Looking for some help and opinions on the stability of my water parameters and if that might be the cause of some of my issues with SPS burnt tips and bleaching bases. I last posted in October 2020 about my low kessil ap700 par numbers and low nutrients. I was consistently reading zero’s for nitrate and phosphate, didn’t really have a lot of fish, and didn’t feed as often as I should have. I had some hair algae and my rocks were covered in a clear short fuzz is the best way I can explain it. Coral growth was slow or non existent, LPS like my torch didn’t extend much, my zoas didn’t spread at all, my branching hydrophona slowly died. Overall pale colors and poor health. I was running GFO and skimmer 24/7, carbon, vacuuming my sand bed every water change. After getting some help here I realized I was starving the corals.
I ditched the GFO, purchased more fish, stopped vacuuming my sand bed as often, unplugged the skimmer, and purchased a 4 bulb t5 hybrid light fixture to go with my two kessil ap700’s. I did these changes throughout the month of November. I still had issues getting my nutrients up so I started dosing phosphate and nitrate made by FishOfHex. It seemed like for a few weeks my rocks were sucking it up and then one day I saw my nitrate was around 10-20 if my memory is correct and phos as high as 39 ppb and so I backed off the dosing some and they quickly went down. Since the new year I’ve been bouncing around between zero or very little phos and nitrate to a max of 24 ppb but typically in the single digits or teens. Nitrate has bounced around from 0 to 5 mostly.
I have also been struggling to get my alkalinity very consistent partly due to changing my mind about what number I wanted to target and partly because I’ve just had trouble getting the bubble magus doser dialed in. Back in October, November, December I wanted to stay around 9 dkh to get some growth. I would bounce around from 8.2 to 9.4 in a span of a week I see in November then stayed around 9.5 beginning of December and back down as low as 8.8/9.0 2 weeks into the month. By December 23 I was down to 8.3 and finished December around there. I started the new year around 9 and a week later was back down to 8.5 which I decided might be a better goal number. I stayed up and down the 8’s for the rest of the month. February started out at 7.7 and stayed around the low to mid 8’s through March 6th. After renting a park meter again and finding my par numbers throughout the entire tank top to bottom were high (upper 400’s and one 500 measurement for my highest corals, to 300+ on the sand bed) I read an article about high par, higher alk, and low nutrients and how it can be an issue for coral with tip burn which I started to see. That combined with the fact I use south Florida natural sea water for water changes and I didn’t like adding a lot of alk to each 5 gallon bucket Of NSW before water changes to get it to match my numbers I though it would be better to target 8 dkh from March onward. Since March I’ve ranged from say 8.3 to 7.7 and I’m working on really getting that range tighter and tighter. I also lowered my kessil ap700’s from 75% along with the 4 ATI bulbs to 50% intensity with full t5 intensity I don’t have a t5 dimmer. My par in the tank now is a max of 400 with most upper level corals in mid to lower 300’s, and on the sand I’m seeing mid to upper 200’s.
My frags of sps that I purchased in December were doing ok up until early February. Then I noticed tip burn and some base bleaching. Algae grew on these new exposed areas. Since adding the frags I’ve rarely seen polyp extension except for sometimes in the middle of the night. I also lost a Hollywood stunner chalice in February that would lose tissue slowly each day even though the remaining tissue looked good and would put out feeding tentacles. I attribute this and some heads of candy cane burning from the addition of the t5’s perhaps?
I firmly believe dosing nutrients helped my tank I can see the results easily in my zoas, torch, blasto, and acans. I’ve noticed the clear fuzz that covered my rock work is gone, could be due to adding nutrients and/or my tang and coral beauty. I do still battle hair algae growing in clumps out of rock crevices and I try to manually remove the best I can. I do have what looks like a maroon carpet algae splotched over my rock work and back overflow box that I think came on a snail shell. It stayed pretty mowed down though.
I dose about 30ml of bulk reef supply calcium and alk a day and it seems I always have to tweak it depending if my corals are happy or upset and dying. Mag I dose manually very rarely. I also used to dose Red Sea AB coral aminos but stopped in February after seeing the tip burn. I feed pellets and sea weed soaked in selcon in the morning and a cube of PE mysis at night. My fish are all fat I can’t really feed more.
My stock list:
Kole Tang
Coral Beauty
Clownfish
Royal Gramma
Melanarus Wrasse
Timor Wrasse
Midas Blenny
Dispar Anthia
Talbots Damsel (2)
Blood red fire shrimp
Skunk cleaner shrimp
100 gallon tank (3 years old with dry rock and some rock 8 years old i had from my previous tank
30 gallon sump
Carbon reactor running
Filter socks
ATO
2 gyre pumps
2 kessil ap700
4 bulb t5 hybrid with 3 blue plus and 1 coral plus
RODI upgraded from 4 state to 7 stage in February when I learned city uses chlorimines
I dose FishOfHex nitrate about 10 ml a day and maybe 1 ml phosphate a day
Reef chili/ reef roids 50/50 mix couple times a week
Used to dose Red Sea AB reef energy couple times a week but stopped
Parameters:
Salinity: 35 refractometer calibrated with nsw as I found the solutions you purchase to be off.
Calcium: 420 Red Sea
Alkalinity: around 8 dkh Hannah
Phosphate: 3 ppb to 20 ppb Hannah
Nitrate: 5 Red Sea
Nitrite: 0 Red Sea
Mag: 1360
Ammonia: Can’t read the Salifert for the life of me
Temperature: 79 to 80.5/81 daily
Water changes I get 30 gallons ocean water at the last of the incoming tide from the inlet and change 15 gallons one day and 15 more the next day about every two weeks. I have to clean my glass 2x a week.
I have lots of yellow pineapple sponges, I have blue tunicates I think they are called, I have white sponges in the sump, spiroid worms everywhere, medium coraline growth since t5’s where there was little beforehand.
Since addition of t5’s and nutrients my purple stylo has grown rapidly after doing nothing. Green stylo growing well. The freak anacropora growing well. Mandarin fireworks clove polyps doing well. Torch doing well, acans, Duncan’s, blasto, Goni, meteor shower cyphastrea, all doing well.
Corals not doing well:
Two different rainbow monti frags (think I fried them)
War coral (think I fried it)
Hollywood Stunner (fried it?)
Pink birds nest, bubblegum digi, tubs stellata all burnt tissue covered in algae
SPS frags of princess peach, Oregon tort, rr pink Cadillac, rr the vinh, tsa fruity pebbles all burnt tips and some burnt bases. Algae growing on them.
Diagnose my problems please. How bad are my fluctuating parameters especially alk and nutrients? My new goal is 8 dkh and a range no lower than 7.8 or higher than 8.2. Phosphate goal is never lower than 7 ppb (.021 ppm) and not higher than 19 PLB (.05 ppm). Nitrate goal between 5-10. I am happy with my par numbers now I am still too high on the sand but it is what it is.
I ditched the GFO, purchased more fish, stopped vacuuming my sand bed as often, unplugged the skimmer, and purchased a 4 bulb t5 hybrid light fixture to go with my two kessil ap700’s. I did these changes throughout the month of November. I still had issues getting my nutrients up so I started dosing phosphate and nitrate made by FishOfHex. It seemed like for a few weeks my rocks were sucking it up and then one day I saw my nitrate was around 10-20 if my memory is correct and phos as high as 39 ppb and so I backed off the dosing some and they quickly went down. Since the new year I’ve been bouncing around between zero or very little phos and nitrate to a max of 24 ppb but typically in the single digits or teens. Nitrate has bounced around from 0 to 5 mostly.
I have also been struggling to get my alkalinity very consistent partly due to changing my mind about what number I wanted to target and partly because I’ve just had trouble getting the bubble magus doser dialed in. Back in October, November, December I wanted to stay around 9 dkh to get some growth. I would bounce around from 8.2 to 9.4 in a span of a week I see in November then stayed around 9.5 beginning of December and back down as low as 8.8/9.0 2 weeks into the month. By December 23 I was down to 8.3 and finished December around there. I started the new year around 9 and a week later was back down to 8.5 which I decided might be a better goal number. I stayed up and down the 8’s for the rest of the month. February started out at 7.7 and stayed around the low to mid 8’s through March 6th. After renting a park meter again and finding my par numbers throughout the entire tank top to bottom were high (upper 400’s and one 500 measurement for my highest corals, to 300+ on the sand bed) I read an article about high par, higher alk, and low nutrients and how it can be an issue for coral with tip burn which I started to see. That combined with the fact I use south Florida natural sea water for water changes and I didn’t like adding a lot of alk to each 5 gallon bucket Of NSW before water changes to get it to match my numbers I though it would be better to target 8 dkh from March onward. Since March I’ve ranged from say 8.3 to 7.7 and I’m working on really getting that range tighter and tighter. I also lowered my kessil ap700’s from 75% along with the 4 ATI bulbs to 50% intensity with full t5 intensity I don’t have a t5 dimmer. My par in the tank now is a max of 400 with most upper level corals in mid to lower 300’s, and on the sand I’m seeing mid to upper 200’s.
My frags of sps that I purchased in December were doing ok up until early February. Then I noticed tip burn and some base bleaching. Algae grew on these new exposed areas. Since adding the frags I’ve rarely seen polyp extension except for sometimes in the middle of the night. I also lost a Hollywood stunner chalice in February that would lose tissue slowly each day even though the remaining tissue looked good and would put out feeding tentacles. I attribute this and some heads of candy cane burning from the addition of the t5’s perhaps?
I firmly believe dosing nutrients helped my tank I can see the results easily in my zoas, torch, blasto, and acans. I’ve noticed the clear fuzz that covered my rock work is gone, could be due to adding nutrients and/or my tang and coral beauty. I do still battle hair algae growing in clumps out of rock crevices and I try to manually remove the best I can. I do have what looks like a maroon carpet algae splotched over my rock work and back overflow box that I think came on a snail shell. It stayed pretty mowed down though.
I dose about 30ml of bulk reef supply calcium and alk a day and it seems I always have to tweak it depending if my corals are happy or upset and dying. Mag I dose manually very rarely. I also used to dose Red Sea AB coral aminos but stopped in February after seeing the tip burn. I feed pellets and sea weed soaked in selcon in the morning and a cube of PE mysis at night. My fish are all fat I can’t really feed more.
My stock list:
Kole Tang
Coral Beauty
Clownfish
Royal Gramma
Melanarus Wrasse
Timor Wrasse
Midas Blenny
Dispar Anthia
Talbots Damsel (2)
Blood red fire shrimp
Skunk cleaner shrimp
100 gallon tank (3 years old with dry rock and some rock 8 years old i had from my previous tank
30 gallon sump
Carbon reactor running
Filter socks
ATO
2 gyre pumps
2 kessil ap700
4 bulb t5 hybrid with 3 blue plus and 1 coral plus
RODI upgraded from 4 state to 7 stage in February when I learned city uses chlorimines
I dose FishOfHex nitrate about 10 ml a day and maybe 1 ml phosphate a day
Reef chili/ reef roids 50/50 mix couple times a week
Used to dose Red Sea AB reef energy couple times a week but stopped
Parameters:
Salinity: 35 refractometer calibrated with nsw as I found the solutions you purchase to be off.
Calcium: 420 Red Sea
Alkalinity: around 8 dkh Hannah
Phosphate: 3 ppb to 20 ppb Hannah
Nitrate: 5 Red Sea
Nitrite: 0 Red Sea
Mag: 1360
Ammonia: Can’t read the Salifert for the life of me
Temperature: 79 to 80.5/81 daily
Water changes I get 30 gallons ocean water at the last of the incoming tide from the inlet and change 15 gallons one day and 15 more the next day about every two weeks. I have to clean my glass 2x a week.
I have lots of yellow pineapple sponges, I have blue tunicates I think they are called, I have white sponges in the sump, spiroid worms everywhere, medium coraline growth since t5’s where there was little beforehand.
Since addition of t5’s and nutrients my purple stylo has grown rapidly after doing nothing. Green stylo growing well. The freak anacropora growing well. Mandarin fireworks clove polyps doing well. Torch doing well, acans, Duncan’s, blasto, Goni, meteor shower cyphastrea, all doing well.
Corals not doing well:
Two different rainbow monti frags (think I fried them)
War coral (think I fried it)
Hollywood Stunner (fried it?)
Pink birds nest, bubblegum digi, tubs stellata all burnt tissue covered in algae
SPS frags of princess peach, Oregon tort, rr pink Cadillac, rr the vinh, tsa fruity pebbles all burnt tips and some burnt bases. Algae growing on them.
Diagnose my problems please. How bad are my fluctuating parameters especially alk and nutrients? My new goal is 8 dkh and a range no lower than 7.8 or higher than 8.2. Phosphate goal is never lower than 7 ppb (.021 ppm) and not higher than 19 PLB (.05 ppm). Nitrate goal between 5-10. I am happy with my par numbers now I am still too high on the sand but it is what it is.
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