Temporary high phosphates for SPS?

[Reef Pilot]

I have 2 tanks running on separate sumps. But I have only 1 chiller. Last summer, I ran both tanks off the single sump with the chiller, and no problems. I would like to do the same again this year.

In the sump for the main display tank, I run both bio pellets and GFO, so my nitrates and phosphates are consistently zero. I have neither in the downstairs tank, and my nitrates run around 20 ppm while my phosphates are closer to about 0.6 at this point in time. Just a month ago the phospates in the downstairs tank were close to 1.0. But I switched my GFO to that sump, which brought down the phosphates. However, they are still a long ways from zero. Interestingly, the main display tank only has bio pellets now, and the phosphates are still staying at zero.

The concern is that I now have SPS in my main display tank, and they are used to zero nitrates and zero phosphates. If I combine the tanks into 1 sump, I expect the phosphates to go up considerably, maybe over .30, at least for a temporary time until the GFO can bring them down to near zero again. My SPS are doing really nicely now, with great color (eg. my purple cross is really purple), and I would hate to see them go brown, or lose their color.

So my question is, what do you think will happen to my SPS when I combine the tanks? I should mention that the main display tank with the SPS is 100 g, while the downstairs tank with LPS and softies is 130 g.

The other option is holding off combining them until the GFO brings down the phosphates a little more. But we have some warm weather in the forecast for later this week, and I know I will be fighting high temps in the downstairs tank. We had a warm spell back in April here, and the temps went up to 81 during the day time for a couple days. Normal temp is 78.

Of course, I should have started the GFO earlier on the downstairs tank. So now my choice is to live with higher temps in that tank during the warm spell, or higher phosphates for a while in my SPS tank.

What would you do?

[Proteus]

I would think bring down po4 to near same as other tank. One of the causes for crash on other thread was bad water. Some WC may help speed that up

[Reef Pilot]

So, will the fish and corals be OK at 81 F or higher? Normal is 78.

[Proteus]

Yeah 81 will be ok.

[daniella3d]

It depends, you could have a lack of oxygen from this high temperature, depending on your bioload. You could have RTN due to high temperature depending of you have some bacterias present in your tank that may become more virulent at higher temperature and attack corals.

going from 78 to 81 is quite a bit. How about AC or a chiller?

As for the corals browning, I have about 10ppm of nitrates now and I don't even check my phosphates any longer, yet my corals have beautiful coloration. They do not go brown automatically because a bit of nitrates or phosphates and if they would do it, they would probably return to pastel color when the water return to low nutrient again...

Here is what my corals look like with 10ppm nitrates and .25 phosphates. Not pastel color but surely not dull in color either.

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

So, will the fish and corals be OK at 81 F or higher? Normal is 78.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

It depends, you could have a lack of oxygen from this high temperature, depending on your bioload. You could have RTN due to high temperature depending of you have some bacterias present in your tank that may become more virulent at higher temperature and attack corals.

going from 78 to 81 is quite a bit. How about AC or a chiller?

As for the corals browning, I have about 10ppm of nitrates now and I don't even check my phosphates any longer, yet my corals have beautiful coloration. They do not go brown automatically because a bit of nitrates or phosphates and if they would do it, they would probably return to pastel color when the water return to low nutrient again...

Here is what my corals look like with 10ppm nitrates and .25 phosphates. Not pastel color but surely not dull in color either.

Well, your corals are beautiful, no question about that. And that is with some nitrates and quite a bit of phosphate. So that is encouraging. But like I said, the SPS is used to zero nitrates and phosphates right now.

I too am worried about the high temps. But with only 1 chiller, I would have to combine the tanks, and live with the higher phosphates.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[H2o2]

Grab a good used chiller at a reasonalbe price on here and plug in if weather gets hot unplug if it doesnt

[marie]

My tank goes from 78 to 84 degrees every day.......I don't recommend that big of a daily temp swing but the corals in my tank seem ok with it

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by H2o2

Grab a good used chiller at a reasonalbe price on here and plug in if weather gets hot unplug if it doesnt

Well, I was hoping my phosphates would come down faster, so I can combine the tanks, like last year, to use a single sump and chiller. I thought of getting another chiller, even just as a back up, so I do have my eyes open for one. But I want another good one, like I have now.

Originally Posted by marie

My tank goes from 78 to 84 degrees every day.......I don't recommend that big of a daily temp swing but the corals in my tank seem ok with it

Wow, that is a pretty high temp, and a large swing. I am surprised your fish are OK with that. Did you notice their gills breathing faster? Even at 81, I thought some of my fish were breathing quite fast, and I became a little concerned.

[marie]

Non of my fish are bothered. Even when my bowfront hit 86 a few years ago the fish were fine.... I did turn the lights off though, I wasn't comfortable with 86 temp even if the fish coped with it