Phosphate question

[A Young Reefer]

I have been always told that high phosphates are bad on the long run by affecting your corals color and decreasing their skeletal growth , but what I want to know is ; do phosphates kill your coral ? (mainly LPS )
if so how long does it take .

 

[Rmckoy]

I was always led to believe phosphates are nutrients along with nitrates.
Some are needed as food for corals .

 

[A Young Reefer]

I was always led to believe phosphates are nutrients along with nitrates.
Some are needed as food for corals .

when I referred to phosphates I meant them being high

 

[JAC-]

In my very limited 2 years experience and opinion, yes. Lost a few SPS over time when I quit paying attention to phosphates early on. I think LPS tend to be more accepting of higher levels but I had an acan die back during the same period. I believe the same goes for nitrate. I'd also say just what are you considering high? I was having problems at 3+ppm phosphate. I now in the .02 ppm range and experiencing much better results and way less competing algae growth. My LPS are happy too.

(edit) At least I attribute the losses to the high phosphate. I was learning so much back then that solidly declaring the cause would have been foolish.

I also proved to myself that 0 is bad having fought Dino a few time, I thankfully won those battles.

I'd be curious as to what more experienced reefers have to say, but regardless of the results of death or not I've seen much better overall results with >.5 ppm of phosphate.

Happy reefing friend,

 

[A Young Reefer]

In my very limited 2 years experience and opinion, yes. Lost a few SPS over time when I quit paying attention to phosphates early on. I think LPS tend to be more accepting of higher levels but I had an acan die back during the same period. I believe the same goes for nitrate. I'd also say just what are you considering high? I was having problems at 3+ppm. I now in the .02 ppm range and experiencing much better results and way less competing algae growth.

I also proved to myself that 0 is bad having fought Dino.

I'd be curious as to what more experienced reefers have to say though.

Happy reefing friend,

Thank you yes , I do agree with you I have lost some acans and blastos when having high phosphates about 0.12+ range , didn't think that its reason which caused me to ask .

 

[A Young Reefer]

Thank you yes , I do agree with you I have lost some acans and blastos when having high phosphates about 0.12+ range , didn't think that its reason which caused me to ask .

And I definitely wont keep them at 0 ppm I got bored of fighting dinos , looking forward to see what others think .

 

[Gedxin]

Just about all the coral reef research shows that phosphates are necessary for coral. Having no phosphate in the system is a recipe for coral death.

How MUCH phosphate is the big unknown. Some people run reefs with .3 or more PO4, no problems. Others run an ultra low (0.01.) It depends on your unique system and how your coral have been acclimated.

 

[JAC-]

Thank you yes , I do agree with you I have lost some acans and blastos when having high phosphates about 0.12+ range , didn't think that its reason which caused me to ask .

I would agree, I think .12 wouldn't cause any deaths. Overpowered lighting could though, as so much more unfortunately.

 

[JAC-]

@A Young reefer I just stumbled across a very informative post in case you feel like doing some reading. It's mostly related to low phosphate but still interesting.

Still have algae with low nutrients and how reliable are Hannah phosphate checkers?

Hi so I have a pretty new tank, only 5 months old about, and I have two things I am questioning. First, I had somewhat high phosphates in July they were about .48, and my nitrates have never been higher than 6ppm on my Red Sea test kit. But I have a lot of green hair algae, which I thought came...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Spare time]

It can lead to brittle skeletons, and can cause worse issues if nitrate and carbon are low

 

[A Young Reefer]

@A Young reefer I just stumbled across a very informative post in case you feel like doing some reading. It's mostly related to low phosphate but still interesting.

Still have algae with low nutrients and how reliable are Hannah phosphate checkers?

Hi so I have a pretty new tank, only 5 months old about, and I have two things I am questioning. First, I had somewhat high phosphates in July they were about .48, and my nitrates have never been higher than 6ppm on my Red Sea test kit. But I have a lot of green hair algae, which I thought came...

www.reef2reef.com

Thx man really appreciated , will make sure to check it out .

 

[ReefGeezer]

I believe (FWIW) optimal phosphate levels are determined by the level of maturity of your system and what you have (or want to have) in it.

Young tanks, where pest algae are fed by inorganic phosphates and housing rapidly growing LPS/SPS corals probably would do better with low (.03 ppm) inorganic phosphates.

Well established, mature tanks full of big, grown out colonies of LPS/SPS corals seem to do well with higher phosphate levels.

If I had an immature system, I'd try to keep phosphates somewhere above 0 and less than .05 ppm as reported by my Hanna ULR phosphorous checker.