Sps high nutrients myth?

[ReeferCub]

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.

Thank you so much!

 

[Robthorn]

What bleaching?


Haha thanks Flipper but as you can see I still have a long way to Reefer Nirvana
98% from less than 1 inch frags. I guess it is pushing 2.5 years. I started this system with no livestock or equipment from previous tanks of mine. Except a few frags from what I gave my buddy years ago.

Pic taken with led and t5 at their max settings. 45% on whites and 100 on blues. 2 aquablue special and 4 blue plus. And its from a galaxy s5 with stock camera ap and default settings. No filters.
High light, highish flow and low nutrient. Notice I don't claim ulns.

 

[najer]

Very interesting thread.
My main tank is 16 months old, I had it tested for nitrates and phosphates at 1 year old, nitrates were 50 and phosphates 0.03.
I stopped doing water changes last April and I dose a 2 part liquid once a day manually, kh in the morning and "all elements" in the evening.
No skimmers or reactors just return pumps and heaters in the sump with a good sized refugium.
I might not have the fastest growing or most colourful sps but they are all happy and growing.
Very little display algae.
Chasing numbers seems like too much hard work to me for very little reward, just my opinion, but each to their own I guess!
View from my desk.

 

[chema]

I have had my tank in its current form for more than 6 years. Nitrate level is 3-5 ppm and phosphates level is 0.1-0.25. It has been a life since I saw the last algae in the tank. As highlighted above, my experience tells me that the more mature is a tank the better it may stand high nutrient levels without nuisance algae. I keep mostly SPS (Acroporas, Stylophoras and Montiporas) and growth and color is good.

 

[Rick Mathew]

He hangs out with this guy
https://reefs.com/magazine/skeptical-reefkeeping-ix-130/

Excellent!...appreciate you sharing this. Especially important is the section on testing protocol. The data we generate from our test results are very often the drivers of our actions...if the data is wrong out actions can be wrong! So regardless if we are shooting for high or low nutrients if the data we generate is inaccurate our steps we take to correct the situation...High or low could be wrong and we end up chasing random test results...not good for the critters ...Errors generally do not compensate they accumulate ! Thanks again

 

[atoll]

Facts as we are told them to be.
1/ Nitrate grows plants inc algae.
2/ Phosphate grows plants including algae.
3/ High levels of both will cause algae to grow in our aquariums.
4/ Photosynthetic corals like SPS contain algae.
5/ High and correct wave length of lighting is important for good SPS growth
Now assuming the laws of farming continue in out aquariums algae within the tissue of SPS will take up 1 & 2 above along with CO2
So it's reasonable to deduct that if you have a lot of SPS then you are going to need enough algae fertilisers to not only sustain algae but for the algae to help feed the corals. Maybe it's a simple balance of nutrients, algae, lighting and the amount of SPS corals that allows SPS to flourish in a high nutrient aquarium,
Or am I missing something?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Facts as we are told them to be.
1/ Nitrate grows plants inc algae.
2/ Phosphate grows plants including algae.
3/ High levels of both will cause algae to grow in our aquariums.
4/ Photosynthetic corals like SPS contain algae.
5/ High and correct wave length of lighting is important for good SPS growth
Now assuming the laws of farming continue in out aquariums algae within the tissue of SPS will take up 1 & 2 above along with CO2
So it's reasonable to deduct that if you have a lot of SPS then you are going to need enough algae fertilisers to not only sustain algae but for the algae to help feed the corals. Maybe it's a simple balance of nutrients, algae, lighting and the amount of SPS corals that allows SPS to flourish in a high nutrient aquarium,
Or am I missing something?

Yes, its a balancing act. All of the required pieces come into play, par,pur, photoperiod, waterflow, water quality, water stability/ water volume, dosing depleted elements, lack of water contaminates, number of fish, what foods are fed and how often/ how much, type of fish/coral/inverts, sand bed depth and what size sand grain, nutrient export system biological/mechanical (water changes, GFO......etc.) water temperature and frequent water testing.

Am I missing something? I left water testing till the end to stress that its importance is critical. Wether you have that trained eye to just look at your coral and tell how they are doing or not, water testing is number one. Everything else follows.

There limits to all of these, the minimum and maximum in each system, never anyone alike. So "one size fits all" does not apply in this hobby, just guidelines.

 

[atoll]

Yes, its a balancing act. All of the required pieces come into play, par,pur, photoperiod, waterflow, water quality, water stability/ water volume, dosing depleted elements, lack of water contaminates, number of fish, what foods are fed and how often/ how much, type of fish/coral/inverts, sand bed depth and what size sand grain, nutrient export system biological/mechanical (water changes, GFO......etc.) water temperature and frequent water testing.

Am I missing something? I left water testing till the end to stress that its importance is critical. Wether you have that trained eye to just look at your coral and tell how they are doing or not, water testing is number one. Everything else follows.

There limits to all of these, the minimum and maximum in each system, never anyone alike. So "one size fits all" does not apply in this hobby, just guidelines.

Your listing a lot of things as fact rather than possibilities, IMO the jury is still out but you might be right of course. All are just theories so far and I am yet to read anything scientifically proven. Now as far as test kits go my eyes are more reliable as to just how my corals and fish are doing, they are my best test kit, having said that i do test just not in any regular way. There is still a lot to learn in this hobby that's for sure.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Your listing a lot of things as fact rather than possibilities, IMO the jury is still out but you might be right of course. All are just theories so far and I am yet to read anything scientifically proven. Now as far as test kits go my eyes are more reliable as to just how my corals and fish are doing, they are my best test kit, having said that i do test just not in any regular way. There is still a lot to learn in this hobby that's for sure.

Yes, the eye is the go to. It tells us if everything is okay, but when things look off, we need something to go by. That's why, I my book, testing is key and keeping a log to see trends helps.

 

[atoll]

Yes, the eye is the go to. It tells us if everything is okay, but when things look off, we need something to go by. That's why, I my book, testing is key and keeping a log to see trends helps.

Agreed however IMO (and that of many others) stability is more important than just about anything.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Agreed however IMO (and that of many others) stability is more important than just about anything.

Agreed very much so. I feel that having all that extra water volume in my sump is key to my stability. So having extra/more than the DT helps immensely in stability. Swings are smaller and not as drastic. Allows for adjustments to be made instead of "emergencies"!

 

[happyhourhero]

I feed heavy and haven't even tested nitrates or phosphates in over a year.

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

I feed heavy and haven't even tested nitrates or phosphates in over a year.

Livin the American dream my friend.

 

[najer]

Commented above about my tank, what a great thread!
I have watched the "trends" over the past few years, it has been really interesting to watch people take a breath and a step back a bit over the past couple of years!

 

[atoll]

NO3 = 5ppm. PO4 = 0.03ppm

PO4 0.03

 

[gus6464]

Agreed very much so. I feel that having all that extra water volume in my sump is key to my stability. So having extra/more than the DT helps immensely in stability. Swings are smaller and not as drastic. Allows for adjustments to be made instead of "emergencies"!

My new display is basically same volume as my sump and I am loving it as well. If something goes out of whack nothing really seems to suffer quickly. If I ever get a bigger tank I am going to plumb a 55g drum into the manifold for extra volume try to keep display/sump at parity.

 

[Vaughn17]

I have had my tank in its current form for more than 6 years. Nitrate level is 3-5 ppm and phosphates level is 0.1-0.25. It has been a life since I saw the last algae in the tank. As highlighted above, my experience tells me that the more mature is a tank the better it may stand high nutrient levels without nuisance algae. I keep mostly SPS (Acroporas, Stylophoras and Montiporas) and growth and color is good.

And you have a kole tang, lol.

 

[Vaughn17]

Stability and testing go hand in hand. Yes, I have the "eye" and can tell when my corals are happy and unhappy, but what I've found is that water parameters can be on the verge of disaster and the corals will still look fine, then you over or under dose and they're (corals) all ticked off or worse. To those who have beautiful tanks and don't test much, good for you, just don't forget that there is an unknown degree of luck involved with sporadic testing of water quality parameters, particularly if you are growing acropora.

Also, the term "chasing numbers" appears to have been concocted to justify lack of testing and/or to poke fun of those who test regularly. Water testing is about using actual data to keep inevitable fluctuations within an acceptable range for vital water quality parameters.

 

[atoll]

Stability and testing go hand in hand. Yes, I have the "eye" and can tell when my corals are happy and unhappy, but what I've found is that water parameters can be on the verge of disaster and the corals will still look fine, then you over or under dose and they're (corals) all ****** off or worse. To those who have beautiful tanks and don't test much, good for you, just don't forget that there is an unknown degree of luck involved with sporadic testing of water quality parameters, particularly if you are growing acropora.

Also, the term "chasing numbers" appears to have been concocted to justify lack of testing and/or to poke fun of those who test regularly. Water testing is about using actual data to keep inevitable fluctuations within an acceptable range for vital water quality parameters.

Harrr but you see the question is about acceptable range of (so called) vital water quality parameters really. That is more or less what this thread is about given so many have (so called) unacceptably high poor water quality parameters. yet have flourishing SPS reef tanks. Often the people chasing numbers are the ones who are experiencing some form of issue in their tank.

 

[Chris Adams]

Over last couple months I reduced my wc from 10gl a week to 10gl a month and slowly started removing sand bed
Tank couple years old
Colors have never been better
Tested for first time in a while
NO3 10+
PO4 .14

http://reef2reef.com/threads/the-so-called-wifes-tank.281054/