Carbon dosing woes

[Mack75]

Hi! I promise to get to the point (and my question) eventually, but first a bit of background:
I lost my Red Sea Reefer and all of my livestock to a split silicone seam last year, and I'm currently rebuilding my reef in a new tank that's been up since November last year. After finally adding fish (including a group of lyretail Anthias) to my new tank, I am unsurprisingly seeing increased nitrate and phosphate. In a perfect world I would have taken my time, adding fish slowly over a longer periode of time. Seeing as I live in Northern Norway and have to pay a freight firm some $300 to ship livestock overnight, I had to buy all the fish I envisioned in one go. The fish are alive and well, but my sps are struggling. I used to run a nitrogen deficient system in the past, with lots of small fish and big, established coral colonies to soak up all the nutrients. This is not the case anymore. My sps corals are all small, and I'm seeing tissue necrosis, especially on my Seriatoporas, and grey color on my Montiporas. Pocillopora seems oblivious to any trouble and grows undisturbed next to dying Seriatopora. Enter carbon dosing. I started out with vinegar, gradually building up to 12 ml a day, dosed over a 24 hour period, and I was seeing good results, at least with the numbers. My sps seemed less impressed. I recently switched to Fauna Marin Bacto Energy, in conjunction with weekly dosing of Bacto Blend and Bacto Therapy, but seeing erratic results. This stuff is super consentrated, and I'm only dosing 1 ml a day, but I haven't really been able dial in a safe and effective dose. I started low, gradually building up the dose, and cut one feeding on my Eheim automatic feeder. Nitrate plummeted almost over night, and my corals looked seriously unhappy. Dialed it back a bit and started feeding a bit more: nitrates quickly rose to about 40 and the already stressed corals looked even worse. I just cannot seem to dial everything in for a steady and gradual decrease in nutrients, and starting to wonder if switching to Bacto Energy was a bad idea? Anyone else having success with the stuff or would vinegar be a safer bet?

My current setup:
Neptunian Cube m-pro 90 mixed reef with zoas, leathers, some lps and sps
Deltec 600i skimmer
Refugium with Chaetomorpha lit 24/7 by a Tunze refugium light
Orphek Atlantik v3 (dialed down to about 80 percent after several sps colonies bleached overnight after the use of coral snow)
About 15 small fish

Alk: 8.12
pH: 8.1 to 8.25
Nitrate (this morning): 45
Phosphate (this morning): 0.12
Temperature: 25 degrees Centigrades
Various cuc and ornamental inverts

 

[c4haskett]

I'm not familiar with bacto energy, but it sounds strong. If you're not able to dial in the usage, stop. I use a DIY NoPox recipe I found here on R2R. I use a mix of white vinegar, 80 proof Vodka, and RODI water. Using this mix, I have successfully kept my nitrates around 2-5 and phosphates around .04. It took around 1 month of daily dosing to gradually bring my tank down from 50 ppm of nitrate and .1 phosphate. I now have to dose nitrate and phosphate every day, which is great because I can keep the numbers very stable. I know you have dosed vinegar with good results, so you may want to consider using that recipe on here.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-no3po4x-recipe.1035078/

 

[Peer.Boerner]

@Mack75 I’m following to learn. Really hope you figure it out! Best of luck.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I do not think either your nitrate or phosphate are causing coral problems,. Both are firmly within my recommended target ranges (5-50 ppm nitrate and 0.06 to 0.3 ppm phosphate). I'd suggest looking for other explanations.

Folks seems to use the TM products OK, but I personally would stick to vinegar. that said, if there are bacterial issues, adding a carbon source may make the problem worse.

 

[Mack75]

I do not think either your nitrate or phosphate are causing coral problems,. Both are firmly within my recommended target ranges (5-50 ppm nitrate and 0.06 to 0.3 ppm phosphate). I'd suggest looking for other explanations.

Folks seems to use the TM products OK, but I personally would stick to vinegar. that said, if there are bacterial issues, adding a carbon source may make the problem worse.

I must admit I am somewhat baffled myself, but nitrate and phosphate are both outside my preferred range. My trouble started back when I had only 3 or 4 small fish, and nutrient levels were sometimes at zero. After using diy coral snow for a period almost all my sps bleached, and the affected areas were all facing the light whereas more shaded areas seemed better off. I lost several frags to tissue recession, but whatever the reason some corals seemed totally unaffected. Whatever the reason the same faith has befallen newly added corals: Tissue loss on all my Seriatoporas over the course of several days, and greyish color, sometimes accompanied by partial tissue loss, on all Montiporas. Dimming the lights down hasn't helped much. I'm hoping to encourage new growth on the corals that are still hanging on (several M. digitata still show partially retracted polyps in areas of the old colony) If I can lower the nutrients. Not much algae in the display tank except on exposed skeletons, but a healthy selection of green hair algae in the Chaetomorpha refugium

 

[EnterName]

I think the parameters themselves might not be the issue, but how fast they changed.

Corals can adapt to a wide range of nutrient levels which Randy's recommended target ranges take into account. However, corals don't seem to like quick changes in those nutrient levels if I recall correctly. Maybe the sudden change after adding all those fish caused the issues.

Of course it will still make sense to make sure everything else is fine. An ICP-MS test can help with that.

 

[Mack75]

I think the parameters themselves might not be the issue, but how fast they changed.

Corals can adapt to a wide range of nutrient levels which Randy's recommended target ranges take into account. However, corals don't seem to like quick changes in those nutrient levels if I recall correctly. Maybe the sudden change after adding all those fish caused the issues.

Of course it will still make sense to make sure everything else is fine. An ICP-MS test can help with that.

I think so too. While both nitrate and phosphate are higher than I would like them to be, I don't think this water chemistry rollercoaster has been helping me