Need some advice before I lose my mind

[zellink]

Hi all,

My tank is only 4 months old and I get the ugly stage side of things but I think mine has gone too far to be part of "the ugly stage" and I believe I have a problem

To start my parameters all using Hanna kits and backed up with salifert:
Phosphate: 0.05
Nitrate: 0
pH: 8.2
Salinity: 1.025
Alk: 8.1
Calcium: 425
Mag: 1325

I have:
6 Astrea snails
6 Turbo snails
2 conch snails
2 clowns
Firefish
Royal gramma
Cardinal
Pistol shrimp
Watchman Goby
Copepods

I have been religious at doing 10% water changes every week, testing 3 times a week, I have started to siphon the sand everyday as suggested by someone but the pictures below are what comes back 12 hours later.

I have been overfeeding massively in an attempt to get nitrates up to no avail I am feeding a mix of frozen, flake and pellet, my skimmer has been turned off for 2 weeks, I have bypassed the reefmat for 8 hours a day with no luck.

My GSP and hammer both look great and have been in about 4 weeks.

I went to my LFS for advice who sold me a bottle of neophos, used that for a week and other than bottom out my phosphates to 0 it did nothing, they then sold me nopox but upon reading up I have been reluctant to use it with 0 nitrates. Getting the feeling they are just trying to make some £££ out of this.

To the point, I'm after some of your experience please to help understand what I am dealing with and what I should keep doing, stop doing or start doing to help.

TIA

Video here

 

[rwreef]

Stop doing water changes and let the tank get "dirty". It will be difficult to standby and watch but you need to get nitrates and phosphates up. At least 5ppm nitrates and <0.1ppm phosphates but...never 0ppm of either. Do some research on diatoms and if possible with a microscope identity what type of algea/bacteria you are dealing with.

 

[Pntbll687]

You can get a nitrate product to add nitrate to the system.

It looks like what you have could be some dinos in there as well.

No more water changes for now. Keep the lights on only the minimum needed to keep the coral you have alive. When you siphon the sand, have the water go through a filter sock, and put the same water back into the tank.

Keep siphoning and cleaning. Maybe add in some bacteria to outcompete the bad stuff, but that's not always something that works.

 

[Pntbll687]

How big is the tank?

 

[zellink]

You can get a nitrate product to add nitrate to the system.

It looks like what you have could be some dinos in there as well.

No more water changes for now. Keep the lights on only the minimum needed to keep the coral you have alive. When you siphon the sand, have the water go through a filter sock, and put the same water back into the tank.

Keep siphoning and cleaning. Maybe add in some bacteria to outcompete the bad stuff, but that's not always something that works.

Thank you, that is exactly what I am doing daily. Putting it through a sock and then bank into the sump

 

[zellink]

How big is the tank?

250l

 

[Tahoe61]

Siphon the cyano off.
Get some sand stirrers like a Tiger Conch.
What's the water source?
Consider cutting back the lighting for a few days. Try more blue light, less white.

You're right the LFS is in business to sell you products.

I have used and like Chemiclean but only after all other interventions have failed.

 

[crazyfishmom]

Breathe. This is part of the process. The first year is a constant battle.

That said, instead of feeding so much where you might cause an imbalance, why not dose Neonitro and neophos until you have consistent nitrate and phosphate readings.

The ugly phase is ugly but if you’re patient, it will come and go on its own as long as you maintain good water parameters and stable nutrients.

 

[Pntbll687]

250l

Ok, so not too big.

I would start taking sections of the sand out in 5g bucket. Swirl it around, and filter the water through a filter sock with some added poly fill to make sure you get everything out of the sand.

Add the sand back in. You can use a 2in pvc pipe, add the sand, it will fill the pipe, and slowly raise it, this lets the sand get back into the aquarium without making a huge mess.

Do a bucket or two a day and just keep going until everything is looking better.

People will say add bacteria and let it fight the dinos/diatom, but you're at the point where the dinos/diatoms are so plentiful not much is going to help when adding bacteria. The goal is should be to GET AS MUCH BAD STUFF OUT AS POSSIBLE. And get as much out as possible EVERYDAY!!

I'm not crazy, trust me. Here's a thread on the rip clean method. With a tank your size, two mid size garbage cans is all you need. I'd go with rip clean as a last resort, since it is allot of work.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/

 

[sixty_reefer]

over feeding is a terrible way to increase nitrate if algae is present imo.
You won’t be able to resolve your problem until both are detectable if it was me I’d just dose nitrates and phosphate as needed.

 

[zellink]

Thought I'd provide a bit of an update to see if there was any further advice.

I have followed what you have all said so thank you as I seem to winning slowly but surely. It is without a doubt better than what it was and it has been like the attached photos for a couple of weeks now with no signs of getting worse or better.

I bypassed my reefmat for 12 hours a day and had the skimmer off.

I then turned both back on running 24/7 when I started to see nutrients on the Hanna checkers.

I am now at 0.03 phosphate and 9.4 nitrate.

Salinity has been stable throughout at just shy of 1.026.

Alkalinity is running at a stable 8.1 and my calc and mag have been stable since my first post.

I have been dosing live photo every other day along with beneficial bacteria until the bacteria bottle ran out and since I'm seeing some numbers I've not continued with it but am continuing with the live phytoplankton.

I know that it is a bit controversial with the ratio of phosphate Vs nitrate but general consensus I believe is that I'm still a bit out with my ratio so planned to start using ab energy from redsea again as have read that this increases phosphates, was only planning 3ml every other day.

Is there anything else anyone would suggest without going chemiclean route or anything else like that. I want to go slow and target the cause of the issue that led me to what I have rather than just nuke the problem for now?

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

You tank is going through a normal phase. Be patient.
What you can do is by some live ocean rock and sand...

 

[tharbin]

Thought I'd provide a bit of an update to see if there was any further advice.

I have followed what you have all said so thank you as I seem to winning slowly but surely. It is without a doubt better than what it was and it has been like the attached photos for a couple of weeks now with no signs of getting worse or better.

I bypassed my reefmat for 12 hours a day and had the skimmer off.

I then turned both back on running 24/7 when I started to see nutrients on the Hanna checkers.

I am now at 0.03 phosphate and 9.4 nitrate.

Salinity has been stable throughout at just shy of 1.026.

Alkalinity is running at a stable 8.1 and my calc and mag have been stable since my first post.

I have been dosing live photo every other day along with beneficial bacteria until the bacteria bottle ran out and since I'm seeing some numbers I've not continued with it but am continuing with the live phytoplankton.

I know that it is a bit controversial with the ratio of phosphate Vs nitrate but general consensus I believe is that I'm still a bit out with my ratio so planned to start using ab energy from redsea again as have read that this increases phosphates, was only planning 3ml every other day.

Is there anything else anyone would suggest without going chemiclean route or anything else like that. I want to go slow and target the cause of the issue that led me to what I have rather than just nuke the problem for now?

I personally do not ascribe to Nitrate/Phosphate ratios. Just be sure you have some of each but not a lot of each. Try to keep Nitrates below 50 and above 5 and Phosphates below .15 and above 0. Those seem to work well for most. To speed things up a little you can also try attaching some filter floss to a portion of the top of your water column with a clip or whatever then pull it and rinse it several times a day.

If you are starting to win I would avoid ChemiClean. It is a good product but it can lead to other issues. It's almost always better to try biological methods first.