Trouble with my 240

[Picard's Lionfish]

Hello all. I am having a few issues with my tank and need some advice. Here is a summary of my equipment and set up

My tank is close to 2 years old. I have a 240 gallon tank with dimensions of 3' wide, 5' long and 22" tall.
Sump is a lifereef berlin style.
30 gallon fuge. I make roughly 5 full gallons of chaeto in 4 weeks
Life reef skimmer.
Ecotech return pump
GFO and carbon reactors
Bean animal overflow
Display flow comprised of 2 WAV and 2 MP-40.
Apex controls the system with many of the modules available from them. I use the DOS for dosing 2 part, trace elements, kalk , and ATO. Eager to get the Triton
Lighting is 4' ATI hybrid LED fixture housing 4 t-5 bulbs and 5 xr30 gen4 pro using AB schedule for SPS

Tank stocked with TBS liverock
I have a few tangs, small angels, file fish, and 1 leopard wrasse. I would say a medium bioload
I keep a mixture of SPS and LPS in the tank.

Over all, the tank is fairly stable. I have a phosphate issue that I cannot get down. ITs not overly high, but struggle to even knock a dent in it. I have no detectable nitrates. Alk sits at 9 dkh, calcium about 420, and MAg around 1400.

I feed primarily pellet food as well as sheet food

All fish have been quarantine and tank is disease free. I have no way to quarantine the corals. I do purchase from reliable sources. I and in the works of building my fishroom to allow the proper steps.

Now here is my issue.

I understand that higher phosphates do not translate into a thriving SPS tank. I get decent growth from all the SPS. Colors are not were I want them. All my SPS are purchased from WWC now. My LPS do not keep well for some reason. I have a Euphillia that has been with me for over 6 years now. It barely fills out when it use to be as large as a cabbage. I have 2 heads of frogspawn which 1 looks nice, and the other has stayed small. I have a small duncan colony that you can barely see the polyps. IT has been that way for almost a year. I have a rather large elegance that looks nice most of the time.
My Acros never shows polyps out side of my purple bonsia coral. THat thing glows like a neon light.

I cannot keep Scollys, zoas, torches, tracs, and many of the fleshy lps corals.
I hardly ever see my fish bother the coral. I do have a green trumpet colony that host my clowns. IT thrives quiet well given the abuse they put it thru.
I can keep acans alive, but not thriving.

IT seems strange to me that some corals from both SPS and LPS do well while other recede. I have thought about removing all the fish, but I dont think that is the issue. Early on I did a 72 day fallow period, and nothing changed inside the tank.

I am considering tearing this tank down and starting over. I have all the correct equipment, parameters as in line minus the phosphates, and proper flow. I move some of the corals to gauge if its lighting. So I am completely stumped.
Any suggestions on where to go from here?

 

[mich2599]

Do you spot feed them?

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

Do you spot feed them?

yes. at least once a week. I also broadcast feed them once a week. I use several of the top brands

 

[mich2599]

What are your nitrates and phosphates at?

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

Nitrates are undetectable. Phosphates range from .15 to .008. I also had some issue last month where I couldn't skim my water. The skimmer was going nuts. I did a weeks worth of water changes at least twice a day mostly 3 times a day at 35 gallons a pop. I would change it as fast as my rodi would make it.

Since I switched over to the radions, my coral has grown fairly well. Mainly the sps. I switched from kessil 360 to 3 radions. This was about 4 months ago. I recently added 2 more radions last month.

I've tried nopox, but with already depleted nitrates, not sure how well the tank would respond. When I dosed nopox, the sun an recessed and hasn't came out yet.

 

[TessGlo]

You have a very nicely equipped tank. With 5 radions and 4 t5 bulbs, I wonder if you have too much light for some LPS. Perhaps post your radion settings (are they at full intensity? how far are they from the water?) and how long they are on, may be able to get some feedback on lighting being an issue. I mention lighting because LPS are not typically light lovers and you mention your Euphyllia slowly receding, that is what I have seen them do with too much lighting, not die, but very slowly decreasing in size/ polyp extension.

 

[mich2599]

Could be that your nutrients are low for LPS. That’s my current issue with some acans. At first they were doing really well now one is 80% gone and another is 25% gone. I have another that is it just starting to lose tissue. I am skipping water changes and feeding more and adding amino acids in order to get my nutrients up. I also have the skimmer running from 11pm to 4am to keep some of the nutrients in. I am also feeding reef roids and other foods 3 times a week.

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

I went from 3 kessil 360 over the tank to 3 radions. I have the lights at 22" above the tank. Once I added the last 2, I dialed it back to 45%.
As for the lps receding, this has been going on since the startup of my tank. The only time the sps had any extension was upon initial addition to the tank and the first time i dosed nitrates.

I am in a tough area with no nitrates and high phosphates. I am thinking it's the substrate or the rocks adding the phosphates to the water. When i ordered the package from TBS i requested half pukani from the oldest section of his farm and half from the walt smith 2.0 rock. In my old tank, i started with dry pukani, and had po4 issues. But it was primary LPS.

At the same time, stagshorns, montipora of all sorts, tend to flourish.

As for lights schedule, I modified the ab schedule over 9.5 hours with 2 hours of 20k look for evening viewing as it ramps down. The t-5 lights stay on for 5 hours at the peak

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

Also, I have moved some of the troubled corals around. I have plenty shady areas with the rock work. Also, the fixture is more forward than centered. The tank is viewable from 3 sides, but the back side isn't scraped for primary viewing. I've also seen tanks keep these same coral in 300 par regions of their tanks. I know the kessils wasn't enough light. Even 3 radions was stretching it for a healthy sps tank. So 5 with reduced intensity seems the best route.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Sounds like a pretty simple fix from where I sit. Start supplementing nitrate.... I mean 5 gals of chaeto a month!! To me its a no brainer that you're likely having all the nitrogen stripped from the water by such an efficient refugium.

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

Sounds like a pretty simple fix from where I sit. Start supplementing nitrate.... I mean 5 gals of chaeto a month!! To me its a no brainer that you're likely having all the nitrogen stripped from the water by such an efficient refugium.

I would agree, but I still have to deal with the phosphates. I've tried this with potassium nitrate several times. Never helped anything but fuel some cyno .


Also, thanks for the replies.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I would agree, but I still have to deal with the phosphates. I've tried this with potassium nitrate several times. Never helped anything but fuel some cyno .


Also, thanks for the replies.

You dont have to deal with the phos separately. Thats the point. You cant see anymore biologocal phosphate uptake when youre so severely nitrate limited. If you dose nitrate your phos will likely plummet so be careful and be prepared to increase feeding if needed to maintain detectable phos. Make sense?

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

You dont have to deal with the phos separately. Thats the point. You cant see anymore biologocal phosphate uptake when youre so severely nitrate limited. If you dose nitrate your phos will likely plummet so be careful and be prepared to increase feeding if needed to maintain detectable phos. Make sense?

I guess I'm missing how PO4 will be reduced by upping NO3.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I guess I'm missing how PO4 will be reduced by upping NO3.

I can assure the mechanism is quite simple. Any organism that uptakes nitrogen compounds also uses PO4 for that process. No nitrogen available... no more PO4 uptake. Nitrogen available... uptake begins again. Same as if you had 5.0 dkH alkalinity. Calcium uptake would stop. Add dkH and calcium uptake will begin again. The processes are interlinked. Make sense??

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

I can assure the mechanism is quite simple. Any organism that uptakes nitrogen compounds also uses PO4 for that process. No nitrogen available... no more PO4 uptake. Nitrogen available... uptake begins again. Same as if you had 5.0 dkH alkalinity. Calcium uptake would stop. Add dkH and calcium uptake will begin again. The processes are interlinked. Make sense??

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

I can see that. But wouldn't I have seen results when I was dosing NO3 some time back?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Bring down flow a little as it may be upsetting them. Add more blue and less intensity on lighting and also add iodine, aminos and potassium to your water at small amount every other day

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I can see that. But wouldn't I have seen results when I was dosing NO3 some time back?

I have no way of knowing since idk how much or how consistently nitrate was supplemented. Did you achieve measureable 2 -3ppm of nitrate consistently for a week or two?? Cause if not, let's try that and see what happens to your phos....

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

I have no way of knowing since idk how much or how consistently nitrate was supplemented. Did you achieve measureable 2 -3ppm of nitrate consistently for a week or two?? Cause if not, let's try that and see what happens to your phos....

Good deal. I would imagine if this works, all my chemistry would need to adjust as well. If the coral uses the NO3 and PO4, the ALK and Cal would change as well

 

[Picard's Lionfish]

Dosed last night based on Randys formula

Alk was down a bit as well as CAL. Woke up this morning to the skimmer going nuts.

Trying to reach just above 1 PPM on nitrates. My PO$ read 0.08