What constitutes dirty water?

[SkyDiv3r17]

The reason I ask this is because ive heard that lps and softies do better in dirty water. Well I just got back from two weeks of training in California and came back to my tank looking pretty dirty! (My mom topped off and fed my tank) The filter sock was clogged and overflowing, and my blue filter floss was the dirtiest ive ever seen! Its like a weeks worth of food just landed on it and rotted away. And the glass was definitely covered in algae..

The weird thing was my frogspawn and mushrooms and leather seemed way more plump than when I left. But I checked my nitrates and it was at 0.

So what constitutes dirty water and makes softies look better?

 

[zombie]

High nutrients. If you see algae bloom, then there is a lot more than you think even if testing shows zero. Most test kits other than precision kits like red sea or salifert cant read levels below about 5 ppm, which is high enough to cause problems. Even with a quality test kit, algae blooms can mask nitrates and phosphates and they leech it out of the water column very quick durung the day. The best time to measure is 30 minutes before your lights turn on.

 

[jda123]

I still find that any coral does best in NSW conditions with next to no nutrients - clear N and P results on Salifert. If you use organic carbon, then you can strip the water too clean and hurt things... but other than this, next to 0 N and P are pretty good, IMO.

I think that vacations get confused with dirty water when it is probably more like things getting left alone (hands out of tank). ...kinda along the same lines as when people get busy at work, ignore their tanks for a month or so and they look great afterward.

The dirty water thing is probably to myth status now - when coral first started to get imported, there were lots of dendros and fine filter feeders since lights had not come along yet and photosynthetic corals were mostly no bueno. These type of tanks are very dirty. Softies today are mostly capable of getting all of their nutrients from the symbiotic diatoms and just need a bit of phosphate to build new tissue.

 

[SkyDiv3r17]

It wasn't an algae bloom. Just the casual stuff on the glass. However maybe it was due to my flow since I had my wp10 turned down while I was gone? I am running a bag a carbon as well. Still confused on if I should feed a lot more to let nutrients in or not!

The excess food is the only thing I can think of that may have made them more plump. As they look the same since I turned the wp10 up.

 

[zombie]

Why not just meet in the middle and see how it goes? You could feed more than you have been, but less than your mom did and see how things react. If your phos and nitrate stay nearly undetectable, you dont get a hair algae bloom, and your corals look better, then keep the feeding level there.

 

[jahmic]

How often do you perform water changes? Was the same food used on vacation?

I'm thinking it was your hands not being in the tank...and potentially having more micro nutrients (meaning trace elements) provided by the decaying food. What salt do you use? Some are more complete than others in their trace element profiles. I would keep N and P low and maybe try dosing trace elements to see if it helps your LPS and softies.

 

[jda123]

I might also advise to be cautious about over analyzing things... it is also totally possible that it is a culmination of things since you are getting better as a hobbyist and your tank is showing results (although sometimes slower than we want).

 

[SkyDiv3r17]

Same food and 5 to 10 gallons every 2 weeks on a 40b. Salt is Kent!
The thing is I Probably put my hands in the tank maybe one every two weeks haha. I don't know, I'll just feed a good amount more and see how it goes xD.

Thanks guys!

 

[sethsolomon]

I recommend using cyclopeeze and spraying a bit into the LPS' mouths. that can help them get poofy as well and not risk things like algae blooms from general overfeeding.