Help Please

[Nosaj82]

Not sure what is going on in my tank but things are not looking to good at the moment. My torch and elegance coral seem to be really suffering and there seems to be algae everywhere including my sand, it should be white but as you can see it is not. Have a look at the pictures below. Also in the pic is the water parameters and what I am currently dosing with.

I often see my peppermint shrimp on the elegance coral, is that normal?

What are those read leafy looking things on that one rock?

I should note that I’m currently running a canister filter. When the budget allows I will be upgrading to a sump tank. Tank has been running for almost a year.

 

[HotRocks]

Let's see if #reefsquad can help

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Are you using rodi water ?

It looks like macro algae on the rocks. Like the rock was in somebody’s Refugium.

Are you running gfo or chemi pure or other chemical filtration?

How many fish do you have in there ?

 

[Nosaj82]

Rodi water - Yes

These rocks came from my LFS

Sponge, ceramic balls and carbon in the canister filter. Other then nothing

I have one clown fish, two peppermint shrimp, hermit crabs and snail along with the torch and elegance coral.

 

[Mr.Rocc]

When my lps retract it normally means high phosphates. That's just my tank though. How often and how much do you feed? I would bet your nutrients export is to blame.

 

[Maritimer]

Those tests showing nitrates and phosphates at "zero" concern me a bit ... corals and their zooxanthellae need some nutrient in the water. IIRC, most folks aim for about 5ppm of nitrate and .03 of phosphates.

~Bruce

 

[Nosaj82]

How can I raise these parameter then? Any ideas?

 

[Maritimer]

For nitrates and phosphates, take a look at the balance between nutrient import and export. Cut back on dosing vodka / sugar / vinegar, if you're doing that ... or maybe just feed the tank a little more heavily.

~Bruce

 

[Nosaj82]

I find the more I feed it the worse the algae gets so I have scaled back a little.

 

[ZaneTer]

Nosaj you have 3 choices available to you:
Feed the tank more OR
Dose the tank with your choice of nitrate and phosphate OR
Leave your corals to die

How long can you survive without food?
With regards to your algae problem you simply have to clean the tank glass more regularly.

 

[saltyhog]

How are you measuring nitrate and phosphate? How old is your tank?

The algae issues are very common in a relatively new tank and are often not related to nutrient levels as much as you would think. Agree with above you need to raise nutrient levels a little if the numbers posted are accurate. Be watchful though because it's easy to over shoot in a new tank and I would think the canister filter could make it even easier to do that.

 

[Ryan Rosales]

I’d say manually remove algae by brushing them off your live rocks, vacuum sand bed to remove algae from surface.
Algae competes with your corals by stripping nutrients from the water. Simply removing them will cut down competition.

 

[Coral_North]

How are you checking your salinity refactometer or hydrometer.If refractometer is it calibrated ?If hydrometer have you verified that it is still accurate?
What is your salinity atm?

 

[Nosaj82]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I will defiantly start dosing with phosphate and nitrate as well as feed a little more. I regularly do clean the algae and will keep on top of that, I let it slip a little for the sake of some pictures. Can’t wait to get sump and get rid of the canister lol

 

[Ryan Rosales]

I’ve heard of some people dosing plant fertilizers, though I haven’t tried it myself I’ve heard people have had their success in increasing PO4 and Nitrates in their tank for whatever reason I don’t know why they wanted to do that (increase PO4 and Nitrate).
Now I know why.
Anyway, you can utilize that canister filter you have as bio-denitrator. Use course PVC shavings as corse filter floss and sintered glass balls.

 

[Ryan Rosales]

 

[Mr.Rocc]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I will defiantly start dosing with phosphate and nitrate as well as feed a little more. I regularly do clean the algae and will keep on top of that, I let it slip a little for the sake of some pictures. Can’t wait to get sump and get rid of the canister lol

Time out! If when you raise your phosphates/nitrates by feeding more and the algae increases. You probably don't have a good enough source of nutrients export. Algae eats nutrients to survive and that is why it won't show up on a test kit. If you have algae you have high nitrates or phosphates. This can be because you have a "young" tank, the canister filter is a nitrate power house, or you feed too much. Just my two cents but dosing nitrates or phosphates does not make sense.

 

[Ryan Rosales]

Time out! If when you raise your phosphates/nitrates by feeding more and the algae increases. You probably don't have a good enough source of nutrients export. Algae eats nutrients to survive and that is why it won't show up on a test kit. If you have algae you have high nitrates or phosphates. This can be because you have a "young" tank, the canister filter is a nitrate power house, or you feed too much. Just my two cents but dosing nitrates or phosphates does not make sense.

That’s true, Phosphate are organically bound and deposited within the algae as stored “food”. They are unavailable Phosphate.
In this particular case, it’s for another purpose. Most likely for Corals, Coraline, Bacteria, etc.

 

[TheAquarian]

If you algae you have high nitrate and phosphate algae won’t grow without it, the test reads 0 because the algae is consuming it. If you remove all or most of the algae you will see a rise in both nitrate and phosphate, removing one or both will starve out the algae, algae need both to thrive. I agree you need both in minute amounts within your tank for the longevity of the system. But removing one for a short time will not harm the corals if you are providing the proper lighting for the zooanthellae.

 

[CindyKz]

Is the alkalinity posted in ppm? If so that's just over 12 dKH which seems high to me. How much light are those corals getting?

If the OP is dosing all the stuff in the pictures I doubt if the corals are starving, even if the algae is taking all the excess.

Also, what is salinity?