Clean vs Dirty Water SPS

[jda]

What and how much do you feed you tank per day @jda?

Asking for a newb

Tell your friend that I have an Ehiem Autofeeder that drops NLS, Formula II or some other high quality pellet 4 times a day to my fishes full content, plus some extra for the emerald crabs, shrimp and other fauna. I also feed frozen nearly every day - hard to tell how much since I buy it by the pound or kilo and just break off a hunk to feed. Also drop in some flakes a few times a week for mass broadcast to keep the cleaners happy and not wanting to sample my corals, which they do not do if they are well fed. I also dose some ammonium from Ace Hardware into my fuges when I get new clams... seems to help them along, but I have nothing beyond anecdotes to prove this.

So at least 4 full bellies a day for my fish. They are fat, happy and not aggressive at all.

If I skip frozen, the fish don't care since they get so many pellets.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

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.

“I am slow” haha
Is that why you only have 3 degrees?

 

[jda]

Read this post and the few after it for more details about my theory.

Crunching Numbers at LFS - Radion, Nitrate, Phosphate

Purchased some corals at the LFS today, and took the opportunity to evaluate lighting and nutrients. They use Radion G4s for lighting. PPFD (or PAR, if you will) ranges from 75 to 175 micromole/m2/sec. Photoperiod is 11 hours at this spectral quality: UV-A 2.8% Violet 19.6% Blue 67.8%...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Tell your friend that I have an Ehiem Autofeeder that drops NLS, Formula II or some other high quality pellet 4 times a day to my fishes full content, plus some extra for the emerald crabs, shrimp and other fauna. I also feed frozen nearly every day - hard to tell how much since I buy it by the pound or kilo and just break off a hunk to feed. Also drop in some flakes a few times a week for mass broadcast to keep the cleaners happy and not wanting to sample my corals, which they do not do if they are well fed. I also dose some ammonium from Ace Hardware into my fuges when I get new clams... seems to help them along, but I have nothing beyond anecdotes to prove this.

So at least 4 full bellies a day for my fish. They are fat, happy and not aggressive at all.

If I skip frozen, the fish don't care since they get so many pellets.

Thank you sir. We know what you don’t feed, but I couldn’t remember if anyone’s ever asked you what you do feed.

 

[Camaro Show Corals]

You can absolutely use high par with leds, 85% of my acros are in 450+ And a few in 600 par using G5 Radion and reef brite. Here’s a pic of my Cherry bomb I just checked par right now and it’s getting 515 par with all pumps on and flow cranking. The biggie is how you acclimate your corals to it.

 

[Camaro Show Corals]

Rainbow splice in 600 par

 

[LegendaryCG]

You know my theory is that bacteria makes a much bigger difference in keeping SPS than LPS and soft. Case in point Zeovit has you regularly dosing bacteria and carbon dosing also causes bacteria growth. Where does that bacteria go? Some to the skimmer but I imagine the SPS consumes a fair amount as well. Also this goes along with that idea that established reefs do better— what’s actually established is a balanced bacterial colonies. Just my uneducated speculation.

 

[jda]

For sure, that is way higher than most, but crank that up to 750 or 1000 and let me know how it goes. If it works, I know some people who might want to study your tank.

I just posted my new fish food supply in my re-build thread... came yesterday. 42 pounds of frozen fish food. 1kg blocks of mysis are impressive. BTW - I do have some degree, but no PhDs... I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea or misrepresent things.

 

[RC Corals]

I'm happy to start seeing a trend back to IMHO a more rational thinking away from "almost zeros, but not quite zeros"

Everything doesn't have to be extremes one direction or the other. There's thousands of variants inbetween where corals are completely happy and thrive. A high percentage of people just don't want to "find" their variant and simply want someone else to tell them "what's best" and after that happens a few times on the internet that becomes the go to response and the earliest search returns. Next thing you know everyone insists thats the best way.
Now a fear years down the road and people are starting to think "hmmm, maybe Dino's and other issues can be avoided if I just have some nutrients and phosphates and maybe don't insist that dry rock is the "only way"

 

[Crustaceon]

You know my theory is that bacteria makes a much bigger difference in keeping SPS than LPS and soft. Case in point Zeovit has you regularly dosing bacteria and carbon dosing also causes bacteria growth. Where does that bacteria go? Some to the skimmer but I imagine the SPS consumes a fair amount as well. Also this goes along with that idea that established reefs do better— what’s actually established is a balanced bacterial colonies. Just my uneducated speculation.

This why it’s been noted that nitrates might not be the important factor here but availability of food is. Bacteria being that food. The problem is, once you dip below 2ppm nitrates or so, it’s pretty common to have other critters like dinos pop up that start to compete with bacteria for resources, reducing their population and as a result, availability as a food source for coral. Unfortunately, I don’t think corals eat dinos, so that’s when we start seeing the typical starvation issues. This hobby is probably more about keeping bacteria than keeping coral if you think about it. I try to find a nutrient balance that’s low enough to prevent nuisance algae from benefiting and high enough to give bacteria the upper hand over more low-nutrient focused organisms.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I’m an all LED hobbyists but I’ve noticed much faster growth in the 200-400 range than in the +450 range.

 

[jda]

You know my theory is that bacteria makes a much bigger difference in keeping SPS than LPS and soft. Case in point Zeovit has you regularly dosing bacteria and carbon dosing also causes bacteria growth. Where does that bacteria go? Some to the skimmer but I imagine the SPS consumes a fair amount as well.

My new online friend flampton is a bacteriologist (or something like that) and helped me with some bacterial and amino acid stuff a while back. He is on the board if you ever want to invite him to a discussion. He is a wealth of information and then you can take that and search for all kinds of real science that is out there on bacteria in reefs and the ocean and stuff... as well as other things in the water column.

Organic carbon can indeed increase waterborne and surface bacteria. Depending on the tank, the waterborne bacteria will have higher or lower concentration based on filtration, but all lower than the ocean. Acropora, since we are in the SPS section, can catch and assimilate bacteria in their slime coats and keep nearly all of the energy - this is very good. What is bad is the math problem... tanks with small corals have small surface area for which to catch these bacteria. This could be another reason (theory) why colonies grow faster than frags... they solve the math problem. Flow can be a problem to where some people use way too much and there is a shield around the coral where the bacteria don't stick around long enough to get caught - the people who always told you that you need good flow, but you can have too much were right about this. ...so acropora do indeed catch and take building blocks and energy from bacteria. These bacteria do exist in tanks without organic carbon dosing too.

Aminos are similar in that they can be assimilated directly through the skin and slime coat. However, there appears to be no evidence that any are lacking and need dosed. Even if they were lacking, you would need all of the 9 essential and it is not likely that any supplement would have them all - the few that list the actual aminos only have a handful. Unlike bacteria, the aminos are also gobbled up by bacteria, algae, single cell stuff and almost anything in the water column. The math problem is even worse for corals when dealing with capturing aminos since corals both have small surface area and many more competitors in the tank and in the filtration system. Who is to say if some of those single cell algaes get eaten by some pods or filter feeders, so aminos might be good for some things, but likely not your corals. I know that nobody asked about aminos, but I learned from the same guy and since they share the same math issues with bacteria, I wanted to offer it.

All of this said, the vast majority of the bacteria grown in Zeo or with other types of carbon sources get exported via the skimmer or any mechanical system.

PLEASE nobody confuse this with capturing food with polyps which is not even close to the same thing.

sorry for the /tldr

 

[Chris Spaulding]

I do not have anything to add but I would like to thank all of you for threads and discussions like this. This only furthers my understanding as to keeping corals and my reef tank going strong. The information is outstanding and I can read and learn and then make educated adjustments or no adjustments and get the full enjoyment from my reef.

 

[blasterman]

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.

1. Yes, lenses matter. When MH fixtures hit the market with computer optimized pendant reflectors we started burning up corals. Also, the reason T5 is so popular in reefing is because the thinner diameter tubs allows for less strikeback and smaller reflectors. In all other instances T8 is superior, especially longevity. It's just that you would need a reflector 2x the size with a T8 vs T5 to move as much light.

2. PAR meters don't account for longer bandwidth spectrum of LEDs in their blue regions. When you look at the actual amount of energy being emitted in the 400-460nm region with a spectrometer of a reef LED vs a metal halide you can see this. This is why reefers were blowing out their corals with those first gen AI SOL blues and their 470nm LEDs. PAR meters are just a photodiode with a purple filter and A/D converter on it to throw a number on a display.

 

[jda]

To wrap all of this up a bit, my preferred response to people who are having problems is not to ask what their N and P is, but rather what they are feeding and how much they are feeding. N and P can be somewhat telling if REALLY high, but most are not like this. It is important to remember that dry food is more densely packed with organic material - frozen is mostly water. ...so pellets contribute more the N and P than mysis. If you remove all of the water, then they are pretty equal.

Teach people that availability is more important than N and P levels and to keep on feeding their fish, even if their N and P are high or low. They can deal with N and P while they feed.

Never recommend that people cut back on feeding. About all that I will recommend is to wash oils and juices off of whole frozen food, but this is only for people who have really high N and P to the point of death.

If somebody wants to dose nitrate, talk then out of it or at least outline how nitrate is no prize, but getting more nitrogen in ammonia/ammonium and then maybe some nitrate later through feeding is what you want, not through adding nitrate on the backend with a chemical.

If somebody wants to dose phosphate, make sure that they have a Hannah ultra low to really make sure that it is needed. Even a few ppb is fine in most tanks and it will go up with time. Teach about how P binds to aragonite. It is only really possible to have this happen in new tanks with phosphate free sand or ocean live rock where it is binding a lot of stuff, so if you want to dose early, then stop when you get some residual level since the stuff is really hard to get back out of the rocks.

Using media and chemicals like GFO, LC can be OK if done REALLY slowly and the feedings continue. Organic Carbon is trickier, but probably also OK if N and P are really high if also done slowly and feeding continue. Using any of these in young/new tanks can be a problems, IMO.

 

[sagee]

Been reefing a long time and I just love the refinements coming to the hobby. I really appreciate all of the knowledge you have amassed and then shared with the rest of us so thank you all for your contributions to this thread. I believe question such as this will help newer ones coming into the hobby stay and hopefully get passed all the confusion that comes with starting a tank then trying to cut through the commercial aspects of what snake oil to use to get Phosphates and Nitrates to 0 only to sell them another product to get rid of the problems that come with that. Awesome job again and I look forward to hearing what new developments come in the future.

 

[Hans-Werner]

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.

In my opinion it is much, much easier. 450 nm is a regulatory wavelength, not only for calcium transport but for all processes that are controlled by chryptochrome and blue light effects.

I also don't agree about N and P. Especially P is speeding up everything, it doesn't slow down anything, similar with some trace elements and some organic N compounds.

Anyway you always have to look at the "concert" of nutrients including the micronutrients. If they are not in balance indeed every elevation of a nutrient already in excess may slow down growth or even cause damages.

 

[jda]

Hans - there is a lot of time-tested, true science (peer reviewed, textbooks and studied again and again) that shows that as P get higher, calcification slows down in true coral. Each coral is different level of effect, but some slow down with very low levels and some don't seem to mind with very high levels. There are hundreds of papers, articles and textbooks that even google can find.

In just my own experience, the amount of coralline growth at .005-.01 ppm of phosphate is tremendously more than even at .05. Most people don't ever notice since they are happy with any growth and have not run enough tanks for a long period of time to notice.

This is a real deal... wether or not a hobbyist should care is a different question.

Here is just a couple top hits, but there is weeks worth if reading if you like:

Aquarium Chemistry: The Chemical and Biochemical Mechanisms of Calcification

All reef aquarists are versed in the fact that such organisms remove calcium and carbonate from the water column in order to provide materials for calcification. Exactly how calcification takes place, however, is rarely considered.

reefs.com

https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.4319/lo.1979.24.5.0935

 

[hart24601]

There might be more work to do on how phosphate interacts with acros. This study found higher growth but lower skeletal density.

Abstract​

Phosphate contamination can negatively affect corals, modifying growth rates, skeletal density, reproduction, mortality, and zooxanthellae. We determined the effects of elevated phosphate on coral growth and density. Genetically distinct colonies of Acropora muricata were sub-divided and distributed among three 110-L aquaria, and exposed to phosphate levels of 0.09, 0.20, and 0.50 mg L− 1 for four months. Total skeletal length, living tissue length, weight, branch production, and polyp extension were measured. Linear extension and tissue growth increased under all conditions. Growth rates were highest at a phosphate concentration of 0.50 mg L− 1. Weight increased through time, graded from low to high with phosphate concentration. Density decreased through time, and was significantly lowest in the high phosphate treatment. Phosphate concentration produced no visible effects of stress on the corals, as indicated by polyp extension and lack of mortality. It is suggested that the phosphate enhanced growth was due to increased zooxanthellar populations and photosynthetic production within the coral. Skeletal density reduction may be due to phosphate binding at the calcifying surface and the creation of a porous and structurally weaker calcium carbonate/calcium phosphate skeleton. Increased phosphate concentrations, often characteristic of eutrophic conditions, caused increased coral growth but also a more brittle skeleton. The latter is likely more susceptible to breakage and damage from other destructive forces (e.g., bioerosion) and makes increased coral growth a poor indicator of reef health.

Effects of phosphate on growth and skeletal density in the scleractinian coral Acropora muricata: A controlled experimental approach

Phosphate contamination can negatively affect corals, modifying growth rates, skeletal density, reproduction, mortality, and zooxanthellae. We determi…

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[SamMule]

This is a great discussion! Where was it 10 months ago when I was just getting started!?
From what I am understanding, you are saying that the leftover N and P we measure in our tanks is not nearly as relevant as the amount of N and P turnover. Until toxic levels are reached, that is...
I can certainly tell you that my corals were doing ok until I doubled my feeding regimen. Now, they are coloring up more and really taking off!

Starting to wonder if the biggest difference between a tank that thrives with "measured" high nutrients and a tank that thrives with "measured" low nutrients, is the amount exported via skimmer, refugium, water changes, etc.