NOPOX and a sad Zoanthids colony

[Smithrz]

Hey folks,

So I recently discovered my phosphates were slowly rising (5ppm peak) after a few of my corals looked sad, and snails seemed to have given up on life. I wasn’t able to reduce them enough through export or less feeding, so I resorted to dosing 5ml of NOPOX per day which is doing the trick (albeit now it’s lowering my nitrates too much, so I may switch to PhosOut or something).

Anyway, even when my phosphates were high, all my Zoas looked great, and one species (purple centre with orange outlines) was the best of the bunch, but since I started dosing the NOPOX (about 2 weeks), that one species has closed up and just doesn’t seem happy now, but the other Zoas I have close-by are totally fine.

Anyone experienced this before? Any ideas? They were so happy before, growing well and with large round polyps. Not totally closed up (see attached photo).

Tank details:
Age: 5 months
Weekly 10% water change without fail
Size: 165ltr
Salinity: 34ppt
Temp: 25c
Nitrates: 5ppm
Phosphastes: 2.5ppm (still high, I know)
Alk: 11.2 (red sea coral pro salt)
Mag: 1380
Calc: 470

Livestock:
7 small species fish
3 shrimp
About 23 mixed inverts (snails, and crabs)
5 soft corals
12 LPS corals

 

[DanTheReefer]

Same boat. I started dosing NoPox 3-4 weeks ago, 3 mL per day to 120g. Started having issues with several well established (4 years) corals for first time. Big seasons greetings Monti cap started browning out, and like you a Zoa colony is closed up. Also neon Duncans have been closed and Forrest fire digi appears to be receding. I’ll pretty much just be stopping the NoPox and currently in water change mode, will turn over 100% of the water this week and see where we are.

 

[Smithrz]

With how popular Nopox is, I would have expected to find a lot more posts/conversation about this? I thought it was a pretty common and well established method of nutrient export?!

 

[TokenReefer]

5ppm or 0.5ppm?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Which phosphate tester are you using?

Personally I think your nitrates are low for soft and lps corals. I would stop the nopox and control nitrate through water changes.

Phosphate, if your result is correct, should be reduced by gfo or lanthanum IMO. But first I would try to figure out how/why it got to 5, I've never seen any phosphate test get to 5 before (unless you mean .5?)

 

[Smithrz]

I’m using the Salifert tests for everything, honestly the Phosphate one is very difficult to read, the shades of blue betweb 0.03 and 5.00 are so subtle, it’s very hard to tell. Even lighting can make it look darker or lighter. I tend to assume it’s darker than it is lighter, from a cautionary perspective, but there’s every chance I’m just not reading it correctly.

 

[Smithrz]

Sorry, yes my reading I meant 0.5, not 5.0. My bad! Apologies.

 

[Smithrz]

And in the reading on the OP I meant 0.25, not 2.5.

 

[Smithrz]

Which phosphate tester are you using?

Personally I think your nitrates are low for soft and lps corals. I would stop the nopox and control nitrate through water changes.

Phosphate, if your result is correct, should be reduced by gfo or lanthanum IMO. But first I would try to figure out how/why it got to 5, I've never seen any phosphate test get to 5 before (unless you mean .5?)

Todays test results:

Nitrate: 5ppm
Phosphate: 0.5ppm (been that level for last 3 weekly tests now).

 

[Uncle99]

No pox is for nitrate management. It does little to phosphate as theirs nothing to bind to for removal.

But it’s very effective on nitrates and may have bottomed them out, thus starving your Zoa, which loves nitrates.

Very confused on your test results.

Phosphate is very hard to discern without the Hanna phosphate or Hanna phosphorus checkers, other are mostly useless IMM.

.5ppm phosphate is just way to high when the normal is 0.05-.15ppm.

Your looking for 5-15ppm nitrates and 0.05-.15ppm phosphate and stable.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

hanna phosphate tester is much easier, just see the number.

Again, personally I would stop the nopox and let nitrate raise naturally. And just get some phosphate-e. 3 or 4 drops will bring the phosphate to about .1 which is perfect IMO

 

[DanTheReefer]

With how popular Nopox is, I would have expected to find a lot more posts/conversation about this? I thought it was a pretty common and well established method of nutrient export?!

I think we may have misapplied it due to low nitrate, time to dose ammonia lol

 

[Smithrz]

Uch, sick of fish shops telling me the wrong thing. They said Nopox would lower my Phosphates. I’ll stop and switch to something specific for Phosphates.

 

[Smithrz]

No pox is for nitrate management. It does little to phosphate as theirs nothing to bind to for removal.

But it’s very effective on nitrates and may have bottomed them out, thus starving your Zoa, which loves nitrates.

Very confused on your test results.

Phosphate is very hard to discern without the Hanna phosphate or Hanna phosphorus checkers, other are mostly useless IMM.

.5ppm phosphate is just way to high when the normal is 0.05-.15ppm.

Your looking for 5-15ppm nitrates and 0.05-.15ppm phosphate and stable.

Any ideas on what might be causing me to have higher phosphates? To be fair, everything in my system is happy, apart from those Zoas, and assuming they’re gonna recover with stopping the Nopox, but would still like to reduce the phosphates.

I now have both a Skimmer and a Roller mat (the latter of which, I held off on installing for a while, so the roller has only been installed for a few days), so I think I have pretty good mechanical nutrient export mechanisms.

 

[Uncle99]

Any ideas on what might be causing me to have higher phosphates? To be fair, everything in my system is happy, apart from those Zoas, and assuming they’re gonna recover with stopping the Nopox, but would still like to reduce the phosphates.

I now have both a Skimmer and a Roller mat (the latter of which, I held off on installing for a while, so the roller has only been installed for a few days), so I think I have pretty good mechanical nutrient export mechanisms.

Usually, errors or higher phosphate levels result from crappy test kits, or any in which you must discern the colour.

For a year I struggled with .25ppm phosphate which I wanted to lower to .1ppm only to find out the test kit was not fine enough to read lower than .25ppm.

Once I got the Hanna phosphorus checker I found out I was actually 0.05ppm, followed by an ICP test at 0.08ppm.

Don’t be fooled by test kits. Make sure it’s correct especially when as you say, everything looks fine,

There’s so so little in the water, very hard to get any good colour change.

Same with Hanna CA and MG, the sample size is so small results fluctuate widely.

 

[Smithrz]

Might be time for me to upgrade my main test kits. I just grudge the price of the Hannah ones, I haven’t been impressed with the salinity checker and how often it need calibrated with their salt water sachets. Feels like a scam lol.

 

[DanTheReefer]

Usually, errors or higher phosphate levels result from crappy test kits, or any in which you must discern the colour.

For a year I struggled with .25ppm phosphate which I wanted to lower to .1ppm only to find out the test kit was not fine enough to read lower than .25ppm.

Once I got the Hanna phosphorus checker I found out I was actually 0.05ppm, followed by an ICP test at 0.08ppm.

Don’t be fooled by test kits. Make sure it’s correct especially when as you say, everything looks fine,

There’s so so little in the water, very hard to get any good colour change.

Same with Hanna CA and MG, the sample size is so small results fluctuate widely.

Mine is high with Hannah checker. My fresh mixed salt water is not, ergo it’s leaching or going in with other nutrients

 

[DanTheReefer]

Any ideas on what might be causing me to have higher phosphates? To be fair, everything in my system is happy, apart from those Zoas, and assuming they’re gonna recover with stopping the Nopox, but would still like to reduce the phosphates.

I now have both a Skimmer and a Roller mat (the latter of which, I held off on installing for a while, so the roller has only been installed for a few days), so I think I have pretty good mechanical nutrient export mechanisms.

More than you’d ever want to know - as Lou explains tropic Marin has a system of three products depending on your levels. Just be mindful the first product for reducing phosphate contains lanthium chloride which I am hesitant to jump into because apparently can kill tangs

 

[Uncle99]

Might be time for me to upgrade my main test kits. I just grudge the price of the Hannah ones, I haven’t been impressed with the salinity checker and how often it need calibrated with their salt water sachets. Feels like a scam lol.

I agree, not all Hanna’s are worth the price in my mind.
The Hanna CA and MG still in the box as they were overncomplicated and inaccurate.

The salinity checker was just plain wrong every single time to a calibrated refractometer.

But, their Phosphate in PPM or Phosphorus in PPB have been spot on for me, supported by an ICP.

When I look at the completed sample by eye, I see no change in colour.

Phosphate levels are super small and more difficult to discern changes in colour by at least, my eye.

I paid about double for this checker than other kits but I only need to buy reagent now at $15 for 25 tests and have been using it for 4 years.

I’ve tried all others. Not one got me to .05ppm but all others either looked zero or stayed at 0.25ppm.

 

[Smithrz]

Hey folks,

Just a small update on this thread… I got a Hanna phosphate tester, and the reading was 0.21ppm. So definitely nowhere near as bad as I was reading on the Salifert test.

How bad is this? I know we ideally want <0.03, which I’ll hopefully reach with my newly added Roaphos in the media basket under my reef mat.

But 0.21ppm isn’t exactly panic stations, right?

Also Nitrates holding at 10ppm right now since I stopped dosing NOPOX after advice on here (also added the reef mat at the same time, so Nitrates+Phosphates are still settling with the new approach).

Thanks!