Nutrient Issues - 4 month old tank

[Arkayology]

New tank issues... I've been having issues with nutrients on my 4-month old tank. My P04 bottomed out yesterday - 0.0 and 0.01 readings on my Hannah ULR Phosphate and undetectable on my Salifert test. N03 is 5-10 (Salifert). I added 5ml of NeoPhos to get some Phosphate up. The algae just ate it up and got ugly.

dkh - 8.5-8.8 (Hannah)
Ca - 420 (Hannah)
pH - 8.0 - 8.3 daily (probe)
Mg - 1250 (Salifert)
s.g. - 1.025 (Tropic Marin)
These are pretty consistent numbers. I check daily because of the issues I am having.

All zoas are closed up. SPS are showing STN from the base and tips. BTA is mad. Fish and other inverts seem fine. My experience is telling me the rock/sand/whatever is absorbing the phosphate, leaving none for the corals. If I keep adding more Brightwell NeoPhos, I may get a bad algae bloom. What would you all recommend? Ride it out? Keep adding phosphate?

 

[Aquadude1]

Going through the same thing on my sps tank right now. I think riding it out is the main thing. Something that helped me was keeping phosphates readable and decreasing par an the time the lights were on. Should help some of the acros to recover especially if the tips are getting burned.

 

[Troylee]

Did you start the tank with dry rock or live rock?

 

[Arkayology]

Did you start the tank with dry rock or live rock?

Dry marco rock

 

[Troylee]

Dry marco rock

It’s gonna take some time to balance it all out.. as much as everyone swears by keeping a stable tank you can keep sps I’m finding that false in my experience! As this hobby has progressed I think a good stable biome is the key to keeping sps and the uglies away! I think people need to focus more on bacteria than alk or calcium! My current tank has never been stable and my sticks are growing like weeds! I’ve had kalk overdoses 2 to be exact about a month apart where my ph jumped to 9.4 and my alk dropped from 11 to 4 and not a single loss! In fact it kick started a lot of my sticks that were just stuck and not growing lol.. I’d try using reef roids instead of neophos as it feeds your corals and can bring the p04 levels up.

 

[ninjamyst]

4 month old tank is not suitable for SPS. It's not your nutrients or your water parameters. Your tank just lacks the biodiversity to support the more sensitive corals. It's not something you can even test for.

 

[Arkayology]

4 month old tank is not suitable for SPS. It's not your nutrients or your water parameters. Your tank just lacks the biodiversity to support the more sensitive corals. It's not something you can even test for.

So how would you proceed in this scenario? Let it ride?

 

[Arkayology]

It’s gonna take some time to balance it all out.. as much as everyone swears by keeping a stable tank you can keep sps I’m finding that false in my experience! As this hobby has progressed I think a good stable biome is the key to keeping sps and the uglies away! I think people need to focus more on bacteria than alk or calcium! My current tank has never been stable and my sticks are growing like weeds! I’ve had kalk overdoses 2 to be exact about a month apart where my ph jumped to 9.4 and my alk dropped from 11 to 4 and not a single loss! In fact it kick started a lot of my sticks that were just stuck and not growing lol.. I’d try using reef roids instead of neophos as it feeds your corals and can bring the p04 levels up.

I seeded with a variety of sources, including IPSF mud and sand. It is still a very young tank, but if you think that it is purely a microbiome, I will just let this all play out as the tank matures. I will admit that I was lured into a false sense of security with the stability in parameters of my tank after two months. I have no plans to add more coral until this issue is resolved.

 

[Troylee]

I seeded with a variety of sources, including IPSF mud and sand. It is still a very young tank, but if you think that it is purely a microbiome, I will just let this all play out as the tank matures. I will admit that I was lured into a false sense of security with the stability in parameters of my tank after two months. I have no plans to add more coral until this issue is resolved.

I know the majority is against adding bacteria after the initial cycle and say it’s pointless but I continued to do it! If you look at sunny x tank he uses bacteria still and the growth is off the charts! This is the first tank I’ve kept up with bacteria dosing and it’s the fastest growing and cleanest tank I’ve ever owned! I can’t kill a sps if I wanted and I’ve tried lol.. some have over grown and I’ve scraped the encrust off the rocks to nothing and puttied over them and they just keep coming back! It’s really annoying to say the least haha! I’m very big on the biome now that I know what it is and people can actually do a dna analysis on it.

 

[X-37B]

I answered the same question in your build thread.
IMO, the only real way to add acros to a new system is with live rock from day one.
I have my ext 170 up for 8 months now and have 50 hard corals at last count. Started with 150lbs of GLR.
Corals in within a couple weeks.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I seeded with a variety of sources, including IPSF mud and sand. It is still a very young tank, but if you think that it is purely a microbiome, I will just let this all play out as the tank matures. I will admit that I was lured into a false sense of security with the stability in parameters of my tank after two months. I have no plans to add more coral until this issue is resolved.

Adding more corals, from different sources, is actually a great way to import different bacteria and micro organisms, and develop the biome faster. This is much more efficient than any bottled bacteria. Just add more hardy corals for now.

 

[Arkayology]

Thanks everyone. I got ahead of myself when I added the sand/rock/mud from IPSF thinking that it would be ready sooner. I appreciate you reminding me to slow down. It's been almost 10 years since I had a reef, so I got too excited.