High nitrate?

[zozo]

Thanks i million Darrel for the explaination, i totaly get the picture.. I was already wondering what that duckweed index was all about and how to properly use it and was planning to read the whole article.. But this alrady says enough.. Duckweed is just a name giver of this rather simple and very handy concept.. I understand logicaly any emersed growing indicator plant does the same job as long it's a nitrate lurker it does shows rather more obvious. I just bought the nitrate tester when building the moving bed filter and see if the levels would drasticaly change, but actualy according the test it din't, it stayed between 10 - 20 mg/l.

My emersed growth kinda tels me it's enough, it swings out of the tank at all sides. 🙂 I even add some nitrate once in a while with Tropica..

@ian_m 🙂 It wasn't always like that, our region is mainly Loess soil and beneat it is Coal, Marl and Sand.. It is the Marl deposits spoiling our local water supply we still had in the 80's. I remember doing GH test back then and stopped at 38 drops, because i didn't want to waste the whole bottle on one test. It was so crazy hard the goverment got involved because the boiler-scale was so severe it affected public institutions like hospitals etc excessing the maintenance costs. They made an embargo with the germans, able to use a subterranean water vein comming from them. The embargo is they will never dig or build near this water supply, so it not rerouted and keeps comming our way. If they ever would block it, a few 100.000 families would be without water. Now we have GH/KH 4. That water vein runs practicaly a few 100 yards from my doorstep and the local water lab testing it constantly is a mile away. So i can stop by and ask a copy of the todays analysis report personaly on the fly while taking a walk. I'm realy happy with that. 🙂

 

[zozo]

Marine aquarists went away from moving bed/trickle filters because they were "nitrate factories" and algae (like Chaetomorpha) aren't fast growing enough to fully deplete the NO3 from the tank water,
but
things are different for fresh-water aquarists, where macrophytes (and particularly floaters like Pistia), have the ability to convert a huge amount of NO3 into plant tissue, and we can use low nitrate water (RO, rain or tap dependent upon circumstances) for water changes.

So it's a matter of time before a marinetank keeper commens up with hanging baskets and little mangrove trees in it.... 🙂 That would be a nice sight i guess.. Seen them offered for sale now and then..

 

[BigTom]

So it's a matter of time before a marinetank keeper commens up with hanging baskets and little mangrove trees in it.... 🙂 That would be a nice sight i guess.. Seen them offered for sale now and then..

(not my photo)

Macro algae like Caulerpa spp. can make a difference, I filled by sump with a few different types and dropped my nitrates from 10ppm to 1ppm.

 

[zozo]

View attachment 84411

(not my photo)

Macro algae like Caulerpa spp. can make a difference, I filled by sump with a few different types and dropped my nitrates from 10ppm to 1ppm.

Lol!! Wonderfull.. Kinda knew it must be around somewhere.. I'm using a sump now as well and actualy thought to late of making all compartiments a bit smaller to leave more room for plants.. So only have very little in there. But definitely something i recon with the next sump i'll build.. Or rebuild the one i use now if i feel like it, i just might, not yet desided.. 🙂

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Macro algae like Caulerpa spp. can make a difference, I filled by sump with a few different types and dropped my nitrates from 10ppm to 1ppm.

I've never had a marine tank, but I was to try one I would definitely have an algae (and probably just a refugium, rather than a scrubber) and, if I could, Mangroves.

Using macro-algae for nitrogen reduction is always going to be a better approach than not using any plants, partially because you will get negative feedback where higher nitrogen levels cause faster growth, which reduces nitrates.

The other advantage of a refugium is that it directly provides food for herbivorous fish and is a reservoir of Amphipods and Copepods etc.

I'd like to think that more enlightened reef keepers are now looking at ways of incorporating suitable Red and Green Algae into their tanks, and that these tanks, which have algae, will be more stable and resilient in the long term.

cheers Darrel

 

[parotet]

I guess riff tanks are like a drug. Once you put your first coral in it, you begin to think on the next one. No room for "ugly" green stuff, just for expensive and colorful little animals.
Not a marine tank fan (for the moment) but the marine tanks are basically riff tanks for most people. In most cases a huge collection of corals lacking for my taste of the aquascaping touch so well developed in freshwater planted tanks

Jordi

 

[zozo]

Same here the only marine tank i ever have is a pot fried hering.. I keep it like that.. 🙄 To much hassle for to little diversity versus cost and difficulty.. Maybe i'm just to stuppid.. 🙂

But seeing that setup in big toms reply.. That could be an awsome scape if it was one tank with a clif rock scape going into a beach area.. There are definitely some artistic possibilities with mangrove.. 🙂