P04 is crazy high 1.0

[Gordon15]

Just covering the topic before it comes an issue with my tank. Going for prevention.Tested twice and confirmed my P04 is 1.0. Nitrate is 10. It’s been .5 for a while and I’ve been trying to do better maintenance and keeping up on my water changes to get it lower. I feed maybe once every three days. Sometimes just flak food but maybe I am over feeding.I Ordered and going to start GFO soon. Coral is doing great except for leathers in the tank. 75g leathers have been closed up for months with the high phosphate is my guess. I have not been able to keep SPS corals and I assume this is my reason. I have had very little coral growth since I’ve seen my numbers keep rising.I’ve had some and they slowly slowly turn white around the edges and die. Calcium, alkalinity, magnesium or all at the recommended level and have been stable. I do dose all four reef. Am I going in the right direction? Suggestions comments anything would be great. Be blunt I don’t get my feelings hurt easy lol

Some of my leather coral are doing good but not mytoad stools. I’ve had my big leather toadstool for three years and see no growth and maybe has been closed for a year. Other small has rarly opens.

 

[Gordon15]

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[Gordon15]

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[mjszos]

Your plan for addressing the issue in the short-term is fine, but I'd also work to identify the root cause and mitigate that as well. If you can, I'd switch to a variety of frozen food and supplement with pellets/flakes as needed due to their propensity to spike nutrients (not to mention their nutrient density makes it very easy to overfeed).

 

[Gordon15]

Your plan for addressing the issue in the short-term is fine, but I'd also work to identify the root cause and mitigate that as well. If you can, I'd switch to a variety of frozen food and supplement with pellets/flakes as needed due to their propensity to spike nutrients (not to mention their nutrient density makes it very easy to overfeed).

I need to feed less and keep up with my maintenance. I’m starting there. More frozen food also I will give that a shot. I do a lot of flake and I think I overfeed that easy as the fish are slower to get it all before the rocks do.

 

[mjszos]

I need to feed less and keep up with my maintenance. I’m starting there. More frozen food also I will give that a shot. I do a lot of flake and I think I overfeed that easy as the fish are slower to get it all before the rocks do.

I feed frozen the overwhelming majority of the time, but on the occasion I feed with dry foods my approach is; get a pinch of pellets out of the container and put them off to the side, feed 1-2 pellets directly above the fish and watch them sink. As I see the fish eat, I'll repeat the same 1-2 pellet method. Once I see them stop going after it, I stop feeding.

As an example, on a normal day I'll feed frozen, then if I want to feed again my pair of clowns will eat another 4-6 pellets each before they stop going after them. If I dropped a pinch of pellets, I'd be putting in 5x the amount of food, with the overwhelming majority of it being ignored.

Overall, you're on a path to success, just stay diligent with it. As you incorporate the GFO make sure you test fairly regularly to see the nutrients drop as you don't want them to bottom out. Stick with regular water changes as well, if you intend on doing a heavy water change make sure you test the fresh mixed water, as well as your current tank water and adjust accordingly for your WC volume. If I'm doing anything over a 20% water change this is my methodology to make sure I'm not introducing too significant of parameter swings... I'd rather do 2x 10% changes within 24 hours, rather than a 20% (though I'm not sure how much evidence there is to suggest this is poor practice, it's just my preferred methodology). And also obviously make sure the fresh mixed water is at least close to the same temperature so you don't get a rapid drop.

 

[Gordon15]

I like that approach on feeding. When I do flakes I just take a pinch full and dump it in. Really not working at all because the fish can only eat so much before it hidden in the rocks or something. Water changes I’m doing 20% every two weeks. I work a rotating schedule so this works best for me. I need to test my p04 with the new water I am putting into doublecheck that. Thank you for the advice. I’m three years new still to this. I’m still learning it’s still fun for me but I would like to lose less difficult corals. Nems love my tank so far. Need less of the BT ones.

 

[mjszos]

I like that approach on feeding. When I do flakes I just take a pinch full and dump it in. Really not working at all because the fish can only eat so much before it hidden in the rocks or something. Water changes I’m doing 20% every two weeks. I work a rotating schedule so this works best for me. I need to test my p04 with the new water I am putting into doublecheck that. Thank you for the advice. I’m three years new still to this. I’m still learning it’s still fun for me but I would like to lose less difficult corals. Nems love my tank so far. Need less of the BT ones.

You may find some success in agitating parts of the sand bed during water changes, and taking a turkey baster to your rocks little by little to make sure there isn't a bunch of junk just decaying in the tank.

Ultimately regarding feeding, it's one of the most entertaining parts about owning a tank. Take your time with it, make sure all of the food is being consumed, etc. If you can, I would really recommend throwing some frozen food into the mix. I get a variety of frozen food from my LFS and every Sunday I portion out my week of food into it (I use 4-5 different foods, I cut the cubes up and portion them out into 6 urine sample cups and just pop them back into the freezer).

Much of what I'm saying is the pot calling the kettle black though, I have as many bad habits as anyone else and I all but nuked my old tank before breaking it down. But the lessons I learned from my previous mistakes won't be repeated in the new tank :)

 

[Gordon15]

I actually started cleaning my sand bed a week ago with the water change. I read many articles of clean the sand bed or leave it and let your cleanup crew deal with it. I was at .5 phosphate at that time. Two weeks later I shoot to one so I’m not sure if that had something to do with it. Still both numbers are not ideal where I wanna be at. I’m gonna start changing my filters more often and keep myself in check with the feedings. I will start blowing off the rocks with water changes also I know I have not done that in a while.

 

[mjszos]

I actually started cleaning my sand bed a week ago with the water change. I read many articles of clean the sand bed or leave it and let your cleanup crew deal with it. I was at .5 phosphate at that time. Two weeks later I shoot to one so I’m not sure if that had something to do with it. Still both numbers are not ideal where I wanna be at. I’m gonna start changing my filters more often and keep myself in check with the feedings. I will start blowing off the rocks with water changes also I know I have not done that in a while.

I may be completely incorrect here, but if you agitated a significant portion of the sand bed that may be playing a part both in the high phosphates without a proper method of exporting, and the general coral agitation. You may have suspended solids that precipitated onto the corals causing them to close up. You can always try gently blowing off a few of the colonies to make sure there's nothing on them.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I think you aren't feeding the fish enough, and I would not feed even less. I feed 3-4 times per day and have no algae. IMO, algae is due to lack of filtration or overfeeding (meaning feeding more than fish can eat and the food just rots)

Its a beautiful tank, and I see sps and lps at the same level which makes me wonder if the sps getting enough light? Even leathers like higher lighting. Can we hear about your lighting to eliminate that as a cause for slow growth?

 

[Gordon15]

No alge issues. I just have high phosphates. My lighting is viparspectrum the black boxes. I’ve never had an issue with them. I run them about 8 inches from the water. I was running them at 35% blues and one percent white. I have since increased them over the past few weeks thinking that was my issue. I am now running 60% blues and 3% white. I am seeing a little bit of an increase with the corals coming out but nothing to say for sure. Maybe I’m not running them high enough still I’m not sure.

As for the sand bed, I am now cleaning it with every water change to keep up with consistency. That might be a reason my phosphate is so high and I was never able to get it down because of that.

 

[Gordon15]

I appreciate your input thanks on the kudos to the reef tank

I think you aren't feeding the fish enough, and I would not feed even less. I feed 3-4 times per day and have no algae. IMO, algae is due to lack of filtration or overfeeding (meaning feeding more than fish can eat and the food just rots)

Its a beautiful tank, and I see sps and lps at the same level which makes me wonder if the sps getting enough light? Even leathers like higher lighting. Can we hear about your lighting to eliminate that as a cause for slow growth?

I appreciate your input thanks on the kudos to the reef tank. Let me know what you think about the lights and what I commented. I’m curious gives me ideas of what to do or do different differently.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I appreciate your input thanks on the kudos to the reef tank

I appreciate your input thanks on the kudos to the reef tank. Let me know what you think about the lights and what I commented. I’m curious gives me ideas of what to do or do different differently.

I think you're doing the right things.... you increased the lights and admit it showed some improvement, and you will get the gfo going. I suspect your rocks have absorbed phosphate and slowly leaching it out, and gfo is the only way to slowly suck it out. It will take some time for your tank to show the results of these changes, so just keep on reefing on with patience.

 

[Gordon15]

I think you're doing the right things.... you increased the lights and admit it showed some improvement, and you will get the gfo going. I suspect your rocks have absorbed phosphate and slowly leaching it out, and gfo is the only way to slowly suck it out. It will take some time for your tank to show the results of these changes, so just keep on reefing on with patience.

Yeah most likely I’m going to increase the lights even more to see what kind of response I get. I don’t have a meter to read it so I’m more just seeing what happens slowly. I appreciate the input. I learned in my first year that patients and doing things slowly is the best method. Hopefully in a few months I can have this lockdown.