Hey Devin. It is always great having Lou Ekus on for a chat. I always learn something new. I am far from a pro reefer. I love how he explains things so a novice can understand what is happening. I am trying to educate myself how to manage my reef tank w/o help or having someone to answer questions I may have. I have to stop a video and go back and listen to what is being said a couple times until I can process the information given to me. I do not have any close friends in the hobby. I am struggling somewhat with my nutrient levels currently. When I finally was able to get my Hanna Checkers for Nitrate & Phosphorus and test these parameters my results were very high. Nitrates were 57 PPM & 200 PPB Phosphorus. I did some research on the different approaches to reduce nutrients. I decided to go with a probiotic method as a more natural or biological solution rather than chemical such as GFO or Biopellets and reactor. I am a huge fan of Tropic Marin products due to Lou Ekus taking the time to educate us. As for another session with Lou I think it would be very beneficial if he did a class on how to apply the many products Tropic Marin offers for example: nutrient reduction, control. How to apply the use of All For Reef in conjunction with the Balling Method.
What a great stream! This is a much needed video for the hobby right now. Lou is so good at breaking things down and making the concepts easy to understand. Some great analogies too!
Where was this guy back in my high school and college days? At first it was all going over my head but then it clicked and I totally understand but yeah I wish I would’ve had his lecture back in the day I would’ve asked those classes
Any other Canadians out there that want to put an order in at BRS and share cost for this magical fish food. Between the delivery and the exchange rate, ouch. Great show!
Great information. Like the talk about pellet food. Why isn’t Dr. Bassleer food listed for saltwater fish. Won’t it gain more hobbyists selling for both fresh water and saltwater.
I just watched marcna, one of the talks was on bleaching events on the reefs in Australia. If lack of nutrients causes corals to bleach, overfishing causing lack of nutrients, therefore causing massive bleaching events on reefs? Food for thought...
Great show and great information. My question is though if fish waste is such a great an ideal method for phosphate particulates for corals, why do we skim it out? My phosphates are inherently low so I may consider shutting it off part time.
For the most part, you are not skimming particulate fish waste from your system. Your filter socks may get some. But the little you have mostly just drops directly to the corals and substrate in your tank.
Lou was talking about the respiration process that amino acids are created from ammonium. My question is, is this the ammonium that’s inside the cells and part of the respiration process or is ammonium that’s freely available in the water contributing as well?
In all the previous lectures, it was recommended to use np plus when there is a low level of phosphate and nitrate, why now is the recommendation only for overfeeding?
The pellet is so true. I feed the same pellet i feed my reef tank to my freshwater fish, their colors are popping. On my reef tank I feed mainly frozen food, their colors are okay. I’m a believer that pellets really help. Just afraid of phosphates going up. My freshwater tank is fish only so I feed it a lot.
This video has maybe come at a crucial time. Tank looked fine and brought a routine water sample to my LFS Salifert ammonia test showed 1-2ppm Nothing in my tank was giving me any indication of high toxic ammonia Immediately began drastic water changes to reduce ammonia in concern for fish health being impacted I now have recently lost all sps, torches and only survived by Zoas and frogspawn in result of multiple significant 80% water changes Fish all seem fine But still getting high ammonia levels even after dosing Prime and stability Is it possible this non toxic ammonium being read ? Tank has been set up for 9 months Any input is appreciated
First thought, have you used a second test kit, to verify the reading? Either a second Salifert or a competitors? Most "ammonia" test kits read "total ammonia", which is both NH3 & NH4+. However, it's a pH dependent reaction where NH3 + H2O < - - > NH4+ + OH- (it's also temperature dependent). What that means is your pH determines the relative ratio of Ammonia to Ammonium. At a pH of 8, NH3 is something like 10-15% of that reading. At pH 9, NH3 is roughly 50% (Lou hinted at this with his graphic). So second thought, what's your pH?... 2 ppm total ammonia is more than a bit high. If you're at say 8.0 pH, then your free Ammonia (NH3) reading is really 0.2 ppm. Which may put you at ease. But remember, at 2 ppm, your off Lou's chart. For context, that number would set off an ammonia alarm, such as a Sachem Ammonia Alert badge. (I'd personally grab something like that to validate your test kit). Not to go too deep in the weeds: ammonia toxicity is most damaging due to it's ability to degrade hemoglobin in red blood cells. It destroys bloods ability to carry oxygen, that's the mechanism which goes first in a complex animal. Fish have blood and hemoglobin's; but many invertebrates do not, they utilize hemocyanin. Corals do not have either, they have no respiratory or circulatory systems, and absorb oxygen directly from the waters around them (that's why flow is so important). Which is why they will survive low levels of ammonia just fine, when fish will not. I can't diagnose why your tank is having issues, attempting to do so here would be irresponsible. But, saying the coral went and the fish didn't, disqualifies ammonia toxicity as the reason. 2 ppm is a very high number for fish in 8pH to still be breathing. It's likely something else? Or worse yet, a bad test kit? That's my 2 cents. But, I'm happy to defer to others.
Thank you so much for your insightful response. With 2 different ammonia/ammonium salifert test kits reading between 1.0-2.0 ppm the pH was bottoming out around 7.6 Lower pH in this tank has been a chronic problem. Saying that I would have never tested for ammonia as the tank showed no signs of some underlying problem. My LFS elected to test for those rudimentary water parameters. The only thing that did change and May have effected anything would be my addition of adding raw frozen whole clam in attempts to feed a copper band. Correct me if I’m wrong, It looks as though this is ammonium that is being detected and not ammonia considering pH ? Thanks again for all your help
Nah, this kind of trouble-shooting is fun. What's the point of studying & learning science, if you can't apply it? But at the same time, I'm trying not to read into anything and go straight off what you're saying... Ok, a 1.0 ppm "total" ammonia (NH3 & NH4+) reading from the test kit. At 78 degrees F: pH 7.6 - your NH3 is 0.02 ppm pH 7.8 - your NH3 is 0.03 ppm pH 8.0 - your NH3 is 0.05 ppm pH 8.2 - your NH3 is 0.08 ppm If you're hitting 2.0 ppm total ammonia with a test kit, those are basically doubled: pH 7.6 - your NH3 is 0.04 ppm pH 7.8 - your NH3 is 0.06 ppm pH 8.0 - your NH3 is 0.1 ppm pH 8.2 - your NH3 is 0.16 ppm Any NH3 level under 0.02 ppm can be tolerable to fish. NH3 0.02 ppm to 0.05 is most likely harmful long-term, but not always lethal long-term. NH3 0.05 ppm to 0.2 is where long-term harm is expected, and will likely kill fish long-term. NH3 0.2 ppm to 0.5 ppm is likely to kill fish inside of a week, usually within 2-3 days **However, most of our understanding of that comes from freshwater species like Koi and Trout, not Marine fish. This means your might vary. The source I'm referencing is a publication for freshwater aquaculture. The original source is Dr. J. Alleman at Purdue. My own assumption was that your Reef was well over 8 pH. Your suppressed pH is actually helping you in this case. But natural sea water is usually between 0.002 & 0.5 ppm Total ammonia (NH3 & NH4+) I'd still throw an ammonia alert badge into the tank until you stabilize it. But things you should think about are: verifying your source water has low ammonia, boosting your Nitrifying microbes in the tank (perhaps dosing a small amount once or twice, if you suspect that community was harmed), recalling if you've used a broad spectrum antibiotic recently that may have disrupted microbial community's, or ya identifying odd inputs like food that may be an extra source of ammonia. Clam feeding could be doing that. If it's happening because of an input from you. It should lower after you stop doing that thing. If you crashed the microbial population, to use the hobby term: you are re-"cycling" the tank and adding Nitrifying bacteria could speed that up (within reason). That about all most of us can help with in a comment. I with you luck 😊
Archaea... it's kind-of a "catch-all" for any single celled organism that isn't a bacteria. To understand the classification, look at the system of classification first: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. All life on earth is currently divided into three Domain's (which was a recent addition to biology, in the 1990's based on our understanding of genetics). Two Domain's are Prokaryotes (single celled), and one is Eukaryote (multicellular). Of the two Prokaryote Domains: one is Bacteria, the other are Archaea... They are similar to bacteria in many ways, including being only single celled. BUT, they have numerous differences. No Archaea can perform photosynthesis, they only reproduce Asexually, most of them are extremophiles (they like extreme ends of pH or Temperature). But, none of them are genetically related to bacteria or Eukaryotes. So biologist's created a new bucket for them to be classified under.
Too bad you forgot to show the rate of change when looking at this diagram, the thing to note that this change is not sudden unless there is a significant pH variance (over 3-4 points), which means for this to be a problem your saltwater pH would be so low you your fish would already be dead anyways so you wouldn't be worried about the change. Therefore you are not going to cause a problem doing a large water change and a prime example why you should be very careful taking "information" from "Heads of Sale", especially when they are talking about the size of the molecule being the reason for the toxicity.... bahahaha Mind Bomb!
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Very informative video. One of the few 1+ hour videos I sat and watched to the end.
Hey Devin. It is always great having Lou Ekus on for a chat. I always learn something new. I am far from a pro reefer. I love how he explains things so a novice can understand what is happening. I am trying to educate myself how to manage my reef tank w/o help or having someone to answer questions I may have. I have to stop a video and go back and listen to what is being said a couple times until I can process the information given to me. I do not have any close friends in the hobby. I am struggling somewhat with my nutrient levels currently. When I finally was able to get my Hanna Checkers for Nitrate & Phosphorus and test these parameters my results were very high. Nitrates were 57 PPM & 200 PPB Phosphorus. I did some research on the different approaches to reduce nutrients. I decided to go with a probiotic method as a more natural or biological solution rather than chemical such as GFO or Biopellets and reactor. I am a huge fan of Tropic Marin products due to Lou Ekus taking the time to educate us. As for another session with Lou I think it would be very beneficial if he did a class on how to apply the many products Tropic Marin offers for example: nutrient reduction, control. How to apply the use of All For Reef in conjunction with the Balling Method.
I’ll see what I can do :)
Lovely to hear Lou speaking about my work and (his & mine) experience with DR. BASSLEER BIOFISH FOOD!
I ordered some to try too ;)
I've been waiting for Phos Feed to come out for a year. I love the idea behind the product.
You sghould see these phosphate products becoming available in stores and online in the US very soon.
What a great stream! This is a much needed video for the hobby right now. Lou is so good at breaking things down and making the concepts easy to understand. Some great analogies too!
Great stream . Just ordered DR. BASSLEER BIOFISH FOOD.
They call those hammers that look like frogspawns-Frammers. Everything looks awesome man. Great job! 👌💯🤙
Where was this guy back in my high school and college days? At first it was all going over my head but then it clicked and I totally understand but yeah I wish I would’ve had his lecture back in the day I would’ve asked those classes
Thanks for the kind words!
Awesome conversation and great Information thanks Dev and Lou
Our pleasure!
Any other Canadians out there that want to put an order in at BRS and share cost for this magical fish food. Between the delivery and the exchange rate, ouch. Great show!
I’ve used all types of tests kits, so a 5 gal water change once a week, I feed and strain 1/4 cube of mysis once a day.
Great information. Like the talk about pellet food. Why isn’t Dr. Bassleer food listed for saltwater fish. Won’t it gain more hobbyists selling for both fresh water and saltwater.
While we wait for phosfeed would you get similar benefits of powdered phosphate using Reefroids?
Yes you would. It’s the same premise. Coral food is high in phosphate in general.
I just watched marcna, one of the talks was on bleaching events on the reefs in Australia. If lack of nutrients causes corals to bleach, overfishing causing lack of nutrients, therefore causing massive bleaching events on reefs? Food for thought...
makes perfect sense
What was the tank showing hard and soft corals, any further information about it, filtration, size, how long it has been run?? Thanks
So I have a 25 gal peninsula, this tank phosphates is 3.5 to 4.2 and I can’t figure out why. But most of my corals are ok.
Great show and great information. My question is though if fish waste is such a great an ideal method for phosphate particulates for corals, why do we skim it out? My phosphates are inherently low so I may consider shutting it off part time.
For the most part, you are not skimming particulate fish waste from your system. Your filter socks may get some. But the little you have mostly just drops directly to the corals and substrate in your tank.
Lou was talking about the respiration process that amino acids are created from ammonium. My question is, is this the ammonium that’s inside the cells and part of the respiration process or is ammonium that’s freely available in the water contributing as well?
I am not a chemist or a biologist, but I'm pretty sure we are talking mostly about ammonium in the water column (I think).
I was gonna say just pee in the tank! Haha. I knew it all along
🤣
Any link to this "upside down" corals at 21:00
ruclips.net/video/trdl-acpiDo/видео.html
ENJOY! I love this system!
In all the previous lectures, it was recommended to use np plus when there is a low level of phosphate and nitrate, why now is the recommendation only for overfeeding?
The pellet is so true. I feed the same pellet i feed my reef tank to my freshwater fish, their colors are popping. On my reef tank I feed mainly frozen food, their colors are okay. I’m a believer that pellets really help. Just afraid of phosphates going up. My freshwater tank is fish only so I feed it a lot.
phosphatete is necessary to produce atp needed to transport macroelements and duplicate nuclein acid
This video has maybe come at a crucial time.
Tank looked fine and brought a routine water sample to my LFS
Salifert ammonia test showed 1-2ppm
Nothing in my tank was giving me any indication of high toxic ammonia
Immediately began drastic water changes to reduce ammonia in concern for fish health being impacted
I now have recently lost all sps, torches and only survived by Zoas and frogspawn in result of multiple significant 80% water changes
Fish all seem fine
But still getting high ammonia levels even after dosing Prime and stability
Is it possible this non toxic ammonium being read ?
Tank has been set up for 9 months
Any input is appreciated
First thought, have you used a second test kit, to verify the reading? Either a second Salifert or a competitors?
Most "ammonia" test kits read "total ammonia", which is both NH3 & NH4+. However, it's a pH dependent reaction where NH3 + H2O < - - > NH4+ + OH- (it's also temperature dependent).
What that means is your pH determines the relative ratio of Ammonia to Ammonium. At a pH of 8, NH3 is something like 10-15% of that reading. At pH 9, NH3 is roughly 50% (Lou hinted at this with his graphic). So second thought, what's your pH?... 2 ppm total ammonia is more than a bit high. If you're at say 8.0 pH, then your free Ammonia (NH3) reading is really 0.2 ppm. Which may put you at ease. But remember, at 2 ppm, your off Lou's chart. For context, that number would set off an ammonia alarm, such as a Sachem Ammonia Alert badge. (I'd personally grab something like that to validate your test kit).
Not to go too deep in the weeds: ammonia toxicity is most damaging due to it's ability to degrade hemoglobin in red blood cells. It destroys bloods ability to carry oxygen, that's the mechanism which goes first in a complex animal. Fish have blood and hemoglobin's; but many invertebrates do not, they utilize hemocyanin. Corals do not have either, they have no respiratory or circulatory systems, and absorb oxygen directly from the waters around them (that's why flow is so important). Which is why they will survive low levels of ammonia just fine, when fish will not.
I can't diagnose why your tank is having issues, attempting to do so here would be irresponsible. But, saying the coral went and the fish didn't, disqualifies ammonia toxicity as the reason. 2 ppm is a very high number for fish in 8pH to still be breathing. It's likely something else? Or worse yet, a bad test kit?
That's my 2 cents. But, I'm happy to defer to others.
Thank you so much for your insightful response. With 2 different ammonia/ammonium salifert test kits reading between 1.0-2.0 ppm the pH was bottoming out around 7.6
Lower pH in this tank has been a chronic problem.
Saying that I would have never tested for ammonia as the tank showed no signs of some underlying problem. My LFS elected to test for those rudimentary water parameters.
The only thing that did change and May have effected anything would be my addition of adding raw frozen whole clam in attempts to feed a copper band.
Correct me if I’m wrong,
It looks as though this is ammonium that is being detected and not ammonia considering pH ?
Thanks again for all your help
Nah, this kind of trouble-shooting is fun. What's the point of studying & learning science, if you can't apply it?
But at the same time, I'm trying not to read into anything and go straight off what you're saying...
Ok, a 1.0 ppm "total" ammonia (NH3 & NH4+) reading from the test kit. At 78 degrees F:
pH 7.6 - your NH3 is 0.02 ppm
pH 7.8 - your NH3 is 0.03 ppm
pH 8.0 - your NH3 is 0.05 ppm
pH 8.2 - your NH3 is 0.08 ppm
If you're hitting 2.0 ppm total ammonia with a test kit, those are basically doubled:
pH 7.6 - your NH3 is 0.04 ppm
pH 7.8 - your NH3 is 0.06 ppm
pH 8.0 - your NH3 is 0.1 ppm
pH 8.2 - your NH3 is 0.16 ppm
Any NH3 level under 0.02 ppm can be tolerable to fish.
NH3 0.02 ppm to 0.05 is most likely harmful long-term, but not always lethal long-term.
NH3 0.05 ppm to 0.2 is where long-term harm is expected, and will likely kill fish long-term.
NH3 0.2 ppm to 0.5 ppm is likely to kill fish inside of a week, usually within 2-3 days
**However, most of our understanding of that comes from freshwater species like Koi and Trout, not Marine fish. This means your might vary. The source I'm referencing is a publication for freshwater aquaculture. The original source is Dr. J. Alleman at Purdue.
My own assumption was that your Reef was well over 8 pH. Your suppressed pH is actually helping you in this case. But natural sea water is usually between 0.002 & 0.5 ppm Total ammonia (NH3 & NH4+)
I'd still throw an ammonia alert badge into the tank until you stabilize it. But things you should think about are: verifying your source water has low ammonia, boosting your Nitrifying microbes in the tank (perhaps dosing a small amount once or twice, if you suspect that community was harmed), recalling if you've used a broad spectrum antibiotic recently that may have disrupted microbial community's, or ya identifying odd inputs like food that may be an extra source of ammonia. Clam feeding could be doing that.
If it's happening because of an input from you. It should lower after you stop doing that thing.
If you crashed the microbial population, to use the hobby term: you are re-"cycling" the tank and adding Nitrifying bacteria could speed that up (within reason).
That about all most of us can help with in a comment. I with you luck 😊
Thank you so much for this info.Youve been a huge help and restored my faith in humanity. Much appreciated!
@@dusk1947
Check your ro water ro filter systems do not remove po4 add a gfo chamber after your di resin
I’ve tried almost everything to bring it down and still the same. 🤦🏼♂️
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
😢 I’m at .88 po4 and off the charts nitrates
That’s up there! I have been there too
Archaea... it's kind-of a "catch-all" for any single celled organism that isn't a bacteria.
To understand the classification, look at the system of classification first: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.
All life on earth is currently divided into three Domain's (which was a recent addition to biology, in the 1990's based on our understanding of genetics).
Two Domain's are Prokaryotes (single celled), and one is Eukaryote (multicellular). Of the two Prokaryote Domains: one is Bacteria, the other are Archaea...
They are similar to bacteria in many ways, including being only single celled. BUT, they have numerous differences. No Archaea can perform photosynthesis, they only reproduce Asexually, most of them are extremophiles (they like extreme ends of pH or Temperature). But, none of them are genetically related to bacteria or Eukaryotes. So biologist's created a new bucket for them to be classified under.
My phosphate is 0.027ppm is that okay?
Low
Too bad you forgot to show the rate of change when looking at this diagram, the thing to note that this change is not sudden unless there is a significant pH variance (over 3-4 points), which means for this to be a problem your saltwater pH would be so low you your fish would already be dead anyways so you wouldn't be worried about the change.
Therefore you are not going to cause a problem doing a large water change and a prime example why you should be very careful taking "information" from "Heads of Sale", especially when they are talking about the size of the molecule being the reason for the toxicity.... bahahaha Mind Bomb!
show of hands… who here started looking at the clock like they were back in school
While we wait for phosfeed would you get similar benefits of powdered phosphate using Reefroids?
Not sure.