(upbeat music)
- Nutrition, nutrients, nitrate and phosphate.
This is what's worked on my tanks
based on my own personal experiences
as well as guidance from my mentors.
If you're looking for 100% peer reviewed science
and absolute fact,
this isn't it because that doesn't exist and probably won't.
This is just my own personal beliefs
based on maintaining reef tanks for 17 years.
And there's one piece of guidance
in relation to nitrate and phosphate
this proved to be the most valuable to me,
it's stability and that above all else,
not perpetually rising
because perpetually rising month after month
leads only to one place polluted water and mortalities.
Then testing at least once a month
is how you track the trends,
stop perpetually rising and find stability.
Over the years I've also changed my own belief
or approach to emulating natural seawater levels
of nitrogen and phosphorous.
Now it's two approaches,
a nutritionally rich focus this focused undissolved nitrate
and phosphate that you can test for
but also now includes organic nitrogen and phosphorus
meaning protein, meaning amino acids and prey.
I've also come to terms with managing organic nitrogen
and phosphorus in an artificial environment
like a reef tank is just a lot harder.
That's because there's so many different organisms
in the tank they were trying to optimize for.
Most of which have entirely different needs.
They have different mouth shapes,
they take different particle sizes,
they'd like different types of food,
they react during the day or the react in the night.
All kinds of different factors
where it's just much more difficult to adapt
to their normal environment in the ocean.
So that's the foundation of heavy nutrition in
and heavy filtration out.
Just accepting there's a wide variety of organisms
that we're caring for in these tanks
and they have a wide variety of nutritional needs
and the more effort we put in the better the results.
Really thinking about the particle sizes
often in foods that have a wide variety
of particle sizes measured down into the microns
or even foods that are already broken down into amino acids
which are just easier to utilize for a wide array of corals.
However, in terms of stages of tanks
in a brand new tank I avoid both excess nutrition
and nutrients because they tend to feed
a lot of different pests in the tank.
So, in this stage of the tank,
I'm really caring more
about an easy journey of the first year
than I am about getting perfect nutrition in the tank.
However, if I have a coral
that I think will benefit from feeding,
especially one that may look damaged
or in need of help
I can target feed that specific coral
most valuable is often using amino acids
because it's easiest for it to uptake in use.
However, with an established tank
that's full of coral approach it differently
partially because of time
but also because it's been effective for me
and it looked to broadcast feeding.
Meaning feeding the entire tank
amino acids, protein based prey, particulate foods
and even frozen foods.
Frozen foods are easy ways to add things like copepods
rotifers, cycle pods and other microfauna,
they're really easy to add with those little blister cubes.
Frozen can also mean things like making your own DIY food
going to the fish market, or even the grocery store
and finding actual types of fish or fish eggs combined
with other elements that you can mix together
to make a more holistic food for your whole tank.
And to be frank, I've seen an experience
in evolution that is getting past the $3 blister packs
a shrimp as their only approach to nutrition for the tank.
We're taking a deeper look
at overall holistic nutritional needs
not just adequate or survival, but looking
for thrive in the best we can do this.
We've seen this in all types of other pets and dogs
and cats as we evolve the way that we've fed them over time.
And now you're starting to see it in reefing as well.
You see it in Rod's food who makes a collective approach
to sea foods, all in one packet.
You also seen in how many people are doing DIY foods
my own personal approach to living.
DIY frozen foods are for me
because it allows me to adjust the nutrition
that goes in there for the fish, not just based
on a blind trip anymore,
but a more holistic approach.
And then combined with that,
I can add in the things for the corals as well
particulate foods that rehydrate really well
when you freeze them in there,
specifically the dehydrated ones
you can also add your amino acids
and other nutria developments
into the food and have a holistic approach,
that's not just for the fish, but for the corals too.
In terms of inorganic, nitrogen and phosphorus
or that nitrate and phosphate that you can test for
with a test kit I'm shooting for below 0.1 phosphate
and below one part per million nitrate
just trying to eliminate that battery
that can fuel algae and pest growth.
I'm also more concerned with phosphate
because I don't wanna slow down coral growth
meaning poisoning of that calcium carbon crystal
had the phosphate working its way in
and stopping the growth.
Now it will happen to some degree as high as 0.1
but I just have to have a limit somewhere.
I also have a goal in the other direction
meaning above 0.04 phosphate
because I don't wanna limit the health of growth
of the zoanthids or algae that lives within the coral.
I also want to be above zero nitrate
now above zero nitrates,
meaning it's actually hard to test for nitrate.
So I'm not looking for a specific number here
just looking forward to be at or around one but not below.
This approach, adequate for the corals and zoanthids
while also avoiding many of the opportunistic pests.
And for me not written in stone
acknowledging that life and deviations are okay.
My third son was just born.
Water changes immediately became less important
than they were the day before, but they will trend back up.
And that's really what it's about
is trending towards a goal
just knowing when you're trending away.
So you can trend back towards it when you have the time.
Also not play med scientists
trying to peg a very specific number.
And for me, filter media is that strip
out nitrate and phosphate individually more of a hammer
to a solution that I can't solve in any other manner
but I'm really trying to solve those trends.
And there's three ways to change them nitrate
and phosphate trends in your tank.
And they're coming up.