Dosing nitrate phosphate killing sps?

[charlie28]

So this past month, Iv started to dose neo nitrate and neophos to bring my system desirable parameters (5-10 no3, 0.04 phos). This all started when I saw my tank have a small patch of Dinos, now my sand bed is covered and the battle hasn’t stopped. At one point, I got nitrates up to about 8ppm according to the Red Sea test kit. And phosphate would read 0.04 on the hanna ultra low phos checker and 0.01-0.02 on the Red Sea pro test kit at this point I’m going with the RS test which reads barely any phosphate. So for one week I stopped dosing neonitro and started to dose neophos with no luck. So here I am battling a dink outbreak, trying to combat this naturally before any other chemicals dosing. So while this is going on, I started to notice some of my sps is bleaching at its tips and algae growing on it. It’s to point where I can’t even blow it off with a turkey baster. All my parameter like alk at 8.3, cal at 400, mag at 1360 have been stable for the past 4 months. Coraline growth is stable and still growing. I did also notice when I started to dose nitrates my coral growth slowed down dramatically.

So all in all I got two issues here, sps dying / bleaching from the top and a Dino issue. I also forgot to mention that I also dose microbacter 7. currently running is one reactor for carbon, skimmer and reduced the cheato to a baseball size.

 

[SeaDweller]

The dosing was probably coincidental. Things were probably bad and then started to show when you dosed. Having no nutrients is never good and the alk you run (although low, may be "high" for your tank). Your SPS were probably stressed up that point and then started to get worse, despite you trying to fix the issue.

Whats your bioload? Can you not simply just feed more? Perhaps try shutting off the carbon reactor, reduce fuge light time and skim dry to increase available nutrients. No need to overdo it and to dose if you can simply feed your inhabitants more and decrease the export.

 

[charlie28]

The dosing was probably coincidental. Things were probably bad and then started to show when you dosed. Having no nutrients is never good and the alk you run (although low, may be "high" for your tank). Your SPS were probably stressed up that point and then started to get worse, despite you trying to fix the issue.

Whats your bioload? Can you not simply just feed more? Perhaps try shutting off the carbon reactor, reduce fuge light time and skim dry to increase available nutrients. No need to overdo it and to dose if you can simply feed your inhabitants more and decrease the export.

Bio load for a 112 gallon consist of; 2 tangs powered blue and yellow tang, Midas blenny, lawnmower blenny, 3 wrasses, 1 green chromis, 1 black storm clown fish, orange spot sand shiftimg goby, 1 tail spot blenny and 1 cleaner shrimp.
From the start Iv reduced the fuge light to 6 hours. I also turned down the skimmer to dry skim but recently turned back up 1 notch up so its

 

[SeaDweller]

Bio load for a 112 gallon consist of; 2 tangs powered blue and yellow tang, Midas blenny, lawnmower blenny, 3 wrasses, 1 green chromis, 1 black storm clown fish, orange spot sand shiftimg goby, 1 tail spot blenny and 1 cleaner shrimp.
From the start Iv reduced the fuge light to 6 hours. I also turned down the skimmer to dry skim but recently turned back up 1 notch up so its

so 11 fish in a 112 gallon, might be enough, but alot of small fish; how often do you feed and how much?

 

[charlie28]

The dosing was probably coincidental. Things were probably bad and then started to show when you dosed. Having no nutrients is never good and the alk you run (although low, may be "high" for your tank). Your SPS were probably stressed up that point and then started to get worse, despite you trying to fix the issue.

Whats your bioload? Can you not simply just feed more? Perhaps try shutting off the carbon reactor, reduce fuge light time and skim dry to increase available nutrients. No need to overdo it and to dose if you can simply feed your inhabitants more and decrease the export.

Bio load for a 112 gallon consist of; 2 tangs powered blue and yellow tang, Midas blenny, lawnmower blenny, 3 wrasses, 1 green chromis, 1 black storm clown fish, orange spot sand shiftimg goby, 1 tail spot blenny and 1 cleaner shrimp.
From the start Iv reduced the fuge light to 6 hours. I also turned down the skimmer to dry skim but recently turned back up 1 notch up so its skimming slightly wetter.

so 11 fish in a 112 gallon, might be enough, but alot of small fish; how often do you feed and how much?

2 twice a day, approximately 1.5 cubes per.

 

[SeaDweller]

Bio load for a 112 gallon consist of; 2 tangs powered blue and yellow tang, Midas blenny, lawnmower blenny, 3 wrasses, 1 green chromis, 1 black storm clown fish, orange spot sand shiftimg goby, 1 tail spot blenny and 1 cleaner shrimp.
From the start Iv reduced the fuge light to 6 hours. I also turned down the skimmer to dry skim but recently turned back up 1 notch up so its skimming slightly wetter.


2 twice a day, approximately 1.5 cubes per.

just feed more. Feed a few times a day and add some pellets and flakes to the mix. I feed my 35 fish 4-6 times per day and each feeding is multiple pinches of flakes (ALOT), a bunch of pellets on auto feeder, and 5+ cube equivalents of mysis and plankton at night AND flakes again at night. My NO3 and PO4 is kept in check because I export as heavy as I import.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I can’t see the nutrient dosing harming the corals, but toxins from he worsening dinos certainly might.

 

[sixty_reefer]

So this past month, Iv started to dose neo nitrate and neophos to bring my system desirable parameters (5-10 no3, 0.04 phos). This all started when I saw my tank have a small patch of Dinos, now my sand bed is covered and the battle hasn’t stopped. At one point, I got nitrates up to about 8ppm according to the Red Sea test kit. And phosphate would read 0.04 on the hanna ultra low phos checker and 0.01-0.02 on the Red Sea pro test kit at this point I’m going with the RS test which reads barely any phosphate. So for one week I stopped dosing neonitro and started to dose neophos with no luck. So here I am battling a dink outbreak, trying to combat this naturally before any other chemicals dosing. So while this is going on, I started to notice some of my sps is bleaching at its tips and algae growing on it. It’s to point where I can’t even blow it off with a turkey baster. All my parameter like alk at 8.3, cal at 400, mag at 1360 have been stable for the past 4 months. Coraline growth is stable and still growing. I did also notice when I started to dose nitrates my coral growth slowed down dramatically.

So all in all I got two issues here, sps dying / bleaching from the top and a Dino issue. I also forgot to mention that I also dose microbacter 7. currently running is one reactor for carbon, skimmer and reduced the cheato to a baseball size.

How fast was the nutrients increased?

 

[charlie28]

How fast was the nutrients increased?

Attempted nutrient increase as per brightwells direction on each bottle which is the same, calculate, dose accordingly, wait 24 hours and dose accordingly.

I can’t see the nutrient dosing harming the corals, but toxins from he worsening dinos certainly might.

Randy, after some more research, come to find out, its Cyano and not dino.

 

[ahiggins]

I can’t see the nutrient dosing harming the corals, but toxins from he worsening dinos certainly might.

Do you think this could happen from a uv filter? The toxins bit. I’ve read they release them when they die but I thought uv just “sterilized” them so no more replication.
Sorry to hijack the thread but this is a legit concern for both of us

 

[charlie28]

Its weird, Im able to finally bring up or slow down my nitrates but the skimmers dc pump, its my phosphate im having trouble with. Using a ultra low hanna checker, its reads out to be 0.04 and with the red sea pro phosphate kit, I get readings between 0.01 to 0.02/0.03 max according to the color wheel.

Since determining I have a cyano and not dinos, Im gonna do 15 percent water change. I have chemi clean on hand but Id reather combat this as natural as I can. Given, Iv had this issue for about 3 weeks, Its been recent week that the sps tips are bleaching and small algae patches covering the tips along with slow receding of the tissue. My pod population hasn't decreased, fish are still alive and eating fat and well, coraline is still increasing.

 

[charlie28]

Do you think this could happen from a uv filter? The toxins bit. I’ve read they release them when they die but I thought uv just “sterilized” them so no more replication.
Sorry to hijack the thread but this is a legit concern for both of us

No worries. ask away, we could both benefit from knowledgeable reefers. Afre you dealing with the same issues?

 

[ahiggins]

No worries. ask away, we could both benefit from knowledgeable reefers. Afre you dealing with the same issues?

Not as bad as you, I think. I caught mine super early (as you have to with a 10 gallon lol) but I’m having affected corals after getting rid of them. And I *think* it could be from the 24/7 uv filter. Nothing else makes sense. This is the first uv thing I’ve done so I’m curious.
I also did phos and nitrate dosing except I used dry chemical made with tank water and dosed that.
Stopped nitrate but still dabble with the phos every other day.
I got rid of dinos with getting them water borne and putting the uv filter on, and dosing phos (I was a zero). I had a small batch of hair algae show up after that but I got rid of it. Now diatoms lol I didn’t realize how hard it is to get biodiversity in a tank starting with dry rock. I’ve come to the conclusion that SOMETHING has to out compete everything else. I’m happy to deal with diatoms as opposed to the others lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Do you think this could happen from a uv filter? The toxins bit. I’ve read they release them when they die but I thought uv just “sterilized” them so no more replication.
Sorry to hijack the thread but this is a legit concern for both of us

A dead bacterium will break open and spill its guts.