Show me your polluted tanks: High Po4 High No3

[F i s h y]

I hear and see on many threads that you can't have high nutrients to run a colorful and successful reef. I see every day on threads about "help my coral" or "Is this coral dead" there is information that keeps getting regurgitated about having to high of phosphates or nitrates. This thread is not intended to be a debate in what appropriate levels of nutrients should be. As we all know, there are a million different ways to run a reef tank and no 2 setups are exactly the same. So I am just curious to see everyone's POLLUTED tanks. Please list your typical parameters and post a video or picture.

Salinity: 35 Temp: 78.5 PH: 7.8 Alk: 8.5 Ca: 450 MG: 1500+ Po4: .365 No3: 42

 

[dakoop]

Pretty tank.

 

[F i s h y]

Pretty tank.

Thank you.

 

[Uncle99]

Nitrate 10ppm
Phosphate .4ppm

 

[F i s h y]

Nitrate 10ppm
Phosphate .4ppm

Very impressive! love the large sps colony in the middle!

 

[Uncle99]

Very impressive! love the large sps colony in the middle!

Thank you!

I say BS to keeping phosphate below 0.05ppm

Feed them!

 

[exnisstech]

I hear ya. I shake my head every time I hear "your PO4 is too high" and it's only 0.1 lol. My NO3 isn't too high but last weeks test had NO3 13.4 and PO4 0.39 on this tank. It's only been running since March and started with PO4 2.9

EDIT : this was dry rock barebottom start up but the sump is full of old live rock, much of it old ocean live rock. I've not had any algae issues in the DT.

 

[1112-425XL]

Temp. 77.5
Salinity 1.0255
Alkalinity 9.4
PH. 8.1
Calc. 460
P04. 0.30
N03. 17.5

 

[F i s h y]

I hear ya. I shake my head every time I hear "your PO4 is too high" and it's only 0.1 lol. My NO3 isn't too high but last weeks test had NO3 13.4 and PO4 0.39 on this tank. It's only been running since March and started with PO4 2.9

Looks Great!

 

[F i s h y]

Temp. 77.5
Salinity 1.0255
Alkalinity 9.4
PH. 8.1
Calc. 460
P04. 0.30
N03. 17.5

Looking GOOD

 

[PotatoPig]

My 2c:

My gut feeling is the “secret sauce” is in the viruses and bacteria and other microorganisms that our tanks are chock full of. The recommended nutrients are more a protocol that has a high chance of maintaining this microbiome where it needs to be, but the numbers aren’t essential to the corals themselves providing the biome is stable and acceptable to the corals.

Or in picture form:

 

[VintageReefer]

Nitrate 6-8
Phosphate .38 to .48
Zero algae issues

 

[F i s h y]

Nitrate 6-8
Phosphate .38 to .48
Zero algae issues

Stunning colors!

 

[VintageReefer]

This is the same water I used to fill the tank 10 years ago. I’ve done 3 water changes in 10 years, 5g each, for maintenance purposes.

Up until about 3 months ago I ran low nutrient but wanted to try higher nutrients to see impact on my Gonis, I have approx 20 in here

 

[VintageReefer]

 

[F i s h y]

@VintageReefer bringing the fire!!! love your Gonis, i have 5 been with me a long time.

 

[areefer01]

• 210 mixed reef
• Zoa's, frogspawn, torch, hammer, bubble coral, acropora, leathers
• Gold lined rabbitfish, milletseed, pyramid, zoster, copperband butterflies, lyretail damsels, radial, matted filefish, links goby, upside down goby, yellow assessor, clowns, pajama cardinals, pink square anthias, and a neon blue goby
• NO3: 24.7 ppm (Hanna 782)
• PO4: 2.2 ppm (Hanna 713)
• Parameters are not a spike but rather the trend as when the display started they are obviously lower and increase over time.

The history graph below is a quick snap from some ICP data I had. The display was actually running a bit before that. I do not really recommend nutrient levels this high but I also am not one to chase numbers. I've run with low and high nutrients and decided to stop fighting and let it do what it wanted to do. It works for me.

Quick video, some photos. Not great but you get the idea.

Phosphate history:

Low quality video:

 

[Justfebreezeit]

Beautiful tanks, would be super beneficial to include age of tank as well as if you started with dry or live rock in your parameters.

 

[PharmrJohn]

What is the HUGE coral colony on the right side of your tank?

 

[Lavey29]

My tank has always been elevated nutrients levels. Nitrates 15 to 20 and phosphate. 2 to .5 but as high as .79. I have redone the top a bit with new acro frags some months back. Just added 2 new fish also to help keep my nutrients levels elevated. I really think this is a key component to mixed reef success.