Guess the Phosphate level

jackson6745 said:
Thales, what are you lighting your reef with? Photoperiod length and intensity if applicable?
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2 Reefbrite blue strips on from 11:00 till 11:30
2 250 watt XM 10K's on from 1:00 till 7:30
2 250 watt Radiums on from 3:00 till 11:00

There is also a small Reefbrite white strip over the glass center brace on the same schedule as the 10K's.
 
Thales said:
2 Reefbrite blue strips on from 11:00 till 11:30
2 250 watt XM 10K's on from 1:00 till 7:30
2 250 watt Radiums on from 3:00 till 11:00

There is also a small Reefbrite white strip over the glass center brace on the same schedule as the 10K's.
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I figured that you must have a ton of light to get good colors at your nutrient level. Do you think someone with lesser light, such as t5's or chinese led would have such success? Threads like this bring me back to the old days when we needed 400w iwasaki to blast the turd brown out of our acros in hopes of seeing a colored tip:loll: I do notice just about all your acros are in the upper third of the tank. Something to think about for those of you with crappy lights and a dirty tank :)
 
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The aquascape was built intentionally to have acros in the top half, as I wanted caves and stuff for the fish - and for corals that like less light.
I don't know if my light is a lot and think it would do just fine with 2 250's but I like the different colors. :D
No idea if the light is the 'counter' for the high phosphate. If I were a guesser, I would guess it might have something to do with it, but guess that actual feeding has more something to do with it.
 
Excellent article! Here's a thought for you skeptics: if everything we think we know about how to maintain a successful reef aquarium "may" be wrong or overstated, then what the heck are the rules for maintaining a successful reef aquarium!!

I kid of course, but in all this healthy skepticism, we need to keep in mind that many of the good husbandry practices that we employ to keep nitrates and phosphates low (proper fish stocking levels, smart feeding, frequent water changes) are necessary to a successful reef, even if it turns out we don't need to obsess quite as much as we do about a particular number.
 
Like I said before, most of the time all we have is anecdote and rules of thumb, the trick is to distinguish between the useful and the bunk. We have what we think is right, but we could be wrong. IMO, this isn't a discussion about how to set up a reef and shouldn't be taken as such, it is a meta theory discussion.

Because I am a goof about this stuff and because it is my thread, I would change one sentence from "many of the good husbandry practices that we employ to keep nitrates and phosphates low (proper fish stocking levels, smart feeding, frequent water changes) are necessary to a successful reef, even if it turns out we don't need to obsess quite as much as we do about a particular number. " To "many of the good husbandry practices that we employ to keep nitrates and phosphates low (proper fish stocking levels, smart feeding, frequent water changes) are considered by some/many to be necessary to a successful reef, even if it turns out we don't need to obsess quite as much as we do about a particular number. "

:D
 
We absolutely need to have the meta discussion, and you have given us a whole lot of food for thought -- beautiful tank, higher than normally accepted phosphates, what gives?? But it all begs the question, what are the rules to maintaining a successful reef tank? Ultimately, don't we reefers want to know the why and the how?

I'm not going to ask you to go through every piece of equipment and every maintenance practice that you use, but don't think I'm not wondering. :lol2:

Back to the meta discussion, your article suggests that high phosphate in the absence of iron may promote growth in SPS. Have you measured the iron in your tank? (Assuming, of course, there is a precise and accurate way to measure it :lmao:)
 
LOL

AWT has an iron test but I haven't done it yet because it costs extra and I am not sure it is worth the test. Not sure what we do at work, but if we do it, I'll ask to do it next week. I am pretty skeptical of all tests. :D
Pretty sure the article says that high phosphate in the absence of iron curbs algal growth, not that it promotes SPS growth.

I am pretty sure I went over equipment and maintenance in this thread already. I know its in the 10 year Evolution article on Reef Hobbyist Magazine, though it is sorta not right - I think it says I do a water change every 2 months, but that isn't really all that regular. If you can't find it let me know, cause I have to write it up anyway.

We for sure want to let other reefers know the why and how, but when that isn't really possible, which is a lot of the time, I think it is more beneficial in the long and mid term to say "we don't really know" or to qualify thoughts so they don't become dogma.
 
Great article, excellent read.

You make an excellent case for the hypothesis that the negative effects of eutrophication are due to something other than the nutrient levels themselves.

Given that things like chemical allelopathy tend to be amplified in a small closed system like an aquarium relative to the ocean, it also doesn't surprise me that so many have anecdotally observed a correlation between nutrient levels and coral health.

Definitely gives me ideas for a few potentially enlightening experiments on the subject.

One of the most simple ways to test this hypothesis would be using an NPS sceleractinian like Tubastrea. Put each in a comparable volume of water with comparable flow, and dose both with N/P to ~50ppm/1ppm (well above what many would consider "safe") for both. Keep one in the target to prevent the growth of any algae, but light the other. One would need to shield the lighted Tubastrea to at least limit the potential of light to act as a confounding variable. That would be far from conclusive, but could at least give evidence about how algae vs "just" elevated nutrients impacts calcification in some sceleractinians.

It would be somewhat more difficult to design an experiment that was well controlled for photosynethic corals, as the direct impact of the herbivores or algaecides needed to limit algae growth would be challenging to control for. I suppose one could run a low nutrient + herbivore vs low nutrient - herbivore trial first, but given varying proclivities of different individual herbivores, even that would be a mediocre control at best without a huge sample size.

The best structure for that sort of trial that I could think of would be to grow both corals via suspension from monofilament, one system with manual removal of algae and one without. Far easier to control human contamination that herbivore behavior.

Running a trial of ATS vs no ATS, or ATS w/GAC vs ATS w/o GAC also might help establish what role, if any, allelopathic chemical produced by algae might play.

Hell, a "simple" analysis of allelopathy by common "pest" algae might be enlightening on its own. I'd be shocked if there weren't a variety of allelopathic compounds produced by marine algae yet to be identified.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling.

Great article. I hadn't seen some of that newer research before, and you definitely succeeded in making a compelling case against the "common wisdom" that elevated nutrient levels in and of themselves are inherently harmful. I'm not planning on scaling back on WCs, vinegar, or stopping skimming anytime soon, goodness knows I get enough pesty crap growing with low nutrient levels, but it's good food for thought none the less!
 
Thales said:
We for sure want to let other reefers know the why and how, but when that isn't really possible, which is a lot of the time, I think it is more beneficial in the long and mid term to say "we don't really know" or to qualify thoughts so they don't become dogma.
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One of the first thing I learned studying science was that it is far better to say "X may suggest Y, more research needed." or "Unknown." than to draw hasty conclusions or make dogmatic statements without adequate evidence.

I think many things in our world would go a bit more smoothly if people were more comfortable admitting lack of knowledge or understanding. I know when I first worked at an LFS when I was younger, I was shocked to hear other employees blatantly BS customers when they didn't know the answer to a question, rather than saying "Huh, I'm really not sure. I'll go ask someone real quick and let you know."
 
We for sure want to let other reefers know the why and how, but when that isn't really possible, which is a lot of the time, I think it is more beneficial in the long and mid term to say "we don't really know" or to qualify thoughts so they don't become dogma
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Yup, there's a reason corals have been around for millions of years and that's they are highly adaptable to their environment.

One of the the simplest and short term examples is how much better aquacultured frags do versus wild frags............or, that I can take a frag from some elses tank that has completely different numbers and the coral will thrive and adapt in weeks.

I always try to tell people to focus on a range and not a specific target point. I also find it amusing how people will try to pinpoint a phosphate number to the 100th of a point, but they're fine with alk being between say 7-9.
 
MikeC120 said:
Thales can you elaborate on this.
Feeding fish? Corals? Both?
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Both. Now I have nothing to really support this idea, but one thing I may do differently from many is feed a lot. I feed a lot of Reef Nutrition products, mostly OF and RF and MF, along with some cyclops and Hikari Mysis. I flood feed, meaning I feed a lot at one time so everything gets to eat (seems to be a alternative to constant dosing). If all the animals have full bellies, perhaps it is that they can deal with other differences in water chemistry. Maybe.
 
Thanks! I'm slowly adopting this regiment after going BB about a year ago, the tank settling in and the rocks getting done purging. I'm just now realizing I need to feed more.

How manny fish do you have?
 
Thales said:
LOL

AWT has an iron test but I haven't done it yet because it costs extra and I am not sure it is worth the test. Not sure what we do at work, but if we do it, I'll ask to do it next week. I am pretty skeptical of all tests. :D
Pretty sure the article says that high phosphate in the absence of iron curbs algal growth, not that it promotes SPS growth.
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I guess I am taking a bit of a leap, but I concluded that since the SPS actually grew slightly faster at the higher phosphate level, the addition of iron may be the limiting factor since in that condition (higher phosphate and iron) there was alot more algae than SPS on the reefs. Whether the algae outcompeted the SPS for the available nutrients, shaded it to death or engaged in chemical warfare with it, we don't know, but can't we begin to surmise that its not so much the phosphate as the phosphate/iron that we need to be concerned about?
 
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