My tank has been running for about three years. It is acro dominated and for the most part has done ok. I have always thought my growth was a little slow, and colors were just alright. Maybe like a C+ grade.
My parameters are always quite stable, and I run my alkalinity in the low 7's. I have experimented slowly raising it to the mid 8's for a few months and really noticed hardly any difference, but because it didn't seem any better I slowly dropped it back down. My nitrate is pretty much always 4-5 and my phosphate was always .01-.02 range. I knew this was perhaps slightly low but still in acceptable range.
In my quest to deal with some dinos in the sand, since I had a spare head on my doser, about four weeks ago I started dosing phosphate. I started at dosing about .06 per day. Four weeks later I am dosing .2 per day, which is actually maintaining about .06 actually in the water.
The difference in my corals is profound. Color, polyp extension, growth, all seemingly exploded in about a week. Coralline growth has probably doubled as well. Euphyllia much puffier and also growing faster.
There is probably some bias here, and this probably differs based on each individual tank... But the difference I am seeing based on phosphate levels compared to alkalinity level, and even alkalinity stability is immense.
My parameters are always quite stable, and I run my alkalinity in the low 7's. I have experimented slowly raising it to the mid 8's for a few months and really noticed hardly any difference, but because it didn't seem any better I slowly dropped it back down. My nitrate is pretty much always 4-5 and my phosphate was always .01-.02 range. I knew this was perhaps slightly low but still in acceptable range.
In my quest to deal with some dinos in the sand, since I had a spare head on my doser, about four weeks ago I started dosing phosphate. I started at dosing about .06 per day. Four weeks later I am dosing .2 per day, which is actually maintaining about .06 actually in the water.
The difference in my corals is profound. Color, polyp extension, growth, all seemingly exploded in about a week. Coralline growth has probably doubled as well. Euphyllia much puffier and also growing faster.
There is probably some bias here, and this probably differs based on each individual tank... But the difference I am seeing based on phosphate levels compared to alkalinity level, and even alkalinity stability is immense.