need advice...please

[veselym]

Not that I can think of, I tested voltage and it read 0...also tested copper and it read 0

The only change I made was started dosing potassium nitrate, I had no algae in the tank and N03 always read zero. I dosed super small amounts, only to get .50 ppm nitrate

I also had a wrasse die about 3 months ago and never found it then had a random bacteria bloom before I started dosing nitrate

2 weeks after getting my nitrate up to .5, a green ORA birdsnest turned brown and showed little PE, some zoas won't open, less PE on some hammers and a red monti cap faded...also had cyano growing in my sump so I tested phosphates which showed .25 on an API test kit so who knows what it actually was ( I have no idea what caused phosphates to spike that fast since the potassium nitrate had zero p04)

I have since then done 6 8G WC's and ran chemipure blue with no change and still some cyano

 

[Lenny_S]

All the things you've done regarding lighting and feeding should give you happy healthy coral.
I am leaning towards some kind of contamination, but I am not sure what it could be. If copper test is coming back zero, it probably is not that, but it could be other metals. It could have come from the potassium nitrate dosing perhaps.
Chemipure is not that great. Purigen is much better for organic contaminants, and Cuprisorb better still for all sorts of metals. You can run a combination. You can also do a much more substantial water change immediately (50% total system volume, not just the tank).
My suggestion (and this is still a little in the blind)
50% water change ASAP
Purigen & Cuprisorb run continuously in a media reactor

I'm sorry, but some of the coral may be too far gone to salvage, but the quicker you act the better. Most of the time you want go slow, but in this case I think speed is required to save as much livestock as possible.

 

[veselym]

The only reason I haven't done a large WC is my ALK is at 8.6 and IO at 1.026 has an ALK of around 11...this will cause a large spike in ALK which might make things even worse

I do not have a reactor but can pick up some Purigen/Cuprisorb and run one in a filter sock, the other on my baffle shelf

what has me baffled as well is that I have a table acro growing and a borealis growing right next to the birds nest that is loosing flesh...some zoas look like crap and others look great, my frogspawns looks awesome and hammers not so much. I literally have no clue

 

[Lenny_S]

I'll be honest, I'm a bit baffled myself... nothing you've written is an obvious issue. You really seem to know what you are doing, i.e. not making rookie mistakes. As far as the WC goes, it won't really spike the Kh that much. Reactor is optional, just makes the filtering more efficient.... mesh bags work just fine in high flow areas.

Not sure what else to try at this point. You mind keeping me posted though on how you make out?

 

[FlipperFin]

Be patient. Personally I would not get into coral unless my tank is fully established (1yr or so) so much happens in that time frame. I know from my experience that zoas like low to medium light with LIGHT water movement. To much can cause them to close up and possibly rip them apart.

 

[veselym]

I will...I am doing a 12G WC today and am going to go out and get some purigen

it could be not enough light or that wrasse died under the sand and then it got released somehow at the exact same time I was dosing nitrates causing me to question what it really is. I am getting a huge spike in algae growth so something caused phosphates to get out of control and the only thing I dosed was potassium nitrate so it has to be that/combined with low light or the wrasse

 

[veselym]

@Lenny_S do you have any info on AI Vega's?? I am running low 20's in the whites and 60's in the blues...it has been like this for a month now and some zoas have great color and others seem faded. None of them really have stalks and are pressed down on the plug

could these lights be that strong? they are about 24' away and on the bottom 1/4 of the tank

 

[Lenny_S]

@Lenny_S do you have any info on AI Vega's?? I am running low 20's in the whites and 60's in the blues...it has been like this for a month now and some zoas have great color and others seem faded. None of them really have stalks and are pressed down on the plug

could these lights be that strong? they are about 24' away and on the bottom 1/4 of the tank

I use Hydra 26, but I imagine it's similar and I can tell you what I know about light in general. The smaller wave lengths will penetrate deeper into the water, that's why the ocean is blue. So starting with red, they run at around the 600nm wavelength, blue is around 500nm, actinic blue (akin to indigo) 450nm and violet at like 410nm and finally UV at around 400nm
The main point is that the white light is full spectrum so contains all the wavelengths and different colors from the same source will penetrate to deeper depths. So you will get overlap of the wavelength specific lights with the white light.
It could be that by dialing back the white light and keeping the blue much higher you're flooding the tank wit a very narrow set of wavelengths and starving it of other wavelengths that the photosynthetic organisms need.
In my light configuration I never have more than a 20% difference between the white, blue, actinic, and violet.
When I do a photo acclimation I do it with the following on my channels to start
White 20%
Blue 35%
Actinic 30%
Violet 25%
UV 20%
The other color channels for red, green are just set for esthetics at 15% each
Then I raise all of the channels by 5% every 3 days until I get to 50% on the whites (the other channels to their corresponding percentage)
Since I use 4 fixtures for a 60" tank, that is plenty of light, you may need to go higher or lower depending on the types of corals and number of fixtures, but the relative percentage of intensity should be similar.
At least this is what has worked for me. Hope I didn't get too technical, but I've always felt that too much information is better than not enough. [emoji6]

 

[veselym]

That makes sense...that is the most info someone has given me on lighting so thank you

I may go down to 40 blue then to give a 2:1 ratio...hopefully that won't stress the coral

 

[Lenny_S]

I wish I had a PAR meter, I base everything off calculations, guesswork and observation.... A PAR meter would make life simpler for reefers

 

[veselym]

True, but I hear its hard to measure par in led lighting

 

[Lenny_S]

Interesting. I wouldn't of thought that. I wonder why that would be?

 

[veselym]

no idea...I know phosphates are an issue as well, crazy algae growing just not entirely sure where it all came from

I did a WC today and going to do another tomorrow to try and get them down, just wish I had a good p04 test kit but it seems they all suck

 

[veselym]

So I don't think it is my lighting, I will slowly change the spectrum but for the heck of it I tested my fish food...I usually use a turkey baster and put a little water in a plastic cup/mix it

with half a penny size piece of LRS......10ppm P04

 

[veselym]

Got a Hannah LR phosphate checker and it reads 0 of course...I am assuming the algae is consuming it before I can get a reading

I have done 2 20% WC's in the past 5 days and the algae is still growing so what in the world do I do?

If the algae is consuming the phosphates before I can read them then will GFO even work? also some of my macro algae is dying and the cyano is subsiding slowly but I still have brown hair algae growing on my glass but no where else

 

[Lenny_S]

Got a Hannah LR phosphate checker and it reads 0 of course...I am assuming the algae is consuming it before I can get a reading

I have done 2 20% WC's in the past 5 days and the algae is still growing so what in the world do I do?

If the algae is consuming the phosphates before I can read them then will GFO even work? also some of my macro algae is dying and the cyano is subsiding slowly but I still have brown hair algae growing on my glass but no where else

I have always thought but haven't tested, that phosphate and nitrate are always rising and falling. If you think about it, you have definitive sources for both, with no other means of export, that nuisance algae will consume it and grow. So it stands to reason that you want something in your system that will outcompete the nuisance algae for the nutrients. GFO is the best option.
FWIW, all this is based on presumption much more than first hand experience. With my new tank I go through the full nitrogen cycle including nitrate and phosphate reduction before I turn on a single light or stock a single specimen. So I'm running GFO and bio pellets right when they start to rise and keep them going pretty continuously.
So I haven't done the nuisance algae battle royal personally, but my nephew went through it and GFO, more photo cycle in his refugium and lower photo cycle in his DT seemed to be what finally won the battle.

 

[veselym]

I really don't mind the algae in the main display, it only grows on the glass/overflow box and there isn't a ton of it

The only thing I was worried about was some coral getting pale/releasing zoox


This all started right after I started dosing potassium nitrate so it has to be the cause of that birdsnest browning but not sure why some of my hammers are releasing inner algae. some of my zoas don't look good and others look great

I just hate not knowing what is causing this, maybe I actually have zero P04? I have done a TON of water changes in the past 2 weeks so maybe I stripped it clean?

I haven't touched the lighting, flow and have kept every parameter stable so it's either nutrients or lighting

or perhaps I am crazy because most coral looks good and I am growing a borealis somehow

 

[veselym]

also why would my P04 read 0.00 in the display and .03 in sump?

 

[Lenny_S]

also why would my P04 read 0.00 in the display and .03 in sump?

That doesn't make sense to me. But the way most of these tests work I think false negative results can happen, I don't see how you could get a false positive. I'd go with the reading from the sump.

 

[veselym]

I tested the sump again and got 0.00...who knows