Important

[Tired]

It would potentially lead to something useful, though. If, hypothetically, transferring a piece of rock from a high-processing system to a low-processing system turns out to have a high chance of turning those into high-processing systems, it would be good to know. Heck, if someone with a high-processing system could reliably relocate whatever it is that does that onto rocks or filter media to give to other people, we could spread whatever it is without actually knowing what it is. We just need to know that it's there. 

 

Assuming it is one thing, and not some combination of things. Maybe a combination of microfauna that work well with each other. 

 

It might be interesting to do some testing with fresh ocean rock that's been treated nicely the whole way. Collect some live rock, keep it in water the whole time it's in transit, put it straight into a system under good lighting and everything. There must be good stuff on that, for the oceans to work.

[seabass]

IMO, the most likely causes of aggressive nitrogen consumption are (in no particular order):

• denitrifying bacteria - primarily in fine grain sand beds greater than an inch deep (coarse grain sand beds need to be even deeper to support denitrifying bacteria)
• heterotrophic bacteria - encouraged by adding a carbon source (there are a number of products today that include a carbon source, and it's not always obvious)
• one or more fast growing photosynthetic organisms like algae, or even fast growing corals like Xenia (I believe I've even heard of someone using aiptasia for nutrient control)

 

I don't really feel that nitrate uptake should be a mysterious process.  However, we'd need to know ALL products being used (including food and phytoplankton), pictures of the system depicting the sand bed, macroalgae, pest algae, corals, and filtration.

 

Although, like I stated before, I don't believe that reducing nitrate consumption should be the goal (unless it means removing a carbon source or unwanted pest organism).  I would probably just embrace the consumption and supplement additional nitrate to achieve the level you desire.

[Clown79]

Well things have been stable no more salinity issues and params back on track.

 

My birdsnest which was one of my oldest corals didn't do well and continued to go downhill. I have 2 small frags left of it.

 

The 2 blastos are bouncing back, plate is so so.

 

My euphyllia still aren't fully open but this has been an issue for a while. I haven't figured out why though. Lighting? Flow?

 

All else is good and never was effected.