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[Jon Fishman]

For my display it's a skimmer and fuge.


For my frag tank, I only have an hob power filter on there with a little carbon packet. I dose aminos daily, and target feed mysis/roids once a week.

Dose your frag tank with your skimmate

 

[living_tribunal]

Dose your frag tank with your skimmate

Once I get my display stable with nutrients and can turn back on the skimmer I definitely plan on doing that.

 

[living_tribunal]

Day 1 of no skimmer, only 3 hour photoperiod, two large fish feedings, amino acid, and roid feeding. My phosphates zeroed out and nitrate was flat at 1-2ppm.

I decided to just dose .02 ppm of phosphate with no nitrate to first get phosphate levels up and prevent weakness from my corals. I’m hoping heavy feeding with no skimmer and 3 hour photoperiid for fuge works :/.

 

[Ferrell]

Just an observation as I am by no means as skilled as most on here and don’t run a five or need to at the moment. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the brs 160 have the same problem and cut their fuge lighting down even more than yours and maybe even lighting an hour a day or every other day?
fwiw my nitrates have balanced out at about 3 and phosphates were at 0.09 last I checked. If no3 goes below that I inject about 5 ml Neonitrate in the system for a day or two and it stabilizes again at 3 for a month or two. Only feed LRS and frozen 3-4 times a day and dose Brightwell aminos at 2 ml/day. Benepets Reef Food once or twice a week mixed in with frozen. Works for me

 

[living_tribunal]

Just an observation as I am by no means as skilled as most on here and don’t run a five or need to at the moment. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the brs 160 have the same problem and cut their fuge lighting down even more than yours and maybe even lighting an hour a day or every other day?
fwiw my nitrates have balanced out at about 3 and phosphates were at 0.09 last I checked. If no3 goes below that I inject about 5 ml Neonitrate in the system for a day or two and it stabilizes again at 3 for a month or two. Only feed LRS and frozen 3-4 times a day and dose Brightwell aminos at 2 ml/day. Reefnutrition once or twice a week mixed in with frozen. Works for me

I think you brought up some good points, some that I’m currently testing and another that I need to focus more on.

I have always fed pretty small amounts, and only once a day up until this point. When I first started I was told to only feed what the fish can consume in 30 seconds and never anymore. So I’ve been feeding my fish about 1/8th of a mysis cube a day. They’re healthy and gaining weight but they can clearly eat more.

I fed them three times today, nearly half of a mysis cube. I also turned off my return to ensure none fell to the bottom of the tank and was eaten by the fish.

Is there any harm in feeding them this much? If not, I may as well utilize them. I won’t have more fish in my tank for at least 5 weeks and I’ve almost gone through a half bottle of neonjtrate this month, something has to give.

 

[living_tribunal]

Just an observation as I am by no means as skilled as most on here and don’t run a five or need to at the moment. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the brs 160 have the same problem and cut their fuge lighting down even more than yours and maybe even lighting an hour a day or every other day?
fwiw my nitrates have balanced out at about 3 and phosphates were at 0.09 last I checked. If no3 goes below that I inject about 5 ml Neonitrate in the system for a day or two and it stabilizes again at 3 for a month or two. Only feed LRS and frozen 3-4 times a day and dose Brightwell aminos at 2 ml/day. Reefnutrition once or twice a week mixed in with frozen. Works for me

Mind if I ask how many fish you have? I have a 65g and two clowns. Your 75 isn’t too far from my water volume so if your fish load is on the lighter side, I might replicate some of your feeding habits. I have a very similar coral feeding routine to yours.

 

[MombasaLionfish]

Maybe I missed this but what are you feeding? Reef Roids? Fish pellets? Mysis shrimp?

 

[living_tribunal]

Maybe I missed this but what are you feeding? Reef Roids? Fish pellets? Mysis shrimp?

The fish are fed mysis. The corals are fed reef energy a+b daily, roids once a week, mysis once a week, phytos 3 times a week.

 

[living_tribunal]

Three days now of no skimmer, 3 hour photo periods, 3 feedings a day, and amino feedings a day. I even have been dosing .02ppm of phosphate every day as well.

Phosphates are still zeroing out. I don’t know what in the world I can do.

Good news is nitrate is hanging at a steady 2-3ppm.

Does anyone have any ideas? This has become kind of absurd.

 

[HotRocks]

Three days now of no skimmer, 3 hour photo periods, 3 feedings a day, and amino feedings a day. I even have been dosing .02ppm of phosphate every day as well.

Phosphates are still zeroing out. I don’t know what in the world I can do.

Good news is nitrate is hanging at a steady 2-3ppm.

Does anyone have any ideas? This has become kind of absurd.

Bump up the phosphate dosing a little more? How do the corals look? What test kit are you using for phosphate?

How strong is your lighting?

 

[living_tribunal]

Bump up the phosphate dosing a little more? How do the corals look? What test kit are you using for phosphate?

How strong is your lighting?

Corals all look fantastic, nice strong growth.

I’m dosing about .02ppm a day which is quite a lot.

Lighting is David saxby at 80% currently as I’m running them in acclimation for some newly added pieces.

I feel like changing up phosphates by anymore than that in one day wouldn’t be good.

I’m testing phosphates with a hanna phosphorous ulr checker.

Should I just cut off my fuge altogether? I feel like something is going on and consuming the phosphates besides the obvious culprits.

 

[living_tribunal]

I feel like either the test kit is messed up or something is seriously wrong.

I have small amounts of cyano and even some algae in my frag tank but it’s registering a 0 for phosphates as well.

 

[living_tribunal]

I’m going to entertain my phytoplankton theory (vain huh?)

Much of the buildup in the tank doesn’t even appear to be algae. It’s kind of a sandy micro bubble film.

I cleared most that I could out, did a 50% water change, and am going to pick up some tigger pods.

If this works then I guess you all have another potent nutrient export option and interestingly enough, a good solution to Dino’s.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I think you need to focus on the corals not the numbers. Feeding what the fish can eat in 2 min is normal not 30 seconds. I would stop dosing unless the corals are dying. You won’t be able to get phosphates low enough to do any harm to your corals if your feeding something to the tank daily. Even if your not feeding anything, as long as you don’t have any filtration going on besides biological filtration then having zeros on kits is still doable. If it’s reading zero that doesn’t mean that there is no available nutrients for the corals. Just means your kit can’t read the small amount that’s in the water.

I would be extremely careful dumping phosphates into the tank daily especially if you aren’t sure what’s going on. The display (I think was your pic) showed bubbles all over the rocks, That could be eating up nutrients too. If it is, normally you can let it run it’s course without interfering and it will go away on its own by starving itself out. Obviously this depends on what it actually is.

 

[living_tribunal]

I think you need to focus on the corals not the numbers. Feeding what the fish can eat in 2 min is normal not 30 seconds. I would stop dosing unless the corals are dying. You won’t be able to get phosphates low enough to do any harm to your corals if your feeding something to the tank daily. Even if your not feeding anything, as long as you don’t have any filtration going on besides biological filtration then having zeros on kits is still doable. If it’s reading zero that doesn’t mean that there is no available nutrients for the corals. Just means your kit can’t read the small amount that’s in the water.

I would be extremely careful dumping phosphates into the tank daily especially if you aren’t sure what’s going on. The display (I think was your pic) showed bubbles all over the rocks, That could be eating up nutrients too. If it is, normally you can let it run it’s course without interfering and it will go away on its own by starving itself out. Obviously this depends on what it actually is.

I do think those are nitrogen bubbles as you mentioned, it doesn’t explain the phosphates. I think that’s a combination of coralline seeding agent I added with diatoms. None of this has any bearing on the frag tank where this is occurring as well.

Once again, I refuse to let me nutrients zero out after having Dino. I’m not sure if you’ve had it but it’s by far the worst thing I’ve experienced in the hobby, I never want to come close to allowing it to happen again. So if phosphates are zeroing out, I have to do something about it.

Sure, my corals are doing well but there’s a strong chance that’s only because I’m dosing nutrients in there like crazy.

I just bought a few thousand pods, I’m going to see if my theory has any merit.

This whole situation is bothersome and stressful.

 

[living_tribunal]

Hoping this works out

 

[living_tribunal]

I just read somewhere that new dry rock has a tendency to absorb wild amounts of phosphate, someone calculated up to 52ppm per 1lb of rock.

I'm wondering if that's what's going. If so, maybe I just need to stay the coarse with dosing and feeding heavy with no skimmer and maybe remove all of my chaeto for the time being.

@Randy Holmes-Farley I could certainly use your help. I'm not a number chaser but I just want to provide adequate nutrition for my corals and biodiversity while preventing another dino outbreak while keeping things relatively stable.

I have a few frags that have started looking unhappy in my frag tank. I'm not sure if it's from the dosing or zerod phosphates. I've been taking it very slow with the dosing adding only 0.02ppm max a day.

 

[living_tribunal]

I hate to be spamming but could really use some advisement on how you would approach this situation.

Maintains stability while trying to find a way to keep at least some detectable nutrient levels is starting to stress me out and I fear my corals as well.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

If your stressing out about the hobby then your doing too much. Keeping it simple really is a motto in the hobby for a reason. I would guarantee if you have any rock the po4 your adding is getting bound up and if it’s dry then even more.
The bubbles in the tank remind me of cyano or Dino but I am sure you got a handle on that part. Those issues tend to solve themselves if left alone. In my experience Dino can blow up with high nutrients or low so I feel there is no point in me numbing in circles trying to prevent it, I just stay ready to deal with it if it starts becoming an issue to corals.
You say your not a number chaser but that’s what your doing you do see that right? Either way good luck and I hope someone else chimes in that can be helpful.

 

[living_tribunal]

If your stressing out about the hobby then your doing too much. Keeping it simple really is a motto in the hobby for a reason. I would guarantee if you have any rock the po4 your adding is getting bound up and if it’s dry then even more.
The bubbles in the tank remind me of cyano or Dino but I am sure you got a handle on that part. Those issues tend to solve themselves if left alone. In my experience Dino can blow up with high nutrients or low so I feel there is no point in me numbing in circles trying to prevent it, I just stay ready to deal with it if it starts becoming an issue to corals.
You say your not a number chaser but that’s what your doing you do see that right? Either way good luck and I hope someone else chimes in that can be helpful.

I’m not chasing numbers, I’m simply just trying to have any measurable levels of phosphates and nitrates, they are crucial to a tank, coral health, and biodiversity. Most importantly, it’s how you prevent Dino from occurring in the first place.

Dino in my display was my first suspicion but after a paper towel test and running through a microscope it’s not Dino. I believe it’s bubbles from diatom photosynthesis.

I’ve never heard of a case of Dino being caused by too high of nutrients. It’s almost always caused by a.) non-measurable nutrient levels in combination with b.) a sudden shift in tank balance permitting them to start blooming.

Having Dino again would be devastating, the only frag I’ve ever lost since starting this hobby was from Dino.

Dino also doesn’t just go away. It always requires pretty dramatic methods to remove it. I can’t just allow my nutrient levels to remain at 0 praying Dino doesn’t occur. That seems like awful marine husbandry to me.

I suppose a better question is has anyone experienced this where your rock sucked up your phosphates? How did you handle it? How did it progress?