Please Help - Corals are not looking well - All Parameters are normal

[JCOLE]

Continue watching ammonia closely if you feel your not completely cycled. Bottled bacteria will help establish your bacteria population if you do see an ammonia reading. I recommend adding some bottled bacteria such as Dr. Timms, microbacter or bio spiral even if you don't have an ammonia reading. It will help establish the bacteria population which will help if you start increasing your feedings. I also wanted to clarify that i was recommending increased feeding assuming that you were cycled. If you are not fully cycled, increased feeding will hurt your situation by elevating ammonia levels which you obviously don't want. Again, what I would do is add bottled bacteria and then slowly start to increase feeding to get the corals some nutrients. Monitor parameters closely. I would avoid dosing nitrate and phosphate at this point.

Sounds good. I will look for some Dr Timms. Appreciate all the advise.

I had 3 tanks 8 years ago. A 65, 75, and a 150. I don't remember it being this confusing....LOL

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The cycle the tank should go through at the start. I feel it hasn't gone through the full cycle yet. It might have had a mini cycle. I have 90% dry rock so its questionable. I did have a pretty big Diatom outbreak about 4 weeks ago so anything is possible.

How do I go about dosing nitrates and phosphates? I feel like this could be a deadly game for me to play....

If you measure ammonia, that might be a concern, but skimming would not impact that. If therfe's no ammonia, then cycling isn't an issue.

 

[JCOLE]

If you measure ammonia, that might be a concern, but skimming would not impact that. If therfe's no ammonia, then cycling isn't an issue.

Ammonia has read 0 for 2 weeks now. Do you think the cycle has passed then?

 

[spiraling]

Ammonia has read 0 for 2 weeks now. Do you think the cycle has passed then?

yes.
But your tank is far from mature.
Many tanks these days seem to have very low P and N. In the chemistry forum there are a ton of posts about it.

 

[JCOLE]

yes.
But your tank is far from mature.
Many tanks these days seem to have very low P and N. In the chemistry forum there are a ton of posts about it.

Would adding some more live rock help mature the system?

 

[Seminoles76]

Would adding some more live rock help mature the system?

I would stick with bottled bacteria right now as adding live rock would most likely need to be cured etc. depending on where you purchased the rock. Bottled bacteria is easier and would produce close to the same results as live rock for establishing a more robust bacteria population. That bottled bacteria will help as well as you start to increase feedings to get nutrients up.

 

[Seminoles76]

Sounds good. I will look for some Dr Timms. Appreciate all the advise.

I had 3 tanks 8 years ago. A 65, 75, and a 150. I don't remember it being this confusing....LOL

Lol. It will all start coming back to you. My guess is 8 years ago you started with live rock which is much different then starting a tank with dry rock.

 

[JCOLE]

Lol. It will all start coming back to you. My guess is 8 years ago you started with live rock which is much different then starting a tank with dry rock.

That is 100% correct. I had cured live rock in all my tanks except for this one...

This is going to be interesting

I am going to spring for some Dr Tims

 

[Seminoles76]

That is 100% correct. I had cured live rock in all my tanks except for this one...

This is going to be interesting

I am going to spring for some Dr Tims

Yeah. Typically, you would have been fine to add what you did if you started with cured live rock and everything would have probably been fine. With the dry rock most people start out....at least I do with dosing the tank with bottled bacteria of some sort to establish a bacteria population. Typically dry rock starts....as far as adding life to the tank is a slower process vs. starting with live rock. You can do without the bottled bacteria but it will take a significant amount of time to establish the appropriate bacteria populations and is a much slower process vs. adding it. That bottled bacteria will also allow you to slowly increase feeding without much worry of ammonia spikes.

 

[JCOLE]

Yeah. Typically, you would have been fine to add what you did if you started with cured live rock and everything would have probably been fine. With the dry rock most people start out....at least I do with dosing the tank with bottled bacteria of some sort to establish a bacteria population. Typically dry rock starts....as far as adding life to the tank is a slower process vs. starting with live rock. You can do without the bottled bacteria but it will take a significant amount of time to establish the appropriate bacteria populations and is a much slower process vs. adding it. That bottled bacteria will also allow you to slowly increase feeding without much worry of ammonia spikes.

I did throw in a bottle when I first put my water in. I will get 1 or 2 more to add and see what happens though.

 

[JCOLE]

See picture of Anemone. This is after 3.5 hrs of light on.

Should I play TAPS now or later?.......

Seriously though, should I remove it because it kills everything in the tank?

 

[JCOLE]

This is what it is looking like after the right halide turned off....

I am leaving it up to the experts. I have a QT ready to move it to if you think it isn't going to make it...

 

[BillyP]

I'm not sure what you are suggesting. NOPOX will reduce nitrate and phosphate.

Oh yeah my bad I forgot that it was a reducer, but I know that there is a product out there that will increase Nitrates and Phosphates if even overfeeding isn't doing the trick.

 

[BillyP]

I will have to look up what I used again but it wasn't instant ocean. It was a brand I never used before from Petco. TBH the salt probably wasn't the best as it was the best bag I could find. All other salt bags where opened, hard, etc. I have been doing weekly water changes with Instant Ocean Reef Crystal's. I topped off my water last night with salt water instead of fresh water because I feel the Salinity is to low.

I am going to look into nitrate and phosphate dosing. I have a feeling that I might have had a mini cycle, even though it's almost 2 months. I might try and add a little more live rock as well.

Yeah it might be just that, I have heard no reviews about PETCO salt so I don't know what the mixed parameters are. You can maybe do a 60 percent water change with natural seawater thats usually at most LFS's. Honestly if your tank is doing that bad I would definitely do a water change, especially since you put your corals in way too fast. You run that tank with RODI water right?

 

[JCOLE]

Yeah it might be just that, I have heard no reviews about PETCO salt so I don't know what the mixed parameters are. You can maybe do a 60 percent water change with natural seawater thats usually at most LFS's. Honestly if your tank is doing that bad I would definitely do a water change, especially since you put your corals in way too fast. You run that tank with RODI water right?

And....I knew its was only a matter of time before I had to admit this. No I don't use RODI water...Yet. I am going to get one very soon. So in the mean time I have been picking up gallons of purified water from the grocery store.....

 

[BillyP]

And....I knew its was only a matter of time before I had to admit this. No I don't use RODI water...Yet. I am going to get one very soon. So in the mean time I have been picking up gallons of purified water from the grocery store.....

Grocery store water is at least better than tap water. I would add seachem prime to neutralize the heavy metals, mainly copper, and also to stabilize the ammonia, and nitrite if your tank is actually going through a mini cycle. Either way it will tremendously help. Do you have a local fish store?

 

[JCOLE]

Grocery store water is at least better than tap water. I would add seachem prime to neutralize the heavy metals, mainly copper, and also to stabilize the ammonia, and nitrite if your tank is actually going through a mini cycle. Either way it will tremendously help. Do you have a local fish store?

Yeah Petco....lol, joking. Yes it isn't exactly local but it is worth the drive. Nemo's Reef in Mathews, NC!

 

[BillyP]

Oh alright same lol the lfs I trust is pretty far away from me as well! then I looked up that store and they seem to be the store that doesn't sell horrible salt considering what kind of corals and fish that they're selling. I can only think that problem would be the RODI, unless it's something smaller. Can you remember the last change that you did to your tank? And how's that anemone doing? I am not an expert on anemones but definitely know more than enough about corals and they're pretty similar.

 

[BillyP]

Yeah Petco....lol, joking. Yes it isn't exactly local but it is worth the drive. Nemo's Reef in Mathews, NC!

Yeah and I looked back to your first post to get more info and I think your tank is honestly fine, if your fish are acting fine then I doubt that there is a parasite in your tank unless you can see it. The reason only your corals have been acting that way is because they are still acclimating to the new lights. Since you changed all the bulb types, the par values at any point in the tank would be different, you will probably see your anemone moving around to try and find a better light source. I think that that's all this is considering your parameters.

 

[JCOLE]

Yeah and I looked back to your first post to get more info and I think your tank is honestly fine, if your fish are acting fine then I doubt that there is a parasite in your tank unless you can see it. The reason only your corals have been acting that way is because they are still acclimating to the new lights. Since you changed all the bulb types, the par values at any point in the tank would be different, you will probably see your anemone moving around to try and find a better light source. I think that that's all this is considering your parameters.

I am starting to think it's the lights. I changed my 460nm wavepoint t5 to a coralife 10k bulb and the anemone looks a lot better. I might try and not run the halides tomorrow to see how they look. It can't hurt right?