- Joined
- Mar 2, 2019
- Messages
- 178
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I have ruined my reef by trying to make it better.
Tank - Reefer 350 - filter socks
Media - reefspec carbon & rowa floss
cal - 460
alk - 9.0
mg - 1440
temp 78
no3 - 35ppm
po4 - 0.04
Age - 17months
Feeding Fish half a cube of mysis and blood worms daily with 1/3 sheet of Nori
Coral - 2.5ml of reef energy A&B daily, Reef roids weekly day before water change.
1.5 months ago my tank first reef tank was turning into a master piece. Then I tried to make it better by upgrading the equipment. I was running 4 AI Primes and wanted to reward the tank for doing so well. Lots of people told me to leave the tank alone but I know better than these experienced reefers! Clearly I do not. I upgraded to (3x) radion xr15 g4 pro's with diffuser. I was running the BRS AB+ schedule on the primes. I selected the Ab+ sps schedule on the radions with same ramp up times. I set the radions at 50% with a 6 week acclimation mode set at 50%. Start the chain of bad events and decisions here.
A few days later I did my usual water change and testing and noticed my monti caps fading. Nitrates jumped from 15ppm to 35ppm. I tested my fresh saltwater RSCP and was getting 25ppm nitrates. I changed out all my RODI media and re tested to have the same result. I then decided to switch salts from RSCP to fritz RPM and have been doing 10g water changes weekly to this point. I was getting good results from RSCP but was concerned with the nitrates and what the salt was doing to my mixing station containers. A short time later I lost 2 acro frags that basically bleached out and the monti caps looking worse each day. At this point I stopped feeding amino and reef roids about 4 weeks ago
At this point I then turned the lights down to 22% with the acclimation mode still on. Still getting high nitrates so I upgraded my skimmer from the curve 5 to the redsea rsk300. Green hair algae patches starting to grow in spots but not taking over at this point. ALK jumping around a bit from 8.0 - 9.5. Lost a couple more acros and on the verge of losing all my sps it seems. I just added a Reef Octopus macro reactor with cheato. Now I cant tell if I starved the corals of light or giving them to much or what the heck to do.
Do I put the lights back at 45% and then just ride this out till my nitrates come down and the tank settles down and stabilizes and then try again? Should I go back to the rscp salt? Should I sell these lights and go back to AI?
I do not have access to a par meter and dont really want to buy one for a 1 time use. I will add some pictures in the following comments.
Thank you for reading this and your advice is welcomed and appreciated.
Tank - Reefer 350 - filter socks
Media - reefspec carbon & rowa floss
cal - 460
alk - 9.0
mg - 1440
temp 78
no3 - 35ppm
po4 - 0.04
Age - 17months
Feeding Fish half a cube of mysis and blood worms daily with 1/3 sheet of Nori
Coral - 2.5ml of reef energy A&B daily, Reef roids weekly day before water change.
1.5 months ago my tank first reef tank was turning into a master piece. Then I tried to make it better by upgrading the equipment. I was running 4 AI Primes and wanted to reward the tank for doing so well. Lots of people told me to leave the tank alone but I know better than these experienced reefers! Clearly I do not. I upgraded to (3x) radion xr15 g4 pro's with diffuser. I was running the BRS AB+ schedule on the primes. I selected the Ab+ sps schedule on the radions with same ramp up times. I set the radions at 50% with a 6 week acclimation mode set at 50%. Start the chain of bad events and decisions here.
A few days later I did my usual water change and testing and noticed my monti caps fading. Nitrates jumped from 15ppm to 35ppm. I tested my fresh saltwater RSCP and was getting 25ppm nitrates. I changed out all my RODI media and re tested to have the same result. I then decided to switch salts from RSCP to fritz RPM and have been doing 10g water changes weekly to this point. I was getting good results from RSCP but was concerned with the nitrates and what the salt was doing to my mixing station containers. A short time later I lost 2 acro frags that basically bleached out and the monti caps looking worse each day. At this point I stopped feeding amino and reef roids about 4 weeks ago
At this point I then turned the lights down to 22% with the acclimation mode still on. Still getting high nitrates so I upgraded my skimmer from the curve 5 to the redsea rsk300. Green hair algae patches starting to grow in spots but not taking over at this point. ALK jumping around a bit from 8.0 - 9.5. Lost a couple more acros and on the verge of losing all my sps it seems. I just added a Reef Octopus macro reactor with cheato. Now I cant tell if I starved the corals of light or giving them to much or what the heck to do.
Do I put the lights back at 45% and then just ride this out till my nitrates come down and the tank settles down and stabilizes and then try again? Should I go back to the rscp salt? Should I sell these lights and go back to AI?
I do not have access to a par meter and dont really want to buy one for a 1 time use. I will add some pictures in the following comments.
Thank you for reading this and your advice is welcomed and appreciated.