All consumption completely stalling

[Righteous]

dang lost my TCK sour polyp, completely RTN in a day

Been there. No fun. Is your alk still rising? I had an Acro start to RTN when my nutrients plummeted quickly, so in my experience that alone can definitely cause issues. My own theory is that when nutrients and alkalinity start moving it weakens the health of the acros, and then they succumb to bacterial issues.

Obviously another suggestion is running an ICP just to make sure nothing wacky is in the water.

IMO, dosing ammonia is better, but certainly also more complicated since you do not want to add much at a time.

I hate sounding like a Triton fanboy, but I have come to trust their products, and especially their dosage guidelines. If you want to try ammonia, NH Alpha product works really well. The best way to dose it is to send in an NDOC test which will give you a guideline based on the nitrogen levels in the tank, and they can then give you specific dosing guidelines. However given your tank size a reasonable starting dose would be 0.2ml per week. That’s pretty conservative and won’t fix nutrient issues overnight, but move things in a better direction considering you’re fallow. It might be a safe way to dose ammonia rather than winging it since home test kits aren’t really great at monitoring ammonia and overdosing would be bad.

 

[Righteous]

If you want to try an experiment you might want to add something like this to the aquarium(I think you might want to add it in a mesh filter sock with water flowing through it).
If you don't want to add that, I would recommend dosing ammonium chloride, or at a minimum continue adding fish food, and dose Fritz F/2 algae food, or dose the vitamins it has in it, and also I think it may help to dose some organic fulvic acid.

Please don’t do this! You have some beautiful acro colonies in there.. and who knows what is in this stuff!!

 

[Marc2952]

Been there. No fun. Is your alk still rising? I had an Acro start to RTN when my nutrients plummeted quickly, so in my experience that alone can definitely cause issues. My own theory is that when nutrients and alkalinity start moving it weakens the health of the acros, and then they succumb to bacterial issues.

Obviously another suggestion is running an ICP just to make sure nothing wacky is in the water.



I hate sounding like a Triton fanboy, but I have come to trust their products, and especially their dosage guidelines. If you want to try ammonia, NH Alpha product works really well. The best way to dose it is to send in an NDOC test which will give you a guideline based on the nitrogen levels in the tank, and they can then give you specific dosing guidelines. However given your tank size a reasonable starting dose would be 0.2ml per week. That’s pretty conservative and won’t fix nutrient issues overnight, but move things in a better direction considering you’re fallow. It might be a safe way to dose ammonia rather than winging it since home test kits aren’t really great at monitoring ammonia and overdosing would be bad.

No it has gone down from 9.2 to 9.1 yesterday, today it dropped rven further from 9.1 to 8.5 smh. The spikes are so inconsistent when the dosing is consistent for some reason. I started dosing 2 drops of dr tims ammonia daily maybe thats why its dropping again?

 

[Righteous]

No it has gone down from 9.2 to 9.1 yesterday, today it dropped rven further from 9.1 to 8.5 smh. The spikes are so inconsistent when the dosing is consistent for some reason. I started dosing 2 drops of dr tims ammonia daily maybe thats why its dropping again?

I don’t know the concentration of Dr Tims… 2 drops should be about 0.1ml. Maybe someone can chime in but I’m guessing it’s a reasonable amount. Looking at your tank shots you’re clearly experienced so I think you’ll have a handle on it. Watch corals closely daily. I would also do a decent ammonia test just to be careful after a couple days… as long as the test is negative you’re good to keep at that level if you’re seeing benefits. If it goes positive at all stop. Bacterial populations take a little while to balance so concentrations can increase before decreasing. You’ll also see Nitrate levels creep up as it gets converted.

Hopefully this turns things around for you!

I ran fallow back maybe 5 years ago before I knew better and couldn’t figure out why corals always got pale and died. It’s probably doable, but I think it’s a lot harder than people realize.

 

[Jon_W79]

No it has gone down from 9.2 to 9.1 yesterday, today it dropped rven further from 9.1 to 8.5 smh. The spikes are so inconsistent when the dosing is consistent for some reason. I started dosing 2 drops of dr tims ammonia daily maybe thats why its dropping again?

Dosing 2 drops a gallon would be adding about 0.05ppm of nitrate a day in 75 gallons of water(If all the ammonium is turned into nitrate). I think it would be a good idea to make an ammonium chloride solution with the drops, and use a dosing pump to dose the solution at least once every hour during the photoperiod(I don't think corals can collect and store ammonium, or energy from ammonium when the lights are off). If you start dosing ammonium chloride with a dosing pump, I think it would be a good idea to start dosing 0.0277ppm(about 0.1ppm nitrate) of ammonium a day, and increase the dosing by 0.0277ppm a day each week until you get to at least 0.277ppm a day.
I am doing some supplemental ammonium chloride dosing, I'm using the Fritz ammonium chloride powder(it's a lot cheaper than the drops).

 

[Righteous]

Dosing 2 drops a gallon would be adding about 0.05ppm of nitrate a day in 75 gallons of water

Are you sure about those numbers? It seems like a lot. Maybe it’s a typo but it sounds like you’re suggesting 150 drops? My understanding of Dr Tims was something like 4 drops per gallon gives you 5ppm ammonia for cycling purposes.

Personally unless I knew the exact concentration of ammonia per drop I wouldn’t want to dose in those quantities.

In my experience I’ve never had a positive ammonia test in order to see positive results as well as an increase in nitrate levels.

 

[Jon_W79]

Are you sure about those numbers? It seems like a lot. Maybe it’s a typo but it sounds like you’re suggesting 150 drops? My understanding of Dr Tims was something like 4 drops per gallon gives you 5ppm ammonia for cycling purposes.

Personally unless I knew the exact concentration of ammonia per drop I wouldn’t want to dose in those quantities.

In my experience I’ve never had a positive ammonia test in order to see positive results as well as an increase in nitrate levels.

4 drops per gallon equals 2ppm of ammonia, and if I remember correctly, according to @Randy Holmes-Farley, 1ppm of ammonia turns into 3.6ppm of nitrate(if all the ammonium/ammonia is turned into nitrate).

 

[Righteous]

Okay, yeah. So dosing 2 drops per gallon would hit 1ppm ammonia instantly which is not a good idea. If you were going to try and just touch 0.125ppm per day then you’d be dosing 1/4 drop per gallon. So more like 18 versus 150 drops in a 75 gallon. Even then, like @Jon_W79 said, I’d think you’d want to spread that out over the day.

So maybe work up to 2 drops every hour during lights?

The end result shouldn’t be a certain nitrate level. That will be a side effect. What you really are going for is uptake of the ammonia. Ideally nitrate would eventually stay level.

And really I’d start conservative and go by livestock reaction rather than just numbers. It’s why dosing ammonia can be tricky because it’s hard to measure and can be toxic quickly before you can measure, and not until you notice things dying. If you’re doing it with hundreds of dollars of Acros that gets a little nerve racking. Just be conservative and don’t rush it!

 

[Marc2952]

Yea gonna slowly add ammonia it seems to be helping in keeping alk stable again, losing my SC orange passion now too got an ICP test on the way. Who would have thought going fallow was gonna be such a challenge.

 

[Jon_W79]

I was mentioning nitrate mostly to help people put ammonium chloride dosing in perspective. FWIW, someone that seems knowledgeable here said that an average of 1-2ppm of nitrate a day is added to an average reef tank(after thinking about that, knowing what I know now, that might not be very useful information).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

For anyone considering ammonia dosing, here's a thread:

Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

So, after an interesting discussion on nitrate dosing and looking at my Walt Disney coral and seeing it slightly less colorful than I have seen it in others tanks, I have decided I want to learn about and then try dosing ammonia instead of buying 20 damsels. Nitrate additives I see abound and...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Righteous]

losing my SC orange passion now too

Did the first RTN start after the ammonia dosing or before?

For what it’s worth the Triton RTNx worked for me

STN-X and RTN-X Product Release

Still curious if it’s just another expensive snake oil. I think consensus was YES

www.reef2reef.com

Triton RTN-X 100ml

RTN-X is a rapid tissue necrosis inhibitor. Derived through TRITON’s unique scientific work in N-DOC lab testing and establishing the TRITON N-C-P Ratio. RTN-X is a rapid tissue necrosis inhibitor which will aid against bacterial types of rapid tissue necrosis.RTN-X was derived through TRITON’s...

uniquecorals.com

 

[Marc2952]

Did the first RTN start after the ammonia dosing or before?

For what it’s worth the Triton RTNx worked for me

STN-X and RTN-X Product Release

Still curious if it’s just another expensive snake oil. I think consensus was YES

www.reef2reef.com

Triton RTN-X 100ml

RTN-X is a rapid tissue necrosis inhibitor. Derived through TRITON’s unique scientific work in N-DOC lab testing and establishing the TRITON N-C-P Ratio. RTN-X is a rapid tissue necrosis inhibitor which will aid against bacterial types of rapid tissue necrosis.RTN-X was derived through TRITON’s...

uniquecorals.com

A day after but i have dosed a a drop or two a day of ammonia sometimes this last 2 months so doubt its that. Ill check that out since im still waiting for the ICP test to arrive.

 

[Marc2952]

Turns out apart from the ammonia issue that my jebao doser has also been dosing 1.7ml of all instead of the intended 1ml daily. I guess it has slowly drifted throughout the months. Time to upgrade to a GHL.

 

[P-Dub]

Well, that would do it. Would have been great to know that you were using a doser. Not only Jebao but all dosers, including GHL, need to be recalibrated every few months and/or head units replaced/maintained due to wear. I had my Jebao going for 3 years with no issues so long as I perform semi-regular maintenance. The only reason I am still not using mine is I switched to a DOS (also requires regular recalibration) to dose off my tested Trident Alk and Ca levels in conjunction with my CaRx. GHL is a nice product though, from what I can tell.

 

[Marc2952]

Well, that would do it. Would have been great to know that you were using a doser. Not only Jebao but all dosers, including GHL, need to be recalibrated every few months and/or head units replaced/maintained due to wear. I had my Jebao going for 3 years with no issues so long as I perform semi-regular maintenance. The only reason I am still not using mine is I switched to a DOS (also requires regular recalibration) to dose off my tested Alk and Ca levels in conjunction with my CaRx. GHL is a nice product though, from what I can tell.

Yea i am guilty of not doing maintenance on it, have used it for a year and only touched it to increase the alk and Cal dosing lol

 

[schuby]

Everything requires maintenance. I can't think of anything that is "set and forget" forever.

 

[Marc2952]

Everything requires maintenance. I can't think of anything that is "set and forget" forever.

True but even after calibrating it 3 times now and checking the container my alk just keep increasing. Im down to 5 ml of alk a day from the 28ml per day a month ago and my OP acro is al.ost completely dead now. This chart here only shows the alk but for that past week i have been reducing the dosing of alk everyday 2ml a day. There is almost no consumption now just waiting on the ICP results to see if there is anything weird going on.

 

[schuby]

Yes, when our corals stop growing, Alk and Ca usage/consumption drops. We must adjust our dosing to account for the drop in demand. Corals can stop growing due to many things such as lighting change, light-schedule change, light-intensity/frequency change, starting/stopping GFO, nutrients (PO4 or NO3) going to zero, nutrients getting too high, Alk or Ca too low, Alk too high, carbon-dosing, bacteria dosing, and so on.

 

[Marc2952]

Yes, when our corals stop growing, Alk and Ca usage/consumption drops. We must adjust our dosing to account for the drop in demand. Corals can stop growing due to many things such as lighting change, light-schedule change, light-intensity/frequency change, starting/stopping GFO, nutrients (PO4 or NO3) going to zero, nutrients getting too high, Alk or Ca too low, Alk too high, carbon-dosing, bacteria dosing, and so on.

But for it to completely stop in a 2 weeks time? I added the fish back last week vtw and nitrates and phosphates are stable again but the consumption dropped by about 80%. I wont touch anything for now but i did lose 2 acros already and that sucks big time.