What supplements should I be adding to tank

[Susan Edwards]

I haven't had a lot of success with corals except mushrooms and other softies and what I have is thriving very well.
Before I order in new corals (after I get rid of some algae), I want to see if I should be adding any other supplements outside of cal/mg/alk. I've just started adding either selcon or vitachem to the fish food. The vitachem says to add to water as well.

Should I be adding iron, Strontium and Molybdenum or other trace elements? Doing this "reboot" I'm trying to get it right! I want more corals!

Tank is 125 gal/35g sump, 4 powerheads. Considering adding a santa monica drop algae scrubber.
Tank numbers yesterday:
CA 360 (upped doser)
Mg 1410 (turned down doser)
Alk 9.2 (will up a bit as it is dropping)
no3 15-20 (down from 160 6 mo ago)
PO4 .02 (test sometimes says much higher 1 time, then low the next)
Water change every 2 weeks or so--sometimes 3. 20%

Current corals in pics. Duncan on left side may not make it and maybe not the recordias as they are shrinking

 

[JosephM]

Since your water changes aren’t super frequent or large ones I would look into trace dosing. You can do something like Red Sea that you dose based off of calcium uptake or you can use ICP tests to see what is getting depleted and what you’re missing and dose those

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Salt

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Rodi water. Lol

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Fish food

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Blows my mind how many people are paying so close attention to the chemistry of their reefs when they should be just looking at the biology.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Maybe some soda ash when your alk demand reaches

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

U can change salts but its not recommended. Lol. What salt are you using?
D

 

[Susan Edwards]

Blows my mind how many people are paying so close attention to the chemistry of their reefs when they should be just looking at the biology.
D

lol's. Yes, salt and rodi and fish food! What do you mean biology. Fish are great. Soft corals great. or mostly. The rest ugh

 

[Susan Edwards]

U can change salts but its not recommended. Lol. What salt are you using?
D

I'm using Dr. Fosters & Smith, not petco I guess. Have another huge box of it so not changing!

 

[Ghost25]

Dosing trace elements is the last thing you need to worry about. You're doing lots of water changes and plenty of nutrients for your soft corals and fish. What I see is lots of nitrates in a relatively empty tank getting a lot of water changes.

1. Do you have a skimmer or other nutrient export?
2. How much are you feeding?
3. What happens when you add an SPS or LPS? Does it die immediately or just stay static and slowly fade or what?

 

[Susan Edwards]

Dosing trace elements is the last thing you need to worry about. You're doing lots of water changes and plenty of nutrients for your soft corals and fish. What I see is lots of nitrates in a relatively empty tank getting a lot of water changes.

1. Do you have a skimmer or other nutrient export?
2. How much are you feeding?
3. What happens when you add an SPS or LPS? Does it die immediately or just stay static and slowly fade or what?

Nitrates is good compared. Last september I removed sand and replaced. DT and refugium took out. In another tank I used to have, I always had 40-80 no3 and thriving corals-lps and softs. Not sps, though my monti's grew like crazy.

This tank nothing sticks. Most of the corals I put in seem to do good for a while, then slowly fade. Example the duncan and 2 ricordias were in there since october and are now fading. An acan also faded. I have 2 blastos, 1 hanging in there but not looking so good. I'll have to ck it in the morning. They did great when I first got them. Some others have also died. Basically almost all I got last November or so but not right away

I do have a skimmer and a refugium. I use purigen/boyds elite/phosguard as needed. Have rock in the refugium (no sand), marine pure blocks, other bio pellet type in bags. I do vacuum out the main sump section a couple times a year.

for fish food, I usually put 4-6 frozen cubes in a "ketchup" squirter and fill with ro or saltwater. That lasts 2 days. maybe another half day depending on how many cubes. I aim for 2 days. I add pellets a couple times a week or flake or now, dried mysis with selcon and some of the powdered fish stuff out there.

I also toss in coral food powder into the water flow once or twice a week when I remember...

 

[Ghost25]

A few thoughts.

1. Your phosphate is pretty low, I had trouble keeping some corals alive when running GFO. Consider reducing or removing GFO/phosguard etc.

2. You have a lot of live rock plus marine pure and biopellets but you still have high nitrates. Most people run successful tanks without biopellets or Marine pure. Consider removing them to a sperate tank (maybe QT) clearly they aren't working as intended, maybe they are actually hurting.

3. Consider feeding less, I don't have a good idea of how much 2-3 frozen cubes a day is but it kinda sounds like a lot. Don't reduce too much at once though.

Are you dosing two part? B ionic?

 

[Susan Edwards]

A few thoughts.

1. Your phosphate is pretty low, I had trouble keeping some corals alive when running GFO. Consider reducing or removing GFO/phosguard etc.

2. You have a lot of live rock plus marine pure and biopellets but you still have high nitrates. Most people run successful tanks without biopellets or Marine pure. Consider removing them to a sperate tank (maybe QT) clearly they aren't working as intended, maybe they are actually hurting.

3. Consider feeding less, I don't have a good idea of how much 2-3 frozen cubes a day is but it kinda sounds like a lot. Don't reduce too much at once though.

Are you dosing two part? B ionic?

PO4 is just now that low. The 18th it was .04. Inbetween, the hanna said 4.2! If it stays at .02 I'll take out the phosguard for sure. A couple of weeks ago I overdosed vibrant so it m ight be doing something -- corals not affected as that incident was after the overdose.

For fish:
6 staghorn damsels--maybe getting close to 3" ea
1 yellow tang
1 foxface
1 flame hawkfish
1 coral beauty
2 darwin clowns
1 small yellow tail damsel
1 barber goby/shrimp pair.
the food I squirt in there is gone in less than a minute. 2 at most. Same if I put nori in the holder.

dosing esv alk/calcium and mg

Maybe I need to get a new skimmer? This one came with the used tank

the marine pure is stacked against the side of sump. Maybe better to "scatter"? for more surface?

 

[ScubaSkeets]

I posted a similar thread not too long ago. I started with a FOWLR tank with IO salt. When I was ready to start adding corals, I started doing my water changes with a 50/50 mix of IO salt and IO Reef Crystals. Added a few corals and they were not doing well. Even with adding trace elements, Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium. All parameters were good and I could not figure out what was wrong with the corals. Transfered the corals to my wife's tank where her corals are thriving, did a 25% water change with Red Sea Pro in my tank (what she is using in her tank), then transfered my corals back into my tank and voila! My corals started to come alive!. I have since done another 25% water change with the Red Sea Pro and my corals are thriving!
I don't know if it was for sure the salt, but that's what it looks like to me with mine.
Buying the RedSea Pro stung a little, especially with having 2 big buckets of IO, but I'm glad I did.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Anyone ever use the blue buckets of oceanic? Thats what i started with. Lol
D

 

[Susan Edwards]

I posted a similar thread not too long ago. I started with a FOWLR tank with IO salt. When I was ready to start adding corals, I started doing my water changes with a 50/50 mix of IO salt and IO Reef Crystals. Added a few corals and they were not doing well. Even with adding trace elements, Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium. All parameters were good and I could not figure out what was wrong with the corals. Transfered the corals to my wife's tank where her corals are thriving, did a 25% water change with Red Sea Pro in my tank (what she is using in her tank), then transfered my corals back into my tank and voila! My corals started to come alive!. I have since done another 25% water change with the Red Sea Pro and my corals are thriving!
I don't know if it was for sure the salt, but that's what it looks like to me with mine.
Buying the RedSea Pro stung a little, especially with having 2 big buckets of IO, but I'm glad I did.

I too had started with instant ocean with my 1st tank and for a while used the redsea pro I think. I'm using the live aquaria reef salt now. Maybe I'll try the redsea pro again and go half and half. I'm too cheap. I have another box of the LA salt and can't let it go to waste lol's