Clean vs Dirty Water SPS
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The all will thrive in "clean" water - all of them will do better. Only a subset will be happy in "dirty" water... this is all subjective since each definition of dirty is different. The most hardy are MBP&S and stags. There are all kinds of gradients and levels in between.
I hate the terms clean and dirty water, so please forgive me.
I hate the terms clean and dirty water, so please forgive me.
There are way more, at least 10 to 1, sps stress/death threads with “ideal” residual no3/po4 than there are with elevated to even high residual no3/po4..
Crustaceon
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Exactly. If you look at my tank, you’ll see healthy sps including acros. My water is far from “clean” and runs 10ppm nitrates, .08ppm phosphates and no skimmer. I can look at the surface of my sump and see an oil sheen on the water. The notion that “sps need pristine water” is a complete and utter falsehood. They LOVE nutrients and even ULNS tanks prove this because they typically target feed their acros....nutrients.
I’ve never struggled with any sps in my system. Alk 10.5-11, Ca 440-460, Mg 1400-1500, nitrate 25-50ppm, phosphate 0.4. Tenuis do the best for me. I did struggle within the first 6 months of my tank being set up. I lost maybe 30% of all frags added. After 1 year mark I didnt lose a single piece.
92Miata
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Absolutely.
And given the error range on even the best tests - the "ideal" range, which is basically within the error range from Zero - is absolutely insane. GFO kills way more acropora in the hobby than phosphate does.
(The vast majority of) Acropora are not hard to grow or keep alive - what's hard is avoiding all the terrible nonsense advice on here and at LFSs that you should stop/decrease feeding to get your phosphates down, etc. Good water flow, proper alkalinity, and enough light, and pretty much everything sorts itself out if you don't kill them via malnutrition (starve isn't the right word).
Use nitrate and phosphate test results as trend indicators - don't worry about the actual numbers. Worry about what your corals are doing - are they growing? Are they coloring up?
Foothill Corals
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I wouldn't say that any of these tanks have "clean water"
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Tank Parameters Of Some Masters
Tank Parameters Of Some Masters To this day one of the most frequently asked questions I get, and actually that many “old time hobbyists” get is “How do I get rid of the algae in my tank. My first question then is “what are the parameters of your tank’s water? Invariably the answer is my tank’s...
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I don't think you guys really disagree about much. You all (probably) agree that throughput is important. I think whether you can pull off lower nutrients (e.g. NSW-level nitrate and phosphate) nowadays is tank and aquarist-specific and also depends on whether you have dry rock or live rock and is potentially even coral-specific, including whether your coral are colonies or just frags. For instance, I think it's tougher to color up some of the old school smothies in a higher nutrient system.
I think that on the whole, the older generation of reefers who have maintained the same tanks or tanks with the same live rock, continue to be able to run NSW and lower-nutrient systems without wiping out their SPS. I don't think that's coincidental.
If you are using things like GFO, carbon dosing and lanthanum to alter your nutrients nowadays, I think you're more likely to experience problems than you were in the past. I ran a slightly modified Zeo tank years ago, as well as a (non-Zeo) ULN tank, for instance. I can't get away with that today. In fact, years ago, I started a tank with Reef Crystals (which has a notoriously high Alk). However, today (literally today) if my Alk drifts above 7, my SPS' tips burn. My Alk shifted from 7 to 7.3 over the course of two days and I have burnt tips on an otherwise healthy PC Rainbow and a fledgling GC efflo frag, among others. Something changed somewhere along the way. I continue to believe dry rock versus live rock plays a role in what changed.
I think that on the whole, the older generation of reefers who have maintained the same tanks or tanks with the same live rock, continue to be able to run NSW and lower-nutrient systems without wiping out their SPS. I don't think that's coincidental.
If you are using things like GFO, carbon dosing and lanthanum to alter your nutrients nowadays, I think you're more likely to experience problems than you were in the past. I ran a slightly modified Zeo tank years ago, as well as a (non-Zeo) ULN tank, for instance. I can't get away with that today. In fact, years ago, I started a tank with Reef Crystals (which has a notoriously high Alk). However, today (literally today) if my Alk drifts above 7, my SPS' tips burn. My Alk shifted from 7 to 7.3 over the course of two days and I have burnt tips on an otherwise healthy PC Rainbow and a fledgling GC efflo frag, among others. Something changed somewhere along the way. I continue to believe dry rock versus live rock plays a role in what changed.
One more thing. I think @Hans-Werner has a theory about nutrient levels in the context of LED-lit tanks. Hopefully he'll chime in on that theory. I think it's related, particularly given the increase in LED-lit tanks nowadays.
Pictures of @Chaswood79 's Sunday Driver and Hanna Phosphate Checker in 5, 4, 3, 2... (Did you honestly think I was going to reply to this thread without tagging you?)
Pictures of @Chaswood79 's Sunday Driver and Hanna Phosphate Checker in 5, 4, 3, 2... (Did you honestly think I was going to reply to this thread without tagging you?)
92Miata
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It's definitely not coincidence - older more mature tanks have significantly more complete food webs, and more coral/consumers - so they can put significantly more food in their tanks without driving ambient nutrient levels through the roof.
High availability, but low ambient. Like the ocean. With new, sparcely populated tanks, it's almost impossible to have high availability without also driving up ambient levels.
Availability is more important than ambient levels - and a lot of people don't realize that - and keep giving newbies absolutely atrocious advice like 'you need to get your phosphates down to .03' - when in new tanks it's significantly difficult to do that without either significantly reducing feeding and availability (bad bad), or without whacking the tank with things that unbalance it.
Having higher Phosphate in new tanks does mean more algae - but that's way less of a problem than dead corals, and dinos and all the other issues that come from the 30 year old myth that you need 0 Phosphates.
This is ridiculous at this point. We knew this stuff 20 years ago, and yet people are still pushing the <.03 nonsense.
You all think that having N and P on a test kit is dirty water? Clean tank is lower N and P? Should be talking about stuff that is available to use. If you have stripped away all of the availability, then still will still suffer, regardless of residual levels which is why stopping feeding is never a good idea. I can almost bet any of you that if we could actually measure availability in a tank, I would have more available stuff than most of you, yet my residual levels are very low.
I hate the terms clean and dirty since they mean nothing and they get parroted, along with the nothingness, way too much.
The farse that most people get involved with is to look to residual levels instead of availability, but I guess that is more simple to understand.
I have a theory on N and P levels in LED lit tanks too... posted a few years ago with some small-time studying going on by others. What does Hans think? I would LOVE to read about this. Does anybody have a link if he does not reply?
I hate the terms clean and dirty since they mean nothing and they get parroted, along with the nothingness, way too much.
The farse that most people get involved with is to look to residual levels instead of availability, but I guess that is more simple to understand.
I have a theory on N and P levels in LED lit tanks too... posted a few years ago with some small-time studying going on by others. What does Hans think? I would LOVE to read about this. Does anybody have a link if he does not reply?
Hans-Werner
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It is only a vague suspicion, but it is embedded in a larger theory.
The larger theory is that increased calcification also increases phosphate consumption since most phosphate is incorporated into the skeleton and especially into the organic matrix, this article says.
Blue light of 450 nm wavelength increases calcium ion transport by the coral polyp, this article says. Increased calcium ion transport means increased calcification. Just as with higher alkalinity tanks and corals with a higher capability for calcification need more phosphate.
450 nm is exactly the wavelength that burns out first in T5 and other fluorescent lamps and HQI, spectroradiometer measurings of lamps during their live spans und during the aging processes have shown.
In LEDs 450 nm is the excitation wavelenght and in many LEDs it is the strongest wavelength, in which most power is emitted, especially in high Kelvin LEDs and Royal Blue LEDs.
What we are observing is the interference between calcification capability and phosphate deficiency. In fact calcification does not take place without sufficient phosphate, so it remains only the calcification capability.
The disturbed and slowed down calcification by phosphate deficiency is either the indicator of a severe phosphate deficiency that causes the STN from the base of the corals or it is even the cause of the STN because the calcification process releases CO2 for the zooxanthellae.
This is interesting. Can you please share your recommended nutrient levels for an led-lit tank? I believe it’s 0-5 nitrate and .1 phosphate.
Note that @Hans-Werner parts ways with the higher nitrate crowd, but espouses a higher phosphate level (significantly more that what @jda runs and has success with but he doesn’t run LED and has live rock in an established tank).
@jda - Thoughts on the above and what is your theory on nutrients in an LED-lit tank? I don’t recall hearing it.
Hans-Werner
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In my opinion nitrate doesn't matter at all. Nitrate is just the dump of the nitrogen cycle. Only when there is too much nitrogen in the tank nitrate is building up. Corals can take up ammonium, organic nitrogen compounds like amino acids and also nitrate from extremely low concentrations. Less than 0.2 ppm nitrate are sufficient for the corals to fulfill their nitrogen needs.
Nitrate may bleach and burn corals, especially when all other nutrient levels drop too low, so I would avoid dosing nitrate.
In my opinion 0.1 ppm phosphate is a good concentration for LED illuminated aquaria, but higher levels may still be good. For sure 0.1 ppm phosphate is not a exceedingly high phosphate concentration but save and frequently even necessary. It is a good level to start with.
Nitrate may bleach and burn corals, especially when all other nutrient levels drop too low, so I would avoid dosing nitrate.
In my opinion 0.1 ppm phosphate is a good concentration for LED illuminated aquaria, but higher levels may still be good. For sure 0.1 ppm phosphate is not a exceedingly high phosphate concentration but save and frequently even necessary. It is a good level to start with.
Thank you Hans. I need to think about that for a while since I am slow... I do find it amazing that most acropora can use energy in the true UV range from about 360 up, which is higher energy than 450nm, but I guess that LEDs don't provide this spectrum.
There is a long history of low N and high P tanks... nearly every tank with sand going back 4/5 decades can remove nitrate, but phosphates accumulate. Fuges came on line in the 1990s (that I remember, but probably before this) and then in the 2000s people began to realize that they might need to swap out their sand since it was all bound up with massive amounts of phosphates. This was before test kits for a while, but when test kits came about, you were "clear", "some tint" or "dark tint." Clear was the goal to many, but people nowadays misremember this as people wanting to get to zero, which was not the goal at all.
You all know where I am at on nitrate. It doesn't matter and don't dose it nor recommend dosing it.
I will have to look for the long version of my theory, but the short one is this... that with LED lit tanks without true full spectrum from 350 to about 850, the higher levels of N and P allow the corals to slow down and be able to use the energy better. This comes from the lack of IR in the Emerson Effect to move energy from PSII to PSI as well as the fact that no coral can take as much PAR from a LED as they can from a wide range light like MH or T5s (multi types of bulb) - my corals would be just fine under 1000 PAR of MH but 1000 PAR of LED is a death sentence to most. Secondly, there is real science that says that cellular activity decreases with higher levels of building blocks and that calcification slows down as well... the zoox and corals slow down as N and P rise... not stop, but slow down. Put all of this together and if you have a LED lit tank, the higher levels of N and P allow the corals to slow down and process light in a different way, which is why you have to keep the intensity/PAR/PPFD down too.
I have struggled to figure out why corals will not very well take 500 PAR of LED, but gladly take it from other light sources. First, I thought that it was lenses, but even no lenses with reflectors and being raise way up high did not help much. ...so I pretty much eliminated delivery and then got onto spectrum. Was having a chat one day with Dana about Emerson Effect and how it might be sorely missed in LEDs and then I came up with the theory. There are some people testing out my theory by actually using higher PAR levels with true IR (and UV) to see if they can pump in more PAR.
I am not saying that any coral needs more light than what a LED can give them, just that they certainly get a lot more in the wild and some tanks and they thrive even more.
Let me dig through my emails and try and find a link.
There is a long history of low N and high P tanks... nearly every tank with sand going back 4/5 decades can remove nitrate, but phosphates accumulate. Fuges came on line in the 1990s (that I remember, but probably before this) and then in the 2000s people began to realize that they might need to swap out their sand since it was all bound up with massive amounts of phosphates. This was before test kits for a while, but when test kits came about, you were "clear", "some tint" or "dark tint." Clear was the goal to many, but people nowadays misremember this as people wanting to get to zero, which was not the goal at all.
You all know where I am at on nitrate. It doesn't matter and don't dose it nor recommend dosing it.
I will have to look for the long version of my theory, but the short one is this... that with LED lit tanks without true full spectrum from 350 to about 850, the higher levels of N and P allow the corals to slow down and be able to use the energy better. This comes from the lack of IR in the Emerson Effect to move energy from PSII to PSI as well as the fact that no coral can take as much PAR from a LED as they can from a wide range light like MH or T5s (multi types of bulb) - my corals would be just fine under 1000 PAR of MH but 1000 PAR of LED is a death sentence to most. Secondly, there is real science that says that cellular activity decreases with higher levels of building blocks and that calcification slows down as well... the zoox and corals slow down as N and P rise... not stop, but slow down. Put all of this together and if you have a LED lit tank, the higher levels of N and P allow the corals to slow down and process light in a different way, which is why you have to keep the intensity/PAR/PPFD down too.
I have struggled to figure out why corals will not very well take 500 PAR of LED, but gladly take it from other light sources. First, I thought that it was lenses, but even no lenses with reflectors and being raise way up high did not help much. ...so I pretty much eliminated delivery and then got onto spectrum. Was having a chat one day with Dana about Emerson Effect and how it might be sorely missed in LEDs and then I came up with the theory. There are some people testing out my theory by actually using higher PAR levels with true IR (and UV) to see if they can pump in more PAR.
I am not saying that any coral needs more light than what a LED can give them, just that they certainly get a lot more in the wild and some tanks and they thrive even more.
Let me dig through my emails and try and find a link.
