just curious what role does nitrate play with algae? in a tank with 0 nitrate can algae form? lets assume this is a non planted tank.
please clarify this the above in bold?It is therefore possible to have nitrates without having algae, if the other nutrients required for algae/plants are not present. Similarly, algae can be present without nitrate since the algae does not need nitrate in order to obtain its nitrogen. Without nutrients, there can be no algae.
maybe.In aquaria with problem algae, the nitrates are usually high. Nutrients that feed the algae also contribute to the nitrogen cycle, along with the fish and other bacteria. Excessive levels are bound to impact several processes ongoing in the aquarium.
Byron.
most of these studies are of river systems right?Thanks so much . My own extensive searches do indeed list those as contributers but when primary causes are asked for ,all my searches indicate excess nutrients,phosphates, silicates,and dissolved organics/waste. Searches for biologist's views,government studies,etc all seem to incude the same info. Is it possible that the causes are too numerous to excude that which is most often sited? or are all but a few ,,simply ignorant? Could it be that there are as many causes as there are ways to be ignorant?
he is totally hitting the nail on the head.There are people who believe the earth is flat, notwithstanding scientific evidence to the contrary.
BH
Heavily planted or not, your aquarium water may contain all appropriate nutrients needed by your plants for the amount of light you have. Secondly what is with the 5 point ellipses?Let me just say this.......I have been raising fish for over 20 years and your so called "old myths" have worked for that long for me.........I have over 13 tanks in my house and very minimal algae in any tank of mine, so obviously to me the old myths DO actually work and adding all the extra nutrients into you water is uneeded and a waste of money,....My tanks are a mixture of heavily planted tanks to no plants at all and as i stated, algae is at minimum......
Yes if there is enough evidence to support the theory, Take einsteins theory of relativity, nobody can prove him wrong yet so it remains a theory yet people believe in it.Trying to beat people over the head with your methods is not the way to approach people here, remember everything that you read now is going to be outdated at sometime in the future.....Are YOU gonna change your ways when that time comes?
Could that possibly because we have tanks with high nitrate and phosphate levels yet no algae??!! When algae is in a system and nitrates and/or phosphate are present also, people make a false correlation.I doubt it, your to passionate about your ways to change and see any other facts that have been presented here......How is it that ALL the people here are wrong and you and your newly recruited friends are the only ones who know everything about algae?
Could this also possibly because there is a community of serious hobbyists, that actually try things scientifically, instead of making up points and then linking to papers that have nothing to do with planted aquaria??Recruiting members from your local area to back yourself up here is not doing this forum any good and your creating a hostile atmosphere with pointing out ALL the mistakes you think that we are all doing in our tanks
Yeah, there are some knowledgeable people here, its just that they cant actually back up their claims, and they're not even willing to listen to the points we are making, we are backing up our points with relative information instead of papers about freshwater eco systems and not planted aquaria.There are some very knowledgable people here and belittling them because theyre ways and thinking dont jive with yours is just rude and wrong, no matter what side of the Big Pond your from.....You talk about learning new things, how about you learning new things and try to treat people with some respect, even if your opinion differs from theirs
Obviously there is no algae in this tank because the plants are utilizing the nutrients, whatever they may be, and speaking for myself I have never said high nutrients cause algae nor have I said phosphate alone. I would think just the opposite. Plants need 17 nutrients to exist and grow, in porportion. Although dosing excess of certain ones may cause problems in time. And I still would not sit idly by with nitrates at 50ppm in my aquaria. I never have nitrates above 5ppm, and algae is not a problem unless I overdose nutrients, which as I mentioned in one of the related threads I did and have now cut back, and algae has responded accordingly.
Cryptocoryne willisii x lucens
Microsorum pteropus
Anubias nana
Anubias nana petite
Pogosteemon helferi
Valliseneria nana
Ive just done a test on the tank and nitrate is 50ppm and phosphate is 3ppm
Surely a recipe for disaster going by the 'old' theory, then why is there no algae? and with it being a new tank, there is even more scope for algae, yet there isn't any, surely this says something? And when you can find proof that NO3 and PO4 levels that i dose on my tank will affect my fish, then i may believe what you say, but i know for a fact that nitrates are not harmful to fish until you get up to about 400ppm, and science has also proven this!
why? that was what my question was getting at.And I still would not sit idly by with nitrates at 50ppm in my aquaria
Or that we are dosing high so that our plants are never short of nutrients so we dont get algaeHigh nitrates in a planted tank is a sign of biological imbalance.
not a great deal. the heavier planted the tank the heavier the bio load can be.For those of us who prefer to focus on the fish, how does the heavier bioload impact this entire conversation?