Just need some input!

[Curtis Rose]

Hey reefers. Just want to explain my situation and see what u guys think. I recently (almost three months) swapped a 13 gallon nano into a 50 gallon lagoon. Everything went well everything survived. At about a month I saw coralline and started to dose kalk. Corals were happy and everything remained great. I added two fish to help boost my nutrients brought them up to 5 nitrate .07 phosphate. I felt as though I would soon run out of kalks capable range for my tank volume. Monitored ph drop and rises throughout the day due to my doser only being able to dose 12 times a day. I took the kalk off and started Carbo calcium( this was in plans anyway) took about a week to figure out the dose and now holds very stable. It slowly went up over a few weeks so I dialed it down and now remains a constant 8.7dkh. I did see a small bacterial bloom and waited it out. I deem this the carbocalcium side effect. It went away within two weeks. Right after I figured out the dose and stability was achieved I added two acropora and one birdsnest. I also increased the light by 5% around this time, I have been doing that slowly since the start of the tank. I used a par meter during setup to get read on my goal Par numbers and I will increase over time to reach that. Everything is still alive one acro I’m noticing has Stn full parameter check was done ( I do this once a week and alk two times a week) levels were on point as I pay attention religiously. Did a water change and added some aminos and dosed phyto (I do this regularly). I guess all I can do now is wait and see what happens the other sps is doing well. This acro was coloring up and I could see it encrusting. Here are my questions. I’m guessing this happened due to to many small changes over the month it’s been in the tank? no big parameter swings have happened. Just dialing in dosing very slowly and one very small light increase? the tank is stable and has been since the beginning any changes I’m talking abt we made very slowly over a week or more no big sudden changes here. I also have a skimmer I bought for this tank that I haven’t brought online. When would be a good time to get it going? I don’t want to suck out nutrients and bottom out. I also understand skimmers can be very beneficial in pulling out nasties that might bug coral. (Never ran a skimmer on my old tank) though now I have more fish and i feed more. Nervous to even turn it on as I don’t want create an imbalance.

here are the parameters before anyone asks haha.
Alk: 8.7
Cal:420-430
Mag: 1350
Nitrate 5 ppm
Phosphate .07
Temp 79.3
Ph 8.1-8.15 daily
I do water changes bi-weekly
This isn’t my first tank, it’s my first venture into sps though. I’m meticulous and I changes things over weeks not days. Sounds like I changed a lot but everything happened very slowly.

 

[Euphyllia97]

I would say that you were just a bit unlucky with the sps frag. As everything else is doing fine and corals can handle a lot more than people think (assuming they are established aquacultered), I think you might have just been unlucky to have a coral piece with STN. Sometimes this happens without any clear reason. Could’ve been stressed out by the move from your LFS and only gave up the fight now. Maybe there hasn’t been that much time between the coral taken away from the ocean and being put in your tank.

I would suggest to keep onfollowing your waterchange schedule and see if nutrients are rising. If they do, put on the skimmer to maintain the 2ppm of nitrate.do use the akimmer If you are using some type of carbon dosing for nitrate reduction. It will take out the excess bacteria and introduce fresh oxygen to your system.