High Phosphate Experience Wanted - At what PPM level does phosphate impact your SPS?

[tonyvan]

Lots of tanks run fine at higher phosphate levels, in particular older established tanks. E.g. here's one at 1.77 ppm: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/rich-ross-home-tank-guess-the-phosphate.296635/

Has adding new corals to a high phosphate tank been a problem?

 

[jreece11]

Can we get a TLR

One thing that I observed when my dropped my phosphate from whatever it was (out of range, blue test water) to 0.07ppm was Acroporas stn at the base.

That’s what I expect if we drop anything quickly. Did the Acros recover? How long did it take?

 

[jreece11]

Has adding new corals to a high phosphate tank been a problem?

I’ve been adding new corals by the week during this COVID19 tank-stocking lockdown. They seem to adapt well to the high phosphates. Start growing quickly in their new home. I’ve added 26 corals (mostly SPS) in the past month and haven’t lost one.

One interesting observation is that I bought the first budget acro as a test to answer “is the tank now mature enough and am I ready to keep Acros again?” At this time nitrates were zero and phosphates barely registered. New tank with really low nutrients (but last time I had a reef tank ultra low nutrient systems were the jam).

That was earlier this year and the frag was cheap and ugly at the store, brownish-green. It acclimated quickly at my house and the new growth was this beautiful arctic light ice blue. The brown base turned a nicer green color and I was pretty excited.

As time went on and more fish went in, and my heavy handed frozen food feeding got even heavier I was finally able to register nitrates at 5 ppm. Coral feeding started weekly as well. Of course phosphates continue to climb. Now that light green base and ice blue tip acro is darker green with darker blue tips. I don’t think it’s as “pretty” as the lighter version but my opinion is that the lower nutrients almost had it starved with the lighter colors and the denser nutrients now have it densely colored darker. It’s never looked healthier or growing faster...but I miss those crystal blue tips. Amazing how these animals change colors as the parameters of our tanks change.

 

[jreece11]

Wow. Huge discrepancies in testing. Off the shelf vs professional labs and the labs not looking good???
90 g mixed reef. 100 pounds rock. 3 years old. I dose nothing. Use instant ocean reef. By Hanna I get Phos at 0.2. Alk at 4.9. ATI lab gets 0.17 and 5.1. Mg 1395. Ca at 510. Nitrates 20. Stable at these numbers quite a while. You can’t isolate and treat one parameter artificially without upsetting the delicate balances. Suck out phos and what happens to other elements?
That said. In my tank Acros will not grow. Huge birds nest, purple stylo, chalices. Shrooms, leathers, scolys, trimming zoas, two 6 inch clams, montis growing slowly. I have to be in the not broken, no fix camp. I also believe in active turkey basting and the more rock the bigger buffering capacity, microbial population.

How do you keep calcium high enough without dosing for your SPS corals and clam?

 

[Sdot]

How do you keep calcium high enough without dosing for your SPS corals and clam?

Well it depends on your method of dosing....two part is easy, dose more of the part that has the calcium. A calcium reactor might be a more difficult. My buddy is dealing with this very issue with clams in his reef. He like I, is using ATI essentials 2 part.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

That’s what I expect if we drop anything quickly. Did the Acros recover? How long did it take?

No, but this was recently so they probably need more time. I don’t see any further stn after removing the GFO and feeding more.

 

[ramona]

two natural methods being used are gorgonians and/or certain digitata corals. To determine low PO4 in tanks

Would you please explain (for a novice like me) how do you use/interpret the two natural methods you are talking about? Thank you!

 

[Jeferson Stutz]

I was nervous as my phosphates went past the Hanna checker .2PPM max but my acros still looked so healthy and were growing.

After a few weeks of testing at the .2PPM max I bought a Salifert phosphate testing kit and I'm around 1 PPM now. My corals and livestock still look healthy and are growing but I don't want to put my head in the sand thinking it's fine when I know phosphates are high. I stopped pellet foot feeding and feed enough frozen food to keep nitrate at 5PPM.

I'm looking for experience from others that have/had high phosphates and at what point did they see negative impacts of it, or are their corals still thriving even with the high phosphates.

In case anyone wants to know my other paramters, since i know it's all related, I'll paste below.

Phosphate - 1
Nitrate - 5
Calcium - 380
Magnesium - 1410
Salinity - 1.025
PH - 8.0
Temp - 81

My personal experience and opinion is that SPS will tolerate PO4 near 0,2 or even more. When I had high nutrients my SPS was growing well but not the desired coloration. The most important is NO3 x PO4 balance and stability.I see many people chasing nutrients parameters and dosing GFO and Carbon in high amount, boom Cyano, instability, personal experience this is so bad for the reef.

On the other hand what SPS will not tolerate is low PO4(0,02 - 0,06) and high NO3 (20 - 50) seems the amount of Nitrogen and low Phosphate makes the SPS very week and volatile.

Thanks
Jeff stutz

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Would you please explain (for a novice like me) how do you use/interpret the two natural methods you are talking about? Thank you!

The gorgonian method I'm familiar, as long as polyps expand on gorgonians with no feeding. PO4 is very low. With digitatat, not familiar this method, certain type green with red I believe, if color stay vibrant, then your PO4 is very low. That's what I've been told

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Well it depends on your method of dosing....two part is easy, dose more of the part that has the calcium. A calcium reactor might be a more difficult. My buddy is dealing with this very issue with clams in his reef. He like I, is using ATI essentials 2 part.

Someone say clams, I use to have 80 Pacific oysters, outside refugiums. Right now 46 oysters. 22 in DT(hidden), rest in sump. Help feed my children of the sea(corals) .

 

[esther]

I've resigned to the fact that my tank will never have PO4 below .1 and I'm OK with that. All of our SPS are actually growing and thriving and so are all of our other corals (two gorgonians included). I'm keeping our PO4 between .1 and .2. Tank seems to be super happy with that. Our PO4 was as high as .8 a couple of months ago and SPS was still thriving. I confirmed PO4 numbers with 3 Triton tests over the last 4 months and they matched our Hanna tests.

So, I guess the moral of the story is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If the tank is happy, no need to chase numbers.

 

[ryan265]

Tank shot attached, this one been setup since December

what type of hybrid fixture are you running?

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

The corals I try caring for are nps. So recently added 24 oysters, like a month ago, and rest in 2 weeks.
As soon as the oysters were added two or three days later I turned off my sulfur denitrator. Heavy feeding and having oysters my NO3 is 2-3ppm, PO4 .01-.02. Love my oysters

From Lam Nguyen, Exclusive Corals

 

[ramona]

The gorgonian method I'm familiar, as long as polyps expand on gorgonians with no feeding. PO4 is very low. With digitatat, not familiar this method, certain type green with red I believe, if color stay vibrant, then your PO4 is very low. That's what I've been told

Thank you.
Now, if gorgonian polyps expand with light and close at night - what does that mean?

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Thank you.
Now, if gorgonian polyps expand with light and close at night - what does that mean?

Normal behavior. .....heeeee

 

[jreece11]

The corals I try caring for are nps. So recently added 24 oysters, like a month ago, and rest in 2 weeks.
As soon as the oysters were added two or three days later I turned off my sulfur denitrator. Heavy feeding and having oysters my NO3 is 2-3ppm, PO4 .01-.02. Love my oysters

From Lam Nguyen, Exclusive Corals

Oysters drop nitrate and phosphates? How much of a drop and how big of a tank?

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Oysters drop nitrate and phosphates? How much of a drop and how big of a tank?

They help, DT 46 gallons, sump 46 gallons, I also do auto wc, 5 gallons every 2 days, religiously.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

They help, DT 46 gallons, sump 46 gallons, I also do auto wc, 5 gallons every 2 days, religiously.

Those water changes probably help quite a bit.

 

[jda]

The simple, and also complex, answer is "it depends." I have some smoothies that will stop growing at 10 ppb and start to STN at 20 ppb while many other could not care at all with levels more than 10x this high. The simple answer is that there are lots of SPS that could do well with ridiculously high P levels and many others that fail to thrive... so if you just focus on what is growing and not chase after those that suffer, then you can have a great tank.

That is why you see so many different answers to this. However, you never see corals that struggle with high P in one tank thrive in another another... they are totally different sets of SPS. In most super high P SPS tanks, I see the easier to keep varieties.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

The simple, and also complex, answer is "it depends." I have some smoothies that will stop growing at 10 ppb and start to STN at 20 ppb while many other could not care at all with levels more than 10x this high. The simple answer is that there are lots of SPS that could do well with ridiculously high P levels and many others that fail to thrive... so if you just focus on what is growing and not chase after those that suffer, then you can have a great tank.

That is why you see so many different answers to this. However, you never see corals that struggle with high P in one tank thrive in another another... they are totally different sets of SPS. In most super high P SPS tanks, I see the easier to keep varieties.

Is the JF fox flame considered a smooth skin Acropora? It looks like one...I can’t keep them for some reason. They always rtn out of nowhere. The last one was encrusting and had really colored up nicely. Then one morning, it was rtn and bright bone white the next day. No swings of any kind, but phosphate is high in my tank. Lost three of them.