Increased feeding increased calcium and alkalinity uptake. Tank running too lean?

[Chris Villalobos]

I have been trying to see if I can just increase my feedings and not dose NaNO3 to keep my Nitrates and Phosphates in ballance.

Just made some interesting measurements: NO3 is sitting at 5PPM not increasing; I've had to increase my Triton dosing again to raise Alkalinity above 7dkh, tonight it measured Alk 7.3dkh; but PO4 has DOUBLED to 0.08PPM. Corals look good but it seems that I am now starting to overfeed. I don't like seeing PO4 rising while NO3 won't budge above 5PPM. I also noticed that my fish were not crazy about eating the frozen mysis that they usually are very excited for and I'm seeing some film algae build up too. I'm going to decrease my feedings and manage my Nitrate levels with NaNO3 dosing. Hopefully PO4 will level off or drop back down to 0.04PPM.

New feeding for my 33 gallon display with 20 gallon sump:

11am pinch of pellets with Eheim Autofeeder
2pm pinch of pellets with Eheim Autofeeder
5pm 1/4 Cube frozen, 1 Scoop Reef Chili, 1ml Acropower, 1PPM NO3 (or more if needed)

 

[ShadowR55]

I’ve been over feeding like crazy the past month trying to increase nitrates and phosphates and still only have .25 no3 and 0 phosphates. My daily feeding schedule has been Auto feeder 3 times a day, 8 cubes of food once a day and then reef chili/benepets/Reef Roids every other day. Also, Amino acids every day as well. I have a pretty heavily stocked tank so I am adding another pellet feeding today to try to increase my numbers.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

I’ve been over feeding like crazy the past month trying to increase nitrates and phosphates and still only have .25 no3 and 0 phosphates. My daily feeding schedule has been Auto feeder 3 times a day, 8 cubes of food once a day and then reef chili/benepets/Reef Roids every other day. Also, Amino acids every day as well. I have a pretty heavily stocked tank so I am adding another pellet feeding today to try to increase my numbers.

That's a crazy amount of food! How big is your tank?

 

[ShadowR55]

That's a crazy amount of food! How big is your tank?

140 gallon, I also have yeast in my auto feeder and I shake up yeast with the coral food. Not sure if that’s what’s keeping my nitrates down?

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Just an update on how much I've increased my Triton dosing due to the increased nutrient import. When I started my tank was consuming 3ml of Triton "Base Elements" per day now I'm up to 15ml and possibly going to 20ml per day because the tank is still stuck at an alkalinity of 7 dkh. My latest parameters:

NO3: 5ppm
PO4: 0.o8ppm
Salenity: 1.025
Alkalinity: 7dkh
Calcium: 440ppm
Magnesium: 1440ppm

Like I said in a previous post, I stopped feeding so much fish food and kept dosing NaNO3 to keep PO4 under 0.1ppm.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Bad news: Lime Green Acro I’ve been taking pictures of is showing massive STN starting from the shaded flow side. I have another acro in the tank and other hard corals that seem to be fine but also haven’t been in the tank as long. I did go back to the LFS who sold me the Lime Green frag and some of the remaining frags are also showing some tissue loss so maybe it’s just this colony. I did an Iodine dip but I think the frag is on its way out.

Nitrates still test 5ppm on the Nyos test kit but I think they are actually higher. I’m starting to get daily film algae on my glass and noticing what seems to be dinoflagellates on my rockwork which is weird because dynos are not supposed to like high Nitrate. Will double check Nitrate tonight with my Red Sea kit.

I will be ending my NaNO3 dosing to see if Nitrates fall and hopefully I’ll see a disappearance of these new algae blooms.

One good outcome is that my PO4 levels have dropped to 0.04PPM from 0.08PPM since I reduced my feeding and kept dosing Nitrate. I’ve also kept my increased Triton dosing at 20ml. Alkalinity is starting to creep up to 7.6dkh.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Double checked my NO3 levels with Red Sea and I guess the NYOS test was right, I have around 5PPM NO3. So what’s causing my new algae issues? I was reading Reef2Reef reviews of Acropower and there are reports that it can cause algae issues. So instead of stopping the Nitrate dosing I’ll stop Acropower and see if the algae problems go away.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Update. It's almost been a month since I started this experiment and everything seems to be going ok. The test acro is still alive and growing but it has lost some color. I wonder if it's more due to stress of high lighting than anything else. I have another acro next to it that hasn't changed much. Still dealing with some stringy cyano that i think came from dosing too much amino acids. I plan on doing a 30% water change tomorrow to knock down the nutrient level. Last checked NO3 was around 6PPM and PO4 was right around 0.08 PPM. I purchased a Triton N-DOC test to see how out of balance my nutrients are.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

After more time to study the issues I’m having. Looks like my test coral is starting to gain back color and what I had thought was STN was actually bleaching. Also, what I thought was cyano is probably dinoflagellates. Its brown stringy stuff that likes to stick on everything, has bubbles, and has thoroughly p!ss*d off my green star polyp colony. Since my nutrients are currently NO3 5PPM and PO4 0.06PPM I’ve started using Dr. Tim’s Waste Away to see if restocking beneficial bacteria will knock out those pests.

I’m relying more on the auto feeder to keep my nutrient levels up. I like being able to feed small measured amounts multiple times a day. I’ve also started target feeding Reef Chili rather than just hoping the corals will benefit from broadcast feeding. I picked up some Fauna Marin LPS pellets and really have enjoyed watching those hard corals come alive to swallow the food! I’m target feeding 3 times a week before work. Within this short time period it really seems like the LPS are growing! They sure do look healthier.

I’m waiting on my N-DOC test to come back to see if I should continue dosing NO3 directly or not. Hopefully I can rid myself of these dinos and cyano.

Currently my Triton consumption is holding steady at 20ml per day but I did split the doses to 2 x 10ml because I was seeing some small alkalinity swings. After splitting the dosing my Alk has had a range between 7.6 – 7.8 dkh.

Other than the dino issue, I’m really happy with how the tank is progressing. It was only a couple months ago that I thought I was hopeless at keeping hard corals. Now I think I’ll finally have a tank to be proud of.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Things looking pretty good. I beat back the Dino outbreak with using "Waste Away" dosing. Some Cyano did pop up in my sump and I think I may know the reason. Test Acro is coloring up and growing. Actually all the hard coral frags I added are happy and growing. Triton dosing may need a slight adjustment with Alkalinity hovering around 8 dkh, I may need to reduce the dosing slightly. NO3 has been dropping down to 1PPM while PO4 is at 0.06PPM. Looks like I will still have to dose NO3 to keep PO4 in check.

I'm going to restart my skimmer because the N-DOC test came back with high organic nitrogen and moderate organic carbon. This could be part of the reason why I'm battling Dinos and Cyano. Notice the TNb (Total Nitrogen) is super high and TOC (Total Organic Carbon) is moderate.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

So the Lime Green test Acro is now doing great. The color has come back, it has lots of polyp extension, and it's encrusting the plug. I haven't played around with my food additions, but I have added more fish to help process all the food I'm dumping in and they give lots of life to the tank. Since finding out I have an extreme amount of Nitrogen compared to Phosphorus and Carbon I have let my Nitrate fall to 1PPM I also bought a new skimmer that is super quiet and hassle free to help drop the organics that were building up in my tank. I have stopped amino acid dosing since I had the Dino outbreak. I still have some Cyano and diatom issues on the sand bed.



Parameters:
NO3: 1PPM
PO4: 0.02PPM
Carbonate Hardness: 7.6dkh
Calcium: 450
Magnesium: 1450

Food:
11AM: Eheim Auto Pinch of Dry
1PM : Eheim Auto Pinch of Dry
5PM: 1/4 cube frozen, 1/16th tsp Reef Chili
8PM: Eheim Auto Pinch of Dry

Twice a week spotfeed the LPS with Fauna Marin LPS Color+Grow pellets.

Fish:
1 Clown
3 Blue Green Chromis
3 Lyretail Anthias
1 Christmas Wrasse
1 Firefish
1 Anemone

 

[JDtimk]

Looking really good man! I just started dosing CA(NO3)2 instead of KNO3. I am at about 1ppm NO3 and things are coloring back up after I let PO4 climb to .13 with .01 nitrates. I am targeting between 1-2ppm of NO3 to start. Your experience with high nitrate after dosing is good information. I was going to target 5ppm, but I thing I will stick with 2ppm for awhile and see how that goes.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Looking really good man! I just started dosing CA(NO3)2 instead of KNO3. I am at about 1ppm NO3 and things are coloring back up after I let PO4 climb to .13 with .01 nitrates. I am targeting between 1-2ppm of NO3 to start. Your experience with high nitrate after dosing is good information. I was going to target 5ppm, but I thing I will stick with 2ppm for awhile and see how that goes.

Thanks! If you haven't already, I would suggest spending an extra $$$ for N-DOC and ICP . We definitely could have a lot more pollution in our tanks than we think. Some tanks run fine with almost undetectable NO3 and I think it's due to the fact that they dump in a lot of food but also have a super efficient export system. Compare that to an underfed tank, like mine was, that also runs low NO3.

On another topic, I often wonder if having a large sump makes tanks act differently than others. I see that your refugium is 62% the size of your display tank, mine is also around 62%. Having all that extra non polluted water is great but our experiences with reef husbandry may differ than that of most other aquarists who run tanks with little or no refugium.

I recently added a lot more fish than I ever thought I would and I will possibly raise a few eyebrows admitting I now stock over 1" of fish for every 2 gallons of display, but if I include the sump it's only around 3" per gallon. The BRS guys just stated that fish waste is possibly the best coral food in a reef tank, and from my experience I had to throw more food in the tank than my low fish load could ever eat. I think adding more fish was beneficial to the coral's health.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

In post above I meant to say 1" of fish per 3 gallons of water.

 

[roberthu526]

So I have experienced something similar. At the early phase of my 300G I had very low to non nutrient and all frags were very pale. Then I started to add fish and feed more and after seeing nitrate to show up on the Red Sea Pro test kit I last started seeing color. At the same time Alk and Cal consumption creeped up. Now I have a little too much nitrate, above 4, and some corals are turning brown. The Alk and Cal consumption also has really taken off. I used to dose 65 ml of each a day and now I have to dose 100 ml a day and still have trouble keeping up. So now I am also dosing NOPOX to combat nitrate hoping to get colors back.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Well my Triton N-DOC is showing that while I still have ultra low NO3 and PO4 I also have high organics. I believe the organic compounds are the cause of some cyano and dino outbreaks but until there are more people who do these sorts of tests I can't be sure.

I have found that low NO3 and PO4 cannot be trusted to show whether we are feeding too much or not enough. Since testing for organics is expensive I will taper off my feedings and monitor my coral health. I've backed off my feedings to two auto feeds and one 1/4 cube frozen. I dose 1 ppm of NO3 and 0.01PPM PO4 each day to keep the Dinos at bay and the corals from bleaching. I also still spot feed the LPS corals once per week.

 

[acabgd]

Very interesting thread. Please keep us updated.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Been awhile since I last posted and after having Dinos and now Cyano I have really backed off my feedings. My last N-DOC showed high organic Nitrogen in my tank and I really suspect that it correlates with those two pests. At the highest point in my feeding regimen I believe I was feeding with the Eheim auto feeder 3 times per day (0.06 grams Hikari Marine -S-), 1/2 cube frozen mysis, spoon of reef chili, and 1ml of Acropower! All for a 52 gallon system!

Now I'm feeding Eheim auto feeder 2 times per day (0.03 grams Hikari Marine -S-) and 1/4 cube frozen. (still spot feeding LPS corals once a week) That's it! I've gone back to dosing NO3 and PO4 to keep my inorganics at 3PPM NO3 and .03PPM PO4. I currently have 8 small fish down from a max of 9. One of the Anthias passed away, it had been unhealthy ever since I got it from the fish store. I'm keeping an eye on the rest to make sure I'm not starting to under feed them.

I had to tape up the auto feeder so I could get less food per feeding but keep the multiple feedings per day.



I reduced my Triton dose because my Alkalinity consumption isn't as high and I may have over shot my tank's true consumption in the first place. So it's a balancing act. Corals are looking better than ever though. I'm trying to hit that point where corals are looking great and growing plus my nuisance algae and bacteria are under control. I sent an other N-DOC out this week and we'll see if I have been able to reduce the organic Nitrogen in my water column. Nuisance Bacteria has gone from first Dinos, then to a heavy Red Cyano, now to a light Green Cyano. Nuisance Algae hasn't really been a problem for at least a year. I do get some small patches of GHA that easily scrub off with a toothbrush.

Test acro is still encrusting.

 

[Sley1]

Been awhile since I last posted and after having Dinos and now Cyano I have really backed off my feedings. My last N-DOC showed high organic Nitrogen in my tank and I really suspect that it correlates with those two pests. At the highest point in my feeding regimen I believe I was feeding with the Eheim auto feeder 3 times per day (0.06 grams Hikari Marine -S-), 1/2 cube frozen mysis, spoon of reef chili, and 1ml of Acropower! All for a 52 gallon system!

Now I'm feeding Eheim auto feeder 2 times per day (0.03 grams Hikari Marine -S-) and 1/4 cube frozen. (still spot feeding LPS corals once a week) That's it! I've gone back to dosing NO3 and PO4 to keep my inorganics at 3PPM NO3 and .03PPM PO4. I currently have 8 small fish down from a max of 9. One of the Anthias passed away, it had been unhealthy ever since I got it from the fish store. I'm keeping an eye on the rest to make sure I'm not starting to under feed them.

I had to tape up the auto feeder so I could get less food per feeding but keep the multiple feedings per day.



I reduced my Triton dose because my Alkalinity consumption isn't as high and I may have over shot my tank's true consumption in the first place. So it's a balancing act. Corals are looking better than ever though. I'm trying to hit that point where corals are looking great and growing plus my nuisance algae and bacteria are under control. I sent an other N-DOC out this week and we'll see if I have been able to reduce the organic Nitrogen in my water column. Nuisance Bacteria has gone from first Dinos, then to a heavy Red Cyano, now to a light Green Cyano. Nuisance Algae hasn't really been a problem for at least a year. I do get some small patches of GHA that easily scrub off with a toothbrush.

Test acro is still encrusting.

Chris, Thanks for the update. Can you explain your understanding of how the ratio of inorganic to organic nitrogen effects coral growth and how it may effect nuisance algae/pests.
Do corals use/need the organic nitrogen or do they just use the nitrate( inorganic form)for building new tissue?
It seems like in your case when you feed heavy, according to you n-doc test, the organic nitrogen rises more than nitrate, which in turn fuels the bad stuff we don’t want and is not leaving enough nitrate (the stuff corals need to grow) behind for the corals?
I guess your results have me wondering is it better to dose nitrate and phosphate to provide what the corals need or is it better to feed heavy and let the fish waste feed the corals what they need?

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Chris, Thanks for the update. Can you explain your understanding of how the ratio of inorganic to organic nitrogen effects coral growth and how it may effect nuisance algae/pests.
Do corals use/need the organic nitrogen or do they just use the nitrate( inorganic form)for building new tissue?
It seems like in your case when you feed heavy, according to you n-doc test, the organic nitrogen rises more than nitrate, which in turn fuels the bad stuff we don’t want and is not leaving enough nitrate (the stuff corals need to grow) behind for the corals?
I guess your results have me wondering is it better to dose nitrate and phosphate to provide what the corals need or is it better to feed heavy and let the fish waste feed the corals what they need?

I'm glad people are getting some info out of this thread.

Corals have shown they can use both organic and inorganic Nitrogen sources. For a healthy tank Triton suggests 1 part organic nitrogen to 2 parts inorganic nitrogen. So if we have 2ppm NO3 in our tanks we should show 3ppm potential NO3 with an N-DOC test. My last N-DOC showed an extreme opposite which I'm now trying to correct.

My tank is just very good at exporting NO3 and PO4 but not so good at converting organic Nitrogen into inorganic Nitrogen. An issue I think my tank may have is Phosphate stress. Nitrifying bacteria need PO4 to do their job and grow. I've been keeping my PO4 so low that I think I may be disrupting the nitrogen cycle.

Are you having issues with your tank? I hate to keep pushing N-DOC tests on everyone (Triton needs to put me on their payroll), but it will show you if you have an imbalance and whether you should feed more or just dose inorganics directly. Below is an interesting paper of what the N-DOC purports to do for aquarists.

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/159b2...c45/Triton_Tech_Paper_TRITON_Ratios_final.pdf