Triton Results In - Answer to Why SPS Will Not Survive?

Dkeller_nc

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Hmmm - certainly nothing in those details that really stands out as an issue. The PAR for the acropora is probably a little low, but not drastically so. My best guess here is that Jason is growing his frags out in a water that's more nutrient rich, and possibly in considerably higher light. Typically, it takes a while for acros to re-adjust to water conditions that are different - possibly as long as 2-3 months before they start growing again.

My overall advice would be to take the GFO out of the system and let your phosphates rise into the 200 - 300 ppb range. You may then have to re-introduce a bit of it to keep the phosphates in check with a heavy fish load. You might also consider posting in the SPS forum (if you haven't already) for other ideas. Bottom line - nothing about your water chemistry shouts "emergency!" to me, and the only observations I'd make about the Triton results are that you've an elevated aluminum value (extremely common in tanks with ceramic "bioblocks"), and the Triton phosphate results are extremely low - about 16 ppb. That said, I'm somewhat skeptical of the accuracy of Triton phosphorus/phosphate values because of the way that samples are collected/handled.
 

Dr. Dendrostein

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Some background- Tank is 8 months old.
Alk 7.8-8.0 -Hanna
Cal 450 - Red Sea
Mag 1400 - Red Sea
Ph 8.2 - Apex
po3 8-10 - Nyos
po4 .04-.07 - Hanna

Carbon dosing - Red Sea NoPox
BRS HC GFO - Possible Issue? Adding in the metals?
Heavy Fish Bio-load
Using 4 Brightwell blocks in sump - Possible Issue? -Leaching
Skimmer, Filter socks
ATI T5 - average par is 220
Flow is good - 2 3k gyres and 2 pulses
Dry Rock, Live sand
BRS & stage RODI - All filters and media less than 4 months old TDS read zero on way in and out. - Did a ATI test few months back and the RODI water came back perfect.

Long story short SPS will come in colorful, good PE then fade and lose all PE with 2-3 weeks. They all turn this pale red/purple and have a dried look. See pictures below.

LPS do great along with NPS. I sent out a Triton test and here are the results:


All suggestions are welcomed!

20190623_100852_resized.jpg 20190719_113905_resized.jpg 20190719_113908_resized.jpg 20190719_113925_resized.jpg

I'm not an SPS guy, but I do notice most of your frags show no growth onto plug. Usually said, buy frags with growth on plug only. MTC
 
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Hmmm - certainly nothing in those details that really stands out as an issue. The PAR for the acropora is probably a little low, but not drastically so. My best guess here is that Jason is growing his frags out in a water that's more nutrient rich, and possibly in considerably higher light. Typically, it takes a while for acros to re-adjust to water conditions that are different - possibly as long as 2-3 months before they start growing again.

My overall advice would be to take the GFO out of the system and let your phosphates rise into the 200 - 300 ppb range. You may then have to re-introduce a bit of it to keep the phosphates in check with a heavy fish load. You might also consider posting in the SPS forum (if you haven't already) for other ideas. Bottom line - nothing about your water chemistry shouts "emergency!" to me, and the only observations I'd make about the Triton results are that you've an elevated aluminum value (extremely common in tanks with ceramic "bioblocks"), and the Triton phosphate results are extremely low - about 16 ppb. That said, I'm somewhat skeptical of the accuracy of Triton phosphorus/phosphate values because of the way that samples are collected/handled.
Gfo is off line. Running a little carbon in its place. Im going to take the bio blocks out and replace with rock. Im very skeptical about not having enough nutrients as i have green hair growing in the sand on rocks and pumps.
 

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Gfo is off line. Running a little carbon in its place. Im going to take the bio blocks out and replace with rock. Im very skeptical about not having enough nutrients as i have green hair growing in the sand on rocks and pumps.


Ok, I'm going to disagree with those that are saying that your nutrients aren't high enough for SPS. Most SPS vendors recommend NO3 levels of less than 10 ppm and PO4 levels of less than .1 ppm. You fall in that range and are above 0 ppm on both. Easing yourself off GFO and NoPoX is a good idea though. It is also recommended that newer tanks run on the lower side of the nutrient levels to prevent algae from overtaking the system, the same thing that you are trying to do. Older, more established tanks, can take a higher nutrient loads, such as 20+ NO3 and .1+ PO4. Those tanks are usually 2+ years old or older.

I think you may need to increase your light a little if the PAR is 250 or less. The other thing that I don't see mentioned much is flow. SPS need a lot of flow, which can be tricky in a mixed reef. Another thing in your tank that I have seen that can cause SPS to have problems is aluminum. I would so several larger water changes over the next month to reduce the aluminum in the tank as well as removing the source of the aluminum.

Finally, iodine seems really low. You could dose that as well. I noticed an increase in growth with my SPS when I started dosing the Red Sea Colors program, which includes Iodine. Since the other elements look good with your water, I would only dose the Iodine. Silicates are also high, which could be feeding algae as well, so though I don't know if that hurts SPS, it is fuel for some algae.
 

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Seems like your putting a lot of nutrients in then having to export heavy. You have heavy fish load. Poop is the best thing for corals IMO. Maybe trying feeding everything you feed less and less. I feed once a day and if I use reef roids more than once a week my phos, go too high. Take j fox for example if you seen his vid on YouTube by reef builders. Maybe try modeling his feeding strategy. Just throwing things out there. Seems though your removing too much nutrients to keep chaeto but they have to be present for GHA to grow. So just try to find that happy medium of feeding enough so everything is happy but not so you have to remove so much. Hope all goes well!
 
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Ok, I'm going to disagree with those that are saying that your nutrients aren't high enough for SPS. Most SPS vendors recommend NO3 levels of less than 10 ppm and PO4 levels of less than .1 ppm. You fall in that range and are above 0 ppm on both. Easing yourself off GFO and NoPoX is a good idea though. It is also recommended that newer tanks run on the lower side of the nutrient levels to prevent algae from overtaking the system, the same thing that you are trying to do. Older, more established tanks, can take a higher nutrient loads, such as 20+ NO3 and .1+ PO4. Those tanks are usually 2+ years old or older.

I think you may need to increase your light a little if the PAR is 250 or less. The other thing that I don't see mentioned much is flow. SPS need a lot of flow, which can be tricky in a mixed reef. Another thing in your tank that I have seen that can cause SPS to have problems is aluminum. I would so several larger water changes over the next month to reduce the aluminum in the tank as well as removing the source of the aluminum.

Finally, iodine seems really low. You could dose that as well. I noticed an increase in growth with my SPS when I started dosing the Red Sea Colors program, which includes Iodine. Since the other elements look good with your water, I would only dose the Iodine. Silicates are also high, which could be feeding algae as well, so though I don't know if that hurts SPS, it is fuel for some algae.

The bio blocks will be out fully soon taking care of the aluminum issue and the silicon issues. I tired dosing iodine before to help the first time I did a icp test. It only fueled GHA. I agree though on your nuritrent stance, I really did not think I was outside the right scope for sps. I'll increase the lighting over the next month a bit try to get sps spots from 250-300. I spoke with Adam at Battle Corals about his par as I want to do future orders with him. I like the fact he grows under t5. His par for sps is 300-400. Thanks for the reply.
 

Dkeller_nc

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The inorganic nutrient question for SPS does generate a good bit of controversy, especially dissolved inorganic phosphate levels. The somewhat dated advice from 10 years ago was keeping PO4 and NO3 levels as close to natural reef water as possible, which pretty much means undetectable in hobbyist tests.

The issue with this is that while pristine reef water, particularly on the outer reef, really does have nearly undetectable inorganic PO4/NO3, it's incorrect to think of such a reef as "low nutrient". Instead, there's a gigantic influx of nutrients in the form of plankton. In the scientific literature, the observation that plankton was supplying the corals with a lot of their nutrition that they weren't generating photosynthetically resolved "Darwin's paradox". This article explains the basics, though I suspect that more recent research would challenge the idea of phytoplankton being the direct food source of corals - it's more probably zooplankton that's the primary food source.

At any rate, it really does appear that keeping a reef with very little in the way of dissolved nutrients without replacing that with heavy zooplankton feedings causes issues with acropora in particular. That seems to be especially true in tanks with high alkalinity and intense lighting.

The argument comes with respect to what the "optimal" dissolved nutrients are in an SPS tank. Looking through thousands of forum posts on the subject convinces me that one can either a) heavily feed corals, and use aggressive export mechanisms in the form of skimming, refugiums, chemical adsorption, carbon dosing, water changes, etc... to keep dissolved nutrients very low, or b) "feed" the corals in the form of keeping NO3/PO4 levels somewhat high, with much lower amounts of direct feeding. Both seem to work.

Examples are pretty easy to find; I'm leaving right now so won't be able to find the heavy feeding/low inorganic nutrient example, but an example of the relatively high nutrient example would be Richard Ross's main display tank - I think the last time I looked at his thread, his phosphate level hovered around 1 ppm (1000 ppb). I think his handle is "Thales".
 

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The inorganic nutrient question for SPS does generate a good bit of controversy, especially dissolved inorganic phosphate levels. The somewhat dated advice from 10 years ago was keeping PO4 and NO3 levels as close to natural reef water as possible, which pretty much means undetectable in hobbyist tests.

The issue with this is that while pristine reef water, particularly on the outer reef, really does have nearly undetectable inorganic PO4/NO3, it's incorrect to think of such a reef as "low nutrient". Instead, there's a gigantic influx of nutrients in the form of plankton. In the scientific literature, the observation that plankton was supplying the corals with a lot of their nutrition that they weren't generating photosynthetically resolved "Darwin's paradox". This article explains the basics, though I suspect that more recent research would challenge the idea of phytoplankton being the direct food source of corals - it's more probably zooplankton that's the primary food source.

At any rate, it really does appear that keeping a reef with very little in the way of dissolved nutrients without replacing that with heavy zooplankton feedings causes issues with acropora in particular. That seems to be especially true in tanks with high alkalinity and intense lighting.

The argument comes with respect to what the "optimal" dissolved nutrients are in an SPS tank. Looking through thousands of forum posts on the subject convinces me that one can either a) heavily feed corals, and use aggressive export mechanisms in the form of skimming, refugiums, chemical adsorption, carbon dosing, water changes, etc... to keep dissolved nutrients very low, or b) "feed" the corals in the form of keeping NO3/PO4 levels somewhat high, with much lower amounts of direct feeding. Both seem to work.

Examples are pretty easy to find; I'm leaving right now so won't be able to find the heavy feeding/low inorganic nutrient example, but an example of the relatively high nutrient example would be Richard Ross's main display tank - I think the last time I looked at his thread, his phosphate level hovered around 1 ppm (1000 ppb). I think his handle is "Thales".


I agree with you that there are some very successful tanks that run very high dissolved nutrient loads, however, all of these types of tanks that I have seen are also older, very mature and well established systems. I also agree with your statements that low nutrients in NSW shouldn't be compared to low nutrients in captive systems because in ocean reefs, there is a limitless supply of nutrients that is constantly being replenished.

However, there have been studies done that show that newer systems are better off trying to control nutrients at a lower level than these well established systems to give them more time for the desirable bacteria and organisms to take hold in order to outcompete undesirable substances. I believe that @Bulk Reef Supply did a video on this. I would be interested to know what the nutrient levels were in @Thales tank when he first started it. Did it start out at lower levels, and then as it matured, the levels were allowed to increase. Or, did the tank start out with higher NO3 and PO4 levels that he sees today.

Either way, I wouldn't classify the OP's tank as a high ALK and high light tank. IMO, it would be best for him to slowly get away from GFO and NoPoX, and find other ways to control algae and nutrients. Every one in the hobby would love to have a tank like Richard Ross's tank, but that takes a lot of time. Maybe in ten years the OP could have nutrient levels like that, but until the tank matures to that point, I wouldn't recommend it. :)
 

Dkeller_nc

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I agree with you that there are some very successful tanks that run very high dissolved nutrient loads, however, all of these types of tanks that I have seen are also older, very mature and well established systems. I also agree with your statements that low nutrients in NSW shouldn't be compared to low nutrients in captive systems because in ocean reefs, there is a limitless supply of nutrients that is constantly being replenished.

However, there have been studies done that show that newer systems are better off trying to control nutrients at a lower level than these well established systems to give them more time for the desirable bacteria and organisms to take hold in order to outcompete undesirable substances. I believe that @Bulk Reef Supply did a video on this. I would be interested to know what the nutrient levels were in @Thales tank when he first started it. Did it start out at lower levels, and then as it matured, the levels were allowed to increase. Or, did the tank start out with higher NO3 and PO4 levels that he sees today.

Either way, I wouldn't classify the OP's tank as a high ALK and high light tank. IMO, it would be best for him to slowly get away from GFO and NoPoX, and find other ways to control algae and nutrients. Every one in the hobby would love to have a tank like Richard Ross's tank, but that takes a lot of time. Maybe in ten years the OP could have nutrient levels like that, but until the tank matures to that point, I wouldn't recommend it. :)

I think you're probably right about the idea that it may be best to control nutrients aggressively in the beginning phases of a tank, especially a tank that starts with dry rock. Without the other algae (such as coralline) and bacteria that come with live rock, a lot of dissolved nutrients in a new tank with a lot of bare rock might wind up as an green slime swamp in short order.

However, what I was pointing out is that it may not be possible to maintain acropora in particular in that phase of a tank's life where dissolved nutrients are being aggressively controlled with export mechanisms and little feeding.

And yes, the OP's tank definitely isn't high alk and high illumination intensity - I was just noting that as an extra piece of information.
 
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Just an update to all who gave me advice. I took the gfo offline, all bio blocks are removed. Replaced with dry rock. Nopox dosing is almost half of what it was. Slowly comming off completely is the goal.

This may be due to the dry rock but I have a brown slimmy break out, not the end of the world. I had the same stuff in the beginning with this tank and it went away.

Colors are all comming back to the acros, and Monti's! Coraline is also growing a bit faster little dots all over areas that were clean the day before.

Oddly enough po3 still measures 8-10ppm and po4 is still at .04-.06.

So things are looking good! Thank you all.
 
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