Low p04 readings. Are we just chasing numbers?

Subscribed. Very interested in hearing what other stick heads believe.

This is just IMO but my main goal is to have balance between Po4 & No3, I do keep my Po4 in mid range .05 + or - for the most part. I don't run GFO unless glass builds up algea to quickly and usually use that as guide more so than test kit resualts. If corals seem alittle pail this usually means I need to feed the system more. A while back I pulled all my reactors off line and just let my system do what it wanted and was thinking of just breaking every thing down, I'd been chase numbers and things just were not doing all that great! The more I let my system find its own balance the better the corals looked and now days I'm a happy reefer again

Guerry

Guerry said:

This is just IMO but my main goal is to have balance between Po4 & No3, I do keep my Po4 in mid range .05 + or - for the most part. I don't run GFO unless glass builds up algea to quickly and usually use that as guide more so than test kit resualts. If corals seem alittle pail this usually means I need to feed the system more. A while back I pulled all my reactors off line and just let my system do what it wanted and was thinking of just breaking every thing down, I'd been chase numbers and things just were not doing all that great! The more I let my system find its own balance the better the corals looked and now days I'm a happy reefer again

Guerry

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Exactly what I am talking about

We are always told not to chase numbers for other things like ph. So why do we chase p04 numbers. There is absolutely no proof that I have seen that's shows levels above .04 turn your sps brown or inhibit growth

Google "guess the phosphate level" its a decent read. I don't use gfo, but I do use aluminum oxide when I see the tiniest gha sprout. I will leave it online for about 36 hours, and within 72 the gha is normally gone.

I see this "chasing numbers" term getting regurgitated all over the reef boards since that article. Nothing about that article is enlightening to me. The results of the po4 and no3 numbers are typical of established SPS systems that I see pictured. Dark rich colors of SPS that must have very high light or else the po4 level will inhibit growth and cause browning, overly green coral, and eventually STN/RTN. Water quality like this was typical 10 years ago. Baking them with bright halides gave us colors and growth despite the high nutrients.

I choose to maintain a lower nutrient level but not starved. In a numbers game, I like my no3 between 5-10ppm and po4 around .03 (hanna low range meter). Of course there is fluctuation, but around these levels give me the best mix of color, health, and growth. I'm not a fan of super dark colors in high nutrient tanks, or zoox limited SPS in low nutrient tanks or tanks using such additives to give that effect. Staying in between is my goal.

I've been out of the hobby for a while but I'm back in the last year. The balance i try to keep gives me this look to my tank. This is a 4 month old 115g cube (contents from a previous 60 gallon). Maintaining my current nutrient level is definitely more work IMO.

IMG_8260 by rich.colombo, on Flickr

The chasing numbers term has been around for years

The one thing that doesn't make sense to me from your response is saying giving sps high nutrients but giving them high light keeps them from browning out. Don't almost all sps keepers run high light? So why would the nutrient level matter?

I guess it's a preference if you want pastel looking zeo colors or deep rich colors. But obviously we are missing something here. You keep your po4 level at .03. Why? Have you tried letting it raise to say .07? And with an error rate of +_ .04 on the tester
Your po4 could be at .07 so shouldn't your corals be brown

I think everyone's perception of po4 levels needs to be adjusted. There is not a magic number to keep it at you have to find where your tank is stable

Bright light from T5 or Chinese LED does not equal an LED Radion, 400w halide, or 250w halide. There is also the factor of photoperiod length to consider. "Intense" lighting over SPS reefs varies greatly. Think about what i just said and look at a bunch of these systems, you will make the connections all day.

One thing I wanted to add is it have been keeping reefs for 15 years
And only in the last 7 or so have po4 levels been mentioned
Yes corals 7 or 8 years ago were more brown but I think it isn't from the po4 levels but actually what corals are being imported and aquacultured. Some sps coming in in 2002 was nice and colorful but not as many as today

I have the tyree purple unknown in my tank and with low po4 levels it has the same color as pics taken back in 2004. So I don't buy the po4 lower levels have made our tanks more colorful

Here is the release of thepurple unknown in 2002. http://www.reeffarmers.com/limitedpurpleunknown.htm

IMO your perception of Po4 needs to be adjusted. You can run your po4 wherever, I'm not saying .03 is right or .14 is wrong. I am saying that if you don't balance your lighting intensity and photoperiod length with your nutrient level, you won't see the right color or growth.

Also keep in mind that certain corals look much better in higher nutrient and other in lower nutrient.

I check my p04 just to check it. I don't run gfo or anything but I can't even remember the last reading I got on it. Its been awhile anyways here are a few sps shots. I dose 2 part and thats it.

This sps when I bought it was only encrusted with 3 sprouts and within a month this is what I got.


heres a pink tip saramontosa


Just a tenius

I don't like the idea of "chasing numbers" but that's not really what most experienced reefers do. I maintain a set of parameters that work for me based on years of reading and personnel experience. The article about "chasing numbers" didn't offer much if any useful information. It also did little to backup a naive assumption. I like to say there is a big difference between surviving and thriving. Lots of people can get corals to survive not so many can truly get them to thrive and not testing is surely not going to help you if your goal is to have your corals thrive. So I can't really answer the question are we chasing numbers but I personally do not chase numbers I collect data.

Interesting experiment
Effects of phosphate on growth and skeletal density in the scleractinian coral Acropora muricata: A controlled experimental approach

This is my thought but its just that. The most important thing with SPS is stability. When p04 usually rises its due to reefer neglect or overfeeding etc. Typically systems that have settled in will have a low p04 number to begin with or if running gfo will keep it low as well.

Wouldn't it make sense that as long as your p04 is stable you'll be happy. Just with other parms higher/lower may affect the system in certain ways but stability is key. Just my thought going in.

jackson6745 said:

Bright light from T5 or Chinese LED does not equal an LED Radion, 400w halide, or 250w halide.

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oh my.. not this radion crap again..

GHill762 said:

oh my.. not this radion crap again..

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Not sure what you're talking about. I was just grouping radions up with high par lighting, other higher end LED or even some crazy DIY led as well. I favor no LED over another. I hate all evenly

I haven't test my PO4 levels in three years. Recently, the author of the skeptical reef keeping series asked me to and my Phosphate and nitrate levels tested 0 despite heavy feeding and a lot of fish. I have a huge refugium that helps but after eight years I've learned to just trust what my corals are telling me. If they are happy, leave things alone.

Years ago I read a comment that stuck with me.
"Careful neglect" is something more of us should do. Chasing numbers and tweaking chemistry is harder on corals than most of what we put them through. I've lost more colonies from running various forms of phosphate removers than I have from not testing at all. Meaning, I've never lost corals from high PO4 levels.

jackson6745 said:

Bright light from T5 or Chinese LED does not equal an LED Radion, 400w halide, or 250w halide. There is also the factor of photoperiod length to consider. "Intense" lighting over SPS reefs varies greatly. Think about what i just said and look at a bunch of these systems, you will make the connections all day.

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Its really funny that you should mention radion's superiority, because I'm experiencing it right now. I bought an acro frag that was being kept under gen 3 radion and my far less intense t5 (from what you say) has scorched the you know what out of it. I can take a frag out from under a cheap Chinese diy with bridgelux and epiled (running at 60% intensity) and have no problem at all. I get sick of hearing how this led or that one is superior, when they're practically the same thing. Some people still have the mindset of "you get what you pay for". I'm sorry, but just because something is overpriced does not make it "superior" or better than similar products that are by far cheaper.

Pete, I never mentioned radions superiority. I simply used radion as an arbitrary example of a bright LED fixture. I have no preference over LED brand because I don't like LED for SPS. I find it surprising that you cooked acros under t5, but under a G3 radion you didn't. I burned the crap out of SPS under a radion g2, when I put my ATI fixture back over the tank the colors returned.

I have tried a lot of different things in this hobby and I have a lot of experience over the last 20 years. I have no agenda. I simply post my person experience and my experince based on observation of many tanks. Take it for what it's worth. Your entire previous post was based on a wrong ASSUMPTION.

Okay back on track before this gets out of hand, I shouldn't have even brought it up

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