Heavy Import/Heavy Export - Need Advice

[sanzz18]

My Waterbox 220.6 is approaching 10 months old. Rocks are being covered in coraline and glass is starting to as well. My goal is SPS dominant with some other stuff mixed in where appropriate in the tank. My nitrates and phosphates are not controllable now with your basic 10% water changes. Nitrates are around 25ppm which my goal is no higher then 10-15. Phosphate is around 0.16 to 0.18 which the goal is to keep it under 0.1. I have about 14 fish in the tank with 5 of them being tangs and 1 being a fox face. I like to feed them well (not overfeed), which is something I am not willing to change and sacrifice fish health. I want to get nutrients in check as I approach the 1 year mark and really want to start trying SPS.

My goal is heavy import/heavy export. I have a Reef Octopus Regal 200 INT for skimmer, will be going back to filter socks I think as the Klir 7 fleece roller is inefficient and too finicky with sump water levels/flows.

I know there are many options out there like refugiums, algae reactors, turf scrubbers, bioreactors, carbon dosing, adding biomedia, etc. Since water changes are no longer efficient for nutrient control (will still do 10% changes purely to replenish trace elements and such), I want to hear recommendations on what my next step should be. Thanks!

 

[CanuckReefer]

My Waterbox 220.6 is approaching 10 months old. Rocks are being covered in coraline and glass is starting to as well. My goal is SPS dominant with some other stuff mixed in where appropriate in the tank. My nitrates and phosphates are not controllable now with your basic 10% water changes. Nitrates are around 25ppm which my goal is no higher then 10-15. Phosphate is around 0.16 to 0.18 which the goal is to keep it under 0.1. I have about 14 fish in the tank with 5 of them being tangs and 1 being a fox face. I like to feed them well (not overfeed), which is something I am not willing to change and sacrifice fish health. I want to get nutrients in check as I approach the 1 year mark and really want to start trying SPS.

My goal is heavy import/heavy export. I have a Reef Octopus Regal 200 INT for skimmer, will be going back to filter socks I think as the Klir 7 fleece roller is inefficient and too finicky with sump water levels/flows.

I know there are many options out there like refugiums, algae reactors, turf scrubbers, bioreactors, carbon dosing, adding biomedia, etc. Since water changes are no longer efficient for nutrient control (will still do 10% changes purely to replenish trace elements and such), I want to hear recommendations on what my next step should be. Thanks!

Why aren't your water changes efficient enough for nutrient control? That first....I mean you seem to have a handle on the nutrients. Why chase numbers? 25 top end on nitrates? The Phos numbers are pretty good imo....so why?

 

[sanzz18]

Why aren't your water changes efficient enough for nutrient control? That first....I mean you seem to have a handle on the nutrients. Why chase numbers? 25 top end on nitrates? The Phos numbers are pretty good imo....so why?

Thanks for your reply. It isn’t so much that I am chasing numbers, it is the rising trend that I see as I track my levels. I just do not want them to keep going up and get out of control. My goal is to not do more water changes to keep my nutrients under control with my total water volume being 180 gallons in the tank. Using tropic marin pro, I would rather find other means of nutrient export. My fish are getting bigger, I am also not quite done with stock list. I have a few more smaller fish I want to add.

I have tried a few cheap sps frags. I know when starting with dry rock and sand, seeding it with a piece or two of live rock, my tank may take longer to allow myself to keep SPS alive. My only concern was that I tried a cheap monti and green slimer that are supposedly bullet proof testers. They both died so I assume it is nutrient levels, as all my other levels are pretty solid.

 

[CanuckReefer]

Thanks for your reply. It isn’t so much that I am chasing numbers, it is the rising trend that I see as I track my levels. I just do not want them to keep going up and get out of control. My goal is to not do more water changes to keep my nutrients under control with my total water volume being 180 gallons in the tank. Using tropic marin pro, I would rather find other means of nutrient export. My fish are getting bigger, I am also not quite done with stock list. I have a few more smaller fish I want to add.

I have tried a few cheap sps frags. I know when starting with dry rock and sand, seeding it with a piece or two of live rock, my tank may take longer to allow myself to keep SPS alive. My only concern was that I tried a cheap monti and green slimer that are supposedly bullet proof testers. They both died so I assume it is nutrient levels, as all my other levels are pretty solid.

Ok understood. What I might try as you add those cheaper sps is also a few cheap non invasive softies, they'll eat up some nitrates for you, some fancy looking mushrooms, or zoas, easy to maintain, pick off if you dont want them down the road, munch up nitrates....the natural way...
Monti's bullet proof ya I guess somewhat, slimers? No imo....

Yes it may take a bit longer with the dry then live seed, but it will come....10 months is still early for mostpart imo. I started with live and it took years....

I'm also not sure why listing Tropic Marin Pro has anything to do with import or export? I used to use that brand, ( and its a very good one imo) , but really it is a good quality salt, don't get lost in that, there are others that are very good as well....all of them nothing to do with import/export.

 

[PNWReefer21]

You could try carbon dosing

 

[sanzz18]

Ok understood. What I might try as you add those cheaper sps is also a few cheap non invasive softies, they'll eat up some nitrates for you, some fancy looking mushrooms, or zoas, easy to maintain, pick off if you dont want them down the road, munch up nitrates....the natural way...
Monti's bullet proof ya I guess somewhat, slimers? No imo....

Yes it may take a bit longer with the dry then live seed, but it will come....10 months is still early for mostpart imo. I started with live and it took years....

I'm also not sure why listing Tropic Marin Pro has anything to do with import or export? I used to use that brand, ( and its a very good one imo) , but really it is a good quality salt, don't get lost in that, there are others that are very good as well....all of them nothing to do with import/export.

Sorry I meant to say I don’t want to waste the Tropic Marin Pro salt doing massive water changes to control nutrients. Thanks for your feedback. You don’t think at this moment I should add a refugium/reactor/turf scrubber or carbon dose?

You could try carbon dosing

Would you recommend carbon dosing before controlling macro-algae, etc?

 

[kittenbritches]

Fuge with chaeto and a carbon reactor are doing it for me. I feed pretty heavily, but the addition of those two things got my levels where I want them and they're holding steady.

 

[sanzz18]

Fuge with chaeto and a carbon reactor are doing it for me. I feed pretty heavily, but the addition of those two things got my levels where I want them and they're holding steady.

Cool. Whats your fuge setup (light, biomedia, etc)??

 

[kittenbritches]

Cool. Whats your fuge setup (light, biomedia, etc)??

Filter sock with phosphate remover filter pad and 50 micron polishing pad, fuge with miracle mud, chaeto, and bio blocks lit with a Kessil H80 on growth mode 24/7, and a Red Sea Reefer RSK-300 skimmer. I did have activated carbon in a media bag, but am switching to a reactor in the skimmer chamber.

 

[sanzz18]

So I checked all my levels again today. Phosphate is now 0.3, it has always been all over the place. I noticed when my phosphate gets higher then 0.18 in the past thats when I start seeing the sand brown a little brown. Nitrates are firmly 25. This is what I am trying to prevent in the first place and find whats the most practical option for lowering these levels.

 

[mdb_talon]

Lots of ways to accomplish this as you allude to in your post. For me I have chosen to use a large refugium and an oversized skimmer. My struggle is keeping N/P above 0.0. My feeding regimen is below so you can see it is a lot that I feed (about 200g water volume). For me the refugium is the simplest "no-brainer" way to achieve what I want. No equipment to break, no dosing to calculate. Just a matter of once a week filling up a bucket with cheato and usually tossing it in the garden outside.

Daily I feed about a 1/2 TABLEspoon of dry(reef roids, reef chili, or Reef Candy) and about equivalent of 6 frozen cubes daily(coral gumbo, mysis, daphnia, rotifers, polyp poppers and a couple others I cant think of the name).

About 80ml each of Acropower and Reef Energy 2-3x a week.

Feed fish heavily with TDO Chroma Boost pellets a couple times a day.

Target feed LPS with lps pellets 3x a week.

Feed live brine shrimp daily and about 8 ounces of phyto daily.

 

[sanzz18]

Lots of ways to accomplish this as you allude to in your post. For me I have chosen to use a large refugium and an oversized skimmer. My struggle is keeping N/P above 0.0. My feeding regimen is below so you can see it is a lot that I feed (about 200g water volume). For me the refugium is the simplest "no-brainer" way to achieve what I want. No equipment to break, no dosing to calculate. Just a matter of once a week filling up a bucket with cheato and usually tossing it in the garden outside.

Daily I feed about a 1/2 TABLEspoon of dry(reef roids, reef chili, or Reef Candy) and about equivalent of 6 frozen cubes daily(coral gumbo, mysis, daphnia, rotifers, polyp poppers and a couple others I cant think of the name).

About 80ml each of Acropower and Reef Energy 2-3x a week.

Feed fish heavily with TDO Chroma Boost pellets a couple times a day.

Target feed LPS with lps pellets 3x a week.

Feed live brine shrimp daily and about 8 ounces of phyto daily.

Thanks for your quick reply. I definitely want to get to a point where my tank is consuming most of the nutrients.

Can you tell me your fuge setup including if you have media like marinepure or live rocks in there and your lights?

Are you SPS dominant?

 

[mdb_talon]

I have multiple tanks setup on a frag system. My refugium section is 12dx12t and 24 long (around 15g). No rocks in that section just low to moderate flow(no tumbling or any of the other things sometimes said is needed). Nothing fancy on the lights either. I got some cheap panel leds linked below to avoid the hotspot issues i was getting before and these work great. I run the lights about 14 hours a day. Anymore and it starts burning up the top layer of cheato(which tumbling would probably solve but within a few days the cheato is too thick to really tumble even if i wanted it to). I do have to dose iron, but otherwise it is just a matter of pulling out a few gallons worth of cheato every 7-10 days.


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[mdb_talon]

Are you SPS dominant?

Oh and forgot the question on sps. I have mostly sps and lps(acans and euphyllia). Recently i have been taking the top off my skimmer and reducing refugium light duration in the hope i can get readings above 0.0 but still struggling to keep nutrients up. When my nutrients stay too low i notice it with the sps but not so much the lps which seems different from normal(guessing because my lps like acans are very easy to target feed and still get plenty of food)

 

[moz71]

Every tank is different and you will have to find your balance on what works. For example I have had a low phosphate and high nitrate problem for whatever reason and finding carbon dosing is the other thing that keeps me in check. I have a five with lots of cheato and couldn’t keep up. Also have skimmer, socks etc. I admire the folks that actually have to dose some pho’s and nitrates lol.

 

[sdreef]

My Waterbox 220.6 is approaching 10 months old. Rocks are being covered in coraline and glass is starting to as well. My goal is SPS dominant with some other stuff mixed in where appropriate in the tank. My nitrates and phosphates are not controllable now with your basic 10% water changes. Nitrates are around 25ppm which my goal is no higher then 10-15. Phosphate is around 0.16 to 0.18 which the goal is to keep it under 0.1. I have about 14 fish in the tank with 5 of them being tangs and 1 being a fox face. I like to feed them well (not overfeed), which is something I am not willing to change and sacrifice fish health. I want to get nutrients in check as I approach the 1 year mark and really want to start trying SPS.

My goal is heavy import/heavy export. I have a Reef Octopus Regal 200 INT for skimmer, will be going back to filter socks I think as the Klir 7 fleece roller is inefficient and too finicky with sump water levels/flows.

I know there are many options out there like refugiums, algae reactors, turf scrubbers, bioreactors, carbon dosing, adding biomedia, etc. Since water changes are no longer efficient for nutrient control (will still do 10% changes purely to replenish trace elements and such), I want to hear recommendations on what my next step should be. Thanks!

What are you feeding and what is the feeding schedule? I have a high nutrient system, and I feed 8+ times / day. I have some finicky fish and feed small quantities and didn't want to reduce the feeding.

I found washing the frozen food and rinsing it was helpful in reducing import of unnecessary nutrients. Also, I feed freeze dried food 6 times / day currently, and found sifting the food reduced the particulate food that wasn't being consumed.

Just one way where you don't need to compromise the amount of food you are giving your fish while reducing nutrient import.

A lot of ways to increase export as you mention. But in terms of the first next step, I would start with looking at how you are importing the nutrients and see if you can reduce the import while maintaining the nutrition your fish are receiving. You can keep sps with the nutrient levels you currently have, and growing coral will additionally help consume some nutrients.

 

[sanzz18]

I have multiple tanks setup on a frag system. My refugium section is 12dx12t and 24 long (around 15g). No rocks in that section just low to moderate flow(no tumbling or any of the other things sometimes said is needed). Nothing fancy on the lights either. I got some cheap panel leds linked below to avoid the hotspot issues i was getting before and these work great. I run the lights about 14 hours a day. Anymore and it starts burning up the top layer of cheato(which tumbling would probably solve but within a few days the cheato is too thick to really tumble even if i wanted it to). I do have to dose iron, but otherwise it is just a matter of pulling out a few gallons worth of cheato every 7-10 days.


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Awesome. Looks like the most practical step I should take is to start a fuge then, so that way I can start adding the corals I would like (few LPS, and mostly SPS). I actually envy those who have such an efficient nutrient export between mechanical filtration, corals, etc. Thanks for the link I will check the light out.

Every tank is different and you will have to find your balance on what works. For example I have had a low phosphate and high nitrate problem for whatever reason and finding carbon dosing is the other thing that keeps me in check. I have a five with lots of cheato and couldn’t keep up. Also have skimmer, socks etc. I admire the folks that actually have to dose some pho’s and nitrates lol.

I actually admire them too lol. I was trying a klir fleece roller in my waterbox sump and actually hated it so looking at using socks instead.

What are you feeding and what is the feeding schedule? I have a high nutrient system, and I feed 8+ times / day. I have some finicky fish and feed small quantities and didn't want to reduce the feeding.

I found washing the frozen food and rinsing it was helpful in reducing import of unnecessary nutrients. Also, I feed freeze dried food 6 times / day currently, and found sifting the food reduced the particulate food that wasn't being consumed.

Just one way where you don't need to compromise the amount of food you are giving your fish while reducing nutrient import.

A lot of ways to increase export as you mention. But in terms of the first next step, I would start with looking at how you are importing the nutrients and see if you can reduce the import while maintaining the nutrition your fish are receiving. You can keep sps with the nutrient levels you currently have, and growing coral will additionally help consume some nutrients.

So for all the fish I have listed in my original post; I feed about 1 and 1/2 cubes of mysis a day, a whole 8x8 sheet of nori a day split into two different times, and a 1" chunk of Rods. So for 14 fish it really isn't all that much or "heavy". Yeah reducing feeding for me is 100% not an option.

You still think for a tank under or around the year mark, 0.3 phosphate isn't too much for SPS?

 

[cwerner]

I'm personally a big fan of algae scrubbers. They have the nutrients export capacity of a large refugium with a much smaller footprint. Biopellet reactor is something else I'd look into. You're gonna be emptying your skimmer collection cup a lot with either biopellets or carbon dosing.

 

[sdreef]

Awesome. Looks like the most practical step I should take is to start a fuge then, so that way I can start adding the corals I would like (few LPS, and mostly SPS). I actually envy those who have such an efficient nutrient export between mechanical filtration, corals, etc. Thanks for the link I will check the light out.



I actually admire them too lol. I was trying a klir fleece roller in my waterbox sump and actually hated it so looking at using socks instead.



So for all the fish I have listed in my original post; I feed about 1 and 1/2 cubes of mysis a day, a whole 8x8 sheet of nori a day split into two different times, and a 1" chunk of Rods. So for 14 fish it really isn't all that much or "heavy". Yeah reducing feeding for me is 100% not an option.

You still think for a tank under or around the year mark, 0.3 phosphate isn't too much for SPS?

I am not suggesting you reduce your feeding. I'm simply suggesting you can wash the food and make it cleaner. Reduce your nutrient import while getting the same amount of food to your fish with the same schedule. At some point your fish will grow in size or number and you may want to increase how much you feed.

Here's what it looks like when you thaw one cube of mysis and calanus. The turbid water isn't helping the fish, but adds nutrients to the tank.

In order to save time, I prewash food in batches now. The bowl of water on the left is what would otherwise get added to the tank over time. The middle beaker is what the food looks like post-washing. I find this helpful. This may not be enough for your system, but is an easy first step.

If this isn't enough for your system then working on the export side of the equation makes sense. I personally use mechanical filtration, a skimmer, a refugium, and a continuous daily water change. Every system is different though.

Also, I am not recommending to target a phosphate of 0.3, that number is above the recommended range. I do think it is worthwhile to reduce your nutrient import and/or bolster your export as your seeking to do. In isolation though, that phosphate level is not a deal breaker for sps.

 

[sanzz18]

So I am decided on adding the fuge. I am going to order everything today or tomorrow. Should I bother doing anything to lower my nutrients until the light and chaeto get here or leave it be for the chaeto?