Articles tagged: nutrients
- Basics
Biological load and fish quantity
What biological load (bioload) means and why it determines how many animals an aquarium can hold. The basic concept: load is not a head count but the metabolic load the system has to process.
- Deep dive
Coral Color and Pigments — from GFP proteins to zooxanthellae density
Why corals are colourful, how fluorescent proteins and chromoproteins work, how light and nutrients drive colour, and what bleaching reveals about the pigment system.
- Practice
Cyanobacteria in the aquarium — identification and treatment
Identification, cause hierarchy — nutrients, flow, light, DOC — and treatment protocol from chemical to antibiotic.
- Deep dive
Iron and dinoflagellates
Why the absolute level of iron is a misleading starting point for managing dinoflagellates — the competition model, biological mechanism and practical steps.
- Basics
Phosphate — the first thing a new hobbyist should measure
What happens when phosphate is absent, what happens when there is too much, the target range, measurement methods and three rules to remember.
- Practice
Phosphate in practice — measurement, target values, management
Target values by tank type, N:P ratio, GFO trace element removal data, raising and lowering phosphate, and the zero-zero trap from a phosphate perspective.
- Deep dive
Ammonium and urea as nitrogen sources
The biological advantages of ammonium and urea as nitrogen sources for corals, the scientific research base and EU-market products in spring 2026.