Phosphate issues or something else?

[wrbtanis]

Hello all and let me say thanks in advance to those willing to give some advice. A few months ago I noticed all the euphyllia in my tank starting to look worse, not fully extending, almost a shriveled/ withered appearance at that point I started checking everything and noticed that my phosphates where at .48 on my hanna ulr test kit and started to move to correct it with increasing my daily water change amount, limiting food to only frozen mysis, and dosing phosephate-e. I wanted to stay away from gfo and other reactor medias as I've had bad experiences with them in the past. At this point some of the hammers are starting to fall apart literally. I haven't seen any signs of predation or brown jelly.
The main problem is that I've been doing 2% daily water changes and dosing 10ml of phosephate e daily and my phosphates wont get bellow .33 unless I do a massive dose and even then it jumps back up within a day or two.
The tank is a total of 165g with a reefmat 500, reef octopus 200 ext, I run ozone in the skimmer for an hour at night. There are two MP40s running at 20-40%
Other parameters are:
Temp 78
Salinity 1.026
Alk 10.2
cal 450
Mag 1320
Nitrate 10
Phosphate .33
Inhabitants
2 clownfish
2 lyretail anthias
1 solar wrasse
1 rhomboid wrasse
1 melanurus wrasse
1 purple tang
1 Yellow Belly Regal Blue Tang juvenile
lots of snails
2 fireshrimp
1 female watanabe angel

The really weird thing is that is that for the most part the other coral in the tank have been growing fairly well. Mostly consisting of zoas, pallys, a few different montis, some different encrusting lps, and a fairly large green slimer. There have been no new additions in both fish or coral in over a year.

Thanks in advance!

 

[CHSUB]

I wouldn’t expect po4 at that level to be an issue, have you looked closely for pests?

 

[wrbtanis]

Other than vermitid snails and some astrea I haven't seen any.

 

[wrbtanis]

Other than vermitid snails and some astrea I haven't seen any.

 

[CHSUB]

Other than vermitid snails and some astrea I haven't seen any.

I’m thinking flat worms, small a difficult to see. Often only seen when coral is held upside down and looked at closely.

 

[wrbtanis]

I'll take a look after work.

 

[get-salty]

LPS thrives at his level of p04, so i'd rule that out.
How about your flow? is it too much or too low?
light par? i see that it is on the sandbed, possible too low of par..
Try dipping them for worms.
lastly, may need to watch that angel, they might be reef safe but you may nvr know..

 

[wrbtanis]

LPS thrives at his level of p04, so i'd rule that out.
How about your flow? is it too much or too low?
light par? i see that it is on the sandbed, possible too low of par..
Try dipping them for worms.
lastly, may need to watch that angel, they might be reef safe but you may nvr know..

Flow is a hard one for me, I've got 2 mp40s running their lagoon program at 20% I see some movement but am always afraid that any more and I'll be blasting them. I'll provide a full tank shot after work to better illustrate.
Lighting at the sand bed is about 75par at its peak for 8 hours mostly in blues as measured with my apogee par meter.
What dip do you recommend? Historically I've only used iodine dips.
I'll keep an eye on the angel, I'd be sad if it is her though. Thanks for the ideas.

 

[BryanM]

Flow is a hard one for me, I've got 2 mp40s running their lagoon program at 20% I see some movement but am always afraid that any more and I'll be blasting them. I'll provide a full tank shot after work to better illustrate.
Lighting at the sand bed is about 75par at its peak for 8 hours mostly in blues as measured with my apogee par meter.
What dip do you recommend? Historically I've only used iodine dips.
I'll keep an eye on the angel, I'd be sad if it is her though. Thanks for the ideas.

A video posted to youtube and then linked here would help with flow assessment as well.

I also agree the phos likely isn't the culprit.

2% water changes on a 165 isn't very much. The phos coming back up after a large water change is indicating that it is leeching out of your rock. While I'm not overly concerned with .33, if I wanted to lower this I'd get BRSs small GFO reactor installed. GFO works well, though expensive, to bind phos, and over time you should definitely see it lower. Though it will do the same thing and pop back up likely after the first couple rounds.

 

[get-salty]

Flow is a hard one for me, I've got 2 mp40s running their lagoon program at 20% I see some movement but am always afraid that any more and I'll be blasting them. I'll provide a full tank shot after work to better illustrate.
Lighting at the sand bed is about 75par at its peak for 8 hours mostly in blues as measured with my apogee par meter.
What dip do you recommend? Historically I've only used iodine dips.
I'll keep an eye on the angel, I'd be sad if it is her though. Thanks for the ideas.

I think 75par for hammers is on the lower side - i'd suggest 100-150 and they need med flow. A popular dip is Revive, it will knock any worms off of the hammers, works really well.

Revive Coral Cleaner (500 ml / 16.8 oz) - Two Little Fishies

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.

www.saltwateraquarium.com

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

If everything else is good and growing, then to me its a placement issue. I would move it into more light and possibly more flow. I agree 75 par sounds low, mine is directly under MH lights and its grown from a two polyp frag to the size of a volleyball in 5 years.

 

[BryanM]

I think 75par for hammers is on the lower side - i'd suggest 100-150 and they need med flow. A popular dip is Revive, it will knock any worms off of the hammers, works really well.

Revive Coral Cleaner (500 ml / 16.8 oz) - Two Little Fishies

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.

www.saltwateraquarium.com

Revive is almost always what I use and seems to work quite well.

 

[wrbtanis]

Thank you everyone. I've got revive on order, and will check for any flatworms. I'll also see about getting a video to show the flow and lastly look at areas of higher par to place them in.

 

[wrbtanis]

A video posted to youtube and then linked here would help with flow assessment as well.

I also agree the phos likely isn't the culprit.

2% water changes on a 165 isn't very much. The phos coming back up after a large water change is indicating that it is leeching out of your rock. While I'm not overly concerned with .33, if I wanted to lower this I'd get BRSs small GFO reactor installed. GFO works well, though expensive, to bind phos, and over time you should definitely see it lower. Though it will do the same thing and pop back up likely after the first couple rounds.

Here's a link to the video. I cranked the whites for it, normally I run it under deep blues. I hope this adequately shows the flow.

 

[wrbtanis]

I didn't see any signs of flatworms upon visual inspection but will report back once the dip arrives.

 

[BryanM]

Here's a link to the video. I cranked the whites for it, normally I run it under deep blues. I hope this adequately shows the flow.

Thanks for the vid.

For me, the flow on the left side of the tank seems low, probably not problematic, but low.. Middle and right look great to me.

 

[wrbtanis]

Thanks for the vid.

For me, the flow on the left side of the tank seems low, probably not problematic, but low.. Middle and right look great to me.

Thank you, so at this point lighting or pests remain. The dip should be here Friday so I'll do that then.

I guess my next question for the group would be if I should wait till after the dip to play around with moving them up in the tank or upping the lighting?
Currently I have 2 hydra edge 68 and can ramp them up a decent amount.

 

[get-salty]

Here's a link to the video. I cranked the whites for it, normally I run it under deep blues. I hope this adequately shows the flow.

Great setup and good vd!

looking at the corals. notice your zoas are facing up and reaching to the lights? that tells me that your lights are on the lower end. Def move your euphyllias up higher or turn your lights up a bit. for me, i dont place euphyllias on sandbed.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Maybe it’s the video but I see so little surface agitation, I would want that waaay up for oxygenation / proteins leaving water. The still water reminds me of freshwater not the ocean

 

[wrbtanis]

Great setup and good vd!

looking at the corals. notice your zoas are facing up and reaching to the lights? that tells me that your lights are on the lower end. Def move your euphyllias up higher or turn your lights up a bit. for me, i dont place euphyllias on sandbed.

Thanks!
Pulled out the par meeter and went ahead and up the power so that I'm getting 100 par at the sand bed, I'll have it do aclimation mode for a week to walk it up slowly. I'll also start looking into a mini rescape to move them off the sand bed.