Nutrient levels

Here's another good article I came across in Advancedaquarist.com regarding how too clean of water could be just as bad as "dirty" water. I mean, I know most of you guys know this already, but one thing I liked in this one is how they performed experiments and compared growth and health in a controlled environment. Basically they went deep as to the explanation of the effects of N and P that most of us SPS keepers strive to keep undetectable. Thought I would share articles here and there as I run across them.

Impacts of nutrient enrichment on coral reefs: new perspectives and implications for coastal management and reef survival

 

Great articles! I have never seen those before thanks for sharing, Personally I like a little nitrate anywhere 5-10 ppm anything lower and I don't see the color I'd like in my acros, I have had my nitrates up to 50ppm and my sps were still thriving, Now I don't recommend keeping nitrate that high but to many people try to chase to low of numbers imo and freak out when there nitrate rises to 5 ppm when there's nothing to worry about, Phosphates is the bigger issue imo.

 

and phosphates is the hardest to keep low sometimes for some reason. Seems like everything you throw in the tank is phosphate based and it only gets consumed at that small ratio to nitrates.

 

Yeah, I'm having this problem right now. I use prodibio and the bacteria is eating up all the NO3 before it can get to the PO4 so it isn't getting my PO4 low enough.
Getting NO3 to zero is the easy part. The hard part is balancing it in the 1-2 ppm range.
The literature in my Red sea NO3 kit says in there studies best growth was NO3 1-2ppm PO4 .01, best color: NO3 .25 , PO4 .02
I'm unplugging my skimmer here and there, using GFO and feeding more. I might get some more fish too.

 

same problem i'm having....I get rid of nitrates like nothing but phosphates remain. I'm hoping with my new tank i shouldn't have the problem with the skimmer i have installed. And this time i'm starting it off with dry rock. My current tank i started with pukani rock and the amount of die off the stuff has is crazy. I think it's still leaching to this date a year later. Beautiful rock though

 

Maybe check out the high capacity GFO. It's a bit of sticker shock but it can be rejuvenated. Some people use the same cup for months rejuvenating several times. I just got some last week and my PO4 went from .03 to .02 overnight.
I work out of town.. I was gone for 4 days and came back it was back up to .03. I have that BRS dual reactor. When I put in fresh GFO it tumbles nicely.. (I had the sponges in there.) They get a little clogged at the top though and the tumble stops. It's even worse with the regular GFO. So I took out the sponges yesterday and this morning it was .01 down from .03 yesterday. So it seems it has to have a little tumble for sure. Also I was using about 1 cup regular and now using about 3/4 cup HC. I may have to reduce that even more. Not a big fan of this dual reactor. They even mention that it clogs easily in one of their videos. If it keeps clogging I'm going to upgrade to a better media reactor.

 

I cant get my nitrates or phosphates above 0! I have really increased feeding regimen and API registers a 0 and Red Sea its so ahrd to tell, MAYBE a 2.5. Phosphates with hanna checker always 0!! I might add more fish to this as well and plan on tkaing mys kimmer back off line

 

This is what I did to mine. It's basically a spectapure copy.



The same plastic screws fit when the chambers were turn 90º, I just had to get the Wye adapter and the ball valves. The back will just have the 90ºs and the wye adapter. This was just a dry fit. This allows two separate flows between the GFO and carbon.

This was a post I posted on my regional forum and since this I've used it twice. The first time, I tumbled the crap out of the GFO AND used too much. P04 dropped too fast and I had GFO all over my tank and sump.

This time, I used about a 1/4 cup and kept it to a nice tumble and it's been setup for just about a week. I haven't tested my P04 yet, but I am not getting the GFO everywhere.

This may help save you from having to buy something brand new...

 

Karma for the tip.. I'll look into that.