I over did it I think

[Alberta79]

Tank reefer 350 (93gal)
age 8 months
mixed reef.

10 days ago I did tested my water. All where within the ranges I prefer except my Nitrates where at 10ppm. I also noticed by sand was getting dirty and had some hair algae growing from the sand bed. My coarse of action
1. added 2 cups of phosban in a reactor
2.added 2 cups of reefspec carbon in a reator
3. vacuumed sandbed and 10 gal water change
4. dosed 14 ml of Nopox over 48 hours
5. made a refugium and added chateo

Algae was was removed instantly and water is crystal clear. However the color of my Monti caps have been fading fast and look like they are bleaching. Yesterday I did a 10 gal water changed and took the reactors and my skimmer offline.

How do you recommend I proceed?

 

[Codym808]

Ohh yeah, definitely seems like you stripped the water off all nutrients. I've made the same mistake when I first started in hopes of having a clean, algae free tank.

Whats your tank specs like and fish load? You've made the right first steps in taking off the reactors. Personally i'd keep the skimmer on for oxygenation of the water. I wouldn't do anymore water changes as that will just remove more nutrients. Now you have to let your nutrients build up again. Just need to let your tank balance out, especially in the first year.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Algae in a reef is normal. The way I treat it is with CUC members, unless a parameter is out of wack. What do you currently have as part of your CUC?

 

[KrisReef]

Feed the fish.
Repeat.
Is the refugium off line also? It should be, imo.
Feed the fish again.

 

[Alberta79]

Fish load
3 blue/green chromis
1 coral beauty angel
1 foxface
2 clowns (small)
1 royal gramma
1 diamond goby
2 lyretail anthias

CUC is pretty small, 6 nerite snails, 6 astrea snails,7ish hermits, 2 red foot large snails, 1 emerald grab.

I only feed 1 cube per day and mix between brine and mysis. The tank was doing so awesome so I panicked when I saw some hair algae. I am doing the redsea program but have not started dosing the reef energy yet. That should add some nutrients back into the water?

 

[Alberta79]

Just keep the light off in the refugium? The fuge is built into my return chamber so other than turning the light off only other option is to remove the chaeto.

 

[Biocube32]

Changing 5 things about your tank for a little hair algae is definitely overdoing it. I would suggest maintaining nutrient levels and not making any more sudden changes.

 

[Alberta79]

Changing 5 things about your tank for a little hair algae is definitely overdoing it. I would suggest maintaining nutrient levels and not making any more sudden changes.

I agree, I should know better. Is over feeding the best way to bring the nutrients back up? would you add reef energy to help with adding nutrients as well?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Before you do anything, what's your current water parameters?

 

[Biocube32]

Just keep the light off in the refugium? The fuge is built into my return chamber so other than turning the light off only other option is to remove the chaeto.

I would decrease the light intensity or duration cautiously. If it were me, I would not turn it off entirely, because then I would be potential he risking killing a bunch of Cato, which wouldn’t really help

 

[Alberta79]

Before you do anything, what's your current water parameters?

temp 79
ph 8.4
nitrate 0
phos 0
salinity 1.025
alk 10
calcium 445
mag 1320

over the last 3 months everything has been stable with these numbers except my nitrates are usually at 5ppm. When they reached 10ppm and saw the hair algae I panicked thinking 10ppm was dangerously high. Seems that might not be the case.

 

[Flippers4pups]

No not high (I run 30-40ppm N03, but that's my tank) at 10.

What's your source water?

 

[Alberta79]

No not high (I run 30-40ppm N03, but that's my tank) at 10.

What's your source water?

RO/DI dual stage DI canisters. I usually run 1/2 cup of rowa floss in a reactor but had the 2 cups of phosgaurd that was given to me that I wanted to use up so ran that. I have since thrown that out and will go back to my 1/2 cup of rowa once I save these sps.

 

[Alberta79]

I use red sea coral pro salt and dose there pre mixed A B C solutions with a dosing unit. I also dose half the recommended amount of coral colors a b c d.

 

[sfin52]

No not high (I run 30-40ppm N03, but that's my tank) at 10.

What's your source water?

Mine are 40-60. Po is at 1 that's where it stays

Let you tank stablizse. I wouldn't try to keep either one no3 and po4 at zero.

Please don't run out out and start dosing them back into your tank. Let's see how feeding and fish water do at replenishing those.

 

[Auto-pilot]

I agree with Flippers.... What does your water currently look like, your corals could also be suffering due to the water changes. If your water changes changed your alkalinity make it go up to fast it could have the same effect. Sometimes drastic changes effect sps corals days after the change. you might just need to let the tank settle down and not make any more changes until it stabilizes itself

 

[Flippers4pups]

RO/DI dual stage DI canisters. I usually run 1/2 cup of rowa floss in a reactor but had the 2 cups of phosgaurd that was given to me that I wanted to use up so ran that. I have since thrown that out and will go back to my 1/2 cup of rowa once I save these sps.

Okay. The advice on reducing your light intensity and photo period is soild till you increase your nutrients. As you know, SPS corals hate sudden changes.

Keep your refugium light on, but as @Biocube32 said, reduce it's photo period.

Two ways to increase nutrients:

1. Turn off your skimmer for a while and feed more.

2. Dose nitrate and phosphorus/phosphate.

With both approaches, cut back on water changes.

 

[Alberta79]

Sounds good! Thanks for your advice guys. You have all pretty much confirmed my instincts on how to handle this which puts me at ease. My maintenance schedule is doing a 10g water change each week. I will hold off till I see things rebound. The only difference in my water change schedule was doing a water change yesterday that was 2 days early. My water looks fantastic as do all my fish and lps and soft corals. It was just my monti caps that went from deep reds and greens to pale pink and super dull green. My alk stayed withing .5dkh all awhile.

My lights are 3 AI Primes that are set on acclimation but that is due to come off on thursday. I think I should keep them at the acclimation setting for another 30 days or until the sps rebound.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Sounds good! Thanks for your advice guys. You have all pretty much confirmed my instincts on how to handle this which puts me at ease. My maintenance schedule is doing a 10g water change each week. I will hold off till I see things rebound. The only difference in my water change schedule was doing a water change yesterday that was 2 days early. My water looks fantastic as do all my fish and lps and soft corals. It was just my monti caps that went from deep reds and greens to pale pink and super dull green. My alk stayed withing .5dkh all awhile.

My lights are 3 AI Primes that are set on acclimation but that is due to come off on thursday. I think I should keep them at the acclimation setting for another 30 days or until the sps rebound.

Mine did this last year early. Paled pretty bad. I had N03, but my P04 dropped out. I choose to dose some seachem flourish phosphorus per directions and with I'm two weeks they came back.

 

[Alberta79]

SO now that I got my Nitrate back up to 10ppm, skimmer back on and going to test again tonight. If Nitrates are up from 10 should i reintroduce some rowa to stabilize at 10ppm or let the nitrates climb to 20 to help the monti caps regain color?