Sps high nutrients myth?

[Flippers4pups]

Potassium nitrate is your best friend it can also boost your potassium levels I'm happy to hear your experiences with elevated nutrients

I think and believe that once your tank has matured enough that you have little or no nuisance algae, is when your in the clear to have elevated NO3, following the rules of PO4. This also depends on how many corals you have and how healthy they are. Then the uptake of " liquid" nutrients then can happen by the corals with little ill effects algae wise. Then the corals can out compete any nuisance algaes. This by no means allows you to dump more foods (which have PO4 naturally) in the tank that aren't consumed.

This is why Sanjay and others can get away with NO3 so high.

Defiantly a balancing act. But once achieved, amazing results happen.

 

[Robthorn]

I have been doing this almost as long as Sanjay. Shoot maybe longer. 1995 or so?
I without really trying keep no3 undectable and po4 normally right around .015 and sometimes as high as .03. I also do my best to keep all parameters near natural seawater. My corals for the most part are growing very well. My sand bed is littered with over 100 frags and I only cut what has to be cut.because corals are growing into each other. My tank is not yet fully grown in but a few corals just keep growing towards each other.
Sanjay is very intelligent and so are most of the people here but I don't see why people have the need for better color or growth. Coral colors are awesome and growth is fast enough that I have to trim them. What more can we want?
At 285ml of alk a day on my tank I don't want faster growth. If I wouldn't hurt the colors I would try to figure out how to slow growth.

 

[dave57]

I have been doing this almost as long as Sanjay. Shoot maybe longer. 1995 or so?
I without really trying keep no3 undectable and po4 normally right around .015 and sometimes as high as .03. I also do my best to keep all parameters near natural seawater. My corals for the most part are growing very well. My sand bed is littered with over 100 frags and I only cut what has to be cut.because corals are growing into each other. My tank is not yet fully grown in but a few corals just keep growing towards each other.
Sanjay is very intelligent and so are most of the people here but I don't see why people have the need for better color or growth. Coral colors are awesome and growth is fast enough that I have to trim them. What more can we want?
At 285ml of alk a day on my tank I don't want faster growth. If I wouldn't hurt the colors I would try to figure out how to slow growth.

Slow your flow, increase your par levels and lower your alkalinity will slow down your growth according to Dana Riddles

 

[Flippers4pups]

I have been doing this almost as long as Sanjay. Shoot maybe longer. 1995 or so?
I without really trying keep no3 undectable and po4 normally right around .015 and sometimes as high as .03. I also do my best to keep all parameters near natural seawater. My corals for the most part are growing very well. My sand bed is littered with over 100 frags and I only cut what has to be cut.because corals are growing into each other. My tank is not yet fully grown in but a few corals just keep growing towards each other.
Sanjay is very intelligent and so are most of the people here but I don't see why people have the need for better color or growth. Coral colors are awesome and growth is fast enough that I have to trim them. What more can we want?
At 285ml of alk a day on my tank I don't want faster growth. If I wouldn't hurt the colors I would try to figure out how to slow growth.

If your at that point, you've reached what I call "Reefing Nirvana", the holly grail that so many climb the mountain to speak to the master. So many try to reach this place, only to slide down the mountainside in failure. Lol

Bravo to you sir, I'm envious right now as my current build is 2 years young and started with frags! If your trimming and fragging, then your doing it right.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Good discussion! Following along

 

[Flippers4pups]

Slow your flow, increase your par levels and lower your alkalinity will slow down your growth according to Dana Riddles

Since you brought it up........ for those that haven't seen it.


I think this is relevant as well to this discussion.

Thanks Dave for mentioning it.

 

[Vaughn17]

I've been dosing No3 and PO4 for about six months in a 38 gal primarily sps tank. Corals are doing excellent. I keep NO3 between 2-5 ppm and PO4 between .1 and .25 ppm. Had it as high as .5 for a few days, which red planet and purple stylo loved but everything else in the tank seemed less thrilled. I do have algae, but I attribute it more to dosing an amino acid product that contains iron, which I stopped using.

Here is my theory on sps and nutrients: Space is at a premium on the reef, food is plentiful. Sps have all those polyps because they need lots of food, being primarily hermatypic (exclusively? I'm sure there are some species that aren't but don't know for certain) corals that grow rapidly. In the wild there is a lot plankton and sps are well fed. Then we stick them in our tanks, starve them, and wonder why they are prone to STN or RTN in a hearbeat over the smallest water parameter changes or whatever. I know that there are many experienced reefers with beautiful sps tanks based on ULNSs, but myself, I'm finding that well fed acros are hardy acros so I'm sticking with higher nutrients. I have two small tanks overgrown with sps. My new 180 is in the garage awaiting installation.

 

[BryanS4]

As Diesel mentioned before, this has been discussed at length plenty of times. I believe Adam at BC has had a pretty good thread going on for some time.

 

[ReeferCub]

Keep us posted, I turned off my skimmer.. hoping to increase my nutrients.

I sure will.

Keep an eye out for browning, and IMO, reconsider your light level. Mike and Sanjay "Blast" it.

I already have 6 bulb ati. And I supplement it with a Kessil. I plan to use another Kessil. Or replace the Kessil with something powerful. But yes, increasing the lights is on my mind. Thanks for reminding me though.

 

[Vaughn17]

The 38 g under Reef Brites. Getting a better camera and learning how to use it is on my to do list.

 

[ReeferCub]

The 38 g under Reef Brites. Getting a better camera and learning how to use it is on my to do list.

Thats very impressive! Now I am seriously interested to know every detail of your tank, including hardware, maintenance and dosing schedules. Do you have a build thread?

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

Just started dosing potassium nitrate in the form of Stump Remover today. Successfully raised my nitrates to 5ppm already. Scared and excited at the same time.

 

[Coastie Reefer]

Just started dosing potassium nitrate in the form of Stump Remover today. Successfully raised my nitrates to 5ppm already. Scared and excited at the same time.

Did the exact same thing and feel the exact same way!!!

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

Did the exact same thing and feel the exact same way!!!

Good luck buddy! I'm using 2 tablespoons per Liter of RO. So far today I've dosed 20 mL, I did 10mL first then waited a couple hours and tested and No3 was undetectable so I added another tablespoon to my mixture to make it the final 2 tbsp per liter (that I mentioned above) and dosed another 10mL and tested 2 hours later and was 5ppm.

 

[Coastie Reefer]

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm

Someone shared this link in another post. I mixed a solution of .5 tsp in .5 cup of RO. Then dosed 10ml. I'm reading right about 5ppm.

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm

Someone shared this link in another post. I mixed a solution of .5 tsp in .5 cup of RO. Then dosed 10ml. I'm reading right about 5ppm.

Thanks a lot! That's very useful. Good Luck to you! I will make a thread on my results soon.

 

[gus6464]

If you want to keep single color SPS and no crazy wild color morphs then you can high nitrate all day long. I have never seen a tank though with wild colored SPS running high nutrient.

 

[dave57]

If you want to keep single color SPS and no crazy wild color morphs then you can high nitrate all day long. I have never seen a tank though with wild colored SPS running high nutrient.

But you'll see a lot more empty wallets too from all the bleaching.

 

[Flippers4pups]

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm

Someone shared this link in another post. I mixed a solution of .5 tsp in .5 cup of RO. Then dosed 10ml. I'm reading right about 5ppm.

I use this calculator. The way I do it is dumping the whole bottle of stump remover (the name of that still makes me cringe! Lol) which is 1 lbs into a 1 gallon jug. Fill with RO/DI water, shake till dissolved.

Now on the calculator enter your water volume in us gallons. Next enter 453 grams in "amount to add" ,( 453 grams is equal to 1 lbs. based on mass)

In "amount of water to mix with" enter 3785 ml. (3785ml = 1 gallon)

hit calculate.

Then in the next field you'll have to play with the numbers to find the amount you want add. (I have 200 gallons in my system, so to raise it 5ppm, I need 52 ml of solution.) Works like a charm.

It's easier to make up a gallon of solution all at once and just use what you need, than mixing amounts each time.

It may take several doses to achieve your target number at first and will require additional doses till it's saturated. So be patent and go slow and test as you go.

 

[Vaughn17]

Thats very impressive! Now I am seriously interested to know every detail of your tank, including hardware, maintenance and dosing schedules. Do you have a build thread?

Thanks! No build thread. The tank has been up about three years and has four fish (two clowns, a damsel, and a mandarin goby). It has an Aqueon HOB and an MP 10, plus I have really, really good spring water so I don't need to make RO/DI water. The first two years I used a 36" Evergrow LED customized with warm white, UV, and blue diodes replacing the cool white ones. Spent the first year battling flatworms, and the second killing acros by starvation. Changed to T5s because I thought it was the lighting, lol. Acros actual grew well under the LED but seem to prefer the T5. I will be adding a Reefbreeders Photon V2 to the T5 when I upgrade to my new 180. I've been running 2 aqua blue special, 2 coral plus, and 2 blue plus. I do an approx. 8 gal water change every two or three weeks. I dose alk, ca, and mag daily with top off water by hand (alk morning and night, ca morning). I dose strontium and potassium every other day with the calcium. I dose 2 ml of NO3 (food grade sodium nitrate) twice daily and P04 as needed (usually about four drops of Seachem's Flourish Phosphorus twice daily, depending on how often I feed the corals and fish each day). Fish are feed twice a day, frozen plankton or mysis, and/or Rod's roe or reef nutrition roe. Corals are fed Reef Roids once daily and sometimes at night (this also feeds the tank's pods. My mandarin looks like a sausage btw). The glass and HOB filter need to be cleaned every other day. Oh, and I test salinity and Alk daily (with an API kit, cheap, quick, and reliable for this parameter and ca), NO3 and PO4 several times per week (with Salifert), and mag and ca about once every few weeks (Salifert and API). AND, I do algae picking once a week, ugh. 180 will have a fox face. Hope this is helpful.