Alk is too high
Temp is too high, put a fan over the tank to keep temp stable.
TDS from Lfs is terrible. My faucet un filtered at home is 7. Your 5 stage will fix that and help the tank a lot.
Be patient. That is key. Slow changes over longer periods of i
If I do this procedure, my nitrates and phos will just stay at zero though. And the corals will remain in a starved state . I guess what I’m struggling to understand is when will the nitrates and phosphates begin to show up. When I had a freshwater aquarium many many years ago , the monthly water changes were needed because the ph would drop , nitrates would show up , due to the large bioload and because I guess the tank was established. Are you guys saying that basically it takes a few months of a newly stocked aquarium to start showing an increase in nitrate and phos levels? Thank youLooking at your tank you have just a few frags, you really don’t need to feed
Anything except your fish right now, and with those few corals a regular waterchange would handle the needs of dosing for now, I’d cut feeding back to just your fish, cut out the reef fusion, but keep testing your alk at least every few days to make sure it’s not dropping. For the algae I’d pull out a rock one at a time and scrub it clean in some old tank water, then do a nice water change after your Rocks are cleaned up. You can Use some hydrogen peroxide on the algae to kill it too. Best to remove as much as possible so it’s not dying off in the tank causing more algae to grow.
I’m stumped. My corals aren’t doing great.
- Thread starter gishandfish
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gishandfish
New Member
gishandfish
New Member
What is your ideal nitrate levels and phosphate levels for your reef?
dbroncos
Active Member
Alk is not either of those. Nitrate somewhere in the range of 6-10 and phosphate somewhere around 0.05ish
InsaneClownFish
Active Member
It’s the temperature for me. 81 is too high imho. I keep my LPS at 76.5- low- moderate light- low flow, but as someone mentioned you need oxygenation.
Do you have a sump? Skimmer?
I think there’s a bit of an oversimplification of- no nitrate- no phosphate- your corals are dying. It could really just be they need time to adjust to the lower nutrient environment.
Imho you can have zero phosphate and nitrate and spot feed- which will naturally raise these as a side effect.
Do you have any algae in your tank? If so your nitrate isn’t true zero. It’s just been consumed.
My nitrate reads zero and my corals are growing.
How long has your tank been set up in its current location? Please understand that the moment you move a setup that has been established you will most likely be subject to mini cycles. Check nitrites for giggles just to make sure you’re completing the cycle.
Do you have a sump? Skimmer?
I think there’s a bit of an oversimplification of- no nitrate- no phosphate- your corals are dying. It could really just be they need time to adjust to the lower nutrient environment.
Imho you can have zero phosphate and nitrate and spot feed- which will naturally raise these as a side effect.
Do you have any algae in your tank? If so your nitrate isn’t true zero. It’s just been consumed.
My nitrate reads zero and my corals are growing.
How long has your tank been set up in its current location? Please understand that the moment you move a setup that has been established you will most likely be subject to mini cycles. Check nitrites for giggles just to make sure you’re completing the cycle.
InsaneClownFish
Active Member
I just looked at your pics more closely. It looks like you have dinos too- so you’re experiencing some new tank woes. Are you carbon dosing? If so stop. Additionally I recommend slowly lowering the temp to 77.5.
gishandfish
New Member
My nitrites always read 0ppm . All 8 times I’ve checked in the last 2 months that the tank has been set up at my House .
I have a very small skimmer that sits inside the first chamber of the all in one sump . I run it for maybe an hour a day. Honestly sometimes I just take the top container off and use it to agitate the water /make bubbles to oxygenate the water. I def have algae in the tank. Brown hair like algae. I have a little clean up crew involving snails and mexican hermit crabs .
As far as oxygenation goes The output pvc on the sump is about 2 inches from the top of the water and it blows at a 45 degree angle . The water surface is definely moving around. No bubble action at all , just water moving around.
gishandfish
New Member
Ok I appreciate that . I am carbon dosing. Changing it out every month. It’s in a mesh bag in the sump , use about 1/2 cup of carbon granules for the 55 gallon aio aquarium
EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal
Just another girl who likes fish
Why??? He's trying to raise nutrients!
EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal
Just another girl who likes fish
No need to test nitRITES at all.
EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal
Just another girl who likes fish
It is for a low nutrient tank
EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal
Just another girl who likes fish
Using granulated activated carbon in a bag is different from carbon dosing.
Ef4life
Well-Known Member
He has nutrients if he has algae growing. If he manually removes the algae there will be nitrate and phosphate available There is also not enough coral to need to Feed it’s literally just a few frags and only
One stony coral from What I can see , they are photosynthetic animals after all, if he feeds a small amount for his fish, corals will get left over food, fish waste, bacteria/nitrates/phosphates from decaying food.
Op, it’s a new tank it’s going to have ugly phases. Tanks don’t really hit a stride until they have been running 12-18months imo.
InsaneClownFish
Active Member
gishandfish
New Member
So you’re saying that it’s pretty much expected that corals won’t thrive at month 2 even though this tank was already setup elsewhere for at least a year. I’m pretty sure they didn’t ever have corals growing in this tank.
InsaneClownFish
Active Member
Corals can thrive at month two, but your mileage may vary on that. I’ve transferred from setup to setup within my own house and it’s not quite the same as not messing with it so to speak. There are so many things that will be disrupted in a move. You certainly have a better head start, but you also can’t think of it like you have a 1yr+ established tank. Imho you’re still going to have bits of the early tank syndrome. Just be patient and keep consistent with your water changes.
Water changes > greater than anything anyone will ever tell you in this hobby.
Ef4life
Well-Known Member
I’m not saying it should be expected, but it’s fairly common for young reefs and inexperienced reefers to lose corals Reefing is hard, it’s hard when you’re new as your learning and converting book knowledge into real world stuff . Expect to lose coral - it’s part of the hobby even though people don’t like to admit it. It’s good your here and trying to learn, it already sounds like you have a decent idea of what it take to run a tank. Tanks are all individuals just like people, they all
Have quirks and needs that are different than the next. The first 12-18 months are the hardest - you need to learn how to reef, you also need to learn your tank, how things act/react when things happen, your tank it’s also maturing in that same time getting through its stages and changes in biology. Really you just need to stick with it. Keep up with maintenance, keep a logbook for testing, maintenance, recording changes, etc.
there is pretty much never a magic answer/elixer that can just fix someone’s tank, it’s going to take time and work to make it into something to be proud of.
dbroncos
Active Member
so alk of 8-12 is actually an ideal range in a home reef aquarium. so for low nutrient what are you proposing?
Dburr1014
7500 Club Member
Every time I buy a coral. It looks good for the first 24 hours and then it starts to retract somewhat permanently. My levels are all good amd have been since I first set this aquarium up. I bought it used from someone so it was already cycled. The parameters are:
8.0 ph
0 ppm ammonia
0ppm nitrite
2ppm nitrate (been zero normally the last 2 months )
10dkh alkalinity
0ppm phosphate
410ppm calcium
1.0245 salinity.
I just 2 weeks ago started dosing with reef fusion 1 and 2 which brought the dhk from 8 to 10. The ph has always been on the low side from the beginning of my ownership. The water temp at night is 78 and the lights bring it to about 81 by 9pm. The lights kick on at noon and stay on til 9pm. I have the lights on a Christmas tree timer with no specialty light controller. The lights are some Amazon type Nicrew brand that has decent reviews but honestly at this point I’m thinking it’s the lights that are the problem. Since I’ve had the tank for the last 2 months a lot of brown hair algae has begun to form and latched on two moth of the corals. About a month ago I had to get a Uv water sterilizer because the water was getting cloudy . Why is this All happening ? And what do I need to do to get rid of the algae for good? And why are the corals struggling ?
Thank you !!
Let's break this all down by the numbers.
Ph 8.0, good.
Ammonia and nitrite 0, good.
Nitrate 2ppm sometimes 0. Okay, don't get hung up to much on the 0 yet. Just keep feeding.
Phosphate 0, bad, get this up. 0.05 to 0.1
Alk 10 DKh. It's okay but not in a low nutrients, especially with zero phosphates zero nitrates.
Calcium 410, good
Salanity 1.0245 okay, but don't go lower.
Water temp 78 to 81, with leds. I'm a little baffled why the swing with less. You say you have a powerhead on the right? Move it to the left side and vary the intensities of you are able. What brand is it?
You getting your own rodi unit, great! 8ppm from the lfs is bad.
Do you have fish? I don't see any, list them.
You think you have dinos? Post a close up of this algae in white lighting. Never mind, I see it. 3rd Pic you posted looks like it.
Can you get your hands on a microscope? This will confirm dinos and what type.
This is why low nutrients and high alk are bad. Dinos.
You may feed a lot more or dose nitrate/phosphate. Easier to feed more.
Stop doing water changes if this is dinos.
Stop dosing everything! For now.
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