How useful are nitrate and phosphate test readings?

[Ziggy17]

Nice! The nitrogen’s not showing were confusing me.

. This is caffeine, for those interested;

agreed. We thought about using the proper formula on the image, however it didn’t translate well on smaller images. Plus more letters = more $

 

[IntrinsicReef]

My personal hunch is that the hobby has selected for those strains of corals that are better at getting what they need from light and inorganics in the water, and we mostly killed off a bunch of types that were more dependent on planktonic cells for nutrition.

To speculate on this point even more. The question has been raised " Why are we successful with some Goniopora now, and we weren't in the past." I wouldn't be surprised if the collective hobby found individual specimens that were well suited for our reef tanks and spread those genetics through the world. I still have clients that buy wild and maricultured Goniopora and their fate is usually 2-6 months. Dying right along side healthy aquacultured specimens that have amazing growth rates.

 

[jda]

For some things, changes in collection and supply chain helped a bunch, and then once in captivity some propagation helped a bunch too. Some of those gonis were helped by this... and remember when nobody could keep a elegance coral alive at all?

There is no doubt that corals more able to survive in the majority of today's tanks have been chosen to be propagated, maricultured and collected from the wild. You see this a lot with acropora where some folks pine for being able to keep some of the old-school staples again which do not do well with higher waste products and heavy blue light - not impossible, but also not as easy as they were more than a decade ago. You don't see many simplex, plana, rosaria, echinata and other smooth skinned stuff thrive like they used to, so they are not seen as much.

 

[Timfish]

I haven't read through all this thread yet but regarding corals and phosphate below is a partial list of papers I've stumbled across (Taricha has already listed a couple). As de Angelo and Weidenmann's papers are refferenced and discussion about feeding is also mentioned, the corals in their the second paper on their mesocosm they are feeding frozen rotifers .5 mg per 135L (2,250L totalsystem volume) twice weekly. So the corals are getting particulate Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus. Water changes are 5% weekly. The system was also getting labile DOC added at teh rate of 2.5 ml ethanol per 1000L per day (which rasies questions about the bleaching documented as sugars can cause bleaching https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.13695.)


These first 4 are papers by de Angelo and Wiedenman's research group:

An experimental mesocosm for long-term studies of reef corals | Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom | Cambridge Core

An experimental mesocosm for long-term studies of reef corals - Volume 92 Issue 4

www.cambridge.org

An Experimental Mesocosm for Longterm Studies of Reef Corals

Phosphate Deficiency:
Nutrient enrichment can increase the susceptibility of reef corals to bleaching:

Nutrient enrichment can increase the susceptibility of reef corals to bleaching - Nature Climate Change

Increased dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) concentrations in sea water have been linked to a reduction of the temperature threshold at which corals bleach, however, the mechanism underlying this change is not known. This phenomenon is now explained in terms of increased phosphatase activities...

www.nature.com

Ultrastructural Biomarkers in Symbiotic Algae Reflect the Availability of Dissolved Inorganic Nutrients and Particulate Food to the Reef Coral Holobiont:

Frontiers | Ultrastructural Biomarkers in Symbiotic Algae Reflect the Availability of Dissolved Inorganic Nutrients and Particulate Food to the Reef Coral Holobiont

Reef building corals associated with symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae) can access environmental nutrients from different sources, most significantly via the up...

www.frontiersin.org

Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates

Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates

Enrichment of reef environments with dissolved inorganic nutrients is considered a major threat to the survival of corals living in symbiosis with din…

www.sciencedirect.com

These are some additional links on phosphorus including the roles of sponges (we were able to get documented in a friend's system sponges storing phosphorus crystals.)

Effects of phosphate on growth and skeletal density in the scleractinian coral Acropora muricata: A controlled experimental approach

Effects of phosphate on growth and skeletal density in the scleractinian coral Acropora muricata: A controlled experimental approach

Phosphate contamination can negatively affect corals, modifying growth rates, skeletal density, reproduction, mortality, and zooxanthellae. We determi…

www.sciencedirect.com

High phosphate uptake requirements of the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata

High phosphate uptake requirements of the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata

SUMMARYSeveral untested aspects of the regulation of inorganic nutrient uptake were examined using nutrient depletion experiments with the symbiotic coral Stylophora pistillata. The total inhibition of phosphate uptake in artificial seawater lacking sodium indicates the involvement of a...

jeb.biologists.org

Phosphorus metabolism of reef organisms with algal symbionts

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ecm.1217?casa_token=ziDzrEEJ8g0AAAAA%3AHnfuGTIntMdqOtx2ij-lnoTh7qVg8VBhYFz98e60zfBEvx5IcIVGhmlpUYmzIJuqUNVm0sG8_0vth6lq

2657円まるいち 博多辛子明太子(無着色) 「博多の華」 (ギフト用) 180g Z6572海産物イクラ,タラコ,魚卵 Qoo10]　「博　まるいち　博多辛子明太子(無着色) | therichross.com

2657円まるいち 博多辛子明太子(無着色) 「博多の華」 (ギフト用) 180g Z6572海産物イクラ,タラコ,魚卵 Qoo10]　「博　まるいち　博多辛子明太子(無着色) | therichross.com

therichross.com

Sponge symbionts and the marine P cycle

Sponge symbionts and the marine P cycle

Marine sponges are ubiquitous colonizers of shallow, clear-water environments in the oceans (1, 2). Sponges have emerged as significant mediators of biogeochemical fluxes in coastal zones by virtue of respiring organic matter and facilitating both the consumption and release of nutrients (3, 4)...

www.pnas.org

Phosphorus sequestration in the form of polyphosphate by microbial symbionts in marine sponges

Phosphorus sequestration in the form of polyphosphate by microbial symbionts in marine sponges

Coral reefs are highly productive ecosystems that raise a conundrum called “Darwin’s paradox”: How can high production flourish in low-nutrient conditions? We show here that in three abundant Caribbean sponges, the granules that have been commonly observed in sponge tissue for decades are...

www.pnas.org

Fig 4 from "Phosphorus metabolism of reef organisms with algal symbionts"




This video is worrisome as it documents a parasitc bacteria that steals it's host's phosphorus.

 

[dwfain]

I run the Triton system on my tanks and do not do water changes. Tank 1 has been up and running 4+ years and tank 2 just a little over 2. I dose the 4 part Triton daily--Mg, Ca, and Alk 3a and 3b--and Iodine. Weekly is Vanadium, Manganese, and Zinc and that is it. I do a Triton ICP test bi-monthly and all parameters are in range. I feed flake in the morning and frozen in the evening and Nori once or twice a week.

The parameters on each are below.

Tank 1
Alk 7.94
Ca 398
Mg 1392
Ph 8.05
Salt 35
Nitrates 1.2
Phosphates .52

Tank 2
Alk 7.8
Ca 456
Mg 1366
Ph 8
Salt 35
Nitrates 15.2
Phosphates .77

Don't really like the Nitrate and Phosphate numbers but the tanks are happy so I am not chasing them. Sorry for the blue pics but I did not have time to get the filter out.

 

[IntrinsicReef]

I run the Triton system on my tanks and do not do water changes. Tank 1 has been up and running 4+ years and tank 2 just a little over 2. I dose the 4 part Triton daily--Mg, Ca, and Alk 3a and 3b--and Iodine. Weekly is Vanadium, Manganese, and Zinc and that is it. I do a Triton ICP test bi-monthly and all parameters are in range. I feed flake in the morning and frozen in the evening and Nori once or twice a week.

The parameters on each are below.

Tank 1
Alk 7.94
Ca 398
Mg 1392
Ph 8.05
Salt 35
Nitrates 1.2
Phosphates .52

Tank 2
Alk 7.8
Ca 456
Mg 1366
Ph 8
Salt 35
Nitrates 15.2
Phosphates .77

Don't really like the Nitrate and Phosphate numbers but the tanks are happy so I am not chasing them. Sorry for the blue pics but I did not have time to get the filter out.

Thank you for sharing. Everything looks happy and healthy. How long have you had the Moorish Idol?