What are my corals using up that ny dosing is missing ?

[SaltISlife]

Every 3 weeks like clockwork i gatta do a big water change on my tank. I dose seachems two part, but for the most oart i do not need to dose calcium too much but it does get used up slowely.

I keep my alk at 8-9 calcium at 420-440. Magnesium at 1300-1350 and every 3 weeks my sps start to turn white slowely and lose flesh on the tips of some acros or just the whole coral if its a monti like my plating montis turn white.

I do a 40-50% water change and everything recovers and keeps growing. Then 3-4 weeks later ot happens again.

Nitrates dont change. Phosphates stay the same. My tank is a dirty tank anyway phosphates are nitrates are usually always high compare to some spick and span clean tanks. Like my nitrates are in the 20-30 range usually. But i also have 0 algae growing in my tank other than small amounts of cyano on the sand but thats it. In fact ive had snails and uchins die because of it.

I cant grow coraline either.

Anyway i have 84 corals in my 135g half are sps acros and montis the other half are lps or zoanthids. So i have a ton of corals sucking uo nutrients in the water. Especially some very fast growers and some very large corals.

But i cant figure out what is being taken out. What else besides calcium.magnesium. alk. And the other stuff i mentioned can be used up and cause corals to whiten and lose flesh.

Is it strontium/ potasium or something else maybe ? Just curious. I mean its fine as long as i keep up on water changes with fresh salt it replenishes whatever it is. But still

 

[SMSREEF]

Instead of only dosing Alk and calcium, You could try dosing ESV Bionic or Tropic Marin all for reef. They have trace elements added. there are other methods for dosing trace elements too, but the ease of having it in what I already dose works best for me.

there really is no way to tell what is low in your tank unless you do an ICP test. Thats and expensive route, but it may be good to do once, just for curiosity sake.

 

[SaltISlife]

Yea maybe ill try that once my tank shows sypmtoms after 3 weeks to see what it is.

The seachem two part has trace elements in it. Like the part 1 is cslcium but has strontium potasium and magnesium.. but im guessing its in too low of a dose. And another issue is i cant dose it for trace elements because its mainly calcium and raises my calcium too high. Like if i needed potasium or strontium and dosed the part 1 of seachem for it. Itd make my calcium sky high

Ill look into what you mentioned. Is it just trace elements and thats it ? Because i think thats what i need.

 

[SMSREEF]

Yea maybe ill try that once my tank shows sypmtoms after 3 weeks to see what it is.

The seachem two part has trace elements in it. Like the part 1 is cslcium but has strontium potasium and magnesium.. but im guessing its in too low of a dose. And another issue is i cant dose it for trace elements because its mainly calcium and raises my calcium too high. Like if i needed potasium or strontium and dosed the part 1 of seachem for it. Itd make my calcium sky high

Ill look into what you mentioned. Is it just trace elements and thats it ? Because i think thats what i need.

They are the whole thing, Alk, calcium and trace elements.

I would be a little worried dosing elements on top of the sea chem if it has a few added elements. You may need to be more selective after ICP or switch to something with more of the elements needed.

There is a new BRS video that goes over some different options.

 

[Miguel Negron]

Maybe trace elements but as a comment from before AllforReef has the elements plus trace which is very good

 

[Spieg]

Before dosing anything else, I'd recommend an ICP test to figure out what (if anything) is lacking. It could just be that pollutants creep up on your tank over time (SPS tend to like pretty clean water so would be the first to show stress) and a big water change flushes it out (in which case I'd try more frequent WC).

 

[SaltISlife]

Before dosing anything else, I'd recommend an ICP test to figure out what (if anything) is lacking. It could just be that pollutants creep up on your tank over time (SPS tend to like pretty clean water so would be the first to show stress) and a big water change flushes it out (in which case I'd try more frequent WC).

I had thought of this. Because i use city tap water. My tap is perfectly fine for any coral you throw at me. As i mentioned 84+ corals. Some the size of basketballs or cantalopes. Some more expensive acros and so forth. Yet i do have to refill 2-3 gallons of water every 24-48 hours. And after 2-3 gallons every 2-3 days in 3 weeks that is nearly 50 gallons of water at the high end. And that could add up the nasty stuff in the water.

However i use carbon and so forth which should remove nost of it. But yea like you said i did think of this. I did big water changes too. 50% once a month. Or 3 weeks and it could either be depleting pollutants or replenishing trace elements.


So what im going to do is try dosing and an icp test first. I bought some kent marine products. The essentials and 2 other bottles. Says dose 1 time a week for em. And has alot of minerals.

The seachem part 1 has only like 4-5 minerals in it and its very small amounts. Especially when compared to the other products or seachens reef trace elements stuff.

Anyway. Well see what happens. My suspicions is im lacking in iron iodine or strontium.. most likely strontium. Since ive read strontium can be depleted quickly.

Thanks for all the advice

 

[Timfish]

Just to expand your understanding of what's going on in your tank I'd suggest getting Forest Rohwer's "COral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" (paper back ~$20, kindle ~$10). I noticed your join date was in February, is that when you set up your system? How old is it? If it's only a few montrhs old in addition to some of the dosing suggestions above I'd suggest doing smaller more frequent water changes while your system matures.

 

[SaltISlife]

Tank is over 2 years old. Its very mature i cant rven grow pest algae if i wanted too lol.

Last night i bought in petco and dosed 20ml of each of these ( suppose to hsve beeb 15ml but i decided to do 20 for the first dose and ill back off after the 2nd ina week). Kent doesnt say what bottle to use in conjunction of which bottle. Like seachem does. But unfirtantky no one locally or in big stires sells the seachem complete or reef plus or reef trace dosing bottles.

Id prefer seachem because they have a garunteed analysis. And you can dose reef plus and trace together without overdosing 1 or another if the same trace elements. To where as kents 2 or 3 bottles either have 1 or two of the same trace element ( like strontium or potasium) but all 3 have totally different trace elements than the others. I also dosed 20ml of seachem calcium as its been over a week

But i gave it a try. I also upped my salinity by 1 point last night. It was 1.025 now its 1.0265 or 1.027 on another refractometer ( i use 2 of em with brs calibration fluid). I nornally keep it at 36 or 27 but i guess salt spray from my air stone lowered it a little.

Magnesium was 1290 last night and after the increase in salinity it went back to 1350/70. Salifert tests are always different each time you do it. Calcium is reading 400-410 though. Which is interesting with the dosing of calcium i did and increase in salinity it should be higher. So maybe i had lower calcium than i thought i did. As 400 is usually where i dose ti get it back to 440. And if its 400 now after dosing and a 1 point raise in salinity then yea.

Overnight one of my acros ( a bonsai acro) that is like my canary of the tank stopped the melting tips and looks ti be healing already. And ny green goniopora which has been shrunken up only 50% out at times is already ballooning up with the lights just being turned on for the day.

So im not saying the 3 bottles i dosed did anything. But it sure seems like they did. Im going to hold off on my big water change and see if the corals get better with the dosing. If they continue to improve then it means something or multiple of somethings in these trace elements i dosed is being used up fast and thr dosing brought it back. Its unfortunate we can have tests for all these trace elements without sending in lab tests

 

[jda]

Just in general... don't dose anything that you cannot test for. It is will proven that being low on some thing is better than being too high. I just use a CaRx and then change water... mostly because I am lazy and cheap and changing water is easier than testing and dosing for Iodine/Iodate/Iodide, strontium, iron, etc. ...and changing water cannot over dose anything. 44 gallons of water change for $9-11 with IO is cheaper than the alternative for me.

 

[SaltISlife]

Well these bottles were 7$ each. Thats 21$ at what kent recomends itll take 4 months to use them up. In 4 months using reef crystals id have to spend 50$ doing the 50-60% water changes i do every 3 weeks. 50-60% is about 60 gallons if water for me.

And yes i hsve no issues eith huge water changes. Again 84+ corals half are sps and acros the other half are lps like my big water melon sized green bubble coral.

Not saying i wont stop water changes as i agree its easier then guessing with dosing. But if dosing suolimented with water changes can help me go longer between the water changes or help my tank from beggining to crash befire i di my water change. Then why not ? Because at this point. My tank has gone from going 2 months from needing water changes. To 5 weeks then 4 weeks. Now 3 weeks. The bigger and more cirals i get. Soon ill have to be doing water chsnges every 2 weeks i bet and that can get very expensive even with cheap salt.

But ya i dont like not knowing how much potassium or strontium or iron or ehatever i actually have.. when dosing these bottles. Clearly it stopped the decline in my canary bird corals (early decliner corals) so it replenished whatever i was missing.. but it might have also increased something else too high.. who knows

 

[Timfish]

Tank is over 2 years old. Its very mature i cant rven grow pest algae if i wanted too lol. . . . Overnight one of my acros ( a bonsai acro) that is like my canary of the tank stopped the melting tips and looks ti be healing already. And ny green goniopora which has been shrunken up only 50% out at times is already ballooning up with the lights just being turned on for the day.

So im not saying the 3 bottles i dosed did anything. But it sure seems like they did. Im going to hold off on my big water change and see if the corals get better with the dosing. If they continue to improve then it means something or multiple of somethings in these trace elements i dosed is being used up fast

Definitely a mature system.

It's not surprising you suddenly are seeing an improvemnt. Digging through the reasearch being done on reefs and corals it can take a long time after a problem is fixed for a coral to completely recover (11 months in one case). To complicate things we really need to look at the genotype level for specific responses. It might give you some insight if you could maybe go back and reconstruct events for the last several months or more if possible.

 

[SaltISlife]

Well nothing has chabged over the last year. I do the same as before except having to dose alkalinity and calcium much more. Due to numbers and sizes of corals increase.

Like a year ago i had maybe 40 corals. Today its 84+. A year ago i didnt have corals as big as basketballs or larger.. now i do. My green bubble coral takes up 25-30% of my 135 gallons real estate basically the entire middle of my tank is just for that coral because its 11 inchs accross in length. The mouth on it is longer than my fingers lol. Plating montiporas are taking the entire left side of my tank. And my 20+ zoas are covering all my rocks on the right. The acros are maybe fist or two fist sized.

I did get rid of a alot of larger colonies though for store credit for more corals. So that did slow down the calcium and alk intake. But if i dont dose alkalinity for 1 day. Itll drop from say 9-10 to 7-8 in 24 hrs. And calcium was 440 last week now its 400.

It drops so fast in my tank. I used to go like i said months without water changes. Then it went to 5 4 and now 3 weeks. And honestly its barely been 3 weeks and now ny bonsai and purple monti are showing signs ( turning white on the purple plating monti) and bonsai melting tips. If i went another week. My hawkins and other sps would melt and or turn white.

Then i do a water change. And it takes weeks to recover. Or months.

I still have a christmas montipora thats still white. From 4 months ago and it just doesnt seem to want to color back up my hawkins is still healing. And all that is because i was busy working on my jeep and pinched nerves in my neck. I couldnt move for a month and was screeming in agony so i couldnt do a water change.

If dosing coulda helped i could have done that at least.

But its only been overnight. Maybe my bonsai acro stopping the melting on the tips is a fluke and itll happen again.. but usually that acro stops instantly and heals in days after a water change. And its showing that right now with the 3 bottles i dosed.


Sorry i talk alot lol

 

[jda]

You should not need to dose anything for these corals to thrive except for carbonate and calcium. As often as you change water, the rest is handled there. If you are letting the levels swing a bunch, then this is usually not good over time. I would suggest that you spend your energy on a daily dosing system for the big 2 (or 3 if you want to do magnesium).

 

[Timfish]

Sounds like it's time for a calcium reactor. Besides having a lot of different species of corals, each with their own unique holobiont and specific needs you also have without a doubt cryptic sponges and likely a variety of endoliths that are messing with stuff. As mentioned above your system sounds like it's going through cycles of feast and famine and water changes aren't keeping up. I would never stop doing water changes considering how much is going on we can't monitor but my guess is your system would benefit from some type of daily dosing. It might be as simple as an autofeeder with bicarbonate and calcium or something more complex like a calcium reactor.