Dosing at a complete stand still

[galantra]

So little over a month ago I posted a thread with questions regarding needing to constantly dose alkalinity and not calcium. Now I am completely confused.

My current situation is my tank has been at a stand still regarding dosing for my tank. From dosing 15ml of alkalinity a day too now not dosing anything at all and my numbers are staying at a stand still. Current parameters are
: alkalinity- 149ppm
Calcium- 430
Mag- 1480
Testing with Hanna checker and salifert test kit.
I been assuming it’s been stable because I been doing water changes with Reef Crystals salt? Is there something else going on in my tank? Tank is a mix reef and looks like the corals are still growing but has lost some color and currently I notice a few corals have stn on the base. Other than that I am dosing carbon and LC to control phosphate which has been a issue. Actively feeding corals with Red Sea coral nutrition

Am I worrying for no reason? Could there be a underline issue?

Any help would be grateful

 

[vetteguy53081]

Alk at 149???
Should be around 9

 

[jccaclimber]

Units.
149 PPM = 8.3 dKh.

 

[jccaclimber]

I’ll let someone else bring in the specifics as I don’t know them, but I think lanthanum chloride can consume alk.

If you have an STN issue I would look to nutrition. Presumably because you are dosing LC, you are also measuring your phosphate and nitrate levels. What are they?
What other food goes in to the tank? Pale corals with base STN sounds like slow starvation to me.

 

[robbyg]

Just my 2 cents but I think your water changes are compensating for the dosing but that’s only because I think your coral growth is almost at a standstill.
LC is some tricky stuff and I agree that it may be what started the chain of events.

 

[GainesvilleReef]

STN is probably due to a lack of phosphate. Both carbon dosing and LC have the ability to completely strip phosphates on their own. I would stop doing both. What are your phosphate numbers?

 

[galantra]

I’ll let someone else bring in the specifics as I don’t know them, but I think lanthanum chloride can consume alk.

If you have an STN issue I would look to nutrition. Presumably because you are dosing LC, you are also measuring your phosphate and nitrate levels. What are they?
What other food goes in to the tank? Pale corals with base STN sounds like slow starvation to me.

My nitrates are around .0 per salifert test and redsea
Phosphorus is at around 28 as of today
So phosphate is. 0.08 for the mouth I been around .03-.10

Food wise it is just readsea nutrition and every other day quantum enhance. Odd cause you can see clearly growth on other corals

 

[galantra]

STN is probably due to a lack of phosphate. Both carbon dosing and LC have the ability to completely strip phosphates on their own. I would stop doing both. What are your phosphate numbers?

I have been struggling with keeping everything down with hair algae but I am assuming the pukani rock is leaching out phosphate

 

[HuduVudu]

So little over a month ago I posted a thread with questions regarding needing to constantly dose alkalinity and not calcium. Now I am completely confused.

My current situation is my tank has been at a stand still regarding dosing for my tank. From dosing 15ml of alkalinity a day too now not dosing anything at all and my numbers are staying at a stand still. Current parameters are
: alkalinity- 149ppm
Calcium- 430
Mag- 1480
Testing with Hanna checker and salifert test kit.
I been assuming it’s been stable because I been doing water changes with Reef Crystals salt? Is there something else going on in my tank? Tank is a mix reef and looks like the corals are still growing but has lost some color and currently I notice a few corals have stn on the base. Other than that I am dosing carbon and LC to control phosphate which has been a issue. Actively feeding corals with Red Sea coral nutrition

Am I worrying for no reason? Could there be a underline issue?

Any help would be grateful

Are you only dosing Alk?

 

[jccaclimber]

Get your nitrates up above 0. It won’t help the algae which will require a different fix, but the coral will starve before the algae does. I’d target 5 PPM for now.

 

[galantra]

Are you only dosing Alk?

Was but hasn’t been a need since my numbers been all stand still

 

[melanotaenia]

It is difficult to assess your issues without further information. How old is the tank? What kind of corals do you have in the tank that you think should be consuming Alkalinity/Calcium?

If you are losing color it could be a result of you stripping the water of elements they need.

 

[HuduVudu]

Was but hasn’t been a need since my numbers been all stand still

How long were you dosing the Alk for?

 

[galantra]

It is difficult to assess your issues without further information. How old is the tank? What kind of corals do you have in the tank that you think should be consuming Alkalinity/Calcium?

If you are losing color it could be a result of you stripping the water of elements they need.

The tank I would say it’s about a year( everything relocated from 150 to a 90 due to tank leaving.
Currently tanks been like this for 7 months and corals kept during the start of the year. During Jan my tanks been taking up 15ml daily of alk. Calcium was dosed but stayed high in the 500 at the start and been declining down to the levels now. I haven’t dosed anything going on 2 months now.

Corals vary from colonies of sps and frags with lps and zoa I will try and post a pic later. My issue is that all of a sudden from dosing daily to not dosing seems to be a issue brewing. I never had this issue with other tanks so i am a bit lost on what I should be doing

 

[GainesvilleReef]

Apparently coral get most of their phosphate from bacteria. The bacteria they consume need nitrate and phosphate. Without Nitrates you are starving the coral of both. Also with high phosphate and low nitrates you are inviting a Cyano outbreak. Cyano can take nitrogen directly from the water. Because it can, it will out compete the good bacteria. Also algae can get nitrogen from other sources as well. So by having 0 nitrates you may actually be making the situation worse.

 

[melanotaenia]

The tank I would say it’s about a year( everything relocated from 150 to a 90 due to tank leaving.
Currently tanks been like this for 7 months and corals kept during the start of the year. During Jan my tanks been taking up 15ml daily of alk. Calcium was dosed but stayed high in the 500 at the start and been declining down to the levels now. I haven’t dosed anything going on 2 months now.

Corals vary from colonies of sps and frags with lps and zoa I will try and post a pic later. My issue is that all of a sudden from dosing daily to not dosing seems to be a issue brewing. I never had this issue with other tanks so i am a bit lost on what I should be doing

Ok. It sounds like you have an established system, so I would recommend:

1. Stop dosing carbon and remove the LC
2. Check your Alk and Ca+ every other day and monitor
3. Keep up with water changes weekly, I am not a fan of RC but should be OK.
4. Do you have a skimmer? If so I would run so it is pulling relatively drier skimmate
5. Stop dosing Reef Nutrition

I am not sure as to the size of your tank but I would recommend no more than 10% WC once per week.
All of these recommendations assume you have a good lighting setup and that you don't have any pests that are causing your corals to stop growing.

Good luck!

 

[melanotaenia]

Apparently coral get most of their phosphate from bacteria. The bacteria they consume need nitrate and phosphate. Without Nitrates you are starving the coral of both. Also with high phosphate and low nitrates you are inviting a Cyano outbreak. Cyano can take nitrogen directly from the water. Because it can, it will out compete the good bacteria. Also algae can get nitrogen from other sources as well. So by having 0 nitrates you may actually be making the situation worse.

Some good points, in that a balance is necessary; one does not want too high P04 or NO3, but higher levels of one and lower levels of another can be detrimental; the key is to have a traceable level of each in the system, but not to the point that they are too high to be beneficial for uptake by the coral. Having a "0" level of either is definitely bad.

 

[galantra]

Ok. It sounds like you have an established system, so I would recommend:

1. Stop dosing carbon and remove the LC
2. Check your Alk and Ca+ every other day and monitor
3. Keep up with water changes weekly, I am not a fan of RC but should be OK.
4. Do you have a skimmer? If so I would run so it is pulling relatively drier skimmate
5. Stop dosing Reef Nutrition

I am not sure as to the size of your tank but I would recommend no more than 10% WC once per week.
All of these recommendations assume you have a good lighting setup and that you don't have any pests that are causing your corals to stop growing.

Good luck!

I will give this a try and see what happens. My issue has been fighting to remove hair algae and I am assuming my pukani Rock is still leaching PO4.
Anything I should do different with that?

Attach is photo of tank currently

 

[jccaclimber]

The goal is to have non-zero and non-high levels of nitrate (say 2-10 PPM) and phosphate (say 0.05 to 0.1 ppm).
We can argue the details, but you should:

1) Test to see where you are.
2) Take appropriate action to get you there if you're outside those bounds.

If your phosphate is higher, nothing wrong with LC, just keep testing so it doesn't drive you to zero.
If your phosphate is lower, cut back or stop the LC.
If your nitrate is higher, feed less, change more water, or grow macro.
If your nitrate is lower, just dose some KNO3, Mg(NO3)2, etc.

3) Continue testing and adjusting. When dosing or removing nitrate or phosphate it is not unusual for the system to make a sudden shift in consumption as everything comes in to balance, so continued testing is key, although obviously you can test less often as you begin to identify a trend.

 

[galantra]

The goal is to have non-zero and non-high levels of nitrate (say 2-10 PPM) and phosphate (say 0.05 to 0.1 ppm).
We can argue the details, but you should:

1) Test to see where you are.
2) Take appropriate action to get you there if you're outside those bounds.

If your phosphate is higher, nothing wrong with LC, just keep testing so it doesn't drive you to zero.
If your phosphate is lower, cut back or stop the LC.
If your nitrate is higher, feed less, change more water, or grow macro.
If your nitrate is lower, just dose some KNO3, Mg(NO3)2, etc.

3) Continue testing and adjusting. When dosing or removing nitrate or phosphate it is not unusual for the system to make a sudden shift in consumption as everything comes in to balance, so continued testing is key, although obviously you can test less often as you begin to identify a trend.

Appreciate the help, I will make proper changes I stop dosing seeing what adjusts