“Michael Paletta profiled a few industry leaders back in 2017 (Sprung, Joshi, WWC, Jason Fox) and averaged their tank parameters. Notice that they're running what was once considered extremely high values of No3 and Po4:
When I averaged out all of the numbers the values were pretty close to those of NSW. Alk was 8.19, Ca 419. Mg 1361, NO3 18.77, PO4 .18, Sr 8.6 and temp 77.”
Natural Sea Water has no where near that amount of Nitrate and Phosphate and completely missed the role of nitric oxide and Nitrate reductase and how a Nitrite can become a Nitrate by the process of oxidation and similarly, a nitrate can become a Nitrite by the process of reduction. It’s that process of Nitrate producing Nitrite that keeps coming up time and time again on top of low alkalinity, boosting the bacterial population with poison like Methanol, increased acidification rate driving low pH swings, not dosing beneficial bacteria or having macroalgae to compete for the nutrients in the built up detritus and excrement in an un vacuumed substrate feeding nuisance algae, Cyanobacterias, Dinoflagellates and Diatoms if there is Silica in the water.
Some Reefers have had the experience of being able to have many people with those problems making their tank look bad, frustrating them and not responding to their efforts to fix the problems. I was able to figure certain things out because I have done thousands of water tests on hundreds of tanks and I have been able to communicate with those people and get information that was always adding to my knowledge and understanding of tanks with many different types of setups and equipment and get a way better overview of the system as a whole and eliminate parts that weren’t useful, add equipment or supplements to help, adjust temperature and increase oxygen with airflow, what foods to use and anything else. It’s crazy to me to see someone with corals dying and the pH is at 8.1 dipping down to 7.8, dKH is at 8, magnesium is 1200, light intensity isn’t sufficient and all the “helpful” responses ask no questions, they just point to Phosphate and Nitrate levels where now all of a sudden if there’s a “swing” in N or P levels or Alkalinity is 10 or above that’s the cause for corals literally having the flesh of Acropora tissue disintegrating so fast, you can see it peeling off the skeleton? People then just give their anecdotes about how their pH and Alk are low in their tanks, so it has to be something other than that in a different one.
There are very intelligent people being swayed by anecdotal evidence and personal accounts because they interpreted this new style is used purposefully by the best people with the best looking corals Paletta has ever seen and that’s a powerful statement for most people because the guy is awesome and has a great rep, used to rock a mullet that was a flattop up front, has a degree from Yale and is the director of cancer detecting/monitoring equipment department for a huge corporation. I don’t disagree with him on this subject. What I disagree with is the people who have taken that information and reduced it to a simplicity that should be applied to any aquarium regardless of other factors or information about the system or the person’s capabilities. I’ve spent more than my 10,000 hours over the years trying to understand what happens in that box of rocks that makes us so happy when it looks good and downright upset when things go wrong that we can’t understand. Thousands and thousands of complete reef tests of so many different people’s setups and displays and personal tanks of my own taught me in a different way what to do to help others Being able to have friendships with people and getting their feedback, their subsequent test results and observations over many years, pictures and proof of their success and failures that have continually helped reinforce my beliefs of how and why I deal with issues for each and every aquarium individually to have those little reefs we create look good because it makes you happy and that makes me happy and satisfies my soul in a way that keeps me alive. You can’t imagine what I have lost because of this hobby and my dedication/obsession with it and it’s not even close. I’d go back and never buy that tank that started all this if it would bring back what I lost. I’m in Limbo. Lost in Purgatory. Time only moves forward. I won’t ever get anything I lost back and this knowledge and expertise I traded it for is rejected by people who set up their first tank a couple years ago who never tested another person’s water, read the books or became responsible for making their living by helping people care for that f’ing box of rocks that makes us both happy and I’m miserable for it.
