To dig or not to dig?

[yote]

Rc
Be carefull about the nutrients in your tanks.I've come to realize,that low nutrient corals,still need some dissolved nutrients to feed the zooxanthellae algae.If theres not enough nutrients,then the corals colors will look washed out.
The key is to balance the nutrients so the corals can use it and algae cant.

 

[tankedchemist]

So first off, you guys were totally right. It was just a molt... the fire shrimp popped up for breakfast this morning and is still doing just fine.

RC, I can understand your perspective about the hermits... but something we should remember is that hermits in natural reefs aren't densely populated. I read that there's appx 1 hermit for 100 sq ft of reef... it's no real wonder we find them getting feisty in the close quarters created by our tanks.

However, I do like my snails, and I'm pretty certain they're necessary for tank cleaning...just my :twocents:. I'm going to add a couple more nass snails to clean the sand better, I think
thanks for the help guys :) didn't mean to start a CUC argument, but it's been informative :)

 

[Rcpilot]

Rc
Be carefull about the nutrients in your tanks.I've come to realize,that low nutrient corals,still need some dissolved nutrients to feed the zooxanthellae algae.If theres not enough nutrients,then the corals colors will look washed out.
The key is to balance the nutrients so the corals can use it and algae cant.

Totally agree.

If you think about it we actually NEED a little bit of nitrates in our tanks. The zooxanthellae algae is a plant (sorta) and we all know plants need nitrates to grow and thrive in our tanks.

If we strip the nitrates completely out of the water column our corals would suffer.

Doesn't mean you want 50ppm of nitrates. Balanced, as you said.