Using ALGAE For Nutrient Export In Your Aquarium - Nutrients and Nutrient Control w/Dr. Tim Hovanec 

Thanks, Mark.

I think this video portraying refugiums to be some kind of evil. You were only talking about Ultra low nutrient fuges here. Low nutrients were already discussed in an earlier video and why they were a bad idea. But there is no view towards tanks running fuges to control the nutrients to a certain level or other use cases of a fuge. I do think though that there could have been another mention that low nurients can kill your precious corals and cause a cyno or dyno outbreak and I would have loved to hear about the other macro/micro uptake these algae need. I had been running a fuge before my tank crashed, which was caused by the fuge due to the low nutrients you and Dr. Time described. With no nutrients left, my corals died and caused a bloom of cyno to form. Restarting my tank recently I measured about 30ppm NO3 and wanted to get that down to about 10-15ppm. I started with just using NOPOX, which seemed to work at first. However, 2 days after I stopped dosing NOPOX my nitrate just spiked back to about the same level. Tried NOPOX again for a week, same thing happened. I don't know what caused this, but it seems like the excess bacteria just seemed to float around with the absorbed nutrients. Now obviously you can attempt to water change this, but I can only get about 15% of my tank's water volume refreshed every 48 hours. This just wouldn't cut it in my opinion as it only makes a slight dent. I decided to start my fuge again which is only about 20x20cm. After a short while my tank removed about 0.007 ppm PO4 and 0.4ppm NO3 per day and I only have 3 small sps, and 4 average lps. After restoring it to my desired range of .05 ppm PO4 and 15 ppm NO3 I started dosing NO3 and PO4 to balance the uptake of the algae. Lighting the fuge during the off cycle also helps with my PH, though it isn't as much as my skimmer, it does give some benefit. It also seems to drastically reduce the amount of algae forming on my sand bed/glass, which is backed by BRS's "study" has pointed out. Long story short, I think a fuge is great if you know what the dangers and complications they bring so you can plan for them. Though you can get a great tank without a fuge as well.

I am looking forward to the next episode, using bacteria for nutrient export is a topic I have been interested in for a while.

Great convo...that tank is really looking dope....would love an update on it and the methods Mark

Thank you mark you are stating something that I was thinking the whole time . I didn't see that a refugee was going to help me Other than somewhere to raise pods look forward to your next video once again good job thank you

I wonder if Dr. Tim would have the same opinion of turf scrubbers as he does "bacteria" if he sold them. Although this discussion was mainly focused on ULN there a many folks out there managing nutrients just fine with their ATS's without having to buy bottles of "bacteria" every month.

I like the trend of running macro algae in the tank itself.

I'm currently running a refugium in my sump while at the same time being at a loss for real estate to place pumps and other nonsense. With a biopellet reactor on order (from SWA, btw), it sounds as though I can eliminate the refugium. Sound right?

Nothing in this vid was "dishonest" everything he said was true but If you are new to the hobby I can see how this would lead you to believe Refugiums are a waste of time... I've been in the hobby for 8+ years & have seen even a small refugium ( with the proper light) can be incredibly effective....

Mine blowing! I am probably at that point right now. Corals are struggling with zeros in PO4 and Po3( or false zeros). I calerpa isn’t going slow and Cyano/Dinos are wild

I have a question what if I have about nine fish that's attained coral beauty couple clown fish so on like that and my nitrates and phosphates are at zero and have been at zero for say about 8 months now and I run my skimmer 24 hours a day am I refusing is about 16 in tall and I see 20 in long and 18 in wide

I cant see the relation between not harvesting the algae and stripping of nutrients from the tank. In fact, what happens is quite the opposite: if you do not harvest the algae growth will reduce as a lot of it becomes shaded so it reduces nutrient consumption. Also, you are not exporting nutrients out of the water when you harvest the algae. You export it through algae consumption. Much like GFO. You reduce PO4 by absorbtcion, not by throwing away the media. Over the past years I believe it has been demonstrated that refugiuns do work, and can even work too well (it has happened to me) so I am afraid that repeating this 10 ear old myth that unless it is huge it does nothing is quite frankly a bit stubborn. This does not mean that bacteria does not work. It just means, like so many things in our hobby, that there are several ways to skin a cat.

Wow 2 chats

ya Mark this just looks like a bs effort to get sales. i thought you kept it 100. a skimmer needs to be cleaned also. a filler sock needs to be changed more then an ATS. a roller mat needs to be replaced also. what you're implying is don't use ATS/refug coz it requires harvesting. if you say that you also have to say don't use filter socks coz that would apply to filter socks also. also myth busting require data NOT speech. where is the data behind this? you go on any forum and dozens will say their ATS worked too well or their refug worked too well. how is Dr tim more credible then those dozens? might have to rethink future purchases