Approach to lowering Nutrients.

[Empti]

Have recently started feeding corals as of this month (have tried out phyto/liquid coral food/LPS pellets/aminos but best response from pellets and aminos) and my nutrients have spiked to 21ppm nitrate & 1.0ppm phos - up from 10/0.1 last month. Tank (40gal) is mostly LPS with a few softies and the corals have been responding great to increased feeding schedule so I'm reluctant to cut back on it because they seem to get quite hungry (open mouth/reduced polyp extension) when I don't give LPS pellets atleast twice a week (been doing every other day + daily aminos), particularly my torches/elegance/duncan. Corals are all happy and I'm yet to have any problem algae issues but I have had to clean glass basically every 2/3 days which is annoying & have seen some reduced alk consumption so I'm just wondering how aggressively I need to tackle this problem as ik particularly phosphate is quite high.

Current options are
1 Conservative - Reduce feeding and see how the corals go (thinking no coral food & reduced fish food till nutrients back to <10/0.3 then LPS pellets 2x a week + aminos only on days I feed) while letting skimmer/15% fortnightly water change rip nutrients out.
2 Chemical management - (Nopox/vodka) not a huge fan as i would prefer not to increase the amount of things I have to dose.
3 Refuge or algae scrubber - sounds ideal but expensive

Any other recommendations about coral feeding would also be appreciated because it's something I'm new to.

 

[Timfish]

Well, becasue of the species specific responses to feeding and what one species likes can be dtrimental to another species I'd stop trying to feed corals. Since there's also the issue of excess carbon which I'd do larger water chagnes as well.

 

[92Miata]

Most coral foods (especially the paste/powder/liquids) are really just methods of dosing phosphate and nitrogen. At your original 10ppm NO3, .1ppm PO4, you didn't need to be dosing these things.


If you're not having major algae issues (which isn't surprising - high nutrients isn't the primary driver of algae, and there are plenty of beautiful high nutrient tanks) and you're not seeing problems with the corals, you don't need to be aggressive. Slow is better. Just stop feeding all the coral foods, go back to just feeding your fish, and don't worry about it too much until you see problems.

I don't disagree with Tim - some water changes may help - but be careful about letting the nitrates get too low - it's tough to biologically remove phosphate without nitrogen in the water, and water changes will affect your nitrate levels much more than your phosphate.

 

[ReefGeezer]

Target feed no more than two times a week, if you must... Feed something that is high protein, low phosphate, like frozen food, if you must feed... Get the skimmer working well... do bigger water changes. Monthly 15% water changes won't have much impact. Think about carefully doing a 50% change. Carbon dosing is a simple strategy that work also. Not vodka or NoPox... just plain old white vinegar.

 

[Empti]

Interesting

Most coral foods (especially the paste/powder/liquids) are really just methods of dosing phosphate and nitrogen. At your original 10ppm NO3, .1ppm PO4, you didn't need to be dosing these things.


If you're not having major algae issues (which isn't surprising - high nutrients isn't the primary driver of algae, and there are plenty of beautiful high nutrient tanks) and you're not seeing problems with the corals, you don't need to be aggressive. Slow is better. Just stop feeding all the coral foods, go back to just feeding your fish, and don't worry about it too much until you see problems.

I don't disagree with Tim - some water changes may help - but be careful about letting the nitrates get too low - it's tough to biologically remove phosphate without nitrogen in the water, and water changes will affect your nitrate levels much more than your phosphate.

Interesting, I thought some LPS corals weren't really able to absorb enough nutrients through diffusion & photosynthesis alone - elegance/meat corals particularly

 

[92Miata]

Interesting

Interesting, I thought some LPS corals weren't really able to absorb enough nutrients through diffusion & photosynthesis alone - elegance/meat corals particularly

Corals needing food doesn't mean you need to feed specialty coral foods. They'll eat pretty much anything your fish will. The LPS pellets and stuff like that aren't bad - it's really the pastes/powders/liquids/etc that are problematic.


The target market for stuff like Reef Roids should really be people who are keeping coral growout systems that don't have fish in them.

 

[Empti]

Corals needing food doesn't mean you need to feed specialty coral foods. They'll eat pretty much anything your fish will. The LPS pellets and stuff like that aren't bad - it's really the pastes/liquids/etc that are problematic.


The target market for stuff like Reef Roids should really be people who are keeping coral growout systems that don't have fish in them.

Yeah that all makes sense by liquids are you including amino's - not 100% on the conversion of those to nitrate/phos cause LFS said that they arent "food" which doesnt make a huge amount of sense to me as I was under the impression they still break down to normal waste regardless of different absorption pathway into the coral.