- Joined
- May 17, 2020
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Prior to Feb/March I was maintaining Nitrate <10 and PO4 < 0.1.
In March I submitted an ICP test over a concern about a sudden rise in nutrients. As much as anything I wanted to confirm that my test kits weren't faulty. As it turned out, I was right, sometime between Feb and March things had gone off the rails.
At that time I wasn't sure of the cause but I started keeping a closer watch on feeding and continued with weekly 10% water changes as well as adding some bacteria in case the cause was some sort of deficiency.
The problem is, the numbers kept climbing.
This morning I got another ICP test back and now I'm really asking what on earth is going on?
IM 50 Lagoon, 1 Year, Dry Rock
Fish: 2xOcellaris Clownfish, 1xYWG, 1xMidas Blenny, 1xPink Streaked Wrasse, 1xRed Lined Wrasse
CUC: Assortment of snails (trochus, astraea, nassarius, cerith, conch) and hermit crabs (blue leg and red leg)
Other Inverts: Tuxedo Urchin, 2xPeppermint Shrimps, Tiger Pistol Shrimp
Corals (mostly smaller frags): Mix of Softies and LPS, a couple SPS
Algae is virtually non-existent
Feeding:
AM - approx 1/8 tsp TDO Chroma Boost Small pellets, PM - 1/3 cube PE Mysis
Perhaps twice a month freshly hatched live brine shrimp (home grown)
Live phyto a few times (purchased, not home grown)
Reef Roids perhaps once a month, just changed to BenePets last week
A single Hikari Algae Wafer or Carnivore Pellet once or twice a week for the inverts
Other relevant history - Had Ostreopsis dinos in December, fought with UV, blackout, Microbacter7 dosing, nutrients had bottomed out in September. In May I had an AquaBiomics test which found my tank to be unusually lacking in diversity.
This week I started a series of 30% water changes. I did the first on Wed last week and another on Saturday. I'll be doing up water for another this week.
Is there anything else I can be doing?
And the bigger question, what have I been doing that has caused this sudden accumulation of nutrients in the first place? I wondered if perhaps I'd had a bad batch of phyto. Maybe the CUC is too big (for whatever reason, vendors keep giving me free snails, please stop sending me extra snails).
But mostly I've been maintaining the tank the same way since I added fish and corals. I'm a little alarmed here.
It was a bad feeling looking at my tank this morning and questioning my tiny measuring spoon full of pellets.
In March I submitted an ICP test over a concern about a sudden rise in nutrients. As much as anything I wanted to confirm that my test kits weren't faulty. As it turned out, I was right, sometime between Feb and March things had gone off the rails.
At that time I wasn't sure of the cause but I started keeping a closer watch on feeding and continued with weekly 10% water changes as well as adding some bacteria in case the cause was some sort of deficiency.
The problem is, the numbers kept climbing.
This morning I got another ICP test back and now I'm really asking what on earth is going on?
IM 50 Lagoon, 1 Year, Dry Rock
Fish: 2xOcellaris Clownfish, 1xYWG, 1xMidas Blenny, 1xPink Streaked Wrasse, 1xRed Lined Wrasse
CUC: Assortment of snails (trochus, astraea, nassarius, cerith, conch) and hermit crabs (blue leg and red leg)
Other Inverts: Tuxedo Urchin, 2xPeppermint Shrimps, Tiger Pistol Shrimp
Corals (mostly smaller frags): Mix of Softies and LPS, a couple SPS
Algae is virtually non-existent
Feeding:
AM - approx 1/8 tsp TDO Chroma Boost Small pellets, PM - 1/3 cube PE Mysis
Perhaps twice a month freshly hatched live brine shrimp (home grown)
Live phyto a few times (purchased, not home grown)
Reef Roids perhaps once a month, just changed to BenePets last week
A single Hikari Algae Wafer or Carnivore Pellet once or twice a week for the inverts
Other relevant history - Had Ostreopsis dinos in December, fought with UV, blackout, Microbacter7 dosing, nutrients had bottomed out in September. In May I had an AquaBiomics test which found my tank to be unusually lacking in diversity.
This week I started a series of 30% water changes. I did the first on Wed last week and another on Saturday. I'll be doing up water for another this week.
Is there anything else I can be doing?
And the bigger question, what have I been doing that has caused this sudden accumulation of nutrients in the first place? I wondered if perhaps I'd had a bad batch of phyto. Maybe the CUC is too big (for whatever reason, vendors keep giving me free snails, please stop sending me extra snails).
But mostly I've been maintaining the tank the same way since I added fish and corals. I'm a little alarmed here.
It was a bad feeling looking at my tank this morning and questioning my tiny measuring spoon full of pellets.