Zero Nitrates

swarvegorilla wrote:
Sorry mate lost me there
zero ammonia, nitrites and nitrates?
anyway zero nitrates ain't always the best thing in the world
sounds to me like your nitrates are locked up in algae colonys
which is cool
just make sure in your quest for zero nitrates ya don't starve your filter
bacteria hey


Zero nitrates is not at all unusual, and is in fact very desirable for
those who wish to keep SPS corals.
Having a fuge to lock it up in algae is one very popular way of doing
this, but:

It usually is NOT just locked up in algae - usually at least part of the
way it is acheived is by displacing nitrobacter with anaerobics bacteria
that convert the nitrie to N2 rather than to nitrate. Theer is always
some nitrobacter left active to produce nitrate, but the great thing is
that the anaerobic bacteria will convert nitrate to N2 as well (just not
as quickly as they will with nitrite)

Lots of live rock, brisk circulation and a deep sand bed can actually
get nitrates to zero without a fuge.

My tank has no real algae growth excpept for coraline - no fuge, no
sump, yet I have 0/0/0 ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. And I'm not all
that sparsely stocked, either.