Tropic Marin Amino Organic

[Hans-Werner]

Hi @Hans-Werner .

I would like to pick your brain about my situation with higher PO4 levels relative to 0 Nitrate levels.
As with our previous discussions, we do not care about Nitrate levels and should really be looking at PO4 levels.
Initially, I carbon dosed with Elimini NP to bring PO4 levels down to below 0.1. Many of my LPS and SPS were not happy and eventually slowly experienced tissue contraction on my LPS or tissue sloughing on SPS. I had been dosing Elimini NP for over 1 year at the time and eventually switched over to Bacto Balance. I remained using NP Bacto Balance for 8 months keeping my PO4 levels around .05 to 0.1 levels. However I still saw slow deaths of my LPS through polyp contraction. Sadly during all this time I did not see much growth on my SPS or LPS.

For the past two months now, I have completely stopped dosing any carbon source. I have only been using Tropic Marin All for Reef. Last month my PO4 levels were 0.21 and today it was measured at 0.4. My LPS are much happier with fuller polyp expansion. SPS has polyp extensions. LPS colors are richer. However the SPS colors are brownish in color.

Should I try dosing with Tropic Marin Amino Organic to increase Nitrogen source to try to bring more colors?
I think if I use plus NP it would increase the PO4 level too much since it contains both PO4 and Nitrogen?

Any suggestion is greatly appreciated!

Also, I am curious when you can share your findings on higher levels of PO4 for coral growth.

Your findings are in total agreement with mine. It always is very difficult to adapt scleractinian corals to lower phosphate concentrations, no matter how high the phosphate concentrations have been previously.

Corals adapt to higher phosphate concentrations easily and rapidly but the don't adapt well to sinking or lower phosphate concentrations. It is also in full agreement with my observations that SPS stop to grow for a long time when exposed to lower phosphate concentrations and the chance is high that they will die during adaptation.

I frequently had problems with newly bought Acropora corals. I don't know where they have been exposed to high phosphate concentrations but mainly bred Acropora import frags very often showed the same symptoms I know from transfer to lower phosphate concentrations, which are exactly the symptoms you describe.

In talks I asked whether bred corals are kept in phosphate loaden water in Bali and the referents always denied inferior water qualities. I haven't resolved this mystery yet.

I always want to transport my knowledge and experience to other aquarists and of course to the users of our products, but it is difficult for me to find the balance between new and innovative and seeming ridiculous. I am quite happy that I have convinced a part of the "community" that phosphate is necessary and 0.1 ppm is a very good concentration. However, sinking phosphate concentrations remain a problem that is even harder to explain.

With Amino-Organic it is easier to lower phosphate concentration and get corals adapted because the reduced nitrogen compounds improve adaptability of corals and help reduce phosphate concentrations at the same time. I have to say it is still not easy to get the corals adapted but they have a better chance to survive.

If you want to avoid all this just keept them at the phosphate concentration at which they do well. In my experience also SPS will gain back their colors after just some weeks.

 

[reefluvrr]

Your findings are in total agreement with mine. It always is very difficult to adapt scleractinian corals to lower phosphate concentrations, no matter how high the phosphate concentrations have been previously.

Corals adapt to higher phosphate concentrations easily and rapidly but the don't adapt well to sinking or lower phosphate concentrations. It is also in full agreement with my observations that SPS stop to grow for a long time when exposed to lower phosphate concentrations and the chance is high that they will die during adaptation.

I frequently had problems with newly bought Acropora corals. I don't know where they have been exposed to high phosphate concentrations but mainly bred Acropora import frags very often showed the same symptoms I know from transfer to lower phosphate concentrations, which are exactly the symptoms you describe.

In talks I asked whether bred corals are kept in phosphate loaden water in Bali and the referents always denied inferior water qualities. I haven't resolved this mystery yet.

I always want to transport my knowledge and experience to other aquarists and of course to the users of our products, but it is difficult for me to find the balance between new and innovative and seeming ridiculous. I am quite happy that I have convinced a part of the "community" that phosphate is necessary and 0.1 ppm is a very good concentration. However, sinking phosphate concentrations remain a problem that is even harder to explain.

With Amino-Organic it is easier to lower phosphate concentration and get corals adapted because the reduced nitrogen compounds improve adaptability of corals and help reduce phosphate concentrations at the same time. I have to say it is still not easy to get the corals adapted but they have a better chance to survive.

If you want to avoid all this just keept them at the phosphate concentration at which they do well. In my experience also SPS will gain back their colors after just some weeks.

Please tell me if you think this is an okay path for me to try:

I plan to use Tropic Marin Amino Organic at least 5ml for my 43 US gallon tank daily for the next two month without any carbon dosing. My hope is for the Nitrogen in the Amino Organic to help slowly bring down some of the PO4 levels naturally.

Am I okay to try keeping my PO4 levels between 0.4 to 0.2 since my reef tank appears to want to naturally stay at these PO4 levels?

Thank you.

 

[Superlightman]

Same struggle here corals lps and SPS do well around 0,2 phosphate, the only problem is that the SPS becomes very brown. So how keep SPS and lps happy same time? I scare also the phosphate levels become to high if I not more dose carbon? 0,2 may become 0,4 0,8...
Does amino organic really reduce phosphat?
I'm wondering how Bali SPS could be keeped in high phosphat as when they come from the import their are very palish and light in color??
So what is the best solution?

 

[Hans-Werner]

I plan to use Tropic Marin Amino Organic at least 5ml for my 43 US gallon tank daily for the next two month without any carbon dosing. My hope is for the Nitrogen in the Amino Organic to help slowly bring down some of the PO4 levels naturally.

Difficult to tell you if it is ok for you! Do you understand what I mean?

"At least 5 ml for 43 US gallon" is a high dosage. We recommend a maximum of 5 ml for 52 US gallon.

Amino-Organic will help to continue the corals growing while phosphate concentrations are lowered. But the nutrient causing the most darkening and browning is nitrogen, I am quite sure. So dosing nitrogen compounds will increase darkening and browning.

My personal approach I also prefer for our products is, to have a good phosphate and trace element supply and to try nitrogen limitation. This will make the colors of the corals quite bright and intense. The problem is to really achieve nitrogen limitation which is difficult with lots of fish and good feeding. Food high in lipids (1/3 of the protein concentration) helps a lot.

Am I okay to try keeping my PO4 levels between 0.4 to 0.2 since my reef tank appears to want to naturally stay at these PO4 levels?

I would prefer this approach. Don't chase numbers, look at the corals!

Does amino organic really reduce phosphat?

Yes, like any available nitrogen compound it has the potential to reduce phosphate. The composition ensures good coral growth and in this way it is very efficient in reducing phosphate.

Availability of nutrients = good coral growth. If I want to reduce phosphate, I must keep nitrogen and trace elements available.

I'm wondering how Bali SPS could be keeped in high phosphat as when they come from the import their are very palish and light in color??

Like written above and many times before, I am very convinced that not phosphate is making corals dark and brown, or vice versa, lack makes pale, but it is nitrogen.

I think some importers and maybe exporters also "bleach" corals with moderate trace metal intoxication to make them brighter and more attractive in color.

 

[reefluvrr]

Amino-Organic will help to continue the corals growing while phosphate concentrations are lowered. But the nutrient causing the most darkening and browning is nitrogen, I am quite sure. So dosing nitrogen compounds will increase darkening and browning.

Thank you for the reminder. I was not thinking about how too much nitrogen can turn the tank brown.
I just now tested my NO3 and found the level as measured by Hana at 9.1. Then that is likely the reason why my SPS are brown because I may have too much overall Nitrogen in my tank.

The problem is to really achieve nitrogen limitation which is difficult with lots of fish and good feeding. Food high in lipids (1/3 of the protein concentration) helps a lot.

I feed using frozen spirulina brine and mysis shrimp. Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge!

 

[Superlightman]

Thanks, very interesting, but also very confusing as they are threads here from reefer saying that dosing nitrate give them better colors when between 10-25, including Glenn from the dsr method
We will probably need more experience to now what is best

 

[Biologic]

@Hans-Werner

Two questions --

First, is there steps to preserve the Amino compounds in Amino Organic? One thing I've noticed with other Amino Acid supplements is the "congealing" of the liquids, where the liquid forms "white masses". I am of the opinion that this is bacterial contamination through atmospheric or unsterilized syringes into the liquid. Essentially aminos are food to these bacteria and breaking down the product inside the bottle, right? I know human food preservative like sulfites or sodium benzoate can use to make liquid food products self stable. I could certainly be wrong, but I wanted to know your thoughts on that.

Second, I've been monitoring my own phosphorus concentration through the Hanna HI736 measuring elemental phosphorus in PPB and monitoring Nitrogen loosely. I am struggling to find a correlation between the values of what makes colorful SPS. Some further background is that in September I was running my tank at a peak of 85F in the summer. I know this sounds crazy, but here is my rational here. I think this could partly contribute to my high saturation of color and higher zooxanthella count. I have color in some corals, as seen in the last post I just made.

So here's a case of what I am talking about. Both taken in September during my peak of my temperature experiment. Both with low concentrations of Nitrogen in relation to Phosphorus. One is very colorful one is less than satisfactory. The picture below does the coral a lot more justice. It's not the quite saturated blue. There is no orange filter, limited editing of the picture just to adjust close to what I see with my own eyes. It's actually muted blue tips, like a baby blue. Strangely enough, I've seen it with very blue tips on the axialites. Here is the coral in question. Acropora plana "Crayola".

This is one coral pictured below had problems before I ran my temperature experiment. The one above was taken at the same time. I notice an overwhelming amount of green in the tissue. This is RR Pink Cadillac which should be more pinkish brown and yellow tips.

Diagnostically, ICP-OES looks great otherwise. So strange. I know a lot to unpack here.

 

[Superlightman]

so high temperature would color them better interesting, I noticed already that sps growth more fast around 85 . but for mixed tanks it may not be optimal

 

[Biologic]

so high temperature would color them better interesting, I noticed already that sps growth more fast around 85 . but for mixed tanks it may not be optimal

Thank you for your reply! The thing is I did not find they grew much faster. I run a very stable alkalinity at 8.3 dKH and pH. No huge deviations that I can detect. Using kalkwasser dripped at night on a pH controller to achieve 8.2 +/- 0.05 pH. I did not find that them to "bleach" at all. Or the tissue to be thinner. If anything they are very "plump" sps. Great polyp extension. Even on my Acropora "tort" coral, I can see little polyps.

So I was thinking possibly Nitrogen and Phosphorus are at play here. Possibly I am lacking. That still wouldn't explain the plumpness of the corals since I am not really striving for any particular value here. I do nothing but feed the fish pellets. I have just a tang and two small damsels. Total 50 gallon system volume.

So I am wondering about adding in something like Amino Organic to boost the total Nitrogen in the tank.

 

[Superlightman]

Test and keep us updated

 

[Hans-Werner]

Thanks, very interesting, but also very confusing as they are threads here from reefer saying that dosing nitrate give them better colors when between 10-25, including Glenn from the dsr method

Nitrate in the concentrations you find in reef aquaria is not really a nutrient and I doubt that corals make much use of it as nutrient at all in most of these tanks. Nitrate is a strong oxidant. As such it interferes with trace elements like iron, manganese and likely iodine.

High concentrations of nitrate in the water will most likely keep some trace metals like iron and manganese oxidized and precipitated and prevents them from getting into the water by bacterial or chemical reduction in the bottom.

Better colors due to high nitrate concentrations is most likely an effect of trace metal limitation of zooxanthellae, an effect that may be useful for both, coral coloration as well as for coral growth. Some kind of growth limitation of zooxanthellae may be an important target. Maybe it doesn't matter too much which kind of limitation it is.

The nitrate effects observed in some tanks are not nutrient effects because the nitrate uptake of corals is already saturated at 1 ppm and high in concentrations of 0.1 ppm.

Nutrient effects of nitrate are mainly negative, and most likely corals make use of ammonium and organic nitrogen in most tanks and only little use of nitrate. I am quite sure that burnt exposed coral parts are the "nutrient effect" of nitrate when available ammonium and organic nitrogen is low, and in this way nitrate is more extensively used as nutrient.

First, is there steps to preserve the Amino compounds in Amino Organic?

Amino-Organic is already preserved. It contains organic acids as preservatives.

One thing I've noticed with other Amino Acid supplements is the "congealing" of the liquids, where the liquid forms "white masses".

But not in Amino-Organic, right?

Some further background is that in September I was running my tank at a peak of 85F in the summer. I know this sounds crazy, but here is my rational here. I think this could partly contribute to my high saturation of color and higher zooxanthella count. I have color in some corals, as seen in the last post I just made.

I also found temperatures of 30°C (86 F) in one tank (in fact it was the Turkey test tank without any fish, only different kinds of corals, where I only added particulate phosphate as Phos-Feed, absolutely nothing else, not even alkalinity, only weekly water changes of ca. 80 % with Turkey mixed Pro-Reef) in late summer and corals did very well, both in color and growth. I guess this indeed is a "high phosphate, low nitrogen effect". Nitrate is known to intensify negative effects of high temperatures. I am quite sure phosphate can moderate the negative effects, especially at low nitrate concentrations.

 

[Biologic]

Nitrate in the concentrations you find in reef aquaria is not really a nutrient and I doubt that corals make much use of it as nutrient at all in most of these tanks. Nitrate is a strong oxidant. As such it interferes with trace elements like iron, manganese and likely iodine.

High concentrations of nitrate in the water will most likely keep some trace metals like iron and manganese oxidized and precipitated and prevents them from getting into the water by bacterial or chemical reduction in the bottom.

Better colors due to high nitrate concentrations is most likely an effect of trace metal limitation of zooxanthellae, an effect that may be useful for both, coral coloration as well as for coral growth. Some kind of growth limitation of zooxanthellae may be an important target. Maybe it doesn't matter too much which kind of limitation it is.

The nitrate effects observed in some tanks are not nutrient effects because the nitrate uptake of corals is already saturated at 1 ppm and high in concentrations of 0.1 ppm.

Nutrient effects of nitrate are mainly negative, and most likely corals make use of ammonium and organic nitrogen in most tanks and only little use of nitrate. I am quite sure that burnt exposed coral parts are the "nutrient effect" of nitrate when available ammonium and organic nitrogen is low, and in this way nitrate is more extensively used as nutrient.

This makes complete sense to me. Lou has often spoken about how Nitrogen is not limited in uptake. As Nitrogen is easy for the corals to uptake. Ammonia and aminos being probably the preferred. I likely need more ammonia producers in my tank. Fish, snails, ect.

It's interesting how the topic of nutrients have shifted away from low nitrates to as high as 20 ppm as what World Wide Corals suggests, and also moderate 0.1 ppm phosphates. Not sure how they have success in their systems. They feed extremely heavy and maybe its the break down of Ammonia from that feeding?

I am probably going to start feeding "coral foods" again, since I felt that I had better growth and color at the time.

Amino-Organic is already preserved. It contains organic acids as preservatives.
But not in Amino-Organic, right?

Oh my apologies, please do not take this as a slight against your product! This is just observations I have seen from other very popular products on the market. I have a local vendor of Tropic Marin and I am going to visit him to pick up Amino Organic soon!

I also found temperatures of 30°C (86 F) in one tank (in fact it was the Turkey test tank without any fish, only different kinds of corals, where I only added particulate phosphate as Phos-Feed, absolutely nothing else, not even alkalinity, only weekly water changes of ca. 80 % with Turkey mixed Pro-Reef) in late summer and corals did very well, both in color and growth. I guess this indeed is a "high phosphate, low nitrogen effect". Nitrate is known to intensify negative effects of high temperatures. I am quite sure phosphate can moderate the negative effects, especially at low nitrate concentrations.

Same here, high temperature experiment actually fell inline naturally as low Nitrate and around 0.1 ppm of phosphate, sometimes as high as 0.15 ppm. Maybe phosphate isn't the evil nutrient that we thought.

 

[Superlightman]

Nitrate in the concentrations you find in reef aquaria is not really a nutrient and I doubt that corals make much use of it as nutrient at all in most of these tanks. Nitrate is a strong oxidant. As such it interferes with trace elements like iron, manganese and likely iodine.

High concentrations of nitrate in the water will most likely keep some trace metals like iron and manganese oxidized and precipitated and prevents them from getting into the water by bacterial or chemical reduction in the bottom.

Better colors due to high nitrate concentrations is most likely an effect of trace metal limitation of zooxanthellae, an effect that may be useful for both, coral coloration as well as for coral growth. Some kind of growth limitation of zooxanthellae may be an important target. Maybe it doesn't matter too much which kind of limitation it is.

The nitrate effects observed in some tanks are not nutrient effects because the nitrate uptake of corals is already saturated at 1 ppm and high in concentrations of 0.1 ppm.

Nutrient effects of nitrate are mainly negative, and most likely corals make use of ammonium and organic nitrogen in most tanks and only little use of nitrate. I am quite sure that burnt exposed coral parts are the "nutrient effect" of nitrate when available ammonium and organic nitrogen is low, and in this way nitrate is more extensively used as nutrient.


Amino-Organic is already preserved. It contains organic acids as preservatives.


But not in Amino-Organic, right?


I also found temperatures of 30°C (86 F) in one tank (in fact it was the Turkey test tank without any fish, only different kinds of corals, where I only added particulate phosphate as Phos-Feed, absolutely nothing else, not even alkalinity, only weekly water changes of ca. 80 % with Turkey mixed Pro-Reef) in late summer and corals did very well, both in color and growth. I guess this indeed is a "high phosphate, low nitrogen effect". Nitrate is known to intensify negative effects of high temperatures. I am quite sure phosphate can moderate the negative effects, especially at low nitrate concentrations.

very interesting, but that could explain why nitrate even be negative, could lead to positiv results from their effect on zooxanthellae . Strange than WWC give the advice to not lover the nitrate too much from their experience. Could you do more experience with nitrates in the future and update us?
Which phosphate level you had in the turkey experiment?

 

[Hans-Werner]

Which phosphate level you had in the turkey experiment?

In our Turkey experimental setup I found between 0.04 and 0.07 ppm phosphate. Since I used Phos-Feed, the supply to the corals was likely much higher due to filtration of the dosed particulate phosphate. Since the dosed phosphate particles are insoluble in water corals have direct access by filter feeding on the particles, but it will not increase the phosphate concentration in the water column quickly. Lou explains it very well here.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Oh my apologies, please do not take this as a slight against your product!

No need for apologies, you expressed it completely correct, I just wanted to make sure I have understood it right.

 

[bandando]

Very interesting discussion.
My tank is one year old, it is 200 liters, DSB, live rock, mainly LPS.
With Tropic test I detect NO3 0,5 mg/l and PO4 0,01 mg/l, values too low!
Calcium and alkalinity are no longer going down.
I am thinking to use Plus NP until the PO4s rise to 0,03 ÷ 0,05 and then to start with Amino-Organic.
Could this be a good solution?

Thank you

PS I'm sorry for my English, I'm Italian.

 

[reefluvrr]

Very interesting discussion.
My tank is one year old, it is 200 liters, DSB, live rock, mainly LPS.
With Tropic test I detect NO3 0,5 mg/l and PO4 0,01 mg/l, values too low!
Calcium and alkalinity are no longer going down.
I am thinking to use Plus NP until the PO4s rise to 0,03 ÷ 0,05 and then to start with Amino-Organic.
Could this be a good solution?

Thank you

PS I'm sorry for my English, I'm Italian.

Are you carbon dosing right now?
If you are not and are going to use plus NP to try and raise Phosphate, maybe you should ask @Hans-Werner if Phos Feed is another option to try.

 

[bandando]

Are you carbon dosing right now?
If you are not and are going to use plus NP to try and raise Phosphate, maybe you should ask @Hans-Werner if Phos Feed is another option to try.

No, I am not dosing carbon, nothing.

 

[bandando]

What could be the problem to use Amino-Organic with PO4 less than 0,03 mg/l ?

 

[reefluvrr]

No, I am not dosing carbon, nothing.

Hans linked a youtube video discussing the use of Phos-feed from Lou Ekus.

Lou explains it very well here.

Maybe this can help with your corals phosphate demand prior to using Amino-Organic.

I believe you should try one new addition at a time to see what works. So either try Phos-feed 1st for at least a month before adding on/or trying Amino-Organic.