Mrtakeoff53
Active Member
You want to know how to crash your tank, read below. Luckily I observe my tank regularly every night, studying the beauty of my corals and fish and caught the error before it got too out of hand.
Background: My tank goes through cycles of hair algae and green cyano every few months. High nutrients and I get algae. Low nutrients and I get cyano. I just beat dinos in my system and the nutrients were high. I let them be this way until I noticed algae growing rapidly and corals not growing any longer.
The downfall: I thought I might have high nutrients so I tested. PO4 was 0.68 (yes, that is not a typo) and NO3 was 10 (normal for my tank). The PO4 startled me. I usually run it at about .15. I needed to bring down. I hooked up my GFO and started lowering it. 3 days later I noticed corals doing even worse! So I tested. PO4 was .08 and NO3 was 10 still. PO4 is now too low.
The correction: with PO4 bottomed out At 0.08 PPM (for my tank) and corals getting worse, I dosed PO4 back to .20 and fed Bio-Enhance amino/carb complex to regain some nutrients and help with the tissue loss. Immediately the corals responsed, stopped bleaching AND started growing again. That was close.
The lesson: KNOW YOUR TANK. Mine has been up 1.5 years now and I have learned what it likes, where corals are happy and when it is good. Don’t accept someone else’s parameters. Test YOUR tank. Know when it is happy (even if that means PO4 at 0.2 PPM) and try and keep it in that range. Because I watch my tank closely, know the parameters for when it is happy, I could make a correct correction.
The Bonus: My Green Slimer started taking off after the fix and is growing a new arm! Happy feeding!
Background: My tank goes through cycles of hair algae and green cyano every few months. High nutrients and I get algae. Low nutrients and I get cyano. I just beat dinos in my system and the nutrients were high. I let them be this way until I noticed algae growing rapidly and corals not growing any longer.
The downfall: I thought I might have high nutrients so I tested. PO4 was 0.68 (yes, that is not a typo) and NO3 was 10 (normal for my tank). The PO4 startled me. I usually run it at about .15. I needed to bring down. I hooked up my GFO and started lowering it. 3 days later I noticed corals doing even worse! So I tested. PO4 was .08 and NO3 was 10 still. PO4 is now too low.
The correction: with PO4 bottomed out At 0.08 PPM (for my tank) and corals getting worse, I dosed PO4 back to .20 and fed Bio-Enhance amino/carb complex to regain some nutrients and help with the tissue loss. Immediately the corals responsed, stopped bleaching AND started growing again. That was close.
The lesson: KNOW YOUR TANK. Mine has been up 1.5 years now and I have learned what it likes, where corals are happy and when it is good. Don’t accept someone else’s parameters. Test YOUR tank. Know when it is happy (even if that means PO4 at 0.2 PPM) and try and keep it in that range. Because I watch my tank closely, know the parameters for when it is happy, I could make a correct correction.
The Bonus: My Green Slimer started taking off after the fix and is growing a new arm! Happy feeding!
