Help! Frogspawn not looking good.

[lilfishy]

Hi! My husband and I left for about a week on a vacation and had a friend looking over our tank. Before we left our frogspawn was looking beautiful and when we came back we noticed that it was looking closed up and, well, not good. There are pieces of him falling off and he is very closed up for what he used to be.

We tested parameters and they are not good either so I'm sure that's playing a big role, but we would love any advice on how to help him pull through or if he can recover from this. The current parameters are:

Salinity: 1.018
Alkalinity: 7.7 dkh
Calcium: 542 ppm (we just added a supplement yesterday so I think it may have spiked from that)
Nitrate: 24.7 ppm (please help with any recommendations on how to lower this!!)
Phosphate: 0.17 ppm

 

[kbnh]

A water change could help bring things into balance

 

[MoshJosh]

I would probably do a water change for starters

 

[workhz]

What's your normal target salinity as that seems pretty low at 1.018?

 

[MoshJosh]

What's your normal target salinity as that seems pretty low at 1.018?

Yeah may want to bring that up slowly.

 

[lilfishy]

Yeah may want to bring that up slowly.

Hi! Normally we try to keep it around 1.024 so it is quite low.

 

[TokenReefer]

Hi! Normally we try to keep it around 1.024 so it is quite low.

It is, and as a result your ca and dkh readings will not be right. I wonder if all you need to do is get this back up by topping off with saltwater for a few days. Any idea why it would have gotten that low?

Edit: when I say will not be right, I mean will be different at the corrected salinity...

 

[lilfishy]

It is, and as a result your ca and dkh readings will not be right. I wonder if all you need to do is get this back up by topping off with saltwater for a few days. Any idea why it would have gotten that low?

Edit: when I say will not be right, I mean will be different at the corrected salinity...

We did a water change late last night and I just rechecked the parameters again:

Alkalinity: 7.5 dkh (decreased)
Calcium: 328 ppm (decreased)
Nitrate: 21.5 ppm (decreased)
Phosphate: 0.29 ppm (increased quite a bit)
Salinity: 1.020 (increased slightly)

Would just trying to add a bit of saltwater daily for a few days help the phosphate/nitrate at all? Or is there a better way to lower them? Or should we first get the salinity back to normal and then figure out the other parameters?

Thank you! I appreciate all the help!

 

[LeannaBanana]

I'm not 100% sure, but reasonably confident enough that testing your Nitrates and Phos at 1.018 (or 1.020) vs 1.025 will be a bit off because of the lower salinity. Maybe check your brand of test to verify that?

However, to combat both issues, assuming nutrients are high, water changes should help with it all in one swoop. I'd do a water change daily until you were back to normal. Since you're already on a 0.002 trend, I'd see how everything responds tomorrow, repeat, and repeat again. Then once your specific gravity is back where you usually have it, about 24 hr later start testing for the rest of the nutrients.

**but I'm NOT a chemist expert here, just my personal experience opinion. Plenty of experts around to weigh in

 

[TokenReefer]

I am no scientist or even good reefer, just want to say that All I can say is what I would do in your situation and hope it works

If you're just adding top off water it's not going to do much I don't think to dilute N or P. You have to export those. I don't see any algae in your tank tho, so I personally wouldn't be worried about that at the moment. I would bring the salinity back up to where it should be over the course of the next few days via top off (mixed to desired salinity) and then check those parameters again. Your corals will appreciate the correct salinity, start growing, suck up those N n P's and you're off to the races just my theory

 

[lilfishy]

I'm not 100% sure, but reasonably confident enough that testing your Nitrates and Phos at 1.018 (or 1.020) vs 1.025 will be a bit off because of the lower salinity. Maybe check your brand of test to verify that?

However, to combat both issues, assuming nutrients are high, water changes should help with it all in one swoop. I'd do a water change daily until you were back to normal. Since you're already on a 0.002 trend, I'd see how everything responds tomorrow, repeat, and repeat again. Then once your specific gravity is back where you usually have it, about 24 hr later start testing for the rest of the nutrients.

**but I'm NOT a chemist expert here, just my personal experience opinion. Plenty of experts around to weigh in

Thank you! I have the hanna checkers so hopefully they'd be accurate haha. I will keep doing water changes daily and hopefully will see an improvement soon.

 

[lilfishy]

I am no scientist or even good reefer, just want to say that All I can say is what I would do in your situation and hope it works

If you're just adding top off water it's not going to do much I don't think to dilute N or P. You have to export those. I don't see any algae in your tank tho, so I personally wouldn't be worried about that at the moment. I would bring the salinity back up to where it should be over the course of the next few days via top off (mixed to desired salinity) and then check those parameters again. Your corals will appreciate the correct salinity, start growing, suck up those N n P's and you're off to the races just my theory

There is actually quite a bit algae in the tank, I had just cleaned the glass haha. Would that have anything to do with the changes in N or P? Thank you though! I will try topping off with salt water for a few days and see where that gets us!

 

[bushdoc]

Your biggest issue is salinity, if your measurements are accurate. No coral can survive on longer run in specific gravity of 1.018, which corresponds to salinity of about 26ppt. Ocean salinity is about 35ppt. Fish can tolerate it for longer. You need to raise it slowly.....

 

[LeannaBanana]

Thank you! I have the hanna checkers so hopefully they'd be accurate haha. I will keep doing water changes daily and hopefully will see an improvement soon.

The brand of the checker isn't what's important. It's the ions in the water, which aren't the same at 0.018 vs 0.025, but I'm not knowledgeable to know nor explain the difference if there is one. (nor is that the most important factor right now, I don't think..) I hope the water changes help! Keep us posted!

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

We did a water change late last night and I just rechecked the parameters again:

Alkalinity: 7.5 dkh (decreased)
Calcium: 328 ppm (decreased)
Nitrate: 21.5 ppm (decreased)
Phosphate: 0.29 ppm (increased quite a bit)
Salinity: 1.020 (increased slightly)

Would just trying to add a bit of saltwater daily for a few days help the phosphate/nitrate at all? Or is there a better way to lower them? Or should we first get the salinity back to normal and then figure out the other parameters?

Thank you! I appreciate all the help!

There's nothing wrong with the N/P levels right now, especially for LPS.

 

[LeannaBanana]

There's nothing wrong with the N/P levels right now, especially for LPS.

:seenoevil: (this doesn't exist on this forum) I intentionally keep my LPS dominant tank around 15 NO3. It just works. They like it dirty, what can I say.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

:seenoevil: (this doesn't exist on this forum) I intentionally keep my LPS dominant tank around 15 NO3. It just works. They like it dirty, what can I say.

I'm not sure why you replied to me, but I keep my LPS in much higher nitrates than 15.

 

[LeannaBanana]

I'm not sure why you replied to me, but I keep my LPS in much higher nitrates than 15.

Because you...commented...on it? Yikes. Won't happen again lol.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Because you...commented...on it? Yikes. Won't happen again lol.

I just wasn't sure what your reply meant... If you thought the OPs values were too high, too low, etc.
No worries

 

[MoshJosh]

I would keep doing water changes. I am a fan of large water changes (might need to do it slowly depending on parameters), but my tanks are small so 5-10 gallons is a "large" change.