"Coral whispering"...and grumbling....

[uniquecorals]

The other day, we were doing our usual systems checks and walk-through of our coral raceways (we have 6, 30-foot long culture raceways that are about 1200 gallons each) and we were looking at the numbers, and then looking at some of our corals. After looking at everything and kind of kicking it around a bit, we came to the interesting conclusion that we were having better luck with some corals in a raceway that had phosphates of .25ppm…better, in fact, than the raceways in which phosphate was actually detectible.

Of course, the usual reef-geek discussion ensued (I mean, it’s like a big reef club meeting every day here, really, except that we try to make a living, too…pretty neat!), and we jumped back on the old “Some corals like ‘dirty’ water more than others.†bandwagon. Now, the term “dirty†water is a bit of an overgeneralized misnomer, really. What we mean is water that does NOT have undetectable levels of phosphate and nitrate. It seems like we as reefers still have this hyper-clean mentality from the late 1990’s “Berlin†days, when reefs were kept almost sterile enough to give birth in!

"Clean enough to give birth in..." Unfortunately.

It seems that, in almost every instance where we’ve had certain corals (such as Chalices, Acans, Blastomussa, Euphyllia, Lobophyllia, Symphyllia, some Faviids, and many others) thriving, it’s been in systems where the water was less than “lab-grade-sterile.†There was actually some nutrient in the water. Sometimes, there was even a bit of- gulp- nuisance algae present. And even…DETRITUS! Well, so what? It’s about the corals for us! Granted, in a display system, you need to pay more floe attention to accumulating algae growth, but the point is that we are far, far to obsessed (as a whole) with numbers…â€Zero nitrateâ€, “undetectable†phosphate, etc.

The inescapable conclusion that we have reached is that, if you’re able to achieve undetectable nitrate and phosphate, you had better feed the heck out of your corals…feed them like mad, and make sure that pumps and skimmers are turned off for a long-enough time period to allow them to feed. Otherwise, your corals can literally starve. If you’re seeing pallid-colored corals, it’s not just a function of the wrong light, or the need to add more of “X†additive to the water…It’s all about nutrition and feeding as well. And nutrition is not entirely derived from lighting, as we know.

"Hunger Games"- Coral style!

A reef system, or a coral propagating system, is definitely not a “set and forget†feature. It needs to be managed- finessed, if you will, in order to achieve an optimum balance of growth, color, and health for the inhabitants, without the system turning into a tangled chaos of nuisance algae overgrowth. It’s a bit of a balancing act…but it doesn’t have to be that tough, really. We simply have to realize that corals a) need to be fed, and b) are a lot more tolerant of “dirty†water than we realize, and c) don’t really care if there is some algae in their tank (as long as it’s not smothering them into submission)! They do their thing happily when their needs are met. Period.

"My name is Reiki. I'm a Chalice...and I like it...dirty."


I am officially “Mr. Nutrient Control and Export†(seriously, my birth certificate says that..LOL), a reefer obsessed with providing optimum water quality for his livestock…but did you notice I used the term “optimumâ€, not “pristine?†Yep- deliberate choice…Because in many cases, “optimum†is NOT water so pure that you could brew beer with it. No sir- it’s about water that has an optimum balance of trace elements, minerals, and yes- nutrients- that corals can use as a food source. I believe we should strive for consistency and overall good water quality, without obsessing over every number on a test kit. Without sounding like one of those weird dog people (hey, I LOVE dogs- so no nasty remarks! LOL), I think we need to become “reef whisperersâ€, and actually look at what’s going on within our reef tanks. Checking controller readouts and test kits only tells part of the story.

This is only part of the story...

As “postmodern†reefers- the by-product of decades of reef keeping evolution and skills borne of both humility and arrogance, we need to open our eyes and ears, and adopt a more “holistic†approach to reef keeping. Really get back to the basics, in terms of our understanding of what corals are, what they need, and how to provide what they need. We do a great job, for the most part, despite the fact that we occasionally derail ourselves on obsessive tangents that lead us a bit off course now and then (OMG, am I going to single out the whole “rock cooking†movement of the early 2000’s again…? Yes!). The era of “hyper-husbandry†is over…welcome to the new age…an age based upon needs-related husbandry and more purposeful systems. We’re off to a great start, don’t you agree?

Jake Adams' "Eco Reef One"- Poster Child for the "Postmodern" era.

I am sure that this “revelation†is really not that big of a deal to some reefers who have practiced this all along, and even less of a deal to those who have just sort of practiced “benign neglect†with their reefs, and enjoyed remarkable results. However, to the majority of main-stream reef geeks, hearing this philosophy yet again from a fellow reefer might just cause you to pause and reflect, particularly if you’re going through one of those “I’m doing everything right and my corals still don’t look like they should…†phases, so it has some merit, IMO. To summarize- the big take away here is to not obsess over numbers; rather, study the needs of your corals carefully on an individual scale, and realize that they have specific needs that may easily be met if we just, well…â€ask†them!

Your take on this? Experiences? Thoughts?

Ok, I’m signing off now…Gotta catch a plane to the now-frozen Tundra that is South Dakota, where I’ll be talking about- gas “Nutrient Control and Export†and “Aquascaping for the Aesthetically Challenged†at the Sioux Falls Area Aquarium Society! Hope to see some of you there!

Until Next Time…

Stay Wet (and Warm!!!)

Scott Fellman
Unique Corals

 

[Nano sapiens]

Great article and a subject that can cause some great conversation, as well as confusion.

Many reefers have been told that they need to provide 'oligotrophic' (ultra low nutrient) water such as is typically found around a pristine oceanic coral reef. Certainly this can be accomplished, but then on the other hand they are told to keep their coral and fish well fed, which has a tendency to degrade the water quality. Hence the brisk sales of all kinds of media and equipment designed to remove phosphates and other nutrients in an attempt to maintain this environment.

Coral reef organisms can survive in such pristine water because they have access to a much larger and diverse input of organisms for nutrition than aquarists could ever safely provide in an aquarium. The huge volume of oceanic water washes the reef regularly which dilutes and distributes any non-assimilated nutrients over a wide area to create the overall ULN environment.

However, there are many, many other types of reefs that do not have this uber-pristine water (ie: near shore reefs) and even on pristine reefs there are areas where the water is more 'dirty' (ie: lagoons, deeper reef areas). Coral growth and diversity in such areas is often exceptional, too. This is the type of environment that the majority of reefers provided for their corals in the past, but the trend lately is towards more high-energy, ultra-clean water conditions. These ULNS systems can lead to underfed, pale corals if sufficient nutrient sources are not available.

As a coral propagator I assume that you are looking for fast growth and colorful, healthy corals. As the keeper of a mature, nano reef aquarium, I am looking for a clean display aquarium with colorful, healthy corals that grow slowly (think 'Bonsai'). Having to regularly deal with nuisance algae and constantly prune corals isn't high on my list of fun activities! Either condition can be created by simply tweaking the amount of food provided to the aquarium and adjusting the maintenance routine to remove more, or less, nutrient substances.

Lastly, there seems to be a prevalent reefer mind-set that your corals aren't 'doing well' if they aren't growing 6" per year! Patently false thinking since you can find coral specimens in nature that are very healthy and only grow 1/4" yearly as well as the same species, looking just as healthy, growing 6" a year somewhere else. I believe that this 'need for speed' often accounts for aquarists feeding way too much in the hopes of accelerating growth and then not being able to maintain decent water quality.

Ralph.

 

[cdness]

Ok, I’m signing off now…Gotta catch a plane to the now-frozen Tundra that is South Dakota, where I’ll be talking about- gasp- “Nutrient Control and Export” and “Aquascaping for the Aesthetically Challenged” at the Sioux Falls Area Aquarium Society! Hope to see some of you there!

I am just a couple hours north of the club you are going to see. If you want to make a drive, come on up to the balmy warm Fargo, ND and pay us a visit too. Hopefully we will be able to have you come to one of the Red River Valley Reefers events in the future

I like this article as I recently had an issue with nutrient export and water being too pristine. It involved already very clean water, but the urge to try bio-pellets to remove the glass algae was just too enticing. I had them running for about 3 months and took them offline because I felt like I was adding nutrients just because I could because I had them running. In the end even with an increase in feeding and addition of additional trace elements I bleached a few of my corals and killed a couple new frags... I will admit it was probably a bio pellet rookie mistake on my part, but I took them offline anyway. My tank is still very clean but it is not sterile anymore and I can tell that color is returning and corals are growing again...

 

[spacetime]

nearly lost everything first by running too much gfo, then again after removing the gfo and carbon dosing because the water was too clean. since I've stopped adding carbon and running gfo outside of a bag of chemipure elite in my sump, things have improved immensely. I still have undetectable no3 and while I have a hanna po4 checker I don't use it anymore.

 

[Joni]

Great article, I used to have high nutrients in my system but my corals where happy a bright in color but I did notest the pale color on them once the nutrients where undetectable. I was running gfo and doing weekly water changes but I shut down my gfo reactor a week ago and will be working on 2 week water changes. So far I am noticing my corals starting to get brighter. Now I will only use gfo when phosphates rise above .25ppm and will make that range a part of my parameters.

 

[Eienna]

Now, I'm not advocating this, but since I upsized my tank I have had a great deal (by reefing standards) more nitrate and phosphate than is generally considered good, but my corals are still growing - and in my leptastrea's case, like a weed!

As a side note, I AM attempting to reduce these some.

 

[uniquecorals]

Interesting observations by everyone... Was talking to a fellow reefer last night about the same subject...And we came to a similar conclusion. In fact, he described a service client tank which had crazy high phosphate readings (by reefing standards, anyways), in which the corals looked fantastic, and other tanks with "zero" everything that were just "ok"...again, I'm not advocating reckless abandon or neglect, but I do find it interesting to hear of case after case where detectible nitrate an phosphate are present and the coral appearance and growth are fantastic.

Granted, there are plenty of other tanks with amazing coral growth and color but undetectable phosphates and nitrates. The common element in these tanks, in my personal observation anyways- is lots of fish. IMO, if you are going to have undetectable phosphate and nitrate, you should have lots of fish in the system, fed heavily to compensate.

My two cents worth..

Scott

 

[specvjeff]

A lot of people forget get that the algae inside of corals need food too! I hear stories all the time about someone adding GFO to their tank, their phosphates drop rapidly to undetectable levels, and then they start losing corals. Well the symbiotic algae living inside the corals need light, and some level of phosphate to proliferate just like the unwanted algae in our aquariums. Obviously some corals are able to get by with less, and it tends to be light demanding corals like SPS. They've likely evolved to utilize light as a primary energy source based on the shallow water environments they come from. Why waste energy capturing or absorbing food when there's plenty of energy coming from above?

 

[Reefer831]

Thank you for all your write ups I really enjoy reading them . I have always been a big fan of having a high nutrient tank with a high amount of export… I've always held a ton of fish in my tank but have always stayed good about doing consistent water changes (I do 5 gallons on my 120 every 2 to 3 days and every few weeks I'll do a 10 gallon change) I've always had great success with this method and believe that the smaller water changes lead into less swings in the tank… I do many water changes so I can consistently export the nutrients and not have a overload... I always try to keep my phosphates as low as possible and rarely will I be able to reach zero phosphates…... There was one point of time where I got obsessed with having pristine water and removed all the fish from my tank so I could have better control over the quality.... After doing this it didn't take long before all my LPS and even SPS started to losing their color dramatically... Let's just say it didn't take long to have that tank filled back up with fish... Everybody always asks me how I keep such good colors and what do I feed or dose and I just tell them that I always have try to keep things as simple as possible and just feed my fish well so their poop will feed my corals well... Everybody's always looking for something just to add to their tank which I tell people that majority of the time that's going to do more harm than good… Just do the simple things in maintenance and maintaining the tank and everything will be fine.... There are way too many people in this hobby these days trying to chase numbers and end up screwing up everything… I tell people to look at your tank and find out where the sweet spot is and chase those numbers from there... It's really hard for people to understand that every tank is different in many ways... Like I said before I try to keep my phosphates low but with the amount of fish I have in the amount of feeding I need to do that's very hard to achieve… One thing is though I actually try to keep my nitrates at a decent level around 20 or so just to keep nutrients for the corals to eat.... I noticed whenever a get slower than that I start to see bleaching... One of the biggest mistakes I see hobbyist doing when trying to keep pristine water quality is they will do their water change GFO and carbon change all in the same day as their entire maintenance… That is one huge mistake… They end up exporting all the nutrients way too fast and cause major swings in there tank not realizing it..... People think by cleaning all these things they are helping the tank but they're not realizing that they're just giving a huge shock to the system… I always recommend people to do these procedures spaced out from each other so the tank has time to acclimate to the swings... Anyways like I said before thanks for the write ups I really enjoy them :wink:

 

[Worldwide reefs]

I couldn't agree more !! We need to stop assuming and stop going on other Information and look at the matter that's at hand. I find this a large thing in the scientific school community where we constantly look at other lab results and try to emulate them instead of looking at the large picture and going on our own instinct and no pre conceived idea of how it "should" be. Again, you always do great thought out wright ups thank you!

 

[Nano sapiens]

Granted, there are plenty of other tanks with amazing coral growth and color but undetectable phosphates and nitrates. The common element in these tanks, in my personal observation anyways- is lots of fish. IMO, if you are going to have undetectable phosphate and nitrate, you should have lots of fish in the system, fed heavily to compensate.

Scott

Very true, Scott

Here's an example of my 12g tank a while back without fish and inverts and no food inputs for a period of around six months. This little impromptu experiment was a way to assess just how much corals actually depend on nutrient uptake vs photosynthesis alone. Talk about pasty stony corals! Some of them are barely recognizable for what they are. In a situation like this the coral is doing it's best to survive using whatever meager products it can assimilate for metabolism, so the energy intensive manufacture of pigmentation is largely put on hold. Growth, of course, is virtually non-existent.

The same tank today that have had two Clownfish for over a year as well as a small amount of direct coral feeding for the LPS:

 

[specvjeff]

I couldn't agree more !! We need to stop assuming and stop going on other Information and look at the matter that's at hand. I find this a large thing in the scientific school community where we constantly look at other lab results and try to emulate them instead of looking at the large picture and going on our own instinct and no pre conceived idea of how it "should" be. Again, you always do great thought out wright ups thank you!

While I agree it's always best to approach a subject with your own perspective, it's often a good idea to follow the scientific data. I see people in complete misery because they've lost all their fish to a disease simply because the didn't follow the proven method in which to treat it. Just playing devils advocate a little.

 

[Worldwide reefs]

Well of course, I think maybe I wrote mine or you understood it too lirerally. Look at music, obviously to play music you have to use Instruments or some form of amplification of sound, that's a set standard - just like people who try to play a guitar with no strings, they're like the people who lost there fish because they didn't follow a proven method. On the other hand, a great professional composer of music does t follow trends, or follow these preconceived notions of what music 'should' sound like but instead takes what he knows and understands and orchestrates something new and wonderful and beautiful all together by using his influences and experiences and the flow of sounds that's happening right in front of him and goes with it - i could have still not written this out in a completely understanding way so i apologize.

 

[FaviaFreak]

Scott as always an awesome write up...I can definitely agree with what you say in your articles about feeding and lighting as I am a coral curator myself and we do this for a living. I preach this stuff all the time...people listen up!!

 

[uniquecorals]

Continued great responses by all..I am really re-thinking what I have believed in and, for that matter, taken for granted, regarding nutrient export for many years. I am glad to see reefers actively discussing the realities of actually OBSERVING the results that they're seeing in their reefs, real time, as opposed to just accepting popular notions that have been disseminated within the community for so many years. Thinking differently, and occasionally questioning what we have taken for granted are healthy, vital practices within our "tribe."

Thanks for the dialogue as always...Love hearing from all of the UC "Insiders!" Your comments are so interesting and the spirit in which things are discussed here is so helpful! You rock!

-Scott

 

[FX CharityCorals Verified Sponsor]

Here is a tank I service. It's 400 gallons the fish are fed 2x a day on an autofeeder. Nitrates usually run around 40-60 phosphates are .5
It is just softies and lps but most corals thrive in this tank. Granted each tank is different so what works in one wont in another which is why each of us need to analyze our own tanks quantitatively and qualitatively to see what works opposed to chasing numbers so other reefer in another tank is running.

 

[reefwiser]

Scot as someone who was in on the beginning of the Berlin era of the hobby. Before the Berlin method there where people who tried to keep corals but could not due to the way the old Marine Fish tanks where set up. The old Reef filters full of Bio Balls and no protein skimming.

I remember getting on of the first in Tank skimmers had to special order it. An it was quite small but when that little guy started producing foam it was an eye opener. Then at Macna 4 we started hearing about German Reef tanks and we saw the images that Julian had taken after a trip there.
I remember ordering all the German aquarium books I could to learn more. Svein A Fossa; Alf J Nilsen books are just fantastic to me. I have them both in German and English and then to sit down with Alf and listen too his thoughts on the reef tanks that where in Germany and other European countries.
It is easy to see how we get to super clean tanks as Hey these guys are keeping great reef tanks. While this has gotten us to this point in the hobby we now need to look at our corals and learn what they are telling us. An there are many parts of a reef and not all corals live in the same zone or a reef. An what one coral needs can be way different from another. That goes for nutrient, water flow and lighting. Mixed reefs while pretty to look at may not be the optimum way to keep each species of coral. An high levels of nutrients can be the difference in colorful corals. In reading the literature you will find that corals need more that light to grow and be healthy. Good thoughts

 

[marinelife]

My tank had Phosphates over 1.09ppm by a Hanna meter. The growth was ok but the colors were awesome. I started to bring it down and once I hit around .30ppm the grow increased.
I am currently at .02 and am going to stay around .05-.1
I think corals do suffer with tanks are to clean and it just looks unnatural.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Interesting read showing that elevated nutrients/pollution causes increased incidence of disease and bleaching:

Study confirms nutrients increase prevalence of both coral diseases and bleaching events ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

Too little...too much...both not good. Need to find the 'Goldilocks' zone.

 

[specvjeff]

Well of course, I think maybe I wrote mine or you understood it too lirerally. Look at music, obviously to play music you have to use Instruments or some form of amplification of sound, that's a set standard - just like people who try to play a guitar with no strings, they're like the people who lost there fish because they didn't follow a proven method. On the other hand, a great professional composer of music does t follow trends, or follow these preconceived notions of what music 'should' sound like but instead takes what he knows and understands and orchestrates something new and wonderful and beautiful all together by using his influences and experiences and the flow of sounds that's happening right in front of him and goes with it - i could have still not written this out in a completely understanding way so i apologize.

No reason to apologize! I understood where you were going with it. I was just playing devils advocate to the situation. Scientific fact is usually just that for good reason. Keeping an aquarium is by no means a complete science, and there are many ways to reach the same goal. How one decides to get there is up to themselves, and that's the beauty of this hobby.