Sps Issue

[billyocean]

I know my nutrients are very high. I've been working on slowly bringing them down with Rowaphos. I just checked and I've had this coral in my tank for 9 months now. In that time my phosphates peaked about one month ago. Think I may have just realized the problem...

The attached pic is when I first got it. It grew quite a bit in that time.

Nice!

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

This looks like too much nutrient stripping. Probably too much gfo and/or carbon dosing. Regardless of what the test results are.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

And I was correct

Nutrient Reduction

I have a 200G system that has been up and running for about 20 months. Over that time my nutrients have continued to climb. I just got ICP results showing 50 nitrates and .89 phosphates. I test weekly and for 2 months I've been testing around 30 nitrates and +.9 phosphates which is the maximum...

www.reef2reef.com

Again

 

[ggNoRe]

This looks like too much nutrient stripping. Probably too much gfo and/or carbon dosing. Regardless of what the test results are.

I'm so confused at this point. You really think I'm using too much GFO by going from .9 to .79 phosphates over a 2week period? Should I just let my phosphates stay .9+?

 

[ggNoRe]

And I was correct

Nutrient Reduction

I have a 200G system that has been up and running for about 20 months. Over that time my nutrients have continued to climb. I just got ICP results showing 50 nitrates and .89 phosphates. I test weekly and for 2 months I've been testing around 30 nitrates and +.9 phosphates which is the maximum...

www.reef2reef.com

Again

For the record I didn't do any carbon dosing as of yet just letting Rowaphos do it's thing. And if I come off condescending at all I don't mean to. I genuinely appreciate the help.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I'm so confused at this point. You really think I'm using too much GFO by going from .9 to .79 phosphates over a 2week period? Should I just let my phosphates stay .9+?

How did your bird nest look before the gfo?

 

[xCry0x]

I've gotta ask.

Your tank looked great.

What caused the nutrient concern?

 

[xCry0x]

As far as fragging, which piece should I rid of and which part to keep? It looks to be dying at both the base and the tips.

The base concerns me the most. You can clip the tips also but I'd want to clip the base to the healthy tissue.

 

[ggNoRe]

How did your bird nest look before the gfo?

It looked great tbh. This is a pic from July

I've gotta ask.

Your tank looked great.

What caused the nutrient concern?

Nothing much just a little bit of algae and what I thought was ridiculously high and rising phosphates and nitrates reading 50 and .9 plus. Confirmed by 2 separate UL Phosphate Hanna checkers and a ATI ICP test.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

It looked great tbh. This is a pic from July

Nothing much just a little bit of algae and what I thought was ridiculously high and rising phosphates and nitrates reading 50 and .9 plus. Confirmed by 2 separate UL Phosphate Hanna checkers and a ATI ICP test.

Mystery solved

I know it’s frustrating but most of the struggles in this area of the hobby comes from trying too hard. I had no problems growing acros 20 years ago before automatic dosers, apex, and Hanna phosphate checkers.

 

[ggNoRe]

Mystery solved

I know it’s frustrating but most of the struggles in this area of the hobby comes from trying too hard. I had no problems growing acros 20 years ago before automatic dosers, apex, and Hanna phosphate checkers.

So just to be clear with nitrates at 50 and phosphates over .9 your suggestion is just let things be?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

So just to be clear with nitrates at 50 and phosphates over .9 your suggestion is just let things be?

Uhhh
I would never use gfo again. That stuff is terrible, especially rowaphos. It has to be rinsed really well for starters. But gfo and reactors are just nasty to deal with.
I would first step back figure out why my po4 was so high.

What and how much do you feed?

 

[ggNoRe]

Uhhh
I would never use gfo again. That stuff is terrible, especially rowaphos. It has to be rinsed really well for starters. But gfo and reactors are just nasty to deal with.
I would first step back figure out why my po4 was so high.

What and how much do you feed?

For the past month or 2 I am feeding frozen brine/mysis mix twice a day and 3-4 sporadic pellet food feedings per week. I used to do 2 nori sheets a week but stopped in an attempt to get my algae eating fish to eat more off my sand/rocks. Every time I feed I turn off all the pumps and make sure pretty much all the food is eaten before turning pumps back on.

 

[ggNoRe]

I just saw a vid I made on Aug 24th and it still looks good there. This is roughly one month after I started using Rowaphos. The more I look into the more I'm starting to think it happened from an event I haven't mentioned yet. About 4 days back I turned off my pumps to feed in the morning and went to work without turning them back on. Thank God I had my MP40 battery backup running so there was at least a little flow. I happened to work a full 12 hours that day before getting home and realizing what I had done. The result was 12 hours of very little flow in my display. Also the return pump wasn't on so that means 12 hours of zero flow in my sump. On top of that my inkbird sensor and my heater are in 2 different departments in my sump resulting in my heater heating the chamber of water it was in to a really high yet unknown temperature. When I turned my return pump back ony inkbird very quickly read from 75 to 86 and then returning to 81 where it stabilized in about one minutes time. It was quite the stressful situation and very possibly the cause of this corals demise.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

For the past month or 2 I am feeding frozen brine/mysis mix twice a day and 3-4 sporadic pellet food feedings per week. I used to do 2 nori sheets a week but stopped in an attempt to get my algae eating fish to eat more off my sand/rocks. Every time I feed I turn off all the pumps and make sure pretty much all the food is eaten before turning pumps back on.

I would start by cutting out the pellets and see how things are doing in a couple weeks. If your po4 isn’t coming down then I would only feed once a day. I only feed him once a day

 

[billyocean]

You can also thaw your frozen and strain it so you get less of the excess oils. This will help too for the time being

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Without knowing water parameters, it’s impossible to know where to start. But, if you’re using a Hanna Calcium checker, you should know they are pretty much uselessly inaccurate. The other Hanna products work alright, but you can’t trust that one.

Heyyyyyyyy I use the calcium checker, I also verify it with salifert and red sea, and it is usually within the margin of error between the three, its for calcium only used probably once a month.

 

[ClownSchool]

Heyyyyyyyy I use the calcium checker, I also verify it with salifert and red sea, and it is usually within the margin of error between the three, its for calcium only used probably once a month.

If you check with customer reviews, you’ll find yourself among a very select few.
I’m glad you had a good experience with your checker. The trouble mine caused me cost more money than I care to mention. I’m just saying mine was off by about 180 ppm. And, when I reached out to other reefers, the amount of feedback I received showed I wasn’t alone.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Heyyyyyyyy I use the calcium checker, I also verify it with salifert and red sea, and it is usually within the margin of error between the three, its for calcium only used probably once a month.

I also use the Hanna calcium checker and it’s always within 20ppm of my salifert and Red Sea pro tests and my icp results (haven’t done those in awhile). My trident was always the finicky one until I realized their calibration fluid is usually off. I started calibrating with my Red Sea and Hanna checker and it works much better now

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I also use the Hanna calcium checker and it’s always within 20ppm of my salifert and Red Sea pro tests and my icp results (haven’t done those in awhile). My trident was always the finicky one until I realized their calibration fluid is usually off. I started calibrating with my Red Sea and Hanna checker and it works much better now

Yeah I agree, it works good enough for me too, allot of people would be surprised how 5 people can preform the same test 5 different ways, all those checkers take a few test to get a rhythm to it.
that's why there is so many different tests so someone can find the one that works for them.