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Ultra Low Nutrient System or ULNS is a load of crap made up by people who don’t understand the words “Ultra” and “System”. The ULNS moniker was pulled from the ether with no understanding of how a reef ecosystem works. We are skewering the concept here and now because the name alone is totally misleading about what is really going on in a natural reef as well as an artificial reef aquarium system. Just to get the simplest part out of the way, the word System is defined as a set of interacting or interdependent entities forming an integrated whole. When an entire system is characterized by Ultra low nutrients, it is usually in reference to a desert or the open ocean, and outer space probably counts too. Both deserts and the open ocean have ultra low nutrients and they are both characterized by a very low amount of productivity and therefore nearly devoid of life. Contrary to what ULNS tries (and fails) to describe, a reef and a reef aquarium are both very high nutrient systems with lots of thriving life and a high productivity rate. So why then are misguided aquarists using the term Ultra Low Nutrient System to describe their reef tanks? Because amateur reef aquarium writers began using the term ULNS to describe the nutrient state of reef aquaria when a cursory review of the scientific literature would have yielded the word ‘oligotrophic‘; an elementary ecological term used to describe a state of tight nutrient cycling. Although it is true that a healthy reef ecosystem has low nutrients in the water column itself, there is actually a high level of nutrients being cycled and sequestered in bacterial processes, phytoplankton, and the whole food web that follows. This no-holds-barred rant has been brewing for quite a while but it was triggered by the Grumpy Old Reefer and his recent write up denouncing the Ultra Low Nutrient System moniker for it’s inaccurate description of what “Ultra” actually means. We highly recommend reading Grumpy’s comparison of aquarium and natural reef nutrient levels and let’s hope we can lay the inaccurate and misleading ULNS terminology to rest once and for all.
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This thing has 16 Comments
And let me guess he goes home at night and pours his tank a nice shot of Vodka
Oh so natural!
Hi
The system to work with natural water parameters and
Zeoliths are deveolped in germany. Nobody there is using the name ULNS
This is only a english name for a system which works on a special way
like Berling System ( Miracle Mud ) Jaubert etc etc
claude
michael,
I don’t, I use sugar (if needed)
The methods used is completely different issue, the point was that we shouldn’t think reef aquariums as a nutrient poor “systems”. Why the so called “microbial loop” in reef aquariums seem to be so severely limited by labile DOC is an interesting question…
Don’t get us wrong, we’re fine with carbon/vodka dosing and reducing nutrients but this reduction only occurs in the water column, not to “Ultra Low” levels and not in the entire “System”
What makes you say the microbial loop is carbon-limited? And what do you consider a microbe
Christine,
Add enough labile carbon source (ethanol, sucrose, glucose, acetic acid etc) to any reef aquarium with measurable inorganic nutrients and you’ll see levels drop and (much) higher bacterial biomass.
(devil’s advocate)How are you measuring bacterial biomass?
or…why not dose silica? In oceans diatoms are the nitrate-gobblers.
aww dang it u guys!!
i am going back to freshwater.lets see,where did i put my diver dan?
Christine,
You’ll know, trust me
Thanks for the reminder though, I’ve been planning to get a BOD test kit!
And BTW, I do dose silicates
If you don’t overdo it, IME it actually helps in keeping the sand bed cleaner. Diatoms are also good at fighting with cyanobacteria and excellent live food.
Claude is right about the name, the article from what I have read after a very long day is more to do with a rant on the wording used rather than the system.
Claude is the developer of Ultra Lith (an UNLS as it has been labbled) but even his system and guidence states you must have an element of nutrition, but its at a controlled level, controlled because we do not have a billion and one gallons of fresh sea water pouring over our captive reefs every second of the day.
The concept of zeo lith is to balance the sytem with the exact “natural” nutrients required, not as the ULNS name sates remove all living elements.
Lith is a balancing act not a nutrient crashing device as the name ULNS seems to suggest, so to that point I agree with the article.
This is great discussion everyone! Learning quite a bit through the extended conversation. Love it.
PS — Bella Aqua, I think Diver Dan is over by the hinged treasure chest next to the rainbow rock
What if ULNS is a way to describe a method of running your aquarium compared to other methods and not how it compares to the ocean? If a method for running an aquarium results in far less nutrients in the water column, what would you recommend calling that method? ; )
Greetings All !
“ULNS” is an acronym which arose from reefkeepers who supplement a labile carbon source into their aquaria, that allows them to describe a relative biochemical & microbiological state within their aquarium … without the annoyance, or inconvenience, of having to actually understand anything about either biochemistry, microbiology, or coral reef ecology.
Dr. Alina Szmant said it pretty well back in 2006, “One source of confusion is the various units used to express nutrient concentrations. Scientists are trained to use atomic units such as uM, mM etc. Environmental engineers and aquarists use either mg/L or ppm. But the concentration ranges of coral reef waters are in the ppb range, not ppm (i.e. 1000 times lower than the ppm levels). … So there is basically no comparison at all between the levels reef scientists work with when looking for contamination etc and those occuring in a very well kept aquarium with healthy corals and fishes.”
I’ve never understood why the quantum level difference between ppm vs. ppb is so difficult for a majority of participants in reefkeeping discussion boards to grasp. Anyone who advocates ANY product line , or DIY configuration, as being capable of replicating natural reef ecosystem dissolved nutrient concentrations has no valid conceptualization of how natural reef ecosystems are characterized and documented within the current research literature database.
Jake, I was about to send you the “final” distillation of what we had talked about with regards to our mutual concerns regarding nonsensical ULNS terminology, but apparently it’s moot now. For the record, I had hoped to avoid the tone that comes across in both your and Grumpy Old Reefer’s postings. The entanglement between how this subject has been discussed in reefkeeping cyberspaces, the purposeful marketing hype distortions from commercial entities and personalities with vested finicial motivations, and the adolescent emotional venting masquerading as rational thought that almost always emerges in discussions within this subject realm, has historically been an extreme disservice to the worldwide reefkeeping community … [sigh].
Also for the record … folks might also wish to take note of the relationship of those taking cheap shots at Korallen Zucht to the lastest entrant in the “carbon dosing” cash lottery … NP Biopellets. Oh well … maybe this is the opening for the more detailed, critical examination of labile carbon dosing that we also discussed.
[mesocosm rant ends] … [all clear siren sounds] … JMO.
Aren’t you taking the term a little too literal? When I test the element levels in my aquarium, I test the water, not the “system” as a whole. People that strive for an ULN aquarium are referring to what the test results show in the water column as Im sure you know.
It’s a terminology that is understood thus the reason it’s used. Should the term be changed to
ULNW(ater)C(olumn)?
UNLS is a little easier to say and I think it gets the point across for what it refers to…
Cheap shots at Korallen Zucht never, thats old news…. They already got kicked of ReefCentral years ago because moderators lost control of forums. It’s now a double standard they are held to within reef hobbyists. They apparently know something many people don’t because many of there claims are not substantiated with scientific literature, if not pure non-sense. I am willing to point them out in detail.
Cashing in on misunderstanding hobbyists trying to duplicate aquariums goes in cycles. Do you remember the days of freshwater dutch style planted aquariums when Dupla System came out? It was just repackaged Magnesium Sulfate, Potassium Sulfate and Potassium sulfate. The also sold devices too. Korallen Zucht is no different. Today after the dust settled hobbyist buy their supplies from hydroponic supply places.
If you follow a simple rule DON”T PUT ANYTHING IN YOUR TANK THAT DOESN”T HAVE INGREDIENTS LABELED, much of this hype, if not all of it, goes away. They have a proprietary Zeolite, a proprietary KCL kit, an unverfied potassium test kit, an unsubstantiated claim potassium is depleted in aquariums. They have a host of foods, that might just be silicates to feed sponges.
How can the hobby progress if you blindly follow expensive recipes?
Now that’s a rant done properly :>