Newbie

[dR3ws3r]

I am pretty new to keeping coral, and some of my frags don't look great, while some of them appear to be fine. If I was to post pictures, would someone be willing to make some recommendations about possible issues, or just moving them? I have a par meter, so I could give values at locations in regard to lighting issues. I do have a GHA problem, and low nutrients (not intentionally). OR am I asking too much lol?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

information helps, pictures help, water parameters, tank age, type of lighting and flow... The more info you can provide the more people will be able to help you, this forum is here to help you.

 

[Fish Styx]

I am pretty new to keeping coral, and some of my frags don't look great, while some of them appear to be fine. If I was to post pictures, would someone be willing to make some recommendations about possible issues, or just moving them? I have a par meter, so I could give values at locations in regard to lighting issues. I do have a GHA problem, and low nutrients (not intentionally). OR am I asking too much lol?

You're not asking too much- that's why we're here. Aside from par, we'll need to know some more information about your system, to include your parameters and which testing kits you are using.

I suspect that, since you have an issue with nuisance algae, your nutrients aren't as low as you'd think, but are sequestered in/by the GHA.

 

[dR3ws3r]

ok, thanks. Tonight I will take some photos, and write up some information to try and give a better picture of what is going on. Thank you!

 

[dR3ws3r]

I’ll share some photos first.

The good (I think)

 

[dR3ws3r]

Here are some maybes

 

[dR3ws3r]

Here are some worrisome corals

 

[dR3ws3r]

Tank Details:

AF 155 gallon display with Hmahli sump.
Red Sea 500 reef mat
Adaptive reef skimmer
Small refugium with Chaeto in sump
UV

Lighting:
4x XR15 Gen 6
2 AI Grow blades (59”)

Flow:
4 MP 40s ( 2 left, 2 right )

Fish:
1 Hippo Tang
1 salon Fairy Wrasse
1 Platinum Goby
2 Clown Fish
1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
1 Pistol Shrimp
1 peppermint Shrimp

Lots of various snails and Urchins

Parameters:
I use Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt.
Starting to dose TM balling part B as my alkalinity is hovering around 7. Would like it to be closer to 8, but can go higher eventually.

My PH is hovering around 8-8.2 lately
Nitrates are 0, always. I doses Neo nitro for a week and they went up to 8 over time, then when the GhA went nuts I stopped dosing and they dropped to zero.

My phosphates vary all over the place. Been at .3 and were hovering in the 0.03-0.07 range over the last month, but this morning they read 0.0

Over the last 2 week I’ve cut back my skimmer to 8 hours a day.

The GHA in the photos is about 4 days of growth since the last time I went in and pulled out as much as I could for 1-2 hours.

Rank is about 1 year of running.

With my current light settings I get about 90-100 PAR at the sand, 140-160 in the middle and close to 300 just below the water line.

Any questions, and I will be glad to answer.

Thanks for your help and your time!

 

[dR3ws3r]

Too much info?

 

[Shirak]

That looks pretty coarse for GHA. Your nutrients are going to be all over the place until you get the algae situation under control. For frags and small rocks you can do a peroxide dip.. 3% peroxide. Mix 50/50 with tank water and dip for 1-2 minutes. Your corals are going to suffer as the algae is competing for the same nutrients the corals are needing for their health. So need to get that algae in check.. the sooner the better.

I think if it were me and since it doesn't look like just GHA, I would do a hard reef flux treatment (fluconazole) It will kill off algae but takes a week to a few weeks to work. So if you have any macro algae you want to keep you need to remove it.

After that I would be looking at more CUC, snails, hermits, etc. although maybe you have enough and they aren't touching the current algae?

and yes I would get your alk up to 8.. 7 is on the low side

 

[dR3ws3r]

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I have started dosing alkalinity using Tropic Marin Balling method. Just using the part B right now. I use Tropic Marin Pro Reef salt. One of those Newbie things I guess I didn't look into too much, but the general value of 7 dkh for the pro reef is probably intended for people who are already dosing, or plan on dosing. Probably not the ideal choice for someone without a lot of coral. The TM basic salt gives you much higher Alkalinity. So with TM Pro Reef, my water changes actually reduce my alkalinity it seems.

The Algae that I siphon out doesn't really seem to coarse, it much more fine and almost mushy. It could be the photography. If it is coarser ... what would that mean?

Funny that I've gone from Dino's to GHA, and have a little Cyano. It is like the hobby is trying to tell me something. I have been trying to be careful to not get any pests too. Doing QT on both Fish and Coral, only to realize in the picture of my corals, there appears to be aiptasia among the ZOAs. Like i'm trying to achieve all the problems I can.

Anyway, I do have fluconasol, but I have been reluctant to use it, because to me it seems like a chicken and the egg thing. If the root of my problems is Nitrate/Phosphate, I would think that I should get them in some sort of balance, that is non-zero. Yet, the GHA seems to be taking up the nutrients. Now if I kill the GHA, I should expect my nutrients to go whacky again, and won't that just lead to more problems? I've been trying to be patient. Going slowly with my changes. Doing weekly pulling of the GHA, and testing. But this is probably going on 3-4 months of GHA. It does seem better than it was when it first began. So I just hope I am moving in the right direction. I've made changes to my skimming, and refugium time under light to try and slow down nutrient export, but then it just seems like the GHA will take it up.

What will happen to my clean up crew if I was to dose flux RX and that food source goes away?

Hanna testing this AM. Phosphates 0.02, Nitrates 0.0, Alkalinity 7.56. I think I might try and dose some NeoNitro and see if I can get some small reading of Nitrates in the tank, but I just worry that will spark some other issue.

 

[Shirak]

I think you have GHA yes, but I think you also have some other algae on the rocks. GHA should be able to siphon off or remove easily right down to the rock with a little brushing from a toothbrush. Turf algae is tougher and won't come off easily and the snails etc will just leave it alone. You can't remove it by siphoning. I have nuked algae with fluconazole for Bryopsis which took out other stuff too. The snails and hermits were fine. Algae on the glass for the snails grows quickly. The fluconazole will kill the stuff on the rocks the cuc is not taking care of. You will see nutrients go up if you knock the algae back, you would see that even if you removed a significant amount manually anyway. But you can't deal with bringing down nutrients until the algae situation is resolved. It may not go up that much if you aren't dosing much and feeding lightly. You will see a spike if the current algae dies off but a large water change could take care of that. The fluconazole is not very fast acting anyway so you shouldn't see a big spike.

Regarding the TM reef pro. You can dose a little sodium bicarbonate to bring it up a little before doing a water change. If you know the water volume and want to go from say 7 to 8dkh the online calculators will tell you how much to dose.

Yes that is an Aiptasia with the Zoa.. not good.

 

[dR3ws3r]

It has been about 10 days, and I am still working on my nutrient problems. I have avoided fluconazol so far, but am still considering it. I am trying to get my nutrients to a better place. I have started dosing neonitro to get some nitrates into the tank. They are in the 3-4 ppm range currently. My phosphate on the other hand is just such an up and down parameter. I try to do the hanna testing process as consistently as I can but the values bounce quite a bit. Here is the graph

Anyway, the algae is making very slow progress. Still doing a weekly clean, but maybe the overall growth has slowed down.

A couple of questions is anyone is following this or happens to read it. The first two pictures are of a Goni taken about 2 weeks apart. It appears to me to be showing some improvement. What have I changed? Well first I have dosed manganese. This seems to be somewhat debated ... some swear by it, others don't think it is necessary. Unfortunately those who dose usually don't give you a formula for how much to dose or how often. I had an ICP test done 2 months ago, and it recommended manganese, but I get the feeling that is disappears from the water so quickly that it rarely shows up on a test. The dosage recommendation from them seemed a little strange, but it was like 0.27 ml once. For a 175 gallon tank, that seems really small, but they are the experts. I have dosed that quantity 3 times now over about a month. I feel both somewhat irresponsible, since it is a parameter that I cannot test for, so I could be overdosing, but in contrast the Goni seems to be doing better. I have also slowly been trying to raise my Alkalinity using Tropic Marin Balling B. Adding about 30 ml a day. Have gone from high 6 to high 7 over the course of 6 weeks or so. Otherwise not much else has really changed other than finally having some nitrates in the tank.

Any feelings on whether the Manganese is ok to dose once a week? Maybe I should send off another ICP test?

A couple of other questions:

1. I do see Alkalinity fall when I don't dose, but I don't really think it is the coral that is largely responsible, because both Calcium and Manganese really don't change much between water changes. I think perhaps it is just CO2 or some other mechanism that is reducing it. I have even heard that GFO can remove it. So when do you really know it is time to start dosing 2 part ... should I be seeing Calcium going down during the week on my Trident?

2. This is a little more complicated, but what do people do to keep mixed reef (SPS and LPS coral) in regard to lighting. I have 4 XR15s and 2 AI Grows. The tank is 2 feet deep. At about 40% power the PAR at just below the surface is around 275-300. At the sand bed, it is typically 100-120, and in the very middle where the SPS would start from I see around 190-200. It just doesn't seem like the variance from top to bottom is very high. So is it a hybrid system of lighting that reduces the variance, or is what I am seeing typical? I mean if I crank them up to help the SPS corals, then the sand bed is going to start to see 150+ which seems very high.

Thanks