(mellow music)
- Nutrients versus nutrition.
They sound awfully similar, but they're probably
the most commonly misunderstood words in reefing.
And once you understand the difference between nutrition
and nutrients, it will change the way you think
about everything that goes in the tank, as well as out.
Nutrients can really mean a wide variety of things
but most often just referring to nitrate and phosphate
from the plant world such as fertilizer,
runoff from farming, hydroponics
and water pollution.
Nutrition however, is food, energy, proteins
and mineral sources that contribute
to health, growth, reproduction, and disease resistance
with organisms or animals like our corals.
There are a couple of important distinctions
between nutrients and nutrition.
The first is every single living organism
on the planet requires a source
of nutrients being nitrogen and phosphorous to survive.
That includes our corals as well
as the symbiotic algae known
as Zooxanthellae that lives within the coral.
Here's the other important distinction.
The coral to survive, actually gets 90% of its nutrition
from the Zooxanthellae that lives within its tissue.
However, the Zooxanthellae isn't capable
of producing nitrogen and phosphorus out of thin air,
or providing it directly to the coral.
So this is part of that 10% that really
really matters that the Zooxanthellae can't provide.
So when I say that, I mean the Zooxanthellae
isn't directly creating nitrogen and phosphorus or nitrate
and phosphate and then passing it onto the coral.
However, indirectly it absolutely is.
Indirectly it's creating energy sources
and amino acids that do contain nitrogen
and phosphorous and passing that onto the coral.
However, the important distinction here is
that it's actually the coral that provided
to the Zooxanthellae first.
The coral is capturing prey out of the water
as well as absorbing small amounts
of nitrogen and phosphorus through its tissue.
And then through its own metabolic process
providing it over to the Zooxanthellae.
But the most important component of this is understanding
that it's the coral that is responsible
for acquiring and distributing the nitrate
and phosphate to the Zooxanthellae and the coral itself.
So you can start to see the gap now, that gap
between 90 and 100, mean that we know
that the coral is actually going to get 90%
of the nutrition that it needs
from the Zooxanthellae that lives within its tissue.
But what about the other 10%?
Does the 10% matter?
Well, that 10% now we know includes nitrogen and phosphorus.
And we also know that every single living organism
on the planet requires nitrogen and phosphorus to survive.
So certainly it does matter,
but it really goes beyond that as well.
There are things like missing types of amino acids
that algae just has a difficult time replicating
or can't at all and promotes healthy tissue production.
They're also minerals that often come from prey.
So that 10% that is missing, isn't just
a small amount it's things that the algae
can't produce at all in a holistic approach
to overall metabolic health.
Another important distinction between nutrients
and nutrition is with nutrients or nitrate
and phosphate, more is definitely not better.
With elevated levels of safe phosphate,
you'll see slower calcification
the coral have difficulty laying
down additional calcium carbonate crystals for its skeleton
and with elevated levels of both,
you'll also see increased amounts of population or density
of Zooxanthellae within the corals tissue, which can lead
to bleaching when combined with other stressful events.
So with nutrients or nitrate and phosphate,
the right amount is the right answer.
Elevated or unacceptably high nitrate
and phosphate in almost any application
including aquaculture, farming, hydroponics
or even just general water quality in the ocean,
is all considered polluted water, end of story.
However, with nutrition, is more better?
The answer is often yes, to a point.
Meaning if there's more prey or suspended organic particles
for the corals or polyps to capture,
there's more amino acids or other nutria developments
for the corals or polyps to absorb
it will often result in better health for the animal.
However, I say this to a point because not if it results
in polluted water, meaning not that there's too much prey
in the water it's if that prey isn't captured
and then degrades down into nitrate and phosphate
which is by definition pollution.
So filtration really a foundation
of an overall approach to heavy nutrition in
meaning filling in that 10% gap that the corals
and Zooxanthellae can't produce
for itself without polluting the tank.
This is also really closely tied
to the difference of the nutritive values of the ocean
as well as in our tanks, why they're so different
and which one we should be emulating that's coming up next.