Is this considered low nutrient levels ?

Scrubber_steve

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Youre right Steve. Thanks for the grammar lesson.
Again....more than 1 way to run a tank and youre essentially arguing youre right and im wrong...

I agree it was too much too fast after running a successful reef at 0 nitrate for 10 years.
So im cautioning from my personal experience.

You obviously dont need cautioning and are just here to assert your dominance in how my comment is wrong.

Thank you once again and have a great rest of your day...

LOL.
 

Magellan

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The right answer is...there is no right answer! Keep things consistent and don’t get stressed because someone else is doing it differently. Calm down, we’re all friends here.
 

Scrubber_steve

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"I do not think a Redfield ratio of nutrients is an appropriate way to decide on desirable levels. It truly makes zero sense to me. Both nitrate and phosphate should be independently targeted to a desirable level. If one or the other is unusually high or low, does that mean the other should be? In my opinion, certainly not."

Randy Holmes-Farley
January 20, 2020
 

Saltyreef

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"I do not think a Redfield ratio of nutrients is an appropriate way to decide on desirable levels. It truly makes zero sense to me. Both nitrate and phosphate should be independently targeted to a desirable level. If one or the other is unusually high or low, does that mean the other should be? In my opinion, certainly not."

Randy Holmes-Farley
January 20, 2020


This link cites over 50 different articles and its all summerized in the first few paragraphs.
Im not saying youre wrong in your reasoning but this theory has been proved already.
Plus I'm only speaking from my experience.

So please let me edit my first post.
"In my experience" should have been interjected into the beginning of my sentence you quoted in bold.

But isnt that why we are here on a forum?
To share our experiences and observations in reefing?

#science
 

Scrubber_steve

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This link cites over 50 different articles and its all summerized in the first few paragraphs.
Im not saying youre wrong in your reasoning but this theory has been proved already.
Plus I'm only speaking from my experience.

So please let me edit my first post.
"In my experience" should have been interjected into the beginning of my sentence you quoted in bold.

But isnt that why we are here on a forum?
To share our experiences and observations in reefing?

#science
Salty, lets look at what you cited, & what it says, keeping in mind this P-N ratio of no more than 5 to 10:1 that you recommend.

The paper refers to "skewed nitrogen (N) to phosphorus (P) ratios negatively affecting coral. But it clearly makes several points that you & another seem to over look, that are important.

1. " We exposed corals to imbalanced N-P ratios in long-term experiments and found that the undersupply of phosphate severely disturbed the symbiosis, indicated by the loss of coral biomass, malfunctioning of algal photosynthesis and bleaching of the corals."

2. "In our experiments, a phosphate concentration of ~ 0.3 μM (0.0285ppm) at a N/P ratio of >>>> 22:1 <<<<< yielded an overall healthy phenotype."

3. *** "Accordingly, it is likely that the absolute N/P ratio becomes also less critical for the proper functioning of the symbionts when phosphate concentrations exceed a vital supply threshold > 0.3 μM (0.0285ppm), even when the symbionts are rapidly proliferating."

-----------------------------------------------------
So the paper suggests that if PO4 is maintained at 0.03 ppm or above, which is typically advised in the hobby, a N to P ratio of 22:1 & higher is fine. To me, suggesting a N to P ratio of 5 to 10:1 as necessary for coral health is baseless.
No where is a 5 to 10:1 P-N ratio mentioned in that paper that i could see, let alone a recommendation for an aquarium.

I agree with Randy.
 

Saltyreef

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Salty, lets look at what you cited, & what it says, keeping in mind this P-N ratio of no more than 5 to 10:1 that you recommend.

The paper refers to "skewed nitrogen (N) to phosphorus (P) ratios negatively affecting coral. But it clearly makes several points that you & another seem to over look, that are important.

1. " We exposed corals to imbalanced N-P ratios in long-term experiments and found that the undersupply of phosphate severely disturbed the symbiosis, indicated by the loss of coral biomass, malfunctioning of algal photosynthesis and bleaching of the corals."

2. "In our experiments, a phosphate concentration of ~ 0.3 μM (0.0285ppm) at a N/P ratio of >>>> 22:1 <<<<< yielded an overall healthy phenotype."

3. *** "Accordingly, it is likely that the absolute N/P ratio becomes also less critical for the proper functioning of the symbionts when phosphate concentrations exceed a vital supply threshold > 0.3 μM (0.0285ppm), even when the symbionts are rapidly proliferating."

-----------------------------------------------------
So the paper suggests that if PO4 is maintained at 0.03 ppm or above, which is typically advised in the hobby, a N to P ratio of 22:1 & higher is fine. To me, suggesting a N to P ratio of 5 to 10:1 as necessary for coral health is baseless.
No where is a 5 to 10:1 P-N ratio mentioned in that paper that i could see, let alone a recommendation for an aquarium.

I agree with Randy.
Scuba steve,
I gave a reccomendation based on my personal experiences.
No where did i ever cite redfield.
The ratio i have detetermined and recommend is based on my personal experience of killing a lot of livestock after raising my N to 10ppm while my phosphate stayed at .04ppm.
Agreed you dont have to keep them in a certain ratio but i caution against raising N past a certain point past P.

Sorry if I offended you and your practices/ fundementals with my personal experience recommendations.
Truely am sorry for any mental stress I put you through......
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Even at 50 to 1....thats a lot better than where we are at. Im currently at 500x nitrate to phosphate....as i said before my reef ran great with no nitrate and slightly elevated .02-.04ppm phosphate so ive never needed a ratio so to speak.

I honestly havent been reading much other than a few reef2reef posts outlining the principle, so you can roll your eyes elsewhere lol.

Im just repeating my personal experience.
Any problems?
Isnt there more ways to run a reef? Is his tank the only way it has to be to be successful?
I was just cautioning against going too high with nitrate in relation to phosphate as my personal experiences with no other changes but raising nitrates to 10ppm with my po4 at .04, I lost thousands of dollars worth of zoas and sps.
Some other things do ok but you can tell there is a problem with everything.

So again....be careful.

You are claiming that that 10 ppm nitrate and 0.04 ppm phosphate killed corals? I think those values alone are not lethal to corals and there must have been some other cause.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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This link cites over 50 different articles and its all summerized in the first few paragraphs.
Im not saying youre wrong in your reasoning but this theory has been proved already.
Plus I'm only speaking from my experience.

So please let me edit my first post.
"In my experience" should have been interjected into the beginning of my sentence you quoted in bold.

But isnt that why we are here on a forum?
To share our experiences and observations in reefing?

#science

Huh?

How does what I recommend, targeting nitrate and phosphate to optimum levels independently, conflict with a paper that says sub-optimal phosphate levels can lead to problems?
 

Saltyreef

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Lol both of you really crack me up. I didnt disagree with anything either of you said.
You guys are clearly missing my point.
Maybe youre right randy...maybe its something else....maybe steve is right like i already said maybe too much too fast.....

I quoted the link because it clearly states coral can suffer from lack of phosphate.


Getting back to the original point of reccomendations to dose nitrate.....im cautioning from my experience. Dont raise it without paying close attention.
Nowhere did i cite redfield or disagree with Randy. My cautioning is not to raise nitrate 5-10x more than what your phosphate is....it can lead to issues that ive encountered.
I also have dinos as a result of nitrate dosing with recommended ranges of N @ 8-10ppm and P @ .04. So thats another word of caution.

Both of you have a great rest of your evening.
:)
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Here’s a critical quote from your linked paper:

“The concentrations of dissolved inorganic nutrients in our LN/LP treatment (~ 0.7 μM/~0.006 μM) suggest that at measured nitrate concentrations < 0.7 μM the impact of skewed N:p ratio becomes less pronounced. In our experiments, a phosphate concentration of ~ 0.3 μM at a N:p ratio of 22:1 yielded an overall healthy phenotype.”

so, the easy answer is that the optimal phosphate level is above 0.006 uM (0.0006 ppm) and that ~ 0.3 μM (0.03 ppm) is adequate regardless of The nitrate level.
 
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Randy Holmes-Farley

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Lol both of you really crack me up. I didnt disagree with anything either of you said.
You guys are clearly missing my point.
Maybe youre right randy...maybe its something else....maybe steve is right like i already said maybe too much too fast.....

I quoted the link because it clearly states coral can suffer from lack of phosphate.


Getting back to the original point of reccomendations to dose nitrate.....im cautioning from my experience. Dont raise it without paying close attention.
Nowhere did i cite redfield or disagree with Randy. My cautioning is not to raise nitrate 5-10x more than what your phosphate is....it can lead to issues that ive encountered.
I also have dinos as a result of nitrate dosing with recommended ranges of N @ 8-10ppm and P @ .04. So thats another word of caution.

Both of you have a great rest of your evening.
:)

I enjoyed the discussion and the linked paper I hadn’t seen before.
 

Mortie31

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My cautioning is not to raise nitrate 5-10x more than what your phosphate is....it can lead to issues that ive encountered.
How do u know it was raising nitrate by 5-10x your phosphate level that caused the issue?and not raising it to fast or simply something else... this is a misleading conclusion, maybe better advice would be “ be careful not to change anything to quickly in a reef aquarium including raising nitrate” but then again what’s to quickly, it’s all subjective..
 

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