Clean vs Dirty Water SPS

Rmckoy

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I don't think you guys really disagree about much. You all (probably) agree that throughput is important. I think whether you can pull off lower nutrients (e.g. NSW-level nitrate and phosphate) nowadays is tank and aquarist-specific and also depends on whether you have dry rock or live rock and is potentially even coral-specific, including whether your coral are colonies or just frags. For instance, I think it's tougher to color up some of the old school smothies in a higher nutrient system.

I think that on the whole, the older generation of reefers who have maintained the same tanks or tanks with the same live rock, continue to be able to run NSW and lower-nutrient systems without wiping out their SPS. I don't think that's coincidental.

If you are using things like GFO, carbon dosing and lanthanum to alter your nutrients nowadays, I think you're more likely to experience problems than you were in the past. I ran a slightly modified Zeo tank years ago, as well as a (non-Zeo) ULN tank, for instance. I can't get away with that today. In fact, years ago, I started a tank with Reef Crystals (which has a notoriously high Alk). However, today (literally today) if my Alk drifts above 7, my SPS' tips burn. My Alk shifted from 7 to 7.3 over the course of two days and I have burnt tips on an otherwise healthy PC Rainbow and a fledgling GC efflo frag, among others. Something changed somewhere along the way. I continue to believe dry rock versus live rock plays a role in what changed.
I do believe the difference between the old days and today has a lot to do with the more common use of leds compared to traditional mh and t5’s
 

ryshark

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This is a great discussion! Where was it 10 months ago when I was just getting started!?
From what I am understanding, you are saying that the leftover N and P we measure in our tanks is not nearly as relevant as the amount of N and P turnover. Until toxic levels are reached, that is...
I can certainly tell you that my corals were doing ok until I doubled my feeding regimen. Now, they are coloring up more and really taking off!

Starting to wonder if the biggest difference between a tank that thrives with "measured" high nutrients and a tank that thrives with "measured" low nutrients, is the amount exported via skimmer, refugium, water changes, etc.
Yeah, I think the tanks thriving with low nutrients have very high import and export of nutrients.
 

Afterburner

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I used to chase the N and P levels with daily testing and tweaking with GFO, NOPOX and LC, but finally just decide to let them normalize at around 2-4 ppm NO3, and 0.15 PO4. Everything seems fine now that I don't swing them around trying to chase zeros. I do plan to use some LC if/when my PO4 gets above 0.2, and NOPOX if my NO3 gets into the double digits, but I have not needed to for quite some time. I think coral growth is what is keeping everything in balance right now and the tank has become relatively low maintenance (or I am getting lazy).
 

Hans-Werner

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Hans - there is a lot of time-tested, true science (peer reviewed, textbooks and studied again and again) that shows that as P get higher, calcification slows down in true coral. Each coral is different level of effect, but some slow down with very low levels and some don't seem to mind with very high levels. There are hundreds of papers, articles and textbooks that even google can find.
I know, but as far as I know this is all older stuff from the 70s to 90s with badly controlled trials like sewage discharge in a bay on Hawaii. I know from several newer scientific publications exactly like hart cited it. The growth rate and even the calcification is faster but the skeletons are more brittle and porous.

Another newer result from this millenium is that not the increasing phosphate concentrations inhibit growth but in fact decreasing phosphate concentrations afterwards, following the trial in the "recovery" phase.

A lot of the research is done by the Oceanographic Institute in Monaco and members of it in cooperation with other Institutes, i. e. on the Red Sea, if I remember it correctly.

These results are in very good agreement with my aquarium trials, and every reef aquarist with some skills can try it himself. It is no rocket science.
 

Hans-Werner

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jda

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You mean old like gravity or the earth rotating around the sun? I have too much respect of your opinions to believe that you have chosen a few outliers and forsaken decades of actual science just because you like the narrative.

Actually, there are more recent studies and papers that the earth is flat and that the sun does some kind of figure 8 around the earth, or something like that. People make fun of the folks who throw away a mass of science for these few studies. Sometimes you don't just get new stuff on real science since there is no need.

I would also think that most who know do not see staghorns some sort of bellwether for all acros since it can do quite well when others will suffer. Some have you surely have seen me discuss this with Thales of which he agrees that the stuff that he keeps is a subset and that other stuff would fail in his tank. If you are going to set aside cloudiness, algae and other things, that you also should set aside any study with just one type of coral and especially one that is know you be very forgiving.

I will take decades, PhDs, retests and wide ranges of specimens, but I am still paying attention to the newer stuff too.
 

hart24601

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I will take decades, PhDs, retests and wide ranges of specimens, but I am still paying attention to the newer stuff too.

Jda asks for studies, when provided compares them to flat earth “studies” and even criticizes the acro in one of the studies but then says pays attention to newer stuff too. Perhaps apply that same level of skepticism to the older studies?

I hope you never stop being so entertaining JDA!
 

jda

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When thinking beyond a simple level, you must pay attention to new stuff so that you know when something important comes about while always also remembering the stuff of the past. This is how you know when flat earth garbage is just that versus believing everything new that you see just because it is new and/or you have no foundation. It is hard for a lot of people to get on this level, but worth doing so that the few who are capable can learn the skill if they have not already. It can just be entertainment to the rest.
 

hart24601

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When thinking beyond a simple level, you must pay attention to new stuff so that you know when something important comes about while always also remembering the stuff of the past. This is how you know when flat earth garbage is just that versus believing everything new that you see just because it is new and/or you have no foundation. It is hard for a lot of people to get on this level, but worth doing so that the few who are capable can learn the skill if they have not already. It can just be entertainment to the rest.

And this you believe is relevant to those studies listed? And what journal were the flat earth studies in that you are referencing?
 

Hans-Werner

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Early in the 2000s a German Student, Joerg Kokott, came back from Australia where he was studying marine biology and especially corals. In a lecture he told with a little frustration that in the institution there they can hardly keep corals alive. They take them out of the reef, do some experiments and when they are gone after a short time they take new ones.

That is the difference between "old" and "new", the "great divide" the introduction of "controlled conditions" into experiments on coral ecophysiology.

Maybe someone can show me scientific findings, gained "in vivo" and under controlled conditions that show that phosphate slows down calcification and growth in corals, no matter whether "old" or "new".
 

MentalNote

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Thanks for the study links Sir!

Interesting research. I’ve made it through a couple of them.

Synthesizing a couple notes primairly from reference 1, 2, and 5.

Phosphates
Increased phosphates increased growth. Concentration of .5 produced increased acorpora growth vs. lower amounts. Some studies found increased phosphates reduced coral density while others had same density.

Nitrates
Mixed results depending on coral. Increasing nitrates increased chlorophyll a by 20% in some coral. In other corals, increasing nitrates had a negative or negligible effect. Biggest risk seems to be increasing nitrates in the absense of phosphates can cause zooxanthellae to starve (big concern for agriculture runoff impacts).

Ammonium
Some corals increased growth when adding NH4, some had little impact. Interestingly, when corals where places in a highly density fish area (increased NH4, P, uric acid, etc) they grew 75% faster when compared to low density control.
 

duganderson

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I enjoyed this discussion but would love to hear your thoughts are "What are the easiest SPS with all other things being equal?"
 

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