Oregon Grown Reef
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Pacific Northwest Reefers
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Proper levels being emphasized obviously. I haven't looked at any studies, but I'm curious to see what your opinions are on stable nutrients at proper levels being more important than we give them credit for. There have obviously been trends in the hobby that say we have too high or too low of a given nutrient, but the conflicting information overwhelms many and causes them to give less importance to stable nutrients at proper levels for their tanks. The longer I've had these same tanks running, the more I've been able to see how each change in levels of various kinds influences the corals overall health. I've had alk drift, albeit 0.4dkh over several months, and the corals don't respond negatively. However, I've seen corals not grow or lose color when nitrate is too high. When I say too high, that number may be different for each system, but each system has a number where it's too high. For me, when nitrate is over 10, I get browned out corals that grow slowly or not at all. After doing a large water change, in congruence with other nutrient reduction methods that have been in place for months, growth explodes and color returns. There are a few other changes I've made that I believe have contributed to the overall recent success, but each change has been for a specific problem. Color was addressed by doing a large water change and changing the lighting spectrum. I believe the wrong spectrum was mainly the reason for the corals not surviving long term, but nutrient levels to be the main contributing problem for color. Obviously lighting heavily impacts color, but I changed the lighting spectrum long before reducing nitrate from 12ppm to 8ppm and it wasn't until after the water change that the color started improving. As many are aware, phosphate isn't reduced very much via water changes. Phosphate hovers around 0.04-0.06ppm for me. For those wondering if it was possibly a contaminant or toxin, I run carbon 24/7 and do 2% auto water changes daily, so it's highly unlikely there's a contaminant. I've also had icp tests done that have shown nothing, but those are also limited in what they test for.
Interested in what your opinions are, but to me it also helps to know what kind of experience you have in the hobby. I've been keeping saltwater tanks for 6 years this December. I've been keeping coral since August 2018, so 4.5 years.
Interested in what your opinions are, but to me it also helps to know what kind of experience you have in the hobby. I've been keeping saltwater tanks for 6 years this December. I've been keeping coral since August 2018, so 4.5 years.