HELP! MY SPS ARE PALING AND I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO

[GoJimmy]

Rcfiftyone
How long a period did you do this? I just started the exact same stratagy as you but without the tang. Skimmer off (6 hours day) double feeding, no wc, macro algae all gone and still 0 with Red Sea test kit on nitrates, 0.05 phosphates. No change in 2 days. Still looking to add another fish. Currently with only 2 in a 29 biocube

Update: after turning off skimmer completely, reducing my chaeto to a small clump and photoperiod from 24 to 12 hours, doubling feedings, leaving filter sock unchanged till it overflowed, and adding a clown tang, my No3 still tested zero (bright yellow on API). Po4 dropped from 0.2 to 0.1 . I was all ready to start dosing No3 but I couldn't ignore the increase in algae on the glass. So I picked up a Salifert test kit and sure enough I had at least 5ppm No3! Long story short, all my Api test kits went straight into the garbage!

 

[Rcfiftyone]

This was over a 5-6 day period. However, I may have had some nitrates to begin with that I didn't know about since my test kit was faulty. Its possible to go from 0 to 5ppm in that time span but I think I had a head start. I will say that I have seen some definite color improvement on some corals. In particular the Garf bonsai, blue tenuis, joe the acro and tricolor. It will be interesting to see what a little more time will do. Ill try to post some before and afters

 

[David Cher]

I dosed the potassium nitrate and it did increase to 10 ppm

 

[GoJimmy]

My first attempt at reefing failed miserably with nitrates out of control. This time around, I have so carefully planned on a ulns, I have the opposite dilemma. Thanks to threads like this, I now realize that I need nitrates to have healthy coral growth and coloration. I'm a few days in now and I have turned off my skimmer for 12 hours a day now, removed my baggie of purigen, all my macro algae from the back chamber, and today added 2 more fish for a total of 4. Clown, striped damsel, lawnmower blennies, and a pink spot goby. I have increased feedings and held back any water changes. Still nitrates are 0. I even tested the lfs water my fish came in and their NO3 was off the chart. At least I know my RS test kit is working! I don't really want to dose nitrate, I think any nitrates my system produces are being used immediately by the corals but there is not enough. I am starting to see some stn on one of my corals near the top of tank closest to the light. Luckily, with the extra load and feedings, my phosphates are still at 0.05. I have even stopped using kalk in my ato in hopes of lowering my alk. It's currently at 9dkh and I think that my be too high for my sps corals starving for nitrates.
Hopefully the 2 extra fish will start adding to the bioload. I haven't noticed any change in my coral colors yet

 

[Russ265]

My first attempt at reefing failed miserably with nitrates out of control. This time around, I have so carefully planned on a ulns, I have the opposite dilemma. Thanks to threads like this, I now realize that I need nitrates to have healthy coral growth and coloration. I'm a few days in now and I have turned off my skimmer for 12 hours a day now, removed my baggie of purigen, all my macro algae from the back chamber, and today added 2 more fish for a total of 4. Clown, striped damsel, lawnmower blennies, and a pink spot goby. I have increased feedings and held back any water changes. Still nitrates are 0. I even tested the lfs water my fish came in and their NO3 was off the chart. At least I know my RS test kit is working! I don't really want to dose nitrate, I think any nitrates my system produces are being used immediately by the corals but there is not enough. I am starting to see some stn on one of my corals near the top of tank closest to the light. Luckily, with the extra load and feedings, my phosphates are still at 0.05. I have even stopped using kalk in my ato in hopes of lowering my alk. It's currently at 9dkh and I think that my be too high for my sps corals starving for nitrates.
Hopefully the 2 extra fish will start adding to the bioload. I haven't noticed any change in my coral colors yet

a shot of nitrate gives it a lil boost. while i wouldnt shoot for 10 ppm. 5 works out just fine.

i am STILL dosing nitrate with my additions but i do believe adding a few fish in the interim keeps sps happy

 

[Rcfiftyone]

Would reducing the light intensity and/or duration for a few days help to increase nitrates and swing the balance from Po4 dominant to No3? Or even leaving the lights off for a day or two? It seems it would slow the uptake from algae and corals. What do you guys think?

 

[GoJimmy]

Would reducing the light intensity and/or duration for a few days help to increase nitrates and swing the balance from Po4 dominant to No3? Or even leaving the lights off for a day or two? It seems it would slow the uptake from algae and corals. What do you guys think?

Not sure in my case, I really don't have any visable algae. I think all my nitrates are being used by the corals

 

[GoJimmy]

a shot of nitrate gives it a lil boost. while i wouldnt shoot for 10 ppm. 5 works out just fine.

i am STILL dosing nitrate with my additions but i do believe adding a few fish in the interim keeps sps happy

I just purchased a bottle of Seachem Nitrogen. ..will start my dosing this week. I will post my results.

 

[KIRBLIT]

This thread got me really thinking about nutrients and how I could get even better colors from my corals. I have good colors already but I figured what the heck. I have neglected my tank for the last 2 years as a preface to what's coming.

I decided to order some kits to do some testing as I have never really been concerned about phos or NO3 because I never had a problem with algae. do some testing to see where I was at to start with. Well I maxed out the Hanna ulr phos as well as the Red Sea Pro NO3 completely at full dilution. I work at a ww treatment plant so I brought some water to work to get some real results. Long story short my phos was 1.33 so I did 50% change..... Then tested my NO3 which was around 80! So my NO3 was somewhere around 160 to begin with!

I will post some pictures of my corals and tank which would give you no indication of these kinds of nutrient levels. I have phos holding at about 0.07 and nitrates at around 40 currently. I'll post pics soon, I look forward to what everyone thinks about this. It has really opened my eyes to some stuff I would have never considered if I had never read this thread.

 

[Russ265]

This thread got me really thinking about nutrients and how I could get even better colors from my corals. I have good colors already but I figured what the heck. I have neglected my tank for the last 2 years as a preface to what's coming.

I decided to order some kits to do some testing as I have never really been concerned about phos or NO3 because I never had a problem with algae. do some testing to see where I was at to start with. Well I maxed out the Hanna ulr phos as well as the Red Sea Pro NO3 completely at full dilution. I work at a ww treatment plant so I brought some water to work to get some real results. Long story short my phos was 1.33 so I did 50% change..... Then tested my NO3 which was around 80! So my NO3 was somewhere around 160 to begin with!

I will post some pictures of my corals and tank which would give you no indication of these kinds of nutrient levels. I have phos holding at about 0.07 and nitrates at around 40 currently. I'll post pics soon, I look forward to what everyone thinks about this. It has really opened my eyes to some stuff I would have never considered if I had never read this thread.

psst. you need 0 everything to have sps coral. oh yeah... and that skimmer.

 

[KIRBLIT]

psst. you need 0 everything to have sps coral. oh yeah... and that skimmer.

Well that's what everyone thought I guess. To be honest I wonder if I have always had super high nutrients and never knew about it. I have always had a low fish load but over fed like you would not believe and never any algae. I never checked anything before and my tank was phenomenal. I always just dosed the big 3 and never looked at a thing else because everything was great. I'll post some pics from in its prime several years ago before neglect.

 

[KIRBLIT]

OK here's pics before I knew about nutrient issues. This was just after I got everything back in order in January from 2 years neglect, I think I did a 30 gal wc and dosed all parameters back up. Tank is pretty wiped out of coral from what it used to be.

Here are some tank and coral shots after I found out how high the nutrients are

 

[KIRBLIT]

Here is one I just took so you can see the glass. I literally haven't scraped my glass in about a month, and this is always how my tank has been so I assumed I had low nutrients because I had no algae and had no reason to test. So what's the trigger for algae? With nutrients like mine I should have a huge problem according to traditional thought.

Edit; I scraped the glass around the corals so you could see the algae but it didn't show up. Here is a better one.

 

[Russ265]

Here is one I just took so you can see the glass. I literally haven't scraped my glass in about a month, and this is always how my tank has been so I assumed I had low nutrients because I had no algae and had no reason to test. So what's the trigger for algae? With nutrients like mine I should have a huge problem according to traditional thought.

redfield

 

[KIRBLIT]

redfield

OK so assuming the Redfield, I wonder what my limiting factor is then to limit algae growth.

 

[KIRBLIT]

So just for kicks this is what my tank looked like about 6 years ago, and why I want to get it back in shape. I never, ever, tested for any NO3 or phosphates because I had no reason to. I had kalk for topoff, a calcium reactor, and dosed mag as needed and religious 10% water changes vacuuming my sand. I always had my best colors and growth when I ran my alk up around 11 dkh. Really makes sense after reading this thread and how high nutrients demand higher alk and lighting. I did/and still do however run GFO because I will get a small amount of cyno on my sand every once in a while if I don't. I'm not saying that I definitely had high nutrients then, however I have a feeling I likely did as my husbandry hasn't changed. Even when my tank got neglected I did water changes once in a while, the problem was that I sold off corals, had some medical issues, new job, moved, lost some fish, didn't keep up my parameters, and just lost interest for a time. This thread has just been very thought provoking in general for me as a whole and makes me reflect on times when certain things would happen and why I could never keep my corals happy in a frag tank that didn't have any fish and wasn't connected to my system. I had HUGE cyno issues in that frag tank and nothing ever looked good, now I know why!

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[LakeCityReefs]

Yesterday I was at day 10 of dosing nitrates. Something isn't going right so I'm going to stop until my new test kit (Salifert) arrives.
No3 is still reading 0 (API). Po4 is reading less than 0.1. (Seachem).

Cyano was cut in half a few days ago but now seems to be back where it was when the lights are on full in the mid day.
Tonight I've dialed the skimmer back up, performed a 10% WC today and added 2 tbsp. Carbon and 2 tbsp. Phosguard back into the reactor and fired it up again.

Im not going to abandon the nitrate dosing but I want to wait until my new test kit gets here. Fwiw, I was dosing 5-10 ml a day on a 60 Ga total volume system.

 

[Russ265]

Yesterday I was at day 10 of dosing nitrates. Something isn't going right so I'm going to stop until my new test kit (Salifert) arrives.
No3 is still reading 0 (API). Po4 is reading less than 0.1. (Seachem).

Cyano was cut in half a few days ago but now seems to be back where it was when the lights are on full in the mid day.
Tonight I've dialed the skimmer back up, performed a 10% WC today and added 2 tbsp. Carbon and 2 tbsp. Phosguard back into the reactor and fired it up again.

Im not going to abandon the nitrate dosing but I want to wait until my new test kit gets here. Fwiw, I was dosing 5-10 ml a day on a 60 Ga total volume system.

good call not using api for nitrates.
for reference i dose 60 ml and that gets me around 5ppm on my 300 gallon system.

if we were to scale it down. 10 ml should have gotten you a reading. however, nitrates have been known to get sucked up like a sponge on initial dosing.

 

[Rcfiftyone]

I can second not trusting Api tests for nitrate or phosphate. They may be ok for when you cycle a tank and have 80ppm but for what were trying to accomplish they seem usless.

 

[LakeCityReefs]

Test kit still hasn't arrived.
My indicator that something wasn't right was my green birdsnest. It's always looking good and yesterday the polyps were all crappy. After reseting everything yesterday the birdsnest is based k to normal today.