I Run the Most thriving SPS Tank on 0 P and 0 N

[sixty_reefer]

Great thread. I started keeping corals (with mixed results) when 0’s were the goal as keeping N/P down was a challenge. Now thanks to refined filtration methods that are so effective that now some people are dosing N/P.

Unfortunately a lot of the literature has not kept up and reefers are still aiming for 0’s. This kind of thread is important.

I believe that 0 has never been a goal in reefing. And I believe that many new reefers are interpreting ULNS wrong. And aiming for zero instead of Low nutrient, like the description says “LOW” not zero. Also I believe that a few years of experience would be needed before even attempts to run a system that way.

 

[Brew12]

Said no one ever....

I’ve noticed that most of the threads lately on here are all related to none of the above be present in the tank. I could go scientific on you but that’s not the goal here. 0 nutrients and 0 phosphate is BAD and it will cause most of the issues in your tank. Let’s not forget that there’s a big difference between running a low nutrient tank and a 0 nutrient tank.

Is always hard to repeat yourself so let’s make this a informative thread on running 0 nutrient tanks, share your opinions and information.

I'm going to disagree assuming you mean 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates and not 0 nutrients as that would be impossible.

There are people who run very successful and beautiful tanks while aggressively removing NO3 and PO4. That doesn't necessarily mean they are "low nutrients". The tanks I'm familiar that do this also have aggressive coral feeding regimens. They use specialized coral foods and amino acids to provide nutrients in a controlled manner instead of having them in the water.

Not that I'm recommending trying that... you better know what you are doing if you go that route. Only stating that some people do it. I'm not one of them.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I'm going to disagree assuming you mean 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates and not 0 nutrients as that would be impossible.

There are people who run very successful and beautiful tanks while aggressively removing NO3 and PO4. That doesn't necessarily mean they are "low nutrients". The tanks I'm familiar that do this also have aggressive coral feeding regimens. They use specialized coral foods and amino acids to provide nutrients in a controlled manner instead of having them in the water.

Not that I'm recommending trying that... you better know what you are doing if you go that route. Only stating that some people do it. I'm not one of them.

It would definitely be a good read if you could point me out to one system that is doing that successfully. 0 N and 0 P is heaven for dinoflagellates never knew of a tank doing that successfully, but I have been wrong in the past to [emoji6]

 

[Snookin]

I believe that 0 has never been a goal in reefing. And I believe that many new reefers are interpreting ULNS wrong. And aiming for zero instead of Low nutrient, like the description says “LOW” not zero. Also I believe that a few years of experience would be needed before even attempts to run a system that way.

You must have not been in the reefing hobby for more than a handful of years. Because 0 phosphates and 0 nitrates was the mainstream goal years ago.

 

[Brew12]

It would definitely be a good read if you could point me out to one system that is doing that successfully. 0 N and 0 P is heaven for dinoflagellates never knew of a tank doing that successfully, but I have been wrong in the past to [emoji6]

I haven't seen it in quite awhile now but I may be able to search and find some of the old threads where people did it.

To avoid dino's and cyano you have to very aggressively strip the nutrients from the water. Just keeping them reading 0 isn't enough.
I think it largely fell out of favor because of how expensive the PO4 removal was. Vinegar/Vodka is cheap but changing out large amounts of GFO weekly is not.
Well... that and if you didn't feed your coral enough they would die in a blink.

 

[sixty_reefer]

You must have not been in the reefing hobby for more than a handful of years. Because 0 phosphates and 0 nitrates was the mainstream goal years ago.

Enough to know a thing or two definitely not at expert level, out of curiosity how many years are we talking? Gravel filters and tap water times? Isn’t a reason why those goals aint mainstream now?

 

[MTBake]

I quit testing no3 and po4 months ago. I just tested both and got 0 on my Salifert no3 test and 10ppb on my Hanna ulr phosphorus checker. Sps are doing pretty good right now. I do feed alot though and have some algae popping up in spots. So I'm sure there is some no3 but the test kit just can't pick it up. I do not dose to keep some magic number. Tried that with bad results. Won't go there again.

Dinoflagellates were not an issue 10 years ago. Never heard of them till around 2014 or so. Seems to be more prevalent in tanks started with dry/sterile rock and sand.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I quit testing no3 and po4 months ago. I just tested both and got 0 on my Salifert no3 test and 10ppb on my Hanna ulr phosphorus checker. Sps are doing pretty good right now. I do feed alot though and have some algae popping up in spots. So I'm sure there is some no3 but the test kit just can't pick it up. I do not dose to keep some magic number. Tried that with bad results. Won't go there again.

Dinoflagellates were not an issue 10 years ago. Never heard of them till around 2014 or so. Seems to be more prevalent in tanks started with dry/sterile rock and sand.

Am pretty sure that the reason could be that back in time there wasn’t so many potions ready available to resolve all our problems to. Most of them actually create more than resolve.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Said no one ever....

I’ve noticed that most of the threads lately on here are all related to none of the above be present in the tank. I could go scientific on you but that’s not the goal here. 0 nutrients and 0 phosphate is BAD and it will cause most of the issues in your tank. Let’s not forget that there’s a big difference between running a low nutrient tank and a 0 nutrient tank.

Is always hard to repeat yourself so let’s make this a informative thread on running 0 nutrient tanks, share your opinions and information.

Yes, share your opinions and information. But especially let's see those DT, and how long you been here a member. To determine age of tanks.

 

[Jase4224]

Enough to know a thing or two definitely not at expert level, out of curiosity how many years are we talking? Gravel filters and tap water times? Isn’t a reason why those goals aint mainstream now?

I’m talking 2006ish when 0’s were a challenge to achieve, and there wasn’t a wealth of experienced reefers that had achieved long term to know that’s it’s not actually ideal. Yes the goals have changed and for good reason. To say that 0’s were never a goal in incorrect.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Newer reefers may wonder how this whole '0' PO4 and NO3 for a reef tank got started in the first place. It all goes back to when it became common knowledge that pristine oceanic reef waters were very low in nutrients (sometimes described at the time as an 'oceanic reef desert'). Thought was, "Hey, if nature does it that way, then so should we". What wasn't all that well understood is that zooplankton (copepods, worms, etc.) are available for the corals to feed on in large numbers (some planktonic, but largely local benthic populations). Since we aquarists can't feed corals with anything close to the volume that they'd capture in the wild (and still maintain any semblance of good water quality), we've come to realize that corals can make up for a deficit of directly captured prey items by assimilating organic and inorganic nutrients from the water column (phosphates, nitrates, etc.). Along with proper lighting for the zooxanthellae to produce photosynthetic products (mostly glucose) for the coral to consume, this is enough for our corals to be healthy, growing and sometimes even reproducing.

A side note directly related to the ability to test for some nutrients (PO4, NO3): Keeping '0' nutrients was thought to keep pest algae from taking over a reef tank. While a true '0' nutrient system would certainly do this, it would also starve the corals. If carried on for too long, the corals lipid (fat) storage would run out and...bye-bye coral. Later studies showed that even on a pristine oceanic reef with very low nutrient levels, algae still thrive IF protected from reef grazers. So there's that, too...

 

[Katrina71]

I am having this problem now and trying to correct it. My refugium is working too well and i have no detectable NO3 PO4 on my test kits. The corals were happy around 5ppm no3, and dont look good at 0

Reduce your light schedule

 

[vetteguy53081]

We also have to factor type of aquarium....... is it FOWLR, mixed reef, Sps dominant, etc before determining parameter and nutrient requirements

 

[IslandLifeReef]

My two cents are that no two tanks are alike. Why that is, I’m not really sure. You can have two people set up and run a tank the exact same way, and eventually, they will have different NO3 and PO4 readings. My current tank only runs a skimmer for nutrient export. No socks or reactors or fuge. I feed about a cube a day of mysis for my four fish. I also use reef energy, frozen coral food, and reef roids to feed my tank. I use two of the three coral foods every day. My DT is only 37 gallons, but with all the food and only dry skimming, my NO3 stays less than 0.5 ppm, verified by ICP. My PO4 stay around 0.03 ppm, also verified. I still have to clean my glass twice a week and have a little algae that grows on my snails shells. All coral, LPS and SPS seem happy and have good color. So, I don’t chase those numbers. Would I be upset if NO3 went up to around 2 ppm, no. But my tank seems to have settled out at these levels, so if it is happy, I am too.

 

[Punchanello]

I'm a newbie myself but I've had a bit of experience with this subject already.

My skimmer and chaeto fuge exported nutrients very efficiently from day one. I always struggled with colour and growth and it got worse when I had to go through two fallow periods because of ich.

This is all anecdotal but I have found that:

- all my corals did poorly in growth and coloration in a low nutrient environment.
- high levels of feeding didn't help much without fish. It seems to be the poo and ammonia excreted by the fish that really gets the coral what it needs.
- Any bump in alk, even minor ones would send corals in to RTN when my nutrients were super low.
- High lighting and low nutrients led to bleached out corals and in some cases killed them. This was worse under LEDs than t5s
- The one thing that I think did help colour and growth when I was bottoming out was dosing amino acids.

I would recommend doing what it takes to increase nutrients if they are low. It was amazing how quickly all my corals turned around with some fish around. But if you can't, lower the light intensity, lower your alk and dose aminos.

 

[Tim Olson]

I tried for a while to get zero nitrates and phosphates, but it didn't go well. The corals weren't growing well and didn't look very happy. So when the tank/system finally matured (2+ years) I quit following the numbers for phosphates and nitrates, since my corals are way better with heavy feeding. Currently Nitrates are pegged at zero and can't get anything to register with Lamotte or Salifert test kits. On the other hand Phosphates run relatively high, generally around 0.1 (from .01 to 0.2), using a Hanna Phosphorus ULR checker. So I agree that we shouldn't shoot for zero and go for high nutrients. Every tank system is different and I guess mine is too.

 

[Jase4224]

Newer reefers may wonder how this whole '0' PO4 and NO3 for a reef tank got started in the first place. It all goes back to when it became common knowledge that pristine oceanic reef waters were very low in nutrients (sometimes described at the time as an 'oceanic reef desert'). Thought was, "Hey, if nature does it that way, then so should we". What wasn't all that well understood is that zooplankton (copepods, worms, etc.) are available for the corals to feed on in large numbers (some planktonic, but largely local benthic populations). Since we aquarists can't feed corals with anything close to the volume that they'd capture in the wild (and still maintain any semblance of good water quality), we've come to realize that corals can make up for a deficit of directly captured prey items by assimilating organic and inorganic nutrients from the water column (phosphates, nitrates, etc.). Along with proper lighting for the zooxanthellae to produce photosynthetic products (mostly glucose) for the coral to consume, this is enough for our corals to be healthy, growing and sometimes even reproducing.

A side note directly related to the ability to test for some nutrients (PO4, NO3): Keeping '0' nutrients was thought to keep pest algae from taking over a reef tank. While a true '0' nutrient system would certainly do this, it would also starve the corals. If carried on for too long, the corals lipid (fat) storage would run out and...bye-bye coral. Later studies showed that even on a pristine oceanic reef with very low nutrient levels, algae still thrive IF protected from reef grazers. So there's that, too...

Agree with everything here. I remember when Two Little Fishies first released their reef snow in order to feed corals.

 

[Darth.Daddy12]

Agree and definitely nothing wrong to do if you got the skills, this thread is mainly to show newcomers that having N and P is actually a good thing in reefing and if any of the above is at 0 then there is a need to act on it before the real issues start.

Most new reefers come from the freshwater backgrounds we’re having pure water is sometimes needed for some species of shrimps. But in reefing pure water is definitely not a good thing to have. Personally I wouldn’t advice to any new reefer to have they’re N below 5 and P below 0.03 for the first few years wile the tank is maturing and reefing skills gained. Once you gain more experience then you can adventure on the limbo of ultra low nutrient. But never the 0 nutrients route as I feel that there’s no place for it for success in this hobby

I think the biggest issue is being able to accurately test at ultra low levels. Even the phosphorus checker by Hanna is only in .003 variance so are you really .003 or 0 or .006?

The people who are succefulky running ultra low tanks are also the ones with more expensive testing equipment. Even the best hobby tests we use are dependent upon us telling if we added 2.1ml of water or 2.2ml with nothing more then a cheap syringe and human eye.

Also the more that’s in the tank the more that is input. So they could test 0-0 but are truly never 0-0 tanks.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I think the biggest issue is being able to accurately test at ultra low levels. Even the phosphorus checker by Hanna is only in .003 variance so are you really .003 or 0 or .006?

The people who are succefulky running ultra low tanks are also the ones with more expensive testing equipment. Even the best hobby tests we use are dependent upon us telling if we added 2.1ml of water or 2.2ml with nothing more then a cheap syringe and human eye.

Also the more that’s in the tank the more that is input. So they could test 0-0 but are truly never 0-0 tanks.

Good point there mate, but we could also use the human eye to see if they truly at zero. If corals dying than you could be truly sure it’s a real zero [emoji23]

 

[Elegance Coral]

Many, many, many, people have run successful SPS tanks with undetectable N and P. In a tank full of living organisms where food is added every day, it's virtually impossible to have "zero nutrients", though. So, I'm kinda confused as to what this thread is about????

Myself, and many of my friends run SPS tanks with undetectable (with normal aquarium tests) N and P.

Coral and their zooxanthellae need N and P just as every other life form we know of. That does not mean these organisms need X amount of inorganic N and P floating around in the water where they live.

The OP said they don't want to get all scientific with this conversation, and that, that's not what this is about. I don't know how we have a conversation about this without getting scientific?????? I'm just really confused......

Maybe, if I could ask a question.........
If we can provide all the N and P the coral requires through organically bound N and P in the food they receive, why would we need to maintain X amount of inorganic N and P in the water? Just a question.........

Peace
EC