From a rookie this is what i was thinking to. IDK how you got your nitrates so high in such a small tank and not having fish. Im so confused here.
Small tanks are a PITA to keep. I cant even keep nitrates and phos in my nano.
This hobby is just impossible!
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Small tanks are a PITA to keep. I cant even keep nitrates and phos in my nano.
Mr. Mojo Rising
5000 Club Member
I agree with the comments to step back, check your research, and go through the tank set up properly.
Making slight changes to the parameters isn't going to make an impact. GSP's and zoa's dying and mushrooms bleaching is not caused by nitrates of 30-40 and phosphate of .2, I've had dirtier tanks than that.
I've got a 15 gallon tank full of corals, AI16 Prime set at 75% , the only filtration is weekly 5 gallon water changes, no dosing at all, everything is thriving, its really not that hard. Something is off on your set up.
Making slight changes to the parameters isn't going to make an impact. GSP's and zoa's dying and mushrooms bleaching is not caused by nitrates of 30-40 and phosphate of .2, I've had dirtier tanks than that.
I've got a 15 gallon tank full of corals, AI16 Prime set at 75% , the only filtration is weekly 5 gallon water changes, no dosing at all, everything is thriving, its really not that hard. Something is off on your set up.
The pictures of your mushrooms, they look like they are getting too much light intensity. While they can be in more intense light, they should be acclimated slowly.
Bleaching is another sign that the light is too intense. I’d turn down the LED to 10%, white down to 1-2%
emmysnewtank
Active Member
Dude. I’ve got a nano too and literally just water change once a month. No need to dose or turf scrub especially so new.
don’t chase numbers on such a small tank. Water change is all you need. Keep filtration simple…filter pad, carbon and maybe some Chemipure once you get some fish in there.
one or two frags at a time and see how they do.
Keep it simple. Go check nano reef forums for a ton of successful tanks and you will see most keep it really simple especially at early stages.
don’t chase numbers on such a small tank. Water change is all you need. Keep filtration simple…filter pad, carbon and maybe some Chemipure once you get some fish in there.
one or two frags at a time and see how they do.
Keep it simple. Go check nano reef forums for a ton of successful tanks and you will see most keep it really simple especially at early stages.
92Miata
Valuable Member
The "Nitrate and phosphate are too high" posts are insane.
There is no world where .1ppm phosphate and 40ppm nitrates are killing the corals he's keeping. My wife's tank maxes out both hanna nitrate and phosphate meters and the GSP grows so fast that if we don't scrape every week it blocks the overflows and occludes the return nozzles.
Including too little light. Corals spend a lot of their nitrogen/phosphorus budget feeding xooxanthelle - and if they're not getting sugars back, they eject.
@FrostyKevin
What are you trying to do here? Why do you have no animals in the tank? Corals are drastically more difficult to manage without fish. Why are you running a turf scrubber? Nothing you're doing here makes any sense. You're doing a whole bunch of things that are mostly in conflict with each other.
Why are you running so little light? AI Primes are weak to start with and you've barely got yours turned on.
You need to go back to basics - remove the scrubber, stop dosing all the crap, and get some fish, and find someone with a 12" deep tank and copy their light settings. You shouldn't need to dose anything to keep mushrooms.
There is no world where .1ppm phosphate and 40ppm nitrates are killing the corals he's keeping. My wife's tank maxes out both hanna nitrate and phosphate meters and the GSP grows so fast that if we don't scrape every week it blocks the overflows and occludes the return nozzles.
No, it's not. Bleaching is the coral expelling xooxanthelle. There are all sorts of things that can cause bleaching aside from too much light.
Including too little light. Corals spend a lot of their nitrogen/phosphorus budget feeding xooxanthelle - and if they're not getting sugars back, they eject.
@FrostyKevin
What are you trying to do here? Why do you have no animals in the tank? Corals are drastically more difficult to manage without fish. Why are you running a turf scrubber? Nothing you're doing here makes any sense. You're doing a whole bunch of things that are mostly in conflict with each other.
Why are you running so little light? AI Primes are weak to start with and you've barely got yours turned on.
You need to go back to basics - remove the scrubber, stop dosing all the crap, and get some fish, and find someone with a 12" deep tank and copy their light settings. You shouldn't need to dose anything to keep mushrooms.
DavidY
New Member
Having a small tank like that is hard to keep under control. There are alot of factors that could be contributing to failure. Dosing nitrate and phosphate in that small of a tank seems like it may be part of the issue. And you lighting seems somewhat low.
Steven Garland
Valuable Member
Having so much filtration on that small of a tank with no fish no nothing is not going to solve anything. If you used dry rock and not even a piece of live rock to cycle the tank,your rock is more than likely leeching phosphates.
There is no need to dose NeoPhos,NeoNitro right now until your coral start to absorb nutrients and feeding is not keeping level elevated between water changes.
All you should need is filter floss and carbon,ato,heater,thermometer and a light right now. Unless you are going full blown sps,the extra equipment is just just extra and apparently not doing its job. So its a waste of money.
What I suggest is a 100% water change and don't touch it. Test weekly and them go from there. Once params are stable,figure out what you need to do from there.
There is no need to dose NeoPhos,NeoNitro right now until your coral start to absorb nutrients and feeding is not keeping level elevated between water changes.
All you should need is filter floss and carbon,ato,heater,thermometer and a light right now. Unless you are going full blown sps,the extra equipment is just just extra and apparently not doing its job. So its a waste of money.
What I suggest is a 100% water change and don't touch it. Test weekly and them go from there. Once params are stable,figure out what you need to do from there.
Steven Garland
Valuable Member
Having so much filtration on that small of a tank with no fish no nothing is not going to solve anything. If you used dry rock and not even a piece of live rock to cycle the tank,your rock is more than likely leeching phosphates. I never have fish,and feed coral HEAVY and never had nutrient problems. There would be times my tank went a month without a water change and nutrients were still within range.
There is no need to dose NeoPhos,NeoNitro right now until your coral start to absorb nutrients and feeding is not keeping level elevated between water changes.
All you should need is filter floss and carbon,ato,heater,thermometer and a light right now. Unless you are going full blown sps,the extra equipment is just just extra and apparently not doing its job. So its a waste of money.
What I suggest is a 100% water change and don't touch it. Test weekly and them go from there. Once params are stable.
I had a 10" cube with a 16HD and had royals @ 80%,blues at 30%,green and red at 10% cool whites at 20% (G,R,CW percentages were at my daytime peak for 4hrs) and violets at 100%. Mounted 10" above my tank.
There is no need to dose NeoPhos,NeoNitro right now until your coral start to absorb nutrients and feeding is not keeping level elevated between water changes.
All you should need is filter floss and carbon,ato,heater,thermometer and a light right now. Unless you are going full blown sps,the extra equipment is just just extra and apparently not doing its job. So its a waste of money.
What I suggest is a 100% water change and don't touch it. Test weekly and them go from there. Once params are stable.
I had a 10" cube with a 16HD and had royals @ 80%,blues at 30%,green and red at 10% cool whites at 20% (G,R,CW percentages were at my daytime peak for 4hrs) and violets at 100%. Mounted 10" above my tank.
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There is a lot going on here. i can understand why you are dosing N and P, with no fish or inverts, no fish food or fish poop for nutrients, but it does seem strange to use the turf scrubber to export nutrients just so you have to add more. I would start by reducing the amount of N and P you are dosing because they are a little high, i don't know if its actually hurting your corals any but its higher than it needs to be. In general i would categorize dosing nutrients as advanced reefer territory, and still only if you actually need to because they are zero or very low.I just can't figure out what's wrong with my tank. I tried keeping coral 10 years ago and they all died without me ever figuring out the problem. I figured I'd try again this year, but my coral are dying and I can't figure it out again.
I got a 10 gallon tank and cycled it for 2 months in the dark. No diatoms or cyano ever broke out. It went perfectly. Ammonia converted to nitrate within hours.
Set Up:
AI Prime HD: 25% for UV, Royal Blue, Violet, and Blue for 7 hours with 1 hour for ramp up and another hour for ramp down; 10% whites for 2 hours with 30 min ramp up and down time.
Algae turf scrubber: For nutrient export. Since I'm not keeping any fish, shrimp, crabs, snails, etc., I'm dosing Red Sea AB+ and Brightwell Nitrate and phosphate to keep nutrients up.
Parameters:
Temp: 78F (using Inkbird temp controller)
Nitrates: 30-40 ppm (using Hanna Checker)
Phosphate: 0.10-0.20 ppm (using Hanna Checker)
dKH: ~8
SG: 1.023 (increasing this slowly to 1.024)
Livestock:
GSP: Almost dead within a few months
Zoas: Some open, other frags closed, and 2 frags completely died
Ricordea Florida: 1 bleached and didn't survive, another bleached but hanging in there. All other ricordea lost some bubbles and became smooth and dark blue (see photos)
Rhodactis Mushroom: 1 bleached, one doing very well, and one lost it's texture and became smooth (see before and after photo below).
Candy Crush mushroom: died within a month
St. Thomas Mushroom: Doing very well.
Before:
After:
I would consider turning off the turf scrubber and stopping the dosing of N and P all together, at least until you see how the nutrient levels react.
That doesn't sound like enough light to me and to me what is most likely hurting your coral, safest move is to get a par meter and check, but if you don't have access to one or don't want to, i would start gradually turning the lights up and see what happens. your coral are already unhappy so, worst case is they continue getting worse.
Don't add any new coral till you make the ones you have happy or they die. If they die, then get a couple cheap easy corals and try again but don't add much till they are thriving.
It sounds like you are over complicating this, try to keep things as simple as possible starting out, you can add complications as you gain experience. Not having any fish or inverts is only going to make it more challenging to maintain some nutrients with out over doing it. Sadly killing coral is very normal when you are starting out, this hobby usually takes some time to figure out, try not to get discouraged.
jkcoral
Valuable Member
Your lighting seems really low. An AI Prime would absolutely be fine for a 10g, but that might be too little light (low total wattage) for the corals in the tank. This would somewhat explain a slow decline in corals over time.
How far above your tank is the light mounted?
How far above your tank is the light mounted?
FrostyKevin
Active Member
About the nitrates and phosphates, I'm dosing them to keep them high because there's no fish in the tank. The only other livestock I can see are some bristle worms.
If I don't dose them, the turf scrubber will strip all the nutrients down in like 3-4 weeks. It's crazy how fast that works. I'm not sure why nitrates/phos at my levels will kill GSP within a few months. That makes no sense.
Th reason I don't have fish is so that I can feed the corals directly without having the fish act as a "middleman" in distributing nitrates/phos. The turf scrubber is there to remove excess nitrate/phos from feeding.
-I have reef roids I plan to feed if nutrients go too low.
-Using RO/DI water from LFS (they sell coral and tanks are doing well)
-Using Hanna Salinity Tester to check for salinity.
-Using Brightwell salt
-Considering a few corals already bleached, I don't want to turn up the light.
-Will rent par meter from local reefing club. 2 month wait.
If I don't dose them, the turf scrubber will strip all the nutrients down in like 3-4 weeks. It's crazy how fast that works. I'm not sure why nitrates/phos at my levels will kill GSP within a few months. That makes no sense.
Th reason I don't have fish is so that I can feed the corals directly without having the fish act as a "middleman" in distributing nitrates/phos. The turf scrubber is there to remove excess nitrate/phos from feeding.
-I have reef roids I plan to feed if nutrients go too low.
-Using RO/DI water from LFS (they sell coral and tanks are doing well)
-Using Hanna Salinity Tester to check for salinity.
-Using Brightwell salt
-Considering a few corals already bleached, I don't want to turn up the light.
-Will rent par meter from local reefing club. 2 month wait.
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zdrc
Active Member
Turn off the scrubber. This way you won't have to dose nitrate and phosphate as often. You clearly don't need the turf scrubber to remove nitrate/phosphate if you're having to dose nitrate and phosphate just to keep the tank nutrients from bottoming out.
Consider getting fish. The reason you stated for not getting fish doesn't make any sense to be honest. What do you mean the fish will act as a middleman? It sounds like you're only feeding coral foods which the fish won't be able to eat anyway, so there is no chance of the fish stealing food from the corals.
Is the Hanna Salinity Tester calibrated? I use a refractometer to measure salinity, and I calibrate it with 35ppt calibration fluid every single time I use it. I've noticed things like changes in temperature (e.g. leaving the refractometer in the sun) can cause really dramatic changes in calibration very quickly. Typically, you want to calibrate with a 35ppt solution, not distilled or RODI water, but look up how the Hanna Salinity Tester is supposed to be calibrated. You should also be raising your salinity some.
Increase light intensity and photoperiod. As someone already mentioned, coral bleaching is not necessarily a sign of too much light. It's a sign of overall poor coral health. For example, its not like the Great Barrier Reef is bleaching because the sun it too bright. It's bleaching because the ocean is acidifying.
What are your KH, Ca, and Mg? You told us what the nitrate and phosphate are right now, but what have they been in the past? I get the impression you've had some problems keeping them stable. This can definitely affect coral health even if the absolute values are within acceptable ranges.
It's not super obvious why you have had relatively easy corals die, but, overall, it seems like you are keeping the corals in a generally poor environment (nutrients too unstable, lighting too low, salinity too low, tank is still pretty young). Some corals just don't do well in some tanks, even ones with a reputation for being easy corals, while others might thrive.
FrostyKevin
Active Member
When I start feeding reef roids, it'll prevent nitrates/phos from spiraling out of control. The turf scrubber is the reason I can add AB+ in large doses without any repercussions of excessive nitrates/phos.
I dose nitrates/phos directly if the nitrates/phos are too imbalanced.
Nutrients are extremely easy to manage in this tank. I feed AB+, and if I see phos has gotten low, I just dose more phos. If I see phos too high and nitrates getting low, I dose nitrates.
If both nitrates and phos are high, I dose nothing. I just let the scrubber do its work.
FrostyKevin
Active Member
If I turn off the scrubber, then nutrients will spiral out of control from all the feeding.
Why should I feed the fish when I can feed the coral?
Dosing nitrates and phos is just keep the ratio relatively balanced. If nitrates are high and phos are low, then I dose phos, and vice versa.
Yes, the Hanna salinity tester is calibrated monthly, which is just about as often as I use it.
kH is 8. I haven't tested for Ca and Mg since these are all softies. kH is consistenly around 8. Used Hanna checker of kH.
Alexopora
Well-Known Member
Another question, why do u feel that there’s a need to feed your corals? Looking at your list of corals, they are softies (gsp and mushrooms). Others feel free to chip in, but personally I dont need to feed my mushrooms and gsp. Just give them a rock and dont over expose them to light (you’ll know when 1, they start shrivelling or start moving around). As for gsp in my experience, they love love flow. Lack of flow will cause them to die back.
zdrc
Active Member
This still doesn't really make sense. I doubt dosing reef roids or AB+ would cause your nutrients to spiral out of control. Have you actually experienced such a spiral with this tank? It sounds like your preparing for something that may not actually happen. How often and how large of water changes are you doing?
So you just don't want fish? There really is no reason not to have fish, but that's fine if you don't want them. Not having fish doesn't make it easier to keep corals. A lot of photosynthetic corals don't really need feeding. There's a fair number of people on here who don't feed their corals at all and have perfectly healthy corals. I personally feed my corals, but that's because I enjoy watching their feeding response.
NickyReefs
Active Member
My second tank is a 10g and it's just softies and let me tell you that it's way more work than my 120. Parameters swing so fast in small tanks. I do 1/2 gallon watter changes a week in my 10g. Bigger the tank the easier it will be unless you get into SPS dominant. Don't give up hope I've been threw so many ups and downs.
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