Tank problems

[Delphinus]

It's amazing how many times we see this issue pop up, i.e., problems with SPS. The number of SPS setups out there that have run for years seem to be very few in comparison to the number of SPS tanks that have less than a year or two under their belt - plus the number of SPS tanks that have some sort of problem. Just a quick scan of recent posts here show me that a LOT of people have this sort of "my fuzzy sticks are not well" theme going on. Myself included although my troubles began well over a year ago and didn't take me too long to have lost most every SPS I ever owned, even those that had lived through tank calamities in the past. Just gradual and steady degradation that I couldn't turn around.

Anyhow I have no profound insights at this time, other than to say "yeah, me too, still" and having just come back from a real reef am having a real crisis of conscience with respects to the hobby and am wondering where I am going from here.

Oh, the one thing I did want to mention. Aren't our phosphate kits more or less useless? It's been a while since I tried to understand any reef chemistry (a la Randy Holmes-Farley level) and it's been an even longer while since I tried to understand chemistry of any sort (I took some chem courses in university about a hundred years ago {give or take 85 or so} that I don't remember anymore ) .. but isn't there something like the test kits can only detect inorganic phosphate but it's the organic phosphate that is really of primary concern to us (or vice versa and so on)?

The bottom line is, I think that, for "true long term success" SPS probably require water quality measures so pristine that it's beyond the scope of the average aquarist with a generic coral garden. Maybe not, I'm not sure. I'm not really certain if I'm just rambling incoherently. Inorganic versus organic phosphates, I'm certain there's something there.