Help with SPS? Burnt tips or other?

[One Reefing Boi]

Lost an acro the other day to RTN. Had another going downhill with RTN fast too. Seemed to have stopped that one from receding, but I think it was my Nutrients were wacky. (Nitrate 0 phosphate 0.3). Have been dosing nitrate at 0.5 ppm/daily for about 4-5 days now. Also been dosing AB+ based on their ULNS dosing. Maintained feeding, ligthing, flow, etc.. but now I seem to be losing my favorite acro I’ve had for a long time that’s been taking off lately :(

Any ideas or tips? No nippers in the tank, no viable pests, other acros around it are doing well too. Looks like it’s bleaching a bit .

Sits around 270 par under 2 AI blades grow running around 50% Turbulent indirect flow (frag is center tank) between a Nero 3 and MP10. Tank is 4 years old mixed reef. Nothing close by to sting it.

Collecting tank Params now and will update here in a moment I have a reef ATO that maintains water levels. Haven’t done a WC in about a month (dose major elements and some minor)

Temp: 78.5
Salinity: 1.026
Alk: 7.2
Calc: 345 (Ik a little low)
Mag: 1415
No3: 0.5
PO4: 0.3 (yes 0.3 NOT 0.03)
PH: unknown (no way to test)

 

[One Reefing Boi]

Updated with params

 

[shakacuz]

po4 is too high for no4 to be that low. cal is also slightly low.

how recently did you change, or add the lights?

 

[One Reefing Boi]

po4 is too high for no4 to be that low. cal is also slightly low.

how recently did you change, or add the lights?

Yeah was going to get GFO today after work to help wrangle that down a bit.

lights installed when the Blades came out, so March/April and haven’t changed the schedule since then

 

[shakacuz]

Yeah was going to get GFO today after work to help wrangle that down a bit.

lights installed when the Blades came out, so March/April and haven’t changed the schedule since then

hm...its been a few months so they should be acclimated to the light by now.

second look @ your parameters, ALK is also low at 7.2. what did you test with?

 

[One Reefing Boi]

hm...its been a few months so they should be acclimated to the light by now.

second look @ your parameters, ALK is also low at 7.2. what did you test with?

Yeah alk is a little low, have to recalibrate my dosing pump to adjust for the coral growing. I tend to keep alk a little lower cause my low nutrients (and also the lower PAR). But usually around 8 alk.

Yeah I’ve been a little baffled by this one

 

[One Reefing Boi]

Bump

 

[One Reefing Boi]

Not looking any better but has a strong feeding response to ReefRoids. Got caught up in life so getting GFO tonight

 

[DanyL]

Hmm you’re phosphates are high, this is far from being a ULNS system.

I wouldn’t feed with reef roids nor with AB+, as both will keep elevating your phosphates even further.

Keep dosing nitrates, your phosphates will slowly come down until you’ll be carbon limited, which if you want to lower it further, can be dosed.

I wouldn’t rush to use a GFO though, first try to slowly reduce your phosphates naturally with bacteria, see if you’re able to achieve the results you were hoping for, if phosphates don’t come down and are bounded in your rocks than reconsider using a GFO once again.

 

[One Reefing Boi]

Hmm you’re phosphates are high, this is far from being a ULNS system.

I wouldn’t feed with reef roids nor with AB+, as both will keep elevating your phosphates even further.

Keep dosing nitrates, your phosphates will slowly come down until you’ll be carbon limited, which if you want to lower it further, can be dosed.

I wouldn’t rush to use a GFO though, first try to slowly reduce your phosphates naturally with bacteria, see if you’re able to achieve the results you were hoping for, if phosphates don’t come down and are bounded in your rocks than reconsider using a GFO once again.

Alright, I guess I’ll stop with the AB+ and reef roids.

Is 0.5/ppm /day okay with nitrates or should I up that dose a little bit too? Using NeoNitro

 

[kartrsu]

I would use GFO to cut down the phosphates and fix the other parameters. Alk is fine imo, calcium low, need more nitrates.

I recently had an AEFW infestation that caused my acro to lose color. Been dosing FWstop to help with the issue. After I stabilized my parameters, things have recovered. See my ASD rainbow below. Just one month of dialing things back in.

 

[One Reefing Boi]

I would use GFO to cut down the phosphates and fix the other parameters. Alk is fine imo, calcium low, need more nitrates.

I recently had an AEFW infestation that caused my acro to lose color. Been dosing FWstop to help with the issue. After I stabilized my parameters, things have recovered. See my ASD rainbow below. Just one month of dialing things back in.

Is there any harm in using GFO to drop it too quickly?

 

[DanyL]

Alright, I guess I’ll stop with the AB+ and reef roids.

Is 0.5/ppm /day okay with nitrates or should I up that dose a little bit too? Using NeoNitro

It depends on what is being used in NeoNitro as the Nitrate source.

If it is based on Potassium Nitrate, there’s a possibility to overdose it. Because of this, as long as you use commercial solution, I recommend following their instructions.

Otherwise, if you’re using Sodium/Calcium Nitrate - I personally increase it at the rate of 1ppm per day without any worries.

Is there any harm in using GFO to drop it too quickly?

Yes. If you drop phosphates too fast it can easily cause RTN/STN, if not immediately than as a late response in the following weeks.

When reducing phosphates you should do it slowly, spread across multiple weeks to make sure you don’t shock your corals.

 

[One Reefing Boi]

It depends on what is being used in NeoNitro as the Nitrate source.

If it is based on Potassium Nitrate, there’s a possibility to overdose it. Because of this, as long as you use commercial solution, I recommend following their instructions.

Otherwise, if you’re using Sodium/Calcium Nitrate - I personally increase it at the rate of 1ppm per day without any worries.


Yes. If you drop phosphates too fast it can easily cause RTN/STN, if not immediately than as a late response in the following weeks.

When reducing phosphates you should do it slowly, spread across multiple weeks to make sure you don’t shock your corals.

Alright I guess my approach will be upping the neo nitro dose to about 1ppm/day and add some GFO to help bring down PO4 but for the GFO go with like 1/5 of the recommended amount or some very conservative number to gently lower it. I also don’t have a reactor or sump (AIO) so will just need to use a bag in one area of my filter compartment

 

[DanyL]

Alright I guess my approach will be upping the neo nitro dose to about 1ppm/day and add some GFO to help bring down PO4 but for the GFO go with like 1/5 of the recommended amount or some very conservative number to gently lower it. I also don’t have a reactor or sump (AIO) so will just need to use a bag in one area of my filter compartment

Nutrients can fluctuate pretty easily, so I’d do it one at a time, and keep watching them every 2 to 3 days to make sure everything goes as planned.

First start by increasing your Nitrates and keeping it stable. Only then move forward to GFO if needed.

 

[kartrsu]

I concur to make changes slowly. If you wanna go stepwise, it might make more sense to tackle calcium first, but totally fine to adjust in parallel with no3 and po4. Personally, I’ve dosed 5ppm nitrate and dropped phosphate by 0.1ppm in a day with no issues when nutrients got out of wack, but I like the suggested steady approach better. Could also dose microbacter7 to consume nutrients organically.

 

[DanyL]

it might make more sense to tackle calcium first, but totally fine to adjust in parallel with no3 and po4.

Yes, I agree.
Shouldn’t be a problem to adjust Calcium and nutrients in parallel.

 

[One Reefing Boi]

Yes, I agree.
Shouldn’t be a problem to adjust Calcium and nutrients in parallel.

I concur to make changes slowly. If you wanna go stepwise, it might make more sense to tackle calcium first, but totally fine to adjust in parallel with no3 and po4. Personally, I’ve dosed 5ppm nitrate and dropped phosphate by 0.1ppm in a day with no issues when nutrients got out of wack, but I like the suggested steady approach better. Could also dose microbacter7 to consume nutrients organically.

I’m honestly so tired tn so I’ll check again in the AM in case I messed up the test for PO4 but just checked

PO4 : 0.6
N03: 2.6

 

[DanyL]

I’m honestly so tired tn so I’ll check again in the AM in case I messed up the test for PO4 but just checked

PO4 : 0.6
N03: 2.6

A good way to make sure your test results aren’t skewed is to test them “in idle”.

I personally wait 6 to 8 hours after feeding/cleaning the glass/dosing anything nutrient related/etc.

This allows me to get an accurate and comparable representation of NO3/PO4 test results by eliminating variables that directly influence it and confining the decay time.

 

[One Reefing Boi]

A good way to make sure your test results aren’t skewed is to test them “in idle”.

I personally wait 6 to 8 hours after feeding/cleaning the glass/dosing anything nutrient related/etc.

This allows me to get an accurate and comparable representation of NO3/PO4 test results by eliminating variables that directly influence it and confining the decay time.

Just retested both (haven’t fed or dosed anything into tank between these test). Sent out a sample for a lab test and taking a sample to my LFS to confirm

PO4 0.7 (?)
NO3 2.5

My LFS only has Seachem SeaGel which looks like it’s 50|50 carbon/phosguard.

Will this help or should I get pure GFO?