J Rog's 70 gallon

J Rog · Dec 9, 2017

I can honesty say I’m hate this tank at the moment.. I have been having issues with a couple of things.
1- can’t get my Ca past 370ppm.
2- can’t get a nutrient level up. Phosphate is at 0 and nitrate is at
.25

I over feed 3 times a day with frozen food, flake, pellets, reef roids, roe eggs, etc. My current situation is I had turned my skimmer off for over a week in hopes that my nutrients level would come up. Which it did go from phosphate being at zero then moving to .01 and my nitrates going from zero to .25
But I decided to turn it on for a little bit earlier today just because I thought it would be good for some more water agitation. When the cup filled up a little bit with some skim I dumped it back into the tank because I couldn’t afford to lose those nutrients in the tank. Being that my torchs seem to be on their death beds because of no nutrients.. well after I dumped it back in I went over to my parents house for dinner. Came back 3 hours or so later to a dead yellow tang, fire fish, and a missing clown which I’m assuming is dead some where in the tank as well. So I’m just really looking for some advice here how to rectify some stuff. How come my CA won’t budge. I’m just burning though 2 part CA portion with nothing happening.. it doesn’t seem to be participating out as I’m not seeing any snow in the tank.. is there a buffer I should use to get the CA up then go back to 2 part? As for nutrients what do you guys think? How can I boost them up in a decent time period. I can only waste so much food.. But I thought the tank was stocked with fish well enough for the size to be able to have some nutrients.. Anyway here are my current levels and my fish stock list (before the deaths that just happened tonight.. )

- PH - 7.9- 8.2
- Alk- 8.5 DHK (Hanna tester)
- CA- 370ppm (Salafert test kit)
- Mag- 1470ppm (salafert test kit)
- Salinity- 1.026
- Temp- 78-79
- Amonia and Nitrite- 0 (salafert)

Fish list
-2 clowns
- yellow tang
- melanurus wrasse
- Blue spot jaw fish
- Lubbock wrasse

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Trying to keep my torches alive.. My acan and zoas are looking great.. Incase you haven’t read my thread my tank finished cycling around Halloween. Cycled with dry rock which I’m starting to regret doing..

kazikage42 · Dec 10, 2017

J Rog said:
I can honesty say I’m hate this tank at the moment.. I have been having issues with a couple of things.
1- can’t get my Ca past 370ppm.
2- can’t get a nutrient level up. Phosphate is at 0 and nitrate is at
.25

I over feed 3 times a day with frozen food, flake, pellets, reef roids, roe eggs, etc. My current situation is I had turned my skimmer off for over a week in hopes that my nutrients level would come up. Which it did go from phosphate being at zero then moving to .01 and my nitrates going from zero to .25
But I decided to turn it on for a little bit earlier today just because I thought it would be good for some more water agitation. When the cup filled up a little bit with some skim I dumped it back into the tank because I couldn’t afford to lose those nutrients in the tank. Being that my torchs seem to be on their death beds because of no nutrients.. well after I dumped it back in I went over to my parents house for dinner. Came back 3 hours or so later to a dead yellow tang, fire fish, and a missing clown which I’m assuming is dead some where in the tank as well. So I’m just really looking for some advice here how to rectify some stuff. How come my CA won’t budge. I’m just burning though 2 part CA portion with nothing happening.. it doesn’t seem to be participating out as I’m not seeing any snow in the tank.. is there a buffer I should use to get the CA up then go back to 2 part? As for nutrients what do you guys think? How can I boost them up in a decent time period. I can only waste so much food.. But I thought the tank was stocked with fish well enough for the size to be able to have some nutrients.. Anyway here are my current levels and my fish stock list (before the deaths that just happened tonight.. )

- PH - 7.9- 8.2
- Alk- 8.5 DHK (Hanna tester)
- CA- 370ppm (Salafert test kit)
- Mag- 1470ppm (salafert test kit)
- Salinity- 1.026
- Temp- 78-79
- Amonia and Nitrite- 0 (salafert)

Fish list
-2 clowns
- yellow tang
- melanurus wrasse
- Blue spot jaw fish
- Lubbock wrasse

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Trying to keep my torches alive.. My acan and zoas are looking great.. Incase you haven’t read my thread my tank finished cycling around Halloween. Cycled with dry rock which I’m starting to regret doing..

Sorry for all your troubles but to help out with your nitrates, I recommend trying out Seachem Flourish Nitrogen to raise your nitrates since it ready to go out of the jug and no mixing. Plus it won't affect your phosphates. I use this and it helps keep my nitrates around 2-5ppm. As far as your calcium being low, are you dosing in equal parts? What salt are you using?

J Rog · Dec 10, 2017

kazikage42 said:
Sorry for all your troubles but to help out with your nitrates, I recommend trying out Seachem Flourish Nitrogen to raise your nitrates since it ready to go out of the jug and no mixing. Plus it won't affect your phosphates. I use this and it helps keep my nitrates around 2-5ppm. As far as your calcium being low, are you dosing in equal parts? What salt are you using?

Thanks for the reply! I will check the seachem product out. As for dosing I started out dosing equal amounts. Couldn’t get the CA up past 350ish or so. Then I started dosing in un equal amounts and was able to get the CA to 370. But I’m afraid to get my alk past 8.5 being that my nutrients are so low. Don’t want to burn anything..

kazikage42 · Dec 10, 2017

J Rog said:
Thanks for the reply! I will check the seachem product out. As for dosing I started out dosing equal amounts. Couldn’t get the CA up past 350ish or so. Then I started dosing in un equal amounts and was able to get the CA to 370. But I’m afraid to get my alk past 8.5 being that my nutrients are so low. Don’t want to burn anything..

Have you tried just dosing calcium for a bjt? With your nutrients being zero, IMO I'd lower alkalinity closer to 7 -7.5 to see what happens.

Ocean Lotion · Dec 10, 2017

Don't sweat 370 for ca. Just keep adding slowly. Some times it just takes a while to build up. If your mag was not good I would say that was the issue. If you are doing h2o changes with low ca in your new water that could be slowing things down. Maybe test your new h2o for kicks.

J Rog · Dec 12, 2017

Ocean Lotion said:
Don't sweat 370 for ca. Just keep adding slowly. Some times it just takes a while to build up. If your mag was not good I would say that was the issue. If you are doing h2o changes with low ca in your new water that could be slowing things down. Maybe test your new h2o for kicks.

Ya, I totally forgot about testing new water. I use reef crystals. I will do that on the next water change. Thanks for the reminder

J Rog · Jan 7, 2018

Just a little pic update

J Rog · Jan 7, 2018

J Rog · Jan 9, 2018

Here is a pic of my sump. Just got the DOS and DDR for Christmas. Haven't set it up yet being I don't need to dose yet.. But I am considering getting a new sump in the future. Thinking about Reef Synergy triton 34 sump because it has a big refugium area

revhtree · Jan 9, 2018

Nice job!

J Rog · Jan 9, 2018

revhtree said:
Nice job!

Thanks Rev! I actually posted that pic a couple of hours to soon.. Got home from work to a package. Just put up the kessil H80 on my fuge. The light that came with the tank was junk..

J Rog · Jan 9, 2018

Now that we are on to my fuge I have been having a problem with my skimmer.. I'm always getting over foam out the top of the lid.. The skimmer is an aquamaxx co1. I have tried lowering the water level and making it higher. Still doing the same thing... Any suggestions?

J Rog · Jan 9, 2018

This is how you feed an acan without all the theives in the tank able to take advantage.. [emoji23]

J Rog · Jan 15, 2018

Just a crummy full tank shot I took the other night.

J Rog · Jan 29, 2018

Picked up this sweet piece at Top Shelf Aquatics over the weekend

J Rog · Feb 13, 2018

Got to love some scrambled eggs..

vector824 · Feb 13, 2018

Tank's looking great! Ours are close to the same size, started mine right at the beginning of last year also. I see you're in Orlando, you planning on going to reef-a-palooza in April?

J Rog · Feb 14, 2018

vector824 said:
Tank's looking great! Ours are close to the same size, started mine right at the beginning of last year also. I see you're in Orlando, you planning on going to reef-a-palooza in April?

Thanks! And how can you live in Orlando and not go to reef-a-palooza! [emoji12]