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Phosphate reactor required?

sen5241b

By sen5241b,
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sethsolomon Grandmaster Reefer

sethsolomon

(edited)

CORALS GET SICK AT 0.25 ppm phosphates. The only alternative I can imagine is to understock. 

this is not true by any means.

 

please watch this:  

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flooddc Oracle Reefer

flooddc

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Agreed with above! My phos has never below .25 ppm since I started this hobby. Thing goes down hill if you try to get "zero"

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sen5241b Grandmaster Reefer

sen5241b

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this is not true by any means.

 

please watch this:  

 

 

My source for "0.25" was Dr Shimek, Phd Marine Biology, invertebrate specialist and hobbyist. You think he's wrong? Mr Ross's tank however seemed to to do well with his high phosphates

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sethsolomon Grandmaster Reefer

sethsolomon

I think there are no absolutes in this hobby. At normal NSW levels yes .25 phosphate can harm corals. But a lot of people run there levels higher than that.

 

Also, just a side note, there are many ways to bring phosphates down. Refugium, biopellets, carbon dosing and water changes.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

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Origami Neptune Reefer

Origami

My source for "0.25" was Dr Shimek, Phd Marine Biology, invertebrate specialist and hobbyist. You think he's wrong? Mr Ross's tank however seemed to to do well with his high phosphates

 

Dr. Shimek's thoughts were part of the common culture and belief many years ago. As mentioned, the hobby is dynamic and old "absolutes" are repeatedly turned up on end. Rich is one person who's observed that it is possible for a tank to thrive under what was considered high-phosphate conditions. Rich is actually a senior biologist on staff at the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences, the 2014 MASNA Aquarist of the Year, and a WAMAS Speaker (Fall 2014, speaking on this very topic). (Not to mention, he was our emcee at MACNA 2015's banquet.) 

 

That's part of what's cool about this hobby and its practice: It's dynamic. Evidence mounts. Things change. Beliefs change. And, with luck, we learn a little more. And, half the time, we learn that what we believed before may not be the end of the story.

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sen5241b Grandmaster Reefer

sen5241b

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Dr. Shimek's thoughts were part of the common culture and belief many years ago. As mentioned, the hobby is dynamic and old "absolutes" are repeatedly turned up on end. Rich is one person who's observed that it is possible for a tank to thrive under what was considered high-phosphate conditions. Rich is actually a senior biologist on staff at the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences, the 2014 MASNA Aquarist of the Year, and a WAMAS Speaker (Fall 2014, speaking on this very topic). (Not to mention, he was our emcee at MACNA 2015's banquet.) 

 

That's part of what's cool about this hobby and its practice: It's dynamic. Evidence mounts. Things change. Beliefs change. And, with luck, we learn a little more. And, half the time, we learn that what we believed before may not be the end of the story.

 

Interesting. My phosphates tested close to zero today. Do I need to raise them?

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gmerek2 Oracle Reefer

gmerek2

I vote no. I try raising mine and I always end up with green hair or lots of cyano. My coral colors are great at near zero. The problem I had was the color enhanced photos on websites like Jason fox and world wide corals. Giving me unreal expectations. I believe it is difficult to reach the point where corals are starving for phosphates. The only time I have believed cases of it is where the tank is extremely mature and has a massive amount of coral growing end to end (pizzaguys old tank) and a case where there was two underfed damsels in a well established 75g system. I have fish that crop dust coral and MP 40s that grind it all up for easy absorption before it even has time to be filtered

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Origami Neptune Reefer

Origami

Interesting. My phosphates tested close to zero today. Do I need to raise them?

If your tank is doing well, why change? Unless you're curious and want to experiment, that is. But realize that all experiments don't always yield the results that you want. What Rich was saying in his talk is that some tanks do OK with high phosphate, others may not. It's like so much else in this hobby: YMMV (your mileage may vary). 

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pizzaguy Oracle Reefer

pizzaguy

Agreed. No two tanks seem to be the same and each requires different things. I was dosing po4 in my last tank and when I moved to my new tank about 8 months ago I also had to dose po4 pretty heavy actually as my corals were clearly starving to death and dying. Once I put ridiculous amounts of food grade po4 in over about a 2 month period things started to stabilize. Now I'm feeding crazy heavy to keep po4 up a little bit in my tank. At this point my coral are doing better then they ever have

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