous input
which really kinda means like half the water changes,
and half the reliance on your filtration as well.
So in this case when we turn off the flow
you'll see the food just slowly sink to the bottom
where the fish are capturing a vast majority of it
and very little of it is getting blown around
and lost in the tank, or sucked up into the filtration.
The inverse of this is also actually true in many cases.
I've seen it in my own tank
which is with flow and bare bottoms,
you can actually get it resuspended,
meaning after your feed mode is turned off,
and a lot of the food is settled on the bottom,
if I have a bare bottom and flow going across the bottom,
it flushes it back up into suspension
and very, very little of the food gets lost in the tank
and what does get into there
is either eaten, or then removed by the filtration as well.
It's also sometimes helpful to just acknowledge
that you may have a heavy-handed approach to feeding
just because it's enjoyable.
It's one of the ways that we interact
with the fish in the tank,
and just one of the most fun things we can do.
So if that's the case, it's helpful to acknowledge that
because you can change the type of foods that you use,
meaning if we're using pellets,
it's high-density nutrition,
lots of nitrate and phosphate
for a very small amount of food.
However, with frozen foods, if you look at it,
it's actually largely water.
So it may feel like you're feeding a lot, and frequently,
but actually it isn't polluting the tank in the same way.
So frozen foods, if you have a heavy hand,
may be just a better option.
Also acknowledging that means upping our filtration game
and finding ways to make sure we take out
that excess nitrate even the excess food,
that's coming up next.