For a beginner reefer yes. Please remember when advice is given it shouldn’t just be regurgitated social thoughts. When you stop to consider each generalization is dependent on a long list of variable factors within reef keeping, how can we just blanket statement and generalize advice for new reeders? More experienced reef keeps know and understand that each piece of advice comes with its own nuances and can determine if it’s advice that fits and supports our goals or not. It’s incredibly difficult for new reefers to do this. The advice we give should be tailored to each situation and each persons needs and knowledge base.
My opinion on nutrient levels are this. If there is phosphate in the tank then there has to be nitrates. This is a part of the nitrogen cycle, you can’t have one without the other unless all your bacteria died off. Phosphates are the end of the bacterial process portion of the cycle and tend to build up the most. Elevated phosphate levels also have the most risk when compared to nitrates. Phosphates are a poison to corals and directly inhibit their metabolic processes. You’ll see beautiful long term successful tanks with 30-40ppm nitrates and you’ll see others with 0ppm nitrates. What you won’t see, is beautiful long term successful with tank that have 0.2ppm phosphates and above. So I think you can say arguably there are more points that lead you to believe phosphate levels are more important than nitrate levels.
That’s not the advice I’m debating. The advice was to raise Nitrates while they are already above 0. I’m simply saying reefing is complicated enough for new reefers, let’s simplify it, keep things factual and address only the issues at hand and not create issues that don’t exist at this point.
But that’s my point, a new reefer is only going to be confused and misguided by non factual and opinion based advice. They don’t have the experience needed to take advice and pick it apart to see if it works for their situation and goals. I didn’t say a higher nitrate level would be harmful, I said it’s not something we need to put into this newer reefers head as there’s not reason to raise or lower their nitrate levels. Right now, their focus should be to successfully maintain what they perceive as a successful tank. Not to experiment with things to get slightly better growth or color when just to maintain a reef tank to their perception of a successful status is a difficult enough task.
As far as proof, there is no scientific proof nitrate levels do anything for coral growth rate and coloration. Anecdotal, yeah you could make some arguments, but factual none that I’m aware of or seen. If there is, please share, I’m always wanting to learn more about this. I will gladly eat my words at a chance to learn, I don’t know everything after all.
Factually, nitrates are part of the nitrogen cycle. If phosphate is continually rising then nitrates have to be present. Even packed full of coral, a 40 gallon tank only has so much biological uptake capacity, So I have zero fear OP will bottom out their nitrates. Also factually, nitrate and phosphate are up taken at an exact ratio (16:1 N:P) referred to as the Redfield ratio. If you look at OP's levels you can start to see that if the tank hypothetically used all the nitrates, there would still be a lot of phosphate left over. In this case, that would indicate that phosphates are not being created or exported at an equal rate to nitrogen and thus we have an excess of phosphates. Since, nitrates come before phosphates in the nitrogen cycle, if we begin to raise them, it would also mean that phosphates will raise too. This will create a larger issue long term than just leaving nitrates where they are. Reducing nitrates will also systematically reduce phosphates, but that isn't something we want either, as you pointed out, bottoming out nitrates can become a concern. Logically, if you shouldn't recommend raising or lowering nitrates, I would recommend leaving them alone and shift your focus to something else that would be more likely an issue.
