got ethical husbandry?

5 month old Nuvo 20

J

Jonathan Chia

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Hi everyone,

I'm 5 months into this reef keeping thing and I've gotta say I loved every minute of it. Posted a lot in the beginning asking a lot of questions and now I think I've got my tank pretty settled in.

Think the tank is pretty much stocked to the brim now and I'm just waiting for the frags to grow in.

One issue I'm trying to solve is that my nitrates are always in the 20PPM or so, even after weekly 5G water changes. Steve at Infinite Aquarium has recommended I try feeding less, given that my fish look pretty plump

Stocking list:
2x Maroon Clowns
1x Yellow Coris Wrasse
1x Orange Spotted Goby
4x Blue hermits
2x Thin Striped Hermits
3x Nassarius Snails
4-5 Trochus snails
4-5 Cerith Snails

Corals:
Miyagi Acro
Bonsai Acro
Cali Tort
Idaho Grape Monti
BOP Bird's Nest
Red Goni
Torch
Kenya Tree
GSP
Orange Ricordea
Green Toadstool
Rainbow Acan
ASD TMNT Zoas

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Have random patches of GHA that after removal slowly make their way back to the tank. CUC keeps it in check most of the time.

My phosphates are about .1, so I've been trying to dose Aquaforest Bio S and NP Pro as my bacteria + carbon dosing.
 
Frankly all my tanks run between 10-20 ppm. The fact that you have visible phosphate that's not being consumed by the GHA means the the problem likely lays there and not with Nitrates. I'd concentrate on that first. Corals need some Nitrates and 20 ppm (while it's the upper edge of what I like) isn't awful especially in a NUVO.
 
Would running GFO strip the phosphates down too low? Not sure what the best method of bringing that down is besides feeding less LRS Reef Frenzy + Water Changes
 
There are other less aggressive media for depleting po4. Phosguard is one and it can be used in a simple mesh media bag instead of needing a reactor like gfo.
 
Always glad to see a fellow nano reefer, esp with a nuvo 20! I’ve had mine for 9 months now and the itch to upgrade is only getting stronger! My two cents on the nutrient issue... you can run gfo in a reactor at half dose and it wouldn’t strip down PO4 too much if you monitor it. For instance (thankfully I keep a journal so I can refer to it), in my first month my PO4 was 0.086. I decided to run a half dose in a reactor which was 2tbsp. In a few days, my PO4 dropped to 0.018 and I promptly yanked out the reactor. As for the GHA that’s already manifested, once your PO4 is under control, when you manually remove it, it won’t come back. As for the gha you can’t reach/remove, I have had great success with emerald crabs. Good luck And keep us posted as to how it goes!


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Thanks for the advice everyone. Think I’m going to remove my UV that I have running and use another media basket with filter pads and run phosguard for now to see how that goes
 
Nitrates have dropped to about 10PPM after a water change and my phosphates are about .1 after the water change...Also added in phosguard and running chemipure blue in the other chamber so hopefully parameters will stay in check
 
Phosphates still reading .12 after adding in Phosguard and Nitrates are slowly climbing after a week or so of no water change.

Should I dose NoPox at this point? Or try refreshing the chemipure elite and phosguard media again?
 
You system is not so bad, so no major changes needed.

My usual suggestion for a 20G or other small systems : Just regular water changes.
Skip the chems/etc.
So I am actually REALLY surprised you have a problem if you are doing 5G water changes weekly.
Was that for a lot of weeks, or just a couple, or sometimes skipping weeks?
Are you using good RODI / salt water?
Exactly how much do you feed?
Something seems weird there.

UV does not affect Nitrates/phosphates, but does affect water clarity and floating algae.
So feel free to turn that on, but don't expect it to do anything for this issue.
 
I feed Larry's Reef Frenzy exclusively. Might be overfeeding a bit as the fish look pretty fat and happy.

I've been doing 5G water changes every week or 1.5 weeks since I've started the tank.

RODI water shows 0 TDS coming out of the unit and I mix red sea coral pro salt.

I've been trying to cut down on the feeding and it seems to be helping a bit. I feed once a day, I think the problem is the fish end up eating the big chunks but theres a lot of small pieces that are left in the tank

Just did about a 4G water change today and Phos is at .07. Also refreshed my phosguard and chemipure elite so maybe that helped as well
 
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My tank is probably consuming 1.5 dkH a day. I have a few acrid, 2 months and a bird nest.

Does this seem like a lot of alk consumption? I’m dosing about 4Ml each of ESV 2 part
 
My phosphate levels are currently between 0 - 0.03 ppm according to the hanna check I use. Alk is sitting around 8.5 or so.

One of my acros seems to be slowly STNing from the edge of encrustation...Not sure why that might be...any ideas?
 
I've waited 7 months for this little speck of corraline to finally start appearing in my tank..I've noticed it started to grow on the frag plugs, but now I'm finally starting to see it on my tank walls...Hopefully it shows up on the rock soon.

Updated FTS below as well

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