Acro experts: Should I lower my nutrients for better growth?

[realreef7]

I'm wondering if I should lower my nutrients? Nitrates are between 25-50 on the salifert test kit and .81ppm on the hanna phosphate checker. The tank is a stock 750xxl Deluxe (4 hydra 26's turned up all the way except for whites. Whites peak at 26% than ramp down to 5% on a 7hr period. Color on my acropora seem to be good, no complaints but growth could be better, certainly slower than my T5 and halide tanks from the past. The only corals that seem to be having issues right now are my montipora caps and forest fire digi (I noticed they bleached a couple days later after I replaced my media (carbon and phosguard). All my acros, birdsnest, stylos, LPS, nems, softies seem to be doing well and are all growing. I feed 4-5 whole manilla clams every day, dose 10ml of acropower every night, dose 10ml of fuel by aquavitro every other night, 10% water changes every 2 weeks along with a cup of fresh carbon and a cup of phosguard. I skim wet using a bubble magus hero 77 which is cleaned out 2x a week. I clean the film algae off the glass every 3 days, and if it gets worse I lay off on the aminos for a bit. I never really chased numbers but this is the first time having a tank with such elevated nutrients, I normally like to keep nutrients in my tanks around 5-10ppm on nitrates and .08-1ppm on the phosphates and I've always had good success with the sticks. The tank is a year old with the most amount of nutrients that I've dealt with.

**One option that I thought about to promote sps growth: Just leave everything as is, keeping doing what im doing but slowly raise the alk up to 11dkh, slowly raise the PH to 8.2-8.4 and turn up the whites even more say 35%-40% peak with a ramp down?

**my other option: change phosguard weekly, weekly 10% water changes, start carbon dosing (vinegar+vodka), stop dosing aminos**

Any insight would be appreciated.

Parameters:
Nitrates: 25-50 can't tell, somewhere around there
Phosphates: 0.81
MAG: 1500
Alk:9
Cal:440
Salinity: 1.025
PH: 7.8
Temp: 76 F

 

[jda]

Yes... but... There is always a but... If you cannot go really slow and have plenty of patience, then you can do more harm than good. I am talking like 3-6 months slow. Lowering N and P and having them low is no problem, but lowering then too fast usually is. You also have to keep feeding your tank so that there is still a good amount if import... you just need more export than now. Starving your fish can also lead to struggling corals.

I guess that my main point is that it really matter about how you do this. The aminos are likely doing nothing, so this could be a good start. Bringing a fuge online or adding another skimmer could help export too. I would not do too many things at once since this gets people in trouble... more phosguard and adding an organic carbon source is likely a bad idea.

There are plenty of real scientific articles that show the correlation about decreased calcification in the presence of higher N and P... some species barely care and others will stop completely and/or die... just depends what you keep.. and what you listed is not likely to care too much.

If you are happy, then just leave everything alone. You might get better results by adding some T5s.

 

[Semisonyx]

Slowly increase the intensity of your lights (or add T5 if you can’t). Raise the alk to 10. Cut the AP by half. Make sure you have adequate flow.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Yes... but... There is always a but... If you cannot go really slow and have plenty of patience, then you can do more harm than good. I am talking like 3-6 months slow. Lowering N and P and having them low is no problem, but lowering then too fast usually is. You also have to keep feeding your tank so that there is still a good amount if import... you just need more export than now. Starving your fish can also lead to struggling corals.

I guess that my main point is that it really matter about how you do this. The aminos are likely doing nothing, so this could be a good start. Bringing a fuge online or adding another skimmer could help export too. I would not do too many things at once since this gets people in trouble... more phosguard and adding an organic carbon source is likely a bad idea.

There are plenty of real scientific articles that show the correlation about decreased calcification in the presence of higher N and P... some species barely care and others will stop completely and/or die... just depends what you keep.. and what you listed is not likely to care too much.

If you are happy, then just leave everything alone. You might get better results by adding some T5s.

 

[Softhammer]

My corals are growing like crazy currently, keeping in mind that while in my experience, LEDs color is much better, the growth that we all had running Halides is just setting the bar too high. Halide growth was amazing but extremely not cost effective. With Chillers, power costs, bulb replacement..... I have been doing sizeable water changes weekly and managed to clean both skimmers and circulation pumps. Rather than getting technical, get back to basics. It’s working very well for me, always has when the motivation is there.

 

[TexasTodd]

Have you checked it with a PAR meter? I never used them on MH or T5 but consider them pretty important with LED.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

My corals are growing like crazy currently, keeping in mind that while in my experience, LEDs color is much better, the growth that we all had running Halides is just setting the bar too high. Halide growth was amazing but extremely not cost effective. With Chillers, power costs, bulb replacement..... I have been doing sizeable water changes weekly and managed to clean both skimmers and circulation pumps. Rather than getting technical, get back to basics. It’s working very well for me, always has when the motivation is there.

I don’t think we should be saying that there are any bars set to high in this hobby. If halides have showed to have the best growth then it should be a goal to get there using other methods as well. The cost effective part will never be part of my equation. I am not running a reef tank to save money so I won’t worry about the little extra money I spend on my electric bill.

Getting back to the basics on the other hand is something I think needs to be done much more these days. My tanks have always been in the best shape when I keep it simple. This idea is not pushed like it used to be.

 

[Sgolden]

Just a thought, outside parameters. Research a/b settings for the hydra’s. Personally, I settled on BRS ab schedule. Is the best one .
I run them 8hrs with 2hr up and down.
In addition, I run 2 actinic / 2 blue plus t5 for mid day for 4 hours.

 

[ReefBum]

Yes... but... There is always a but... If you cannot go really slow and have plenty of patience, then you can do more harm than good. I am talking like 3-6 months slow. Lowering N and P and having them low is no problem, but lowering then too fast usually is. You also have to keep feeding your tank so that there is still a good amount if import... you just need more export than now. Starving your fish can also lead to struggling corals.

I guess that my main point is that it really matter about how you do this. The aminos are likely doing nothing, so this could be a good start. Bringing a fuge online or adding another skimmer could help export too. I would not do too many things at once since this gets people in trouble... more phosguard and adding an organic carbon source is likely a bad idea.

There are plenty of real scientific articles that show the correlation about decreased calcification in the presence of higher N and P... some species barely care and others will stop completely and/or die... just depends what you keep.. and what you listed is not likely to care too much.

If you are happy, then just leave everything alone. You might get better results by adding some T5s.

This is good advice. Nothing good happens in reef keeping when done fast. Stability is key. I do think you should look into natural means of nutrient export, such as using a fuge with chaeto. I also think upping your water changes to weekly would help

 

[Vette67]

This is good advice. Nothing good happens in reef keeping when done fast. Stability is key. I do think you should look into natural means of nutrient export, such as using a fuge with chaeto. I also think upping your water changes to weekly would help

I couldn’t agree more. Natural is better. Get a refugium. And that means a separate tank with its own substrate and chaeto. Not just putting a blob of chaeto in your sump. That’s the way I do things; with a remote fuge. I run a 40 gallon fuge with about 10 gallons of chaeto in it, and 3” of arragonite. The increase in biodiversity from having a fuge is a huge advantage to a reef tank in general. Load it up with pods and stars and worms, and anything you can get your hands on. I haven’t tested nitrates or phosphates in years; I don’t chase numbers. I monitor N and Phos by watching how nuisance algae grows in my tank, and adjust my water change schedule accordingly. I would consider my 2 most important pieces of equipment to be the fuge and calcium reactor. This is a 4 year old acro that I bought at a frag swap as a 1.5” stick. It’s the size of a volleyball now. This grew under a 250w 14,000K halide.