Show me your polluted tanks: High Po4 High No3

[crazyfishmom]

210 gallon system. Soon to be 1 year old. Started with 40 lb of TBS sand and 60 lb of TBS rock with lots of dry sand and rock. Phosphate typically between .2-.4, nitrates have settled at around 40 ppm. I find that my alkalinity consumption goes down significantly when my phosphate is above .4 so I maintain it there or a little lower. No water changes except when the sump get gross and I have to clean that out.

 

[SunnyX]

I rarely ever check most of my parameters, but when I did check, my phosphates were at 0.90. Goes to show that you shouldn’t solely chase numbers. There’s more to reefing than what shows up in a test.

 

[toi_ss]

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

What lights are you using? I really like the spectrum

 

[AaronFReef]

Ignore the people who say you "can't have SPS and high nutrients". That's just not true. But I'm not saying it's best. Still trying to find the best coloration I can get and not sure my 50 ppm NO3 and >0.66 ppm PO4 is good.

 

[AaronFReef]

Are there some secrets in here for the super clear glass, especially with some of the higher than most people would recommend numbers? Or are y'all just scrubbing all the time?

I clean my glass maybe twice a week. As a tank matures the nutrients can, with certain biological makeups, just not grow much algae. No hair algae, no bubble algae, no aiptasia, minimal cyano or film algaes. Plenty of vermetid snails.

 

[VintageReefer]

Ignore the people who say you "can't have SPS and high nutrients". That's just not true. But I'm not saying it's best. Still trying to find the best coloration I can get and not sure my 50 ppm NO3 and >0.66 ppm PO4 is good.

Can’t argue with these results!

 

[19Mateo83]

NO3 - 10ppm
PO4 - .2ppm

Nuf said

 

[jermzisurmom]

who knows?

 

[enebrac]

You guys are too weak.
Nitrate: 210 ppm
Phosphate:6.1 ppm

 

[crazyfishmom]

You guys are too weak.
Nitrate: 210 ppm
Phosphate:6.1 ppm

To be fair, while your tank is beautiful I don’t see it being super coral loaded. Happy to be wrong but please show us more of your corals!

 

[PharmrJohn]

To be fair, while your tank is beautiful I don’t see it being super coral loaded. Happy to be wrong but please show us more of your corals!

I think he means his levels are really high! I took it that way at first as well.

 

[crazyfishmom]

I think he means his levels are really high! I took it that way at first as well.

I looked at it both ways but I am genuinely curious to see whether there are more corals there. Those levels don’t make me worry at all but I am curious whether there are lots of corals growing in them. More form a scholarly perspective than anything else

 

[areefer01]

You guys are too weak.
Nitrate: 210 ppm
Phosphate:6.1 ppm

Lol! You have some large fish in there. I have one of those Gold Lines and they are algae eating machines. Beautiful fish but large. And you have larger ones in there

 

[F i s h y]

• 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:

Absolutely gorgeous!

 

[F i s h y]

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.

Love the mix in this picture!

 

[F i s h y]

LOL!!! Looks like I forgot to tag! Sorry! The question was meant for @F i s h y. But I'll take a look at what you named also @areefer01! Thank you both. I'm trying to get an idea of what I'm gonna put in my tank next year.

Probably my leng si montipora cap. Green body, purple rim, blue polyps. It's old school.

 

[F i s h y]

No3 - 65+
Po4 - .25

Beautiful!

 

[F i s h y]

210 gallon system. Soon to be 1 year old. Started with 40 lb of TBS sand and 60 lb of TBS rock with lots of dry sand and rock. Phosphate typically between .2-.4, nitrates have settled at around 40 ppm. I find that my alkalinity consumption goes down significantly when my phosphate is above .4 so I maintain it there or a little lower. No water changes except when the sump get gross and I have to clean that out.

Great 1 year progress!

 

[tbrown]

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

Wanna see mine???

PO4 flashing at 0.90 and nitrates at 55...

 

[F i s h y]

What lights are you using? I really like the spectrum

I use t5 hybrids paired with Radions. I prefer a whiter look. Tank is 96 inches. I'm using 2 48 inch hybrids with 4 Gen 4 radion xr30 pros and 2 Gen 4 xr15 pros. Could get away with less I think but this setup grows so much coral. I recently dragged more than 50% of my colonies and gave the mother colonies to a friend 13 hours away and kept the frags