howaboutme January 21, 2014 Share January 21, 2014 I stumbled upon this thread today on RC. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2366953 It really makes you think why we're doing what we're doing and what some of the information we're getting is really coming from. The basic concept I got from this is that every tank is different and if your tank is mature (ala Paulb too as another example), you may be able to do things you're not suppose to based on our current research and thinking. Personally, I have always thought PO4 was the culprit behind bad things in our tanks (as opposed to NO3). That's obviously not the case in this situation. An interesting read no matter what corner you're in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zygote2k January 21, 2014 Share January 21, 2014 (edited) you can grow colorful SPS without a protein skimmer too. they're weeds of the sea and with every successive generation in captivity, will be much more likely to survive in water that's drastically different than NSW. evolution at work. Edited January 21, 2014 by zygote2k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme January 21, 2014 Author Share January 21, 2014 you can grow colorful SPS without a protein skimmer too. they're weeds of the sea and with every successive generation in captivity, will be much more likely to survive in water that's drastically different than NSW. evolution at work. That's a good way to put it in a nutshell. I guess we've all been affected by the marketing machine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomtom2245 January 21, 2014 Share January 21, 2014 That's an awesome looking tank and I think that the high level of P04 is ok because he doesn't even have a place for any algae to grow! Thanks for the link, very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme January 21, 2014 Author Share January 21, 2014 That's an awesome looking tank and I think that the high level of P04 is ok because he doesn't even have a place for any algae to grow! Thanks for the link, very interesting. Exactly! I'm not sure if you read that the tank owner even mentioned it as such. It's basically one way to keep his tank nuisance algae free but the high PO4 w/ the very colorful and growing SPS is what's so surprising. Hard to read all of the long thread but the argument between him and a former RC TOTM winner who stands by ULNS and dismisses the OPs claim that PO4 control is overrated is amusing. By the way, the tank's PO4 runs between .1 and .3... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 21, 2014 Share January 21, 2014 He said early on that it was over 1ppm http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22267660&postcount=78 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme January 21, 2014 Author Share January 21, 2014 He said early on that it was over 1ppm http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22267660&postcount=78 Thanks Alan. I remember I had read that but couldn't find it again to verify. Apparently, he also uses a lab grade test too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s2nhle January 21, 2014 Share January 21, 2014 Very interesting reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme January 21, 2014 Author Share January 21, 2014 A future WAMAS speaker? http://packedhead.net/about/ He seems to know a little something with a 212,000 G live coral reef he's in charge of. It would certainly be a very interesting talk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 21, 2014 Share January 21, 2014 Im still going through the thread. Seems one theory is that he can tolerate high phosphate because there is so much coral and xoox in his packed tank to take it up. It outcompetes the hair algae. Haha. Its like he is using sps corals in huge number for nutrient control. I aspire to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme January 21, 2014 Author Share January 21, 2014 Im still going through the thread. Seems one theory is that he can tolerate high phosphate because there is so much coral and xoox in his packed tank to take it up. It outcompetes the hair algae. Haha. Its like he is using sps corals in huge number for nutrient control. I aspire to that. Yeah, I read that too. I think that's another example of why a mature tank is so different than a new tank. I think the problem is that most people's tanks never get a chance to get to maturity because of economics, itch to upgrade starting the cycle over again, crashes or other break downs. What I haven't read yet is what he did in the early stages of this tank. Did he actually try to control PO4 (he does say he uses GFO) to a specified number like us? It's a bit like what came first, the chicken or the egg. In this case, it's did his tank achieve the growth and color despite the high PO4 or did the high PO4 come later after maturity and like you pointed out above, the good outcompetes the bad which negates any need to even measure or be concerned about PO4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore January 21, 2014 Share January 21, 2014 A future WAMAS speaker? http://packedhead.net/about/ He seems to know a little something with a 212,000 G live coral reef he's in charge of. It would certainly be a very interesting talk. I would love to have Rich Ross here as a speaker. He is highly entertaining and intelligent. Any of you who saw his intro performance at the last macna banquet will know exactly what I'm talking about. He is one of the people I most respect in this hobby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 21, 2014 Share January 21, 2014 Yeah, I read that too. I think that's another example of why a mature tank is so different than a new tank. I think the problem is that most people's tanks never get a chance to get to maturity because of economics, itch to upgrade starting the cycle over again, crashes or other break downs. What I haven't read yet is what he did in the early stages of this tank. Did he actually try to control PO4 (he does say he uses GFO) to a specified number like us? It's a bit like what came first, the chicken or the egg. In this case, it's did his tank achieve the growth and color despite the high PO4 or did the high PO4 come later after maturity and like you pointed out above, the good outcompetes the bad which negates any need to even measure or be concerned about PO4. I will take his success as a mandate to buy way too many sps frags at the next meeting. Success comes from having silly amounts of sps. Instead of buying a 70 dollar tub of HC-GFO I will from now on buy an inexpensive SPS colony for the same price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme January 21, 2014 Author Share January 21, 2014 I will take his success as a mandate to buy way too many sps frags at the next meeting. Success comes from having silly amounts of sps. Instead of buying a 70 dollar tub of HC-GFO I will from now on buy an inexpensive SPS colony for the same price. Amen! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 21, 2014 Share January 21, 2014 I made it through the thread. It kind of seems like the takeaway must just be that young tanks with small amounts of starting coral are harder to do well because the SPS needs nutrients to thrive, and will remove them happily from the water column, but if those nutrients are available in quantity then the algae will use it much faster if there isnt a lot of coral around to use it first. Seems like you just walk the low nutrient/algae tightrope until your tank has enough desireable stuff in it that utilizes the nutrient, at which point you can take it a bit easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime January 22, 2014 Share January 22, 2014 Maybe by packing out my tank, I've guaranteed success. I agree with Alan, I'll just buy more corals! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 22, 2014 Share January 22, 2014 The other message is that Rob is right all along and you should just let the dumb algae grow and add stuff to eat it if you feel like it and not even worry about the numbers for a good long while until things settle in. Jack often says similar about the numbers. I can say that now that I've done my first one, if I ever do another one I'll be less hot and heavy about the cycling and timing and trying to get moving stuff into it and will take my time and go slower. Similar to, erm, other things in life that are super exciting the first time or two and eventually become fairly routine and almost old hat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme January 22, 2014 Author Share January 22, 2014 I made it through the thread. It kind of seems like the takeaway must just be that young tanks with small amounts of starting coral are harder to do well because the SPS needs nutrients to thrive, and will remove them happily from the water column, but if those nutrients are available in quantity then the algae will use it much faster if there isnt a lot of coral around to use it first. Seems like you just walk the low nutrient/algae tightrope until your tank has enough desireable stuff in it that utilizes the nutrient, at which point you can take it a bit easier. Yes, that's precisely what I got out of it too. I need to read the other article linked that goes into the history of the tank to see if he was, like a lot of us, worried about the numbers at the beginning... The other message is that Rob is right all along and you should just let the dumb algae grow and add stuff to eat it if you feel like it and not even worry about the numbers for a good long while until things settle in. Jack often says similar about the numbers. I can say that now that I've done my first one, if I ever do another one I'll be less hot and heavy about the cycling and timing and trying to get moving stuff into it and will take my time and go slower. Similar to, erm, other things in life that are super exciting the first time or two and eventually become fairly routine and almost old hat. I think that it's okay to be worried about certain numbers but others not so much. For example, I bought a Hanna ULR and used it religiously at the beginning. But I didn't need to use it since I have algae and it would give me a false number anyways. Remember, if you have algae, you have phosphates. Now I don't have algae but I still haven't tested again since I can see w/ my eyes how the tank is doing. But I do test for NO3 since I believe (based on a conclusion I came to w/ research and my own experience) that a higher NO3 is better for my tank. So after roughly 10 or 11 months into this hobby, I can say "it depends"... I'm still on the fence about Alk, Ca and Mag though...I remember Isaac's issue w/ low alk and him worried and then trying to bring it up because that's what we've been told to do....But his tank was and is beautiful so aesthetically and health-wise, there was definitely no need. And I think Isaac has stopped, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, Isaac. Rich Ross talks about the marketing machine. I think the alk, ca and mag numbers are the most influenced by mass marketing. I agree w/ all that stability is the most important rather than targeting a number. Phew, that was long winded...sorry. This is my first time to decompress for the night since my new born is having trouble sleeping and has been crying for 4 hours..The joys of a newborn..haha. Oh..and I'm considering a theme for my next tank, something that I want to experiment on...I think I want to do a SPS dominant tank w/o dosing alk, ca and/or mag and w/o using PO4 or nitrate removers, EVER...I know it's been done (I think current wamas totm says he doesn't use additives but he is bb, which certainly helps)....I need to practice what I preach... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore January 22, 2014 Share January 22, 2014 Chasing dissolved nutrient numbers is not something I ever worry about, but I disagree that ignoring alkalinity would be ok for an sps system. That is the one water parameter (besides temp & salinity) that I have a test kit for (my old Deltec phosphate kit expired around 2006). If alkalinity falls below 5-6 DKH, acroporas will start to lose tissue. And in a heavy growth sps system, it will fall, and quickly, without significant ca/alk supplementation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basser9 January 22, 2014 Share January 22, 2014 There is a difference between running a very low sps only system and a mixed reef. You are asking for a tank wipeout when you run very high levels of po/nitrates or doc. Its is possible to get away with very high nutrients levels but not wise. I had a couple of nice mixed reefs 25 years ago before we could even test for po or nitrate. But both setups over a couple of years hit a wall for the sps and started to go down hill. You dont have to get to .03 for po but letting any reef get over 1 is not wise. Same for nitrates running at 60 is possible i have done it but not wise get it to 10 fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme January 22, 2014 Author Share January 22, 2014 Chasing dissolved nutrient numbers is not something I ever worry about, but I disagree that ignoring alkalinity would be ok for an sps system. That is the one water parameter (besides temp & salinity) that I have a test kit for (my old Deltec phosphate kit expired around 2006). If alkalinity falls below 5-6 DKH, acroporas will start to lose tissue. And in a heavy growth sps system, it will fall, and quickly, without significant ca/alk supplementation. I agree w/ you on the min alk level...I'm implying that to maintain an alk level close to nsw (say 6 or 7 dkh), water changes may be enough..Again, It'll have to experiment on that. What I'm saying (just my opinion based on research and other tanks of people w/ more experience) is that you don't need to reach that magic number of, say 8, 9 or 10 dkh....Also my opinion is that when people say my acros look better at 10dkh, that may be a bit of the placebo effect...You can believe what you want but until you have 2 exact same tanks and parameters other than what you're testing, you can't really say for sure that just alk is what's making your acros look better. Again, I have no proof myself until I start the new tank. There is a difference between running a very low sps only system and a mixed reef. You are asking for a tank wipeout when you run very high levels of po/nitrates or doc. Its is possible to get away with very high nutrients levels but not wise. I had a couple of nice mixed reefs 25 years ago before we could even test for po or nitrate. But both setups over a couple of years hit a wall for the sps and started to go down hill. You dont have to get to .03 for po but letting any reef get over 1 is not wise. Same for nitrates running at 60 is possible i have done it but not wise get it to 10 fine. I agree w/ you..but there are obvious examples that go against what you're saying..Rich Ross' tank is one example. His PO4 reach > 1.0 ppm and his looks fine. By the way...WAMAS officers..thoughts on bringing Rich Ross in for the future? I missed Copps' SPS talk last time but I can probably assume Rich's talk will be a nice counter balance of how to keep successful SPS tanks.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 22, 2014 Share January 22, 2014 (edited) Someone's been reading Rich's Skeptical Reefkeeper series. It's infuriating, in some ways, to take a skeptical approach or be given advice from someone with a skeptical approach because the advice sometimes boils down to "nobody knows, good luck and read more, kid." My kids often respond with "you know the answer, just tell me what it is" when I try to get them to think it through themselves. In the case of reef tanks, the real answer often is that nobody knows what is working and what isn't, but successful reef keepers just seem to have put the time in to develop what Rich calls a "saltwater thumb" and can intuit what might be suffering and for what reason in a specific tank. Even those with a saltwater thumb can't apply that knowledge to diagnose someone else's situation because they don't know that tank or it's inhabitants. Maybe that's why everyone says that starting a first reef tank with a nano or god forbid a pico is a bad idea, not necessarily because keeping stable parameters are so hard in a small volume of water, which of course is true, but because a nano is such an unforgiving environment for someone who doesn't have a good intuition born from years of saltwater tanks. I don't think his approach is necessarily all that different from Copps. In his talk Copps emphasized that there was no "reef in a bottle" product and that you needed to put in the work and practice good husbandry (basically make sure import-coral consumption=export) to get the tank to succeed. I'd think either of them would say, when looking at a nice and healthy tank that whatever that person was doing was the right thing even if they're totally different things, heh. Edited January 22, 2014 by AlanM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme January 22, 2014 Author Share January 22, 2014 Someone's been reading Rich's Skeptical Reefkeeper series. It's infuriating, in some ways, to take a skeptical approach or be given advice from someone with a skeptical approach because the advice sometimes boils down to "nobody knows, good luck and read more, kid." My kids often respond with "you know the answer, just tell me what it is" when I try to get them to think it through themselves. In the case of reef tanks, the real answer often is that nobody knows what is working and what isn't, but successful reef keepers just seem to have put the time in to develop what Rich calls a "saltwater thumb" and can intuit what might be suffering and for what reason in a specific tank. Even those with a saltwater thumb can't apply that knowledge to diagnose someone else's situation because they don't know that tank or it's inhabitants. Maybe that's why everyone says that starting a first reef tank with a nano or god forbid a pico is a bad idea, not necessarily because keeping stable parameters are so hard in a small volume of water, which of course is true, but because a nano is such an unforgiving environment for someone who doesn't have a good intuition born from years of saltwater tanks. I don't think his approach is necessarily all that different from Copps. In his talk Copps emphasized that there was no "reef in a bottle" product and that you needed to put in the work and practice good husbandry (basically make sure import-coral consumption=export) to get the tank to succeed. I'd think either of them would say, when looking at a nice and healthy tank that whatever that person was doing was the right thing even if they're totally different things, heh. Haha..I am intrigued, definitely. I will say that I have always been a skeptic, never believing the first thing I hear or read. I think people having the cajones (having 25 years of experience and a 212,000G reef tank helps qualify...haha) to post their practices against the norm do our hobby a big service. While I don't condone following anyone's tactics 100%, hopefully we all can come up with our own solutions with the knowledge gained. It's just discourse. I agree w/ the rest of your statement 100% as well and thanks for the Copps statement, good to hear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roni January 22, 2014 Share January 22, 2014 A key thing to remember here is that Ross is a very experienced reefer with a mature system. It's a fallacy to think that having high nutrients is a _good_ idea for a reef system, especially an SPS dominant system. I don't think anyone that is starting out should say, "well, Rick Ross has high po4 so it must be fine". It may be fine in certain systems but there are a lot more people that have systems with lower nutrient levels and with success then people that have high nutrient levels and success. The keys between good reef tanks are the same: Great full spectrum lighting, strong variable water motion, efficient nutrient export, stability, and ca/alk supplementation (whether through water changes, dosing, or a ca reactor). I personally believe the reason some people have problems chasing low numbers in terms of n03/po4 is that they starve their systems to achieve it. The tanks I've enjoyed the most are ones that have a high nutrient input (food/plankton/etc) and high export. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime January 22, 2014 Share January 22, 2014 I'm still on the fence about Alk, Ca and Mag though...I remember Isaac's issue w/ low alk and him worried and then trying to bring it up because that's what we've been told to do....But his tank was and is beautiful so aesthetically and health-wise, there was definitely no need. And I think Isaac has stopped, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, Isaac. My alk was low, and still is, it fluctuates in between 6-7 at the moment, which is actually on par with NSW. I have stopped chasing a number, but I also have reacted by performing more water changes. All my acros are doing fine, but my green birdsnest was lost, and I believe it was because of my alk. This is hard to decide, because I also have 3 smaller colonies/large frags of birdsnest that all do really well, and continued to do well while the green bn died. Chasing dissolved nutrient numbers is not something I ever worry about, but I disagree that ignoring alkalinity would be ok for an sps system. That is the one water parameter (besides temp & salinity) that I have a test kit for (my old Deltec phosphate kit expired around 2006). If alkalinity falls below 5-6 DKH, acroporas will start to lose tissue. And in a heavy growth sps system, it will fall, and quickly, without significant ca/alk supplementation. I agree with this statement 100% I think the reason folks probably suggest "8" as a magic number is because anything above or below is walking a thin line. JMO. The tanks I've enjoyed the most are ones that have a high nutrient input (food/plankton/etc) and high export. Amen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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