Before and after high phosphate pics

[Pod_01]

then why is it that a low phosphate reading is recommended and that standard across the board?

I am not sure it is a standard, much more to do with convenient information being propagated over the past 15+ years.
Also under certain conditions 0.04-0.08 range will work, but you need to ensure there is constant supply of PO4, so for example in a natural thriving reef there are lot of fish and they constantly produce coral food (fish poop).
Calcium reactors also constantly provide PO4, using live rock seems to work with low PO4.
As mentioned don’t just focus on PO4 and pour a magic bottle of PO4 in your tank and hope it works. It likely will not work.
P/PO4 is critical to corals and from my experience fish provide the best type but other things like trace elements, alk etc… also need to be available.

 

[Backreefing]

I have had miserable luck with elevated phosphate. I keep it way low like .01-.02 much better down here ( for me ) . I do think lighting plays a role with nutrients. Some peps here run with way high phosphate and there fine . Mine got to .3 and sps were suffering tank wide . I used LC to bring it down and all sps have been happy.we as reef keepers seem to never take pictures of sick and suffering aquariums . Here’s a Hawkins frag in 2-5 ppm nitrates and .01 phosphate . The guy I guy it from had LEDs with unknown nutrients. It’s a few months old now . BTW lps don’t appreciate the low nutrients I run as much as sps .

 

[College_Reefer]

I run right around 20 nitrate and 0.15 phosphate consistently and this is how my tank looks. I seem to have found the sweet spot, for my tank, between sps and lps as all of them are growing like gangbusters.

 

[Pod_01]

Here’s a Hawkins frag in 2-5 ppm nitrates and .01 phosphate .

WOW, that is a smooth skin at such low PO4. When I tried red dragon and few others I had no luck, especially dropping PO4 would kill them instantly. No more for me.
Beautiful coral and nice Montipora behind it.
That is mine, time for trimming.

So now you need to provide bit of context since PO4 is not everything. Inquiring minds want to know.
So do you carbon dose? How is the fish load (light vs. heavy)?
How do you supplement? Calcium reactor, 2/3 part?
Live rock or dead rock?

 

[javajaws]

Phosphate numbers like these posted in this thread are near meaningless by themselves. You have to look at the whole picture with everything else like nitrates, ph, alk, lighting (strength and duration), trace elements, etc. That's why it "appears" people are having success with different levels. And you can have success at different levels, but that doesn't mean what you have is optimal.

Also, just because something is not "measurable" doesn't mean your corals aren't getting enough nutrients. It is more important that enough nutrients HAVE BEEN and WILL BE available for uptake....and that of course is harder to gauge except by the success of your corals if you have unmeasurable levels. Having very low or 0 measureable nutrients and good growth/color just means you have a balanced import/export of nutrients in your system. That balance is the holy grail of tuning your system and which changes over time as corals grow, etc.

But if you have 0 import of nutrients (no fish, leeching from rocks, dosing, etc) with unmeasurable nutrient values I can almost assure you your SPS will be doing bad.

 

[Backreefing]

WOW, that is a smooth skin at such low PO4. When I tried red dragon and few others I had no luck, especially dropping PO4 would kill them instantly. No more for me.
Beautiful coral and nice Montipora behind it.
That is mine, time for trimming.

So now you need to provide bit of context since PO4 is not everything. Inquiring minds want to know.
So do you carbon dose? How is the fish load (light vs. heavy)?
How do you supplement? Calcium reactor, 2/3 part?
Live rock or dead rock?

The basics of my 90 gallon aquarium are it is sumpless . the skimmer is a HOB classic reef octopus. It has a cheap canister filter ( Sun Sun ) . It has metal halides, 2 250 watt DE bulbs in 2 cayman fixtures. No carbon doseing. I dose kalkwasser exactly 720 ml a day full strength. And I’m doseing lanthanum chloride just a few drops a day . There is about 12-15 fish mostly demsels a blenny and a wrasse. It does have hair algae at this time. This is the latest full tank picture about a month ago.

 

[Backreefing]

Phosphate numbers like these posted in this thread are near meaningless by themselves. You have to look at the whole picture with everything else like nitrates, ph, alk, lighting (strength and duration), trace elements, etc. That's why it "appears" people are having success with different levels. And you can have success at different levels, but that doesn't mean what you have is optimal.

Also, just because something is not "measurable" doesn't mean your corals aren't getting enough nutrients. It is more important that enough nutrients HAVE BEEN and WILL BE available for uptake....and that of course is harder to gauge except by the success of your corals if you have unmeasurable levels. Having very low or 0 measureable nutrients and good growth/color just means you have a balanced import/export of nutrients in your system. That balance is the holy grail of tuning your system and which changes over time as corals grow, etc.

But if you have 0 import of nutrients (no fish, leeching from rocks, dosing, etc) with unmeasurable nutrient values I can almost assure you your SPS will be doing bad.

I have noticed many or most successful acropora aquariums have clouds of fish in there .

 

[KTTX]

10-15 nitrates to .1 - .14 phosphate.

 

[Backreefing]

One thing to add about phosphate is we can’t test for but half of it . I get these mixed up but . We can only test for organic phosphate not inorganic phosphate. So if you have low phosphate and have a lot of algae or cyano then they are feeding on something you can’t test for .

 

[Backreefing]

Checked nutrients tonight.
Nitrates at 10 ppm salifert
Phosphate at 0.003 Hanna
However I have a Kenya tree that is clearly hating life. My acropora couldn’t care less . Tomorrow I’m going to back off the LC . And see what happens.

 

[Pod_01]

We can only test for organic phosphate not inorganic phosphate.

Most hobby test kits measure Ortho-phosphates, the water column can contain other forms like polyphosphates, particulate inorganic phosphate etc… that test kits do not measure.
On the other hand ICP test can measure all of the P available and you can get your total PO4 concentration.