Brew12
Electrical Gru
I doubt the pukani is an issue but I am curious about the reef saver rock. Hopefully you have enough of that to get some results.
High Alk Consumption with very few corals.
- Thread starter HWDylan
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
Yup, that should work well.Here is one Reef Saver piece and one pukani.
Big enough?
Brew12
Electrical Gru
I'm pretty sure the Reef Saver rock is mined from a dry quarry in Florida which makes it susceptible to inconsistencies imo. I got mine from a different supplier but I believe it came from the same source. I also have Pukani from BRS and I never had these problems.Done. We will see where this goes I guess. I've used reef Saver several times before with no issues but I guess each batch can have its own issues.
When I did a vinegar soak on mine I had a nice clean tan foam form on the surface from breaking down the rock. I feel it is worth checking to see if you get a dark nasty foam form.
I will keep this updated with results from the vinegar soak.
Do you put any stock into products like Microbacter Clean (https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/microbacter-clean-brightwell-aquatics.html)? Is it something that could be beneficial in this instance. I am a bit loathe to just go adding this and that trying to fix a problem. I prefer the patience method but I have had this tank running for 9mo, I feel like something needs to be done.
Brew12
Electrical Gru
I don't think this will help since you have an absence of nutrients, not an excess.
Crashjack
Well-Known Member
Just as an FYI, my recent tank where I had a similar problem was all Pukani. With a tank this young, it wouldn't hurt to get your nutrients up to nitrate 10+ ppm and phosphate up to .1+ ppm and verify that it holds there for awhile after you stop dosing. I realize you might get some nuisance algae and such, but if you do have dinos, it will begin addressing that, and you should see growth in corals, coralline, and chaeto. I don't know the chemistry behind it or if it was just coincidence, but increasing my nitrate/phosphate to those levels resulted in transforming a tank that looked like the corals were preserved in formaldehyde and had crazy alk and Mg swings, to a tank with thriving, growing corals where managing alk, Ca, and Mg is very straightforward.
Iván Olalla
Well-Known Member
The nitrogen cycle uses kh in the last part to convert nitrate to nitrogen and then releases back that kh to the tank, but if you export via WC it wont get back, maybe and just maybe this is factor in the numbers you see. Try and stop WC for 15 days and keep your dosing and check if you see changes, that you should break the rythm of your tank and provide you with morel consistent day to day consumption numbers
I have tried getting the NO3 and PO4 up further. Thats what made me start dosing KNO3. I had it up to 25ppm NO3 but it dropped real quick when the Cyano started. I am shocked that the PO4 isnt higher with the amount of food I put into this tank. Pelltes 2x a day and Frozen in the evening plus a sheet of Nori once or twice a day.
We will see. I have water changes completely turned off for now and I dont intend to turn them back on until I see a reason to.
I use Tropic Marin Pro. I use this brand mostly because I make up 65 gallons at a time and do constant water changes throughout the day so I need a salt that remains fairly stable when stored un heated. 60ml sounds much more reasonable than the 240ml or so I was having to do to even keep the Alk at 7.3dkh. That along with the lack of coraline algae and not being able to keep corals alive is what made me turn to the forum for help. This is such an odd problem.
Crashjack
Well-Known Member
It is a little trial and error, but you have to keep dosing multiple times per week if not daily to hold the levels. Eventually nitrate/phosphate will start to rise and then you can start backing off dosing (by backing off I mean dosing less frequently or dosing a smaller amount). If nitrate gets below 10 ppm, increase the dose again, and do the same if phosphate gets below .1 ppm. Eventually, nitrate/phosphate will stay around those levels with no dosing.
I have a similar issue. 280G tank with 40G sump, medium (?) coral load (20 medium-large LPS) no SPS corals. I'm going through 600ml of Alk and Calc per day and have a hard time keeping Alk above 7.1dKh. And I keep my Mag above 1400. If I stop dosing, I drop down to less than 6 dKh, at which point I have to start dosing again (or I risk going really low). I tried various things and at this point I'm planning to change to Red Sea Coral Pro (mixes around 10-11 dKh). On the bright side, at the moment, the tank seems to be doing well (corals look healthy). Hope this helps.
I am dosing with a doser so it is gradually doing it throughout the day. The consumption of NO3 and PO4 seems as unstable as the alk consumption. I had PO4 at .05 and NO3 at 25ppm but both dropped back down to very low (.01 and 5ppm respectively) in the matter of a day or 2. I Dont want to just keep upping the dose of those either really since it is clearly feeding something and until I understand what that I I'm not sure I want that.
Update on the vinegar soak:
Light tan debris and nothing else came off the rocks. I will continue to let them soak but Im thinking rocks can be ruled out of the equation.
Brew12
Electrical Gru
I can't say for sure, but I agree the rocks are unlikely the cause. The light tan color is what I would have expected.I am dosing with a doser so it is gradually doing it throughout the day. The consumption of NO3 and PO4 seems as unstable as the alk consumption. I had PO4 at .05 and NO3 at 25ppm but both dropped back down to very low (.01 and 5ppm respectively) in the matter of a day or 2. I Dont want to just keep upping the dose of those either really since it is clearly feeding something and until I understand what that I I'm not sure I want that.
Update on the vinegar soak:
Light tan debris and nothing else came off the rocks. I will continue to let them soak but Im thinking rocks can be ruled out of the equation.
If you were just dealing with alk dropping this would make more sense to me, I'm struggling to find anything reasonable that would explain both alk and calc being consumed at those rates that isn't visibly obvious.
blasterman
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Sounds like bad test kits to me. Calcium simply cannot *vanish* from a tank unless it's either precipitated or consumed by corals. It takes *a lot* of SPS to consume calcium at a rate that can be accurately measured in a 24hour period, and it doesn't sound like the case here.
If you have a bad test kit then it's possible to ride alkalinity too high which will cause calcium to precipitate out (like pouring water in a bucket with a hole in it) and you end up dosing more and more.
Alk on the other hand can be consumed at a non balanced rate via other biological processes and sometimes at a scare depletion rate, and this is why I'm such a harsh critic of Part A & B kits which are the invention of marketing depts and have little value to reefers. As an unofficial rule, with tanks less than a year old your better off replenishing calcium via water changes and just dose baking soda for alk. You'll save a lot of aggravation this way and be smarter.
If you have a bad test kit then it's possible to ride alkalinity too high which will cause calcium to precipitate out (like pouring water in a bucket with a hole in it) and you end up dosing more and more.
Alk on the other hand can be consumed at a non balanced rate via other biological processes and sometimes at a scare depletion rate, and this is why I'm such a harsh critic of Part A & B kits which are the invention of marketing depts and have little value to reefers. As an unofficial rule, with tanks less than a year old your better off replenishing calcium via water changes and just dose baking soda for alk. You'll save a lot of aggravation this way and be smarter.
I will test everything tonight when I get home and confirm that alk and cal are indeed dropping together. I only tested alk last night because that's what I've been most concerned about. It has fallen to 5.4dkh now with no dosing. I may try a smaller dose like 30ml and see how that affects things in the next day or two.
I have confirmed the alk reading with Hanna, Red Sea and then used the water testing lab at work (I work at an AZA Institution) to confirm. My alk reading is right. I've only done Cal with Red Sea though. I can test that at work as well tomorrow just to be 100% it is not a bad test kit.
Crashjack
Well-Known Member
Part of your issue is dropping alk; part of your issue is that your corals aren't growing. Whatever is sucking up your nutrients is obviously robbing the nutrients from your corals (very common with dinos but not saying you have dinos). In my similar experience, I used a kalk stirrer tied to my ATO that I could manually adjust with a 3-way valve to where I could run kalk as long as I wanted every day or night by switching the position of the valve. Alk was all over the place. You assume that your alk dropping is the source of your problems. I'm saying that it might be just a symptom and that low nitrate/phosphate might really be the source of your problem.
Until I was able to elevate my nutrients and keep them elevated, I had no growth and huge alk swings. After I elevated nitrates/phosphates and kept elevated, I had coral growth and normal alk swings (I still use my same stirrer methodology though it can no longer keep-up so I manually add sodium bicarbonate and calcium carbonate a couple times per week). Yes, after the dinos were gone, I had cyano and GHA, which went away over time by removing with every water change. Now, I have a tank I enjoy.
These are some before/after pics... 1st two no nitrate/phosphate with dinos; 2nd two nitrates + phosphates - dinos:
Interesting. I do not believe I have Dinos. There is nothing in the tank that looks like the typical brownish snotty material. I have had my nitrates pretty stable at 5ppm for about 3 months now (before they were undetectable) and PO4 tends to be in the neighborhood of .01 to .03. I may up the dosage of both to see what happens then if you are convinced this is the issue. My alk wasnt really swinging, I had it pretty stable at 7.3ish I just had to keep upping the dose (started at 35ml) to keep it there. My biggest concern with all of this is why do corals just die in this tank? Even Zoas melt away. I just had a frag of Mandarin Oranges completely melt after about 2 weeks. If it were only SPS I was struggling with I would understand a bit more because I know the instability of a newer tank always makes SPS tricky. This combined with the lack of coraline concerns me most. I have had tanks that I ran WAY too low on nutrients (back when I thought that 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates was a goal) and I never had an issue with coraline and the corals I had would very slowly fade in color and then just never grow. I have outright killed several different frags in this tank which is not something I take lightly. I have rarely had complete coral death in my tanks. I have messed up and had things recede or bleach but I have rarely straight up killed something.
I will up the PO4 and NO3 dosage and see where we go. Id honestly welcome a GHA outbreak at this point. There is no algae in this tank besides some cyano and a light brown powder on the glass (maybe diatoms, Id have to check with a scope at work)that I wipe off maybe once a week at most.
Ok Update: I just got home from work and tested all parameters
Alk: 5.1dkh
Cal: 350ppm
Mg: 1350ppm
NO3: ~5ppm
PO4: 0.04
Remember this is with all dosing and water changes turned off except for Nitrate dosing.
Id be interested to hear opinions. I think I will pick Alk and Cal dosing back up and just start really low and see what that does (as well as a Magnesium correction to get it back up to ~1400ish). I will continue to monitor and attempt to maintain NO3 and PO4 levels. I have been feeding a bit more which is why the uptick in PO4 happened. I think that is a good thing though.
Alk: 5.1dkh
Cal: 350ppm
Mg: 1350ppm
NO3: ~5ppm
PO4: 0.04
Remember this is with all dosing and water changes turned off except for Nitrate dosing.
Id be interested to hear opinions. I think I will pick Alk and Cal dosing back up and just start really low and see what that does (as well as a Magnesium correction to get it back up to ~1400ish). I will continue to monitor and attempt to maintain NO3 and PO4 levels. I have been feeding a bit more which is why the uptick in PO4 happened. I think that is a good thing though.
Crashjack
Well-Known Member
I certainly don't know that low nutrients is the problem, only that I had a similar experience with alk, low nutrients, no coral or coralline growth, and brown stuff (mine was dinos). There were some differences: my alk would drop with few corals and no coral/coralline growth and then I would try to up it with sodium bicarbonate, and the next test would show a way larger increase than the amount of sodium bicarbonate should have increased. Most of my corals didn't die; they just didn't grow, encrust, or spread. My chaeto didn't die; it just didn't grow and some of it turned white. I also had two stages of cyano and dinos. The first was mixed with dinos but before the dinos completely took over, and the second was after I started beating the dinos.
Admittedly, I'm grasping at straws, but dinos do release toxins, which could have an effect on corals and/or fish. They also suck the nitrate/phosphate out of a system, including the nitrate/phosphate one doses. In my situation, I increased the nutrients while running Rox Carbon 24/7 and changing the carbon every two weeks (carbon to hopefully remove or at least reduce toxins). It solved all of my problems.
Someone else might have a better idea or might have a verifiable scientific explanation and simple fix for what is happening and if so, definitely jump on it.
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