How high is too high? --->NITRATE for Softies and LPS

[davy31]

How much Nitrate in an LPS and Softie dominant tank is considered too high? Mine are between 20 - 50 ppm and after spending months with Nitrate at 0, I am not sure if I want to lower it.

 

[Billldg]

I have had my N03 at 75+ and P04 at .20 while dealing with Dino's and my LPS survived. I would not recommend it that high, but, they will live. I would shoot for N03 around 25 ppm and P04 at .08-.10. With LPS and Softies you have room, so you can go a little above and below with no worry.

This is only from my experience.

 

[fish farmer]

My nitrates and phosphates recently got out of control (lazy reefer syndrome) with nitrates maxing out at 55pm and phosphates around 0.3ppm. Pretty much all of my softies were fine including zoas, mushrooms, xenia, toadstool leather, etc. However, most of LPS did not like it at all save for a small hammer frag and my blastos. I lost a duncan, frogspawn, plate coral, bubble coral, and a platygyra/brain coral. I also experience an explosion of bubble algae. I can't for sure it was the high nitrates or high phosphates that did the most damage, but I know the LPS were not happy with the nutrients that high. I've since gotten them back down to under 10ppm nitrates and under 0.10ppm phosphates and everything is much happier. I would say an ideal target for softies LPS would be 10-20ppm nitrates and 0.03-0.15ppm phosphates.

I had similar experience with my 29 gallon tank, I let things slide, all my LPS and zoas gone, but discoma mushrooms, nepthia, colt, brown palys unaffected by 30ppm nitrates and phosphates at 1ppm and GHA growing everywhere. When I started to get my tank back together I had a frammer frag in those high conditions and grew very well.

When I started to reduce my nitrate and phosphate levels by water changes and chaeto growth I actually saw the frammer didn't like the lower levels (which were still on the high side). None of my original softies cared.

I've added a more zoas, favias, candy cane and some easier SPS over the last couple of years and have my nitrates practically undetectable and things still grow. I know I have some nutrient levels since I always have some algae in the display and chaeto grows, but more slowly than when levels were very high.

My tank is made up of very old rock and been running in the current setup since 2010.