Reef Tank Nutrients and Test Struggles

[jross827]

Hi,
I’ve been using R2R as a resource from the beginning but this is my first post.

Some background:
This is my first reef tank. It’s a 110gal with a 40breeder sump. I built the aquascape with Marco dry rock with a huge focus up front of trying to eliminate as many pests as possible (I know this is a polarizing topic but it is what it is). I set up the system last fall and added my first pair of clowns around thanksgiving.. I’ve since added a tailspot blenny, a dwarf hawkfish, and a yellow eye kole tang. I’ve also got a smallish CUC of 5 hermits, a strawberry conch, a rose urchin, and 3 trochus snails.. I used to have a few more snails but they didn’t make it thru a battle with SCA dinos in the spring..

That brings us to the start of the topic… I was having great luck controlling nutrients and managing parameters considering it was a fairly new tank trying to get a good diversity of bacteria established with dosing a few different brands of bottled bacteria.. out of the blue, my nitrates and phosphates started to tank and over the course of a few weeks my nutrients went from too high and trying to bring them down, to almost undetectable and dinos showed up..

After battling dinos for about a month, I was able to overcome by dosing phosphates and sodium silicate..

Ever since that, my nutrients have always been on the low side and I continued dosing phosphates and feeding more to make sure they remained at detectable levels…

Well, a few more months pass and my weekly testing shows similar parameters (under 5ppm nitrates and between 0.02 to undetectable phosphates even though I’m still dosing phosphates) however now I have cyano show up.. everything I’ve read says cyano shows up in a high nutrient environment and the reason my testing shows low numbers is because the cyano is sucking up all the nutrients and giving me false low readings..
so then I stop dosing and start skimming a little wetter and increase my water change volume..

After a few more weeks I was successful in getting rid of the cyano.

Now, the point of this whole, long writeup..
How the heck am I supposed to monitor my nutrient levels moving forward? I’ve invested in Hanna testers for nitrate, phosphate, alkalinity, and copper.. I love the level of accuracy they give a guy trying to recreate the ocean in his living room, but I now question the point of even testing for nutrient levels, if low might actually mean high and I’m fueling a cyano outbreak, or it might mean I’m on the verge of dinos..

Has anyone else dealt with this, and what was your solution to this dilemma?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Unlike many pests we have, cyano is a bacteria and thrives on organics as food. While a lot of cyano will drive down inorganic nutrients, I’m not sure it is fair to say that higher inorganic nutrients drive cyano.

That said, are you sure the problem is cyano and not dinos?

 

[jross827]

That said, are you sure the problem is cyano and not dinos?

Unfortunately I didn’t think to put them under my scope but I’m fairly convinced that it was cyano as the process of increased water changes, cutting back on feeding, and increased skimming got rid of it.. that process completely goes against the process of getting rid of dinos..

The annoying part was, my coral were colored up and growing the absolute best I’d even seen right when the cyano started… so it seems like the nutrients in my tank had been too low previously.

 

[allof fish]

Unfortunately I didn’t think to put them under my scope but I’m fairly convinced that it was cyano as the process of increased water changes, cutting back on feeding, and increased skimming got rid of it.. that process completely goes against the process of getting rid of dinos..

The annoying part was, my coral were colored up and growing the absolute best I’d even seen right when the cyano started… so it seems like the nutrients in my tank had been too low previously.

Cyano just comes with a maturing tank. Most times tanks tends to settle in a certain spot for nutrients. Using dry rock can make nutrients very inconsistent for awhile but at also a year I don’t think that’s the case. Do you have any algae issues? I would add a larger cuc as it’s pretty small for that size tank. Also what water do you use? Rodi? If so maybe need to change your filters as those can let tds thru and cause issues like this