Thats good to hear. I've always had problems with cyano, even with low nutient levels. Like I said in a reply to Tom. I had posted a few years back a qoute out of the Coral Mag. It was a theory about cyano using iron in low nutrient systems. Heres the qoute.
Nitrogen Fixation
Nitrogen is an important nutrient and one of the essential building blocks of any living organism. It is used in proteins and DNA, among other substances. Because a healthy coral reef has only a very limited amount of dissolved nitrogen compounds, there must be organisms that introduce nitrogen into the reef system. Only very few are able to bind the dissolved nitrogen and make it available to the nutrient cycle (Sorokin 1995), among them cyanobacteria - or "slime algae," as some of them are referred to in the saltwater aquarium hobby. This process is called nitrogen fixation and uses a protein complex that has the nitrogenase enzyme at its center - and again, iron is the active ingredient in this enzyme (Rees et al. 2005), making iron essential for nitrogen fixation. Because cyanobacteria are able to satisfy their nitrogen needs from gaseous molecular nitrogen dissolved in water, it doesn't seem farfetched to hypothesize that cyanobacteria infestations in tanks with low nutrient levels (low Nitrate level) may be caused by surplus iron. It would be interesting to conduct a series of experiments to prove or disprove this theory.
Tom I don't know if you remember, but you posted when I asked a question about iron and a theory about it possibly feeding cyano. It was on another forum ( that I won't mention) a few years ago. I would be interested in your findings if you do start dosing Iron.
Oh dear, I don't remember the post... I hope I didn't say something dumb! Never fear, if I decide to dose (and I'm leaning in that direction) I'll share my experience here on CR.
sorry to back trank on the salt. but what salt are you using. if you look at Salinity by aquavitro it does have a good ammount of iron. maybe not enough for a strictly macro tank but definitely enough for a mixed tank.
sorry to back trank on the salt. but what salt are you using. if you look at Salinity by aquavitro it does have a good ammount of iron. maybe not enough for a strictly macro tank but definitely enough for a mixed tank.
No worries about backtracking.
I use TropicMarin. I checked the bucket and all it says "We guarantee that this synthetic marine salt is manufactured from pharmaeutical grade salts with the following trace elements" with a whole list of elements including Fe. But there is no mention of how much of any of the elements are contained. disappointing.
A quick internet search found this link...Salt Mix Comparison, which found TropicMarin to contains 4.8 times more Fe than NSW. I'm sure there's some variation between batches so the actual Fe may be more or less that the site claims.
thats what i like about salinty. on the bucket there is a sticker with actual numbers from that batch of salt. but anyways i forgot to mention, if you order ferts from that site i posted they come with very simple instructions on how much to dissolve in water to raise the nutrient X ppm.
Thats good to hear. I've always had problems with cyano, even with low nutient levels. Like I said in a reply to Tom. I had posted a few years back a qoute out of the Coral Mag. It was a theory about cyano using iron in low nutrient systems. Heres the qoute.
Nitrogen Fixation
Nitrogen is an important nutrient and one of the essential building blocks of any living organism. It is used in proteins and DNA, among other substances. Because a healthy coral reef has only a very limited amount of dissolved nitrogen compounds, there must be organisms that introduce nitrogen into the reef system. Only very few are able to bind the dissolved nitrogen and make it available to the nutrient cycle (Sorokin 1995), among them cyanobacteria - or "slime algae," as some of them are referred to in the saltwater aquarium hobby. This process is called nitrogen fixation and uses a protein complex that has the nitrogenase enzyme at its center - and again, iron is the active ingredient in this enzyme (Rees et al. 2005), making iron essential for nitrogen fixation. Because cyanobacteria are able to satisfy their nitrogen needs from gaseous molecular nitrogen dissolved in water, it doesn't seem farfetched to hypothesize that cyanobacteria infestations in tanks with low nutrient levels (low Nitrate level) may be caused by surplus iron. It would be interesting to conduct a series of experiments to prove or disprove this theory.
Hmmmm no problems for me. I would theorize that the macro uses it up faster than cyno can. In any case I've had cyno issues in the past but not since my macro grow strong. The macro algae grows way faster, darker and thicker the week after I dose.
Originally Posted by slapshot
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