Does tank age (beyond cycling) matter when keeping SPS coral?

[jda]

Time is hard.

Most true coral (stonies) get the majority of their phosphorous, some nitrogen and some energy/carbon from assimilating microscopic things that they catch in their slime coats. They do not use nitrate and phosphate like so many people think and polyp eating likely does nothing. You don't have to have an old tank to have such things and rock/sand from the ocean or another tank can jump start and lower the time. You just have to have maturity and a diverse biom.

Also, fish waste provides available form of nitrogen through ammonia/ammonium and also some available forms of phosphorous in metaphosphates that break down later into orthophosphate. Our test kits only read orthophosphate and it is a form that most stonies do not prefer. With fish, a mature and established ecosystem will eat fish parasites when the fall off of the fish for parts of their lifecycle providing help or insurance on top of introduction or quarantine. Healthy fish usually means healthy stonies and mature tanks have a role in this too.

Bacteria in a bottle is a small piece of the puzzle. Pods in a bottle are a small piece of the puzzle. You need more. Most people get it eventually but usually on live rock, frag plugs, corals with shells, rock or whatever from the ocean.

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

Time is hard.

Most true coral (stonies) get the majority of their phosphorous, some nitrogen and some energy/carbon from assimilating microscopic things that they catch in their slime coats. They do not use nitrate and phosphate like so many people think and polyp eating likely does nothing. You don't have to have an old tank to have such things and rock/sand from the ocean or another tank can jump start and lower the time. You just have to have maturity and a diverse biom.

Also, fish waste provides available form of nitrogen through ammonia/ammonium and also some available forms of phosphorous in metaphosphates that break down later into orthophosphate. Our test kits only read orthophosphate and it is a form that most stonies do not prefer. With fish, a mature and established ecosystem will eat fish parasites when the fall off of the fish for parts of their lifecycle providing help or insurance on top of introduction or quarantine. Healthy fish usually means healthy stonies and mature tanks have a role in this too.

Bacteria in a bottle is a small piece of the puzzle. Pods in a bottle are a small piece of the puzzle. You need more. Most people get it eventually but usually on live rock, frag plugs, corals with shells, rock or whatever from the ocean.

I disagree with your first paragraph and I hear that statement made on Reef2Reef all the time.

What gives SPS it's color? Algae.

What does the SPS expell when a rapid change or too much lighting is administered? Zooxanthellae otherwise known as algae.

What happens to your reef tank when your phosphates become elevated? Algae.

To say SPS do not need Phosphate and Nitrate to grow and sustain themselves, would be incorrect. We've seen countless posts where users say their SPS is experiencing STN/RTN or getting pale and losing color, only to post that they have 0 phosphates and 0 Nitrates, but every other parameter is in range.

The ugly stage, for example, is 99.99% caused by artificial rock sucking nutrients (Nitrate and Phosphate) from the water and causing dinoflagelates. It's counterintuitive to all new reefers to dose Nitrate and Phosphate and get rid of dinoflagelates as they have been told that elevated levels of phosphates cause dinoflagelates.

There is so much false information it keeps people's heads spinning.

@jda I'm not saying you're spreading false info, I was just talking about phosphates. In short, Acropora absolutely need Nitrate and Phosphate.

 

[jda]

They need phosphorus and nitrogen. Those are different things than phosphate and nitrate.

 

[jda]

Go back and read what I wrote again and pay attention to the differences between phosphorous and phosphate as well as nitrogen and nitrate. All of it is correct. There is an awesome thread about nitrate in the chemistry forum that is a good read with some smart people chiming in - I can give you the breakdown and summary quickly 1). nothing in our tanks needs nitrate except for anaerobic bacteria and 2.) having some nitrate on a test kit might indicate that you have enough nitrogen in other forms to keep things growing, but having no nitrate is not a sign that you don't (see number one above).

I do agree that there is a lot of false information out there.

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

I go by coralline algae. When it explodes you're ready.

 

[Dburr1014]

Zooxanthellae is more or less dinoflagellates, which is an algae. I guess all dinoflagellates are algae but not all algae are dinoflagellates.

Zooxanthellae - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jda]

This could be a rabbit hole of reading, but there are huge differences between micro and macro algae, how they get their building blocks and energy. Even with the micro algae, there are huge differences between those that need hosts and those that do not.

For example, most macro algae can use nitrate if they have to, but still prefer to get their nitrogen from ammonia which is why tanks with very low levels of nitrate still have algae without consumers. Hosts can use ammonia and can also get nitrogen from organic material for the zoox to use - not all hosts can convert no3 back to a usable form for the zoox, but those that can expend a large amount of energy to do so in the range of like 30-70% extra.

If you are interested, find that nitrate thread in the chemistry form and start reading. There is some good stuff in there. It is not everything, but it is a good start.

 

[Derrick0580]

I chose wait until 1 year but in reality there needs to be an option of between 6 months and a year depending on how mature and stable the tank is.

 

[zheka757]

You just have to have maturity and a diverse biom

^^^^ this I believe is the best thing for our reef tanks in general. reason why 2 different tanks are never same with same water parameters.... yet one is successful at growing corals other one is fighting dinos,

I truly belive this will be the new "HAVE TO", to set up a new reef tank.