Guess the Phosphate level

[Thales]

another aspect that hasnt been covered, is the management of detritus.

how do you manage that in your system thales ?

At home, I don't. I have a 180 gallon sump under the house that acts as an abyssal plane where detritus settles. I used to remove it from time to time, but what a pain, so I stopped and didn't see much of a difference in over all tank yummyness.

you run GAC and skimmer, so DOCs arent that high in your tank, right ?

I run GAC in a BRS reactor when I remember to change it or when I think something might be looking off. No idea what the DOC's are...I don't really see a correlation on DOC's and tank yummyness, so even though at work we test for them, I don't pay much attention.

how about detritus in rocks and sand and .... do they not play a role as well ?

Dunno. I have an awful lot of flow which seems to keep a lot of detritus in suspension, and do 'storm' areas of the reef from time to time and still kick up a lot of stuff. Anything that says what the role of such detritus is seems to be supposition and anecdote rather than supported by real evidence.

ppl like to follow, specially someone with your name

That is awful nice of you to say.

so pls let us know about those as well, and how you manage it. cause as of right now, ppl are seeing this thread as dont filter your SPS tank ... and you will be able to keep these animals alive and well [and colorfull] ...

I am making no recommendations for other people. I don't really like to do that, I like people to think, learn and come up with an approach that makes sense to them. If I could get over that, if I would just tell people what to do, I could make a whole bunch more money writing. Also, I could make a million if I sold homeopathic reef tinctures, but I can't bring myself to do that either!

I like a skimmer on a tank. I like carbon from time to time. I live live rock. I like water changes from time to time. I like a lot of flow. That's about it.

 

[Thales]

What I am getting out of this thread is not to obsess about getting your numbers at zero. For me, that obsession lasted a full year and all it did was get me pale SPS corals. My nitrates are now detectable and my phosphate is about .09 or .1 and my tank has never looked better. When getting advice from people 95% of them said get your nitrates and phosphates at 0. I unfortunately listened to that advice and was too stubborn to take a minority viewpoint. I finally did listen and got both numbers raised. For ME, it worked. I can't say it will work for everyone, but anytime I see a tank with low growth/low colors and they tell me "I don't understand what's going on my numbers are great" I simply let them know they may not want to "chase" numbers.

This is wonderful.

 

[Thales]

I still think this is a great thread reminding that virtually all evidence we have is anecdotal, including the OPs nice looking tank with elevated phosphates.

That said, I have to also weigh in the fact that dvanaker has one of the best tanks I have ever seen, so there is something to be said for his methodology. The correlation between N, P, and feeding a lot may have merit but no one knows for sure.

I would love to have a formula for success that if I did 'x' I would get 'y', but I can tell you from experience that this just doesn't exist. I know people like the OP who are completely unconventional with spectacular results, and others that have pristine systems and fight with getting colors. I don't want to spend all the hours tinkering with my tank and learning it's every nook and cranny, I want to listen to some music and enjoy the corals, fish, and the mini ecosystem in my living room.

I believe the intent of this post is simply to remind us all that we need to consider the fact that every successful tank is an individual success, so don't take what works for 1 as bible for the other.

A good example is that if I post on the forum here should I get fine sand or crushed coral, I'll get a ton of posts telling me crushed coral is a nitrate factory. However, when I see many very successful tanks they use crushed coral and things look great.

Take everything with a grain of salt, am I on the right path OP?

This is also wonderful.

 

[Allmost]

Jack, you have hit a good point. about nutrients and coloration.

this is the way I think about it, and it has worked well for me, and has also helped me explain some situations ... like 2 tanks running with same N and P reading,yet one tank with pale corals and another with colourful ones.

Consider this for a moment. there is a connection between corals, and the Zoox hosting inside the coral. genetics of the specific coral, flow, filteration, lighting and many other factors effect the reproduction of Zoox in corals. as Darryl pointed out, adding fertilizer to a plant, will make it grow more ...
BUT there is another connection too. between corals and the Microbiota... this is specially important with organic carbon dosing and probiotic systems in general. this connection provides corals with the raw material they can feed on. it provides energy and pigment contribution from the Zoox. While live zooplankton are the most important, corals can consume "enriched" bacteria, to not starve as you pointed out. this would give us control on "enriching the bacteria" and why we hear "Iodine helps with blues, only in low nutrient systems" [cause its only in that case where corals rely on bacteria feeding to get their energy, and as we know, we are what we eat ]

this could be used to explain the other side, the high nutrient side ... since corals have the N and P in water column ... they wont need to "eat" more, and instead use that to make their energy and ...

there are risks involved with both. in higher nutrients, I feel like there is a fine line between just high enough, and too much, and maybe Thales can correct me on this. corals as far as I know take up N and then take up enough po4 based on that. if one is limiting, then the coral will not take more of the other ... if N is limited in system, then the Zoox will not grow wild and brown out corals, doesnt matter how much po4 there are. this confirms the article posted as well with po4 increasing coral growth... to a point .... until N limitation is reached. see where I am going with this ? at no3 of 1 and po4 of 0.01, po4 was limiting. when po4 was increased, coral grew more, but when a saturation point [or when N became limiting] was met, the growth and uptake of po4 slowed down.

the risk on the other side, is the NEED for food [zooplankton or bacteria]. if that lacks, or if the balance gets skewed, we see pale corals, which we have all seen and heard of ...

 

[sirreal63]

Allmost you would think it was common sense that corals need nutrition but that doesn't mean most of us give them the right nutrition or even understand what that is. I won't disagree with your thoughts but hope to hear more in this and other threads.

I didn't intend to derail the thread but hoped people would realize that there are many ways to having a great tank and no one way is right for everyone. It is only through discussion that we learn of other ways. If we limit discussion because we think it is wrong or doesn't support the point of view we think is correct, we will never learn anything. Sometimes the things we thought were critically important turn out to not be so important after all.

This hobby has changed a lot in the past 10 years, some for the better, some for the worse. The incidence of pale sickly looking corals is much higher today than it was 10 years ago, or at least my memory supports that. 10 years ago live rock was king, mechanical filtration wasn't as widespread or as effective as it is today and for the most part, people's corals looked better, at least in my opinion.

We have a better capability of getting more accurate numbers on po4 today than we did 10 years ago. Our test kits may have shown undetectable but the resolution on them wasn't capable of showing low range numbers. We called it as zero when we should have said undetectable or I have no clue, because it was still there we just didn't have a good idea how much was really there. Hobby level test kits are not accurate enough to make solid judgements on appropriate no3 and po4 levels. Zero may not be zero.

I want to thank Thales again for the discussion. Most of the pioneers and Old Timers" (I hate that term) in this hobby won't bother with forums any more and for good reason. Thank You for your valuable time and patience and sharing your experience with us. I suspect it will have a positive impact. :beer:

 

[Thales]

Allmost you would think it was common sense that corals need nutrition but that doesn't mean most of us give them the right nutrition or even understand what that is.

That seems spot on to me. For me to be comfortable saying we know will require some repeatable experiments which cost time and money and resources, all of which are in short supply - heck, we can't even get a simple side by side study on the efficacy of biopellets! I suggested in Reef Hobbyist Magazine that local reef clubs start funding, doing and publishing some simple studies, and I think we would all benefit if that actually happened.

I want to thank Thales again for the discussion. Most of the pioneers and Old Timers" (I hate that term) in this hobby won't bother with forums any more and for good reason. Thank You for your valuable time and patience and sharing your experience with us. I suspect it will have a positive impact. :beer:

Aww, shucks you youngins! Ha! I'm not that old!
I remember going from supplier to supplier trying to get those new fangled bio balls because you couldn't keep a reef tank without them! Maybe it is a long view, or long experience that makes you look at ideas more skeptically. Hmmm.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Most of the pioneers and Old Timers" (I hate that term) in this hobby won't bother with forums any more and for good reason.

I don't know if I qualify for that description (after all, I'm nowhere near as much an "old timer" as Martin Moe), but not bothering with forums for any hobby is intellectual suicide these days, at least IMO. Yes, it is true that I mostly help beginners with hand-tool use in the woodworking forums, but that definitely doesn't mean that I don't learn anything.

Back to the subject, one of Tom's points got a bit glossed over and should've received more attention. Full disclosure - it's my opinion as well. I have seen many assertions on this and other forums that very low Nitrate and Phosphate water values are a close match for natural systems.

In one way, that is true. But it's mostly bunk. From diving experience, I can tell you that there is an unbelievably huge amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon in the water at night, although not in the form of fundamental inorganic chemicals. That's not a nutrient-poor system.

This is analogous to a tropical rainforest, at least the Amazon. The soil is very, very poor in nutrients, which would lead one to believe that plants should do poorly in such a system. Yet the jungle is incredibly lush. The reason is that there is actually a very large amount of nutrients bound up in the jungle ecosystem, but it's in discarded leaves on the forest floor and the fungi that breaks these leaves down, not in soil nutrients that can be easily tested for.

 

[Thales]

I don't know if I qualify for that description (after all, I'm nowhere near as much an "old timer" as Martin Moe), but not bothering with forums for any hobby is intellectual suicide these days, at least IMO. Yes, it is true that I mostly help beginners with hand-tool use in the woodworking forums, but that definitely doesn't mean that I don't learn anything.

I think by 'don't bother' Jack means 'don't post much', but most of the heavily experienced people I know browse forums but do a lot of communication in private communication or private forums.

Back to the subject, one of Tom's points got a bit glossed over and should've received more attention. Full disclosure - it's my opinion as well. I have seen many assertions on this and other forums that very low Nitrate and Phosphate water values are a close match for natural systems.

In one way, that is true. But it's mostly bunk. From diving experience, I can tell you that there is an unbelievably huge amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon in the water at night, although not in the form of fundamental inorganic chemicals. That's not a nutrient-poor system.

This is analogous to a tropical rainforest, at least the Amazon. The soil is very, very poor in nutrients, which would lead one to believe that plants should do poorly in such a system. Yet the jungle is incredibly lush. The reason is that there is actually a very large amount of nutrients bound up in the jungle ecosystem, but it's in discarded leaves on the forest floor and the fungi that breaks these leaves down, not in soil nutrients that can be easily tested for.

Seems right to me. Have you guys read the recent sponge news? It looks like nutrients on reefs are processed really really fast. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24398394

 

[FlyPenFly]

This is analogous to a tropical rainforest, at least the Amazon. The soil is very, very poor in nutrients, which would lead one to believe that plants should do poorly in such a system. Yet the jungle is incredibly lush. The reason is that there is actually a very large amount of nutrients bound up in the jungle ecosystem, but it's in discarded leaves on the forest floor and the fungi that breaks these leaves down, not in soil nutrients that can be easily tested for.

Best metaphor I've read about reefs.

 

[dvanacker]

Back to the subject, one of Tom's points got a bit glossed over and should've received more attention. Full disclosure - it's my opinion as well. I have seen many assertions on this and other forums that very low Nitrate and Phosphate water values are a close match for natural systems.

In one way, that is true. But it's mostly bunk. From diving experience, I can tell you that there is an unbelievably huge amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon in the water at night, although not in the form of fundamental inorganic chemicals. That's not a nutrient-poor system.

What you are talking about is organic, what this thread is about is inorganic water bound phosphate.

Yes the ocean is full of nutrients, organic material, food etc. but again low in inorganic phosphate due to its ability to filter and process these nutrients fully. I don't think trying to emulate this by adding proper food and nutrition while employing enough filtration (biological, mechanical) to do the same thing is wrong.

 

[Dapg8gt]

It's assumed by people when the argument is not made clear. Maybe this is not Thales fault but I decided to re-interate this message as it has been mixed IMO.

So the arugument is supposed to be "dont worry about phosphate too much" but as you can see people are worrying and I can already see talk of people trying to raise PO4 in other threads.

I may not have written my response correctly and not used the term "loosely" as you are assuming I'm an idiot and will demo my tank and let it get out of control because I saw a pretty tank. Assuming you know other people's thought and skill levels imo is not a good thing without actually knowing them. I am not a person who does something without researching it and monitoring what it's doing for My tank. Letting my p04 creep up a few hundredths of a point isn't going to be the end all of my tank.

keeping my tanks healthy since '99 I have noticed that following the recent fad of "0" is the worst color/growth/health I ever had. I know I need to monitor it and it will cause problems in excess but saying 1 recipe is the only way is Bs.

I'm not keen to bleached look so I'm Now running my levels of nitrate @10-15 up from the recommended <5 and p04 up from. 0 -. 03 to highest recently of. 09(and fwiw I had started on the n03 before the thread =) I have personally noticed what most state is "impossible" and "your doing it wrong" nowadays is Color and growth. Shocking to some but in line with what I had in my old tank. The elevated p04 has not had any noticeable negative effects or positive that I can tell yet. I am also not saying I'm an expert or do what I do. I'm doing what I've always done and what works for me and my tank.

People need to face the facts that there is more than one way to have a successful and colorful tank. I tried the new and I'll use parts of the old to get to where I want to be.

 

[dvanacker]

I may not have written my response correctly as you are assuming I'm an idiot and will demo my tank and let it get out of control because I saw a pretty tank. Assuming you know other people's thought and skill levels imo is not a good thing without actually knowing them. I am not a person who does something without researching it and monitoring what it's doing for My tank. Letting my p04 creep up a few hundredths of a point isn't going to be the end all of my tank.

keeping my tanks healthy since '99 I have noticed that following the recent fad of "0" is the worst color/growth/health I ever had. I know I need to monitor it and it will cause problems in excess but saying 1 recipe is the only way is Bs.

I'm not keen to bleached look so I'm Now running my levels of nitrate @10-15 up from the recommended <5 and p04 up from. 0 -. 03 to highest recently of. 09(and fwiw I had started on the n03 before the thread =) I have personally noticed what most state is "impossible" and "your doing it wrong" nowadays is Color and growth. Shocking to some but in line with what I had in my old tank. The elevated p04 has not had any noticeable negative effects or positive that I can tell yet. I am also not saying I'm an expert or do what I do. I'm doing what I've always done and what works for my tank.

The "I know what's best for your tank" attitude sometimes in the sps forums can be annoying to some like me and cause people to not participate because of drama of doing something that a few don't agree with.. There's more than one way to do most everything in life and People have to face facts that tanks somewhat fall into that category also.

Sorry to offend you somehow but thats not my intention at all. Im not assuming anything about you and definitely dont know what works best in your tank.

Having said that nitrate at 10-15ppm and PO4 at .09 is not that high. Its not even close to the 1ppm+ that Thale has reported. I myself have seen readings on my hanna at .05ppm which has a +/- .04 accuracy means it could be as high as .09ppm.

 

[dkeller_nc]

What you are talking about is organic, what this thread is about is inorganic water bound phosphate.

Yes the ocean is full of nutrients, organic material, food etc. but again low in inorganic phosphate due to its ability to filter and process these nutrients fully. I don't think trying to emulate this by adding proper food and nutrition while employing enough filtration (biological, mechanical) to do the same thing is wrong.

What I'm pointing out is that assuming that a coral reef is very poor in nutrients because the water is poor in nutrients and then trying to emulate that in our tanks is potentially not going to be a successful strategy. At least without some other supplementation of some sort. Because in trying to emulate the natural system, the tank environment is missing the main source of phosphate, nitrogen and carbon on a reef - the plankton.

Because we cannot hope to emulate the plankton composition, density and duration in a reef tank, a reef tank is necessarily missing a large source of phosphorus, nitrogen and carbon. It is not at all unreasonable to conclude that a tank where the nitrate and phosphate concentrations greatly exceed a natural reef system can to some extent substitute for the missing organic N, P & C on a natural reef.

 

[dvanacker]

What I'm pointing out is that assuming that a coral reef is very poor in nutrients because the water is poor in nutrients and then trying to emulate that in our tanks is potentially not going to be a successful strategy. At least without some other supplementation of some sort. Because in trying to emulate the natural system, the tank environment is missing the main source of phosphate, nitrogen and carbon on a reef - the plankton.

Because we cannot hope to emulate the plankton composition, density and duration in a reef tank, a reef tank is necessarily missing a large source of phosphorus, nitrogen and carbon. It is not at all unreasonable to conclude that a tank where the nitrate and phosphate concentrations greatly exceed a natural reef system can to some extent substitute for the missing organic N, P & C on a natural reef.

So you are concluding that a tank is in need (or at least will help) of dissolved NO3 and PO4 in concentrations higher than naturally found. I dont agree because there are countless examples of great tanks with levels similar to natural reefs. If that was the case this could not be. Thale has not made this argument.

 

[Dapg8gt]

Sorry to offend you somehow but thats not my intention at all. Im not assuming anything about you and definitely dont know what works best in your tank.

Having said that nitrate at 10-15ppm and PO4 at .09 is not that high. Its not even close to the 1ppm+ that Thale has reported. I myself have seen readings on my hanna at .05ppm which has a +/- .04 accuracy means it could be as high as .09ppm.

No worries But fwiw I never said anything about following the levels of 1ppm. I was trying to get across that I had bad experiences following the normal suggestions that is trying to be rammed down everyone's throat nowadays and was going to draw my own conclusion on what was best for my tank. Not the best at expressing my thought sometimes =).

I get that there are people who will miss interpret a thread but to keep it in the dark because someone might is wrong. People need to draw a conclusion on a tank by tank basis and if they don't that's no one fault but their own.

 

[Allmost]

What I'm pointing out is that assuming that a coral reef is very poor in nutrients because the water is poor in nutrients and then trying to emulate that in our tanks is potentially not going to be a successful strategy. At least without some other supplementation of some sort. Because in trying to emulate the natural system, the tank environment is missing the main source of phosphate, nitrogen and carbon on a reef - the plankton.

Probiotic systems [as I pointed out above] address that and take care of that very well.

instead of putting GFO in, to Bond to po4 and remove it from the system ... probiotic LOCKS it up in bacteria biomass .... planktonic bacteria biomass which floats around ..... till eaten by corals like how u described a perfect reef in the ocean, no ? I referred to it as a "enriched" bacteria mass in my last post.

Explains the beautiful colors and test results of some carbon dosing tanks

hence why I said there is a fine line above in my last post we see alot of pale corals in tanks trying to run low in nutrients, and the problem is they remove all nutrients from the water, which causes ISsues and pales corals out ...

 

[dvanacker]

No worries But fwiw I never said anything about following the levels of 1ppm. I was trying to get across that I had bad experiences following the normal suggestions that is trying to be rammed down everyone's throat nowadays and was going to draw my own conclusion on what was best for my tank. Not the best at expressing my thought sometimes =).

I get that there are people who will miss interpret a thread but to keep it in the dark because someone might is wrong. People need to draw a conclusion on a tank by tank basis and if they don't that's no one fault but their own.

I'm not advocating against someone trying levels into 1ppm+. We have evidence that it may be fine, I would like some more reports.

I agree that there is a sense that somehow a tank (particularly a SPS tank) needs to be 0.000000ppm PO4 and NO3 causing people to sterilize their tank and starve it of needed food, bioload, nutrients, LIFE.

 

[GroktheCube]

So you are concluding that a tank is in need (or at least will help) of dissolved NO3 and PO4 in concentrations higher than naturally found. I dont agree because there are countless examples of great tanks with levels similar to natural reefs. If that was the case this could not be. Thale has not made this argument.

I don't think that dkeller was suggesting that higher than NSW levels of dissolved inorganic N/P are REQUIRED for a healthy tank, but rather that in some systems corals may be able to use dissolved inorganic N/P for nutrition, helping to make up for the derth of POM and live food in our water relative to nature.

 

[dvanacker]

I don't think that dkeller was suggesting that higher than NSW levels of dissolved inorganic N/P are REQUIRED for a healthy tank, but rather that in some systems corals may be able to use dissolved inorganic N/P for nutrition, helping to make up for the derth of POM and live food in our water relative to nature.

I dont really understand this argument (not being sarcastic). So we are saying corals in some systems can use elevated PO4 and NO3 (elevated higher than natural reefs) as nutrition? Thus making it a good thing. Why only SOME systems? and where is the evidence of this, anecdotal, personal observation or scientific? There are none that I know or heard of, so how is this reasonable to conclude again? These are the assumptions I'm trying to get people to avoid.

My only point is we dont know. We dont know a lot. But on the other hand I think it IS reasonable to assume that elevated PO4 and NO3 are not needed for a very healthy tank based on personal observation by myself and many others. What we can't say is if elevated PO4, NO3 is a good or bad thing, or neither. Personally I would be shocked if elevating PO4 and NO3 improved the results I've seen personally and other systems.

 

[sirreal63]

Darryl, are you not also assuming that corals cannot take nutrition directly from the water?