LPS dominant tank- How to keep nutrients up?

[Ferrell]

I am new to reefing but have kept fish for many years.
75/30g Tank started in Oct 2017
Parameters all 8, .ca 420 Mag 1500 (little higb), salinity 34
2 Clowns 2 reef chromis 1 blenny 1 goby
Roughly 30 various lps: hammer frogspawn lepta lepto cypha psamm favia duncan acan micromussa paly
All frag
Dose talk in ato
Dose 1 ml kz lps aminos
4 t5s: 2 B+ 1 C+ 1 actinic
Roughly 8 hrs total light/10 hrs blue (dawn/dusk)
Apex controls all

Problem: How do you keep nitrates above zero?
I removed filter socks yesterday .Good/bad???
I have an oversized skimmer for a 120 . Overskimming??? I turned it down to dry skim
Feed fish 2 times a day. Underfeeding???? Mix of pellets and or frozen
Add 30 ml live plankton evenings for pods and coral .Too much?

Any suggestions are much appreciated

 

[landlubber]

likely just a matter of feeding a little more but if that isn't how you want to go about it you can also dose NO3 directly to keep the system from bottoming out.

 

[DanielCervantes]

I started dosing sodium nitrate to my tank and it saved all my sps. Turns out my tank sucks up more nitrates than the 14 fish and feeding produces.
I’m keeping nitrates around 2 and I’ve noticed everything is A LOT happier and coloring back up again

 

[John3]

You have a few options outside of dosing it. You could change out your filter sock less often. If you currently rinse out the frozen food before feeding don’t. Don’t clean your sandbed as often. Skim less. Feed more. All should add some nitrates, you would just need to find the right combo. I would start with filter sock in longer because that’s what I currently do.

Are your corals grown out a good amount? It sounds like you should already have some nitrates. Double check that your test kit is not giving you a false zero. Lps at zero should look pretty bad. Mine show unhappiness if nitrates drop below 10.

 

[Pntbll687]

Removing the socks is a start. I would feed a little more next.

Do one thing at a time. Then give it a couple weeks to see progress. Don't start doing a bunch of things at once, you'll never know what was responsible for raising nitrates.

 

[Dan I]

Personal choice would be to remove socks, and feed more. I love to feed my fish a lot and keep them nice and full.

 

[Elegance Coral]

Why worry about the exact no3 level? Are your corals bleaching or not healthy?

 

[John3]

I’m not sure if completely removing the sock is going to help because your skimmer will capture a lot that gets through. By changing the sock less frequently you trap uneaten food and fish poo which breaks down into nitrate which will leech back into the water. Nitrate alone should make it past your skimmer.

 

[Ride the wave]

What test kits do you use and also what’s your phosphate level. You may think twice about leaving your filter sock in longer if it means your phosphate getting too high as it’s more poisonous than nitrate.

John

 

[shaggydoo]

Problem: How do you keep nitrates above zero?
I removed filter socks yesterday .Good/bad???
I have an oversized skimmer for a 120 . Overskimming??? I turned it down to dry skim
Feed fish 2 times a day. Underfeeding???? Mix of pellets and or frozen
Add 30 ml live plankton evenings for pods and coral .Too much?

I have an exclusively LPS 60G tank with well over 50 different LPS, and I would remove the filter socks and slow down on skimming. I do not use filter socks and do not skim. I also feed very heavily. I feed fish at least 3-5 times a day (smaller amounts of food, mostly dry) and corals every other day (huge amounts of food, mostly frozen).

It is also important to feed LPS correctly. You should try to avoid dramatically changing flow (blasting a coral with a big burst from a turkey baster is a no no) or else many LPS will go into a defensive response and will actually develop a snot-like layer. They will then discard this layer of mucus (including all the food you thought was sticking and being eaten by your coral) after a few minutes. Many people think they are feeding their LPS, when really they are just encouraging a defensive response that actually creates a loss of energy for their corals. If you don't see the food go 100% into the corals mouth, don't consider it fed.

When I feed my LPS, I blanket the entire tank with mass amounts of tiny particle frozen and powdered food. This encourages a strong feeding response, and has trained my LPS to feed in the day without any need to turn off pumps. After blanketing the tank with tiny particle food, I wait for the feeding response. I then strategically drop in larger pieces directly upflow from the corals I want to feed with a turkey baster. If you are gentle enough, you can also use tweezers to directly place larger pieces onto the coral itself, but you must do this very gently. By feeding this way you will notice many of your LPS become very good at catching food from the water during regular day to day flow, and you will also have less poaching of food by shrimp, hermits, bristleworms, starfish, etc. because there is so much food everywhere for everyone.

This is my strategy and you may choose to not feed LPS at all (many don't feed). But feeding promotes strong growth, I think a variety of foods is also an important factor. I feed frozen mysis, cyclops, brine, and reef frenzy as well as a host of dry foods such as various pellets, nori, flake, powders, and zooplankton/associated fluids. If you do feed more, don't start dumping extra food in right away , gradually increase your feeding to allow your tank time to adjust. Your LPS will benefit immensely from extra food in the water. It may sound contradictory, but I've seen a marked decrease in algae growth in my display (have a refugium where algae continues to grow quickly at all times) with increased regular feedings.

I also would not worry about your nitrates/phosphates unless you see problems. Chasing numbers can present a host of problems by itself (inaccurate test kits being one of the biggest issues), and I have personally never tested a tank for nitrates or phosphates. I have been reefing since 2005, and I have always found its best to observe first and test second (then even double check your tests at an LFS if you have any doubts). Side note, I think Mg, Ca and Alk are much more important to test (as well as PH and salinity of course).

In regards to phyto, I would increase your live plankton if possible. Live plankton is extremely beneficial for any reef and it is underused in this hobby. Live is less potent than the concentrated plankton in your LFS's fridge, so using more is usually not a problem if you gradually increase your dosing and watch how your tank responds. I'm currently dosing 2.5 liters every week, so that equates to over 300 ml a day, or 5 ml per gallon. This may seem like a lot and makes my water a little green for a minute, but my tank greedily consumes this amount in no time. I have feather dusters popping up everywhere.

If you read this entire novel, congratulations. I hope you got something useful. Best of luck!

 

[Ferrell]

Ok here’s the plan:
1. I put the socks back in to catch the crap but will leave in until the water reaches the top of them
2. I’ll wait a week. I was only feeding reefroids once a week and a quarter of a tsp target feeding. I may start doing small twice a week feedings and just disperse it around the tank slowing only the return pump to keep it in the tank longer
3. I’ll wait a week and if that doesn’t help will tune down the skimmer to dry skim or skim less. Or perhaps turn it off at night. (This screws with my ato as the sump rises in response and the ato/kalk doesn’t get dosed. )
4. Last resort will be chemical treatment. Trying to remain as natural as possible. No dispersions just trying to cure my ills without them.
Corals look good but just think their a little...off. Polyps aren’t as color rich once I moved the first batch “into position” from the frag rack. Newby jitters perhaps

Here’s a few of my babies

 

[Ferrell]

And the first batch from two weeks ago

 

[Ferrell]

Thank you all for your time to respond and well thoughtout responses. It gives me much food for thought. I mulled it over and came up with a game plan and will precede slowly making observations along the way. Will keep the thread updated as I go forward. Again many thanks

 

[LV3]

I think your corals look healthy. If they’re responding well to what you’re doing now, try not to change too much in an attempt to squeeze out a little more out of them. If the corals and fish look healthy, you’re not having nuisance algae issues, and getting growth and color, leave it be and enjoy it. I don’t run filter socks either and I personally like it. There’s plenty of particulate in the water column for the fish and corals to graze on and in my opinion is representative of a living reef. If you decide you want to change some things, try changing one thing and noting the results over a few MONTHS. It will make it much easier to determine a root cause if something goes wrong or right. Stability is the goal. Looks great man.

 

[Ferrell]

Thanks for the info.
By not running socks doesn’t the skimmer take out everything? I was thinking of just using the mesh socks in lieu of felt to let more particles through. Mainly for the mean butt hermits in the sump.
Do you skim and if so wet or dry?

 

[LV3]

Thanks for the info.
By not running socks doesn’t the skimmer take out everything? I was thinking of just using the mesh socks in lieu of felt to let more particles through. Mainly for the mean *** hermits in the sump.
Do you skim and if so wet or dry?

I was using the mesh socks and then removed them. The skimmer does take out some particulate in the water but not all of it. I’d say I’m in between dry and wet skimming. I had the same issue you are having now with low nutrients. I had undetectable PO4 and NO3 and had issues with algae and shriveled corals. I tried dosing sodium nitrate which did help but felt it was unsustainable because it was one more thing I had to do to the tank. I instead removed the GFO, removed the filter socks, fed the tank a lot more, and began taking a more natural approach. As a result, the nutrients went up, algae issue went away and the system maintains a balanced nutrient level of both PO4 and NO3 without any chemical filters. Keep us posted on how it goes for you. A lot of times I feel like my tank is at its best when I’m not messing with it as often.

 

[Kurt Grant]

Seachem Flourish Nitrogen dose twice a week and call me in the morning!!! Lol

 

[Ferrell]

I was using the mesh socks and then removed them. The skimmer does take out some particulate in the water but not all of it. I’d say I’m in between dry and wet skimming. I had the same issue you are having now with low nutrients. I had undetectable PO4 and NO3 and had issues with algae and shriveled corals. I tried dosing sodium nitrate which did help but felt it was unsustainable because it was one more thing I had to do to the tank. I instead removed the GFO, removed the filter socks, fed the tank a lot more, and began taking a more natural approach. As a result, the nutrients went up, algae issue went away and the system maintains a balanced nutrient level of both PO4 and NO3 without any chemical filters. Keep us posted on how it goes for you. A lot of times I feel like my tank is at its best when I’m not messing with it as often.

Yeah I’m with you the less chems the better hitter keep as last resort. I was thinking the mesh because the crabs on the fuge need to eat so the small stuff could update get through and feed them then skimmed. Everything slowly though

 

[rogersb]

No help here on the nutrients, but wanted to say watch the placement of the galexea and star polyps. Both can become nightmares.

 

[jisc]

I was using the mesh socks and then removed them. The skimmer does take out some particulate in the water but not all of it. I’d say I’m in between dry and wet skimming. I had the same issue you are having now with low nutrients. I had undetectable PO4 and NO3 and had issues with algae and shriveled corals. I tried dosing sodium nitrate which did help but felt it was unsustainable because it was one more thing I had to do to the tank. I instead removed the GFO, removed the filter socks, fed the tank a lot more, and began taking a more natural approach. As a result, the nutrients went up, algae issue went away and the system maintains a balanced nutrient level of both PO4 and NO3 without any chemical filters. Keep us posted on how it goes for you. A lot of times I feel like my tank is at its best when I’m not messing with it as often.

How long before you noticed results? I’m a week in after cutting back skimming, feeding more, and removing chemi pure. Corals are growing but several have lost color. Acan seems good but faded a lot. Same with Goneastrea and Hollywood Stunner. Have done some direct feeding as well.

All parameters in line but registering 0 Phos and 0 Nitrates for a couple months.