Reef nutrition

Ryan’s 40G first reef

rdriggett said:
I don't think I would have made it this far into reefing without BAR!
The worst of my bryopsis is about 3 inches off the sand bed. Is it safe to drain that much water?
I'm still doing 10-20G weekly WC.
My rock is used rock I got from a BAR member. I bleached it and then soaked in multiple baths of water and seachem safe (powdered prime). Does that change anything or will it still have tons of die off?
I'm giving up on acros for a little while as I focus on getting the tank stable and through the uglies.
I'm signed up for the email waiting list from your first link for live sand.

Plan going forward:
Weekly testing and WC
Manual algae removal
I'd still love to nuke it with Flux but I can hold off on that based on feedback.

Questions: My GHA and Bryopsis vacuum up my NO3PO4 before I can test for it. Should I continue minimal frozen feedings or are my bottomed out nutrients risking dinos?
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march 5th was when you first started your cycle. when was your first and how many water changes have you done so far? and why such a big amount every week? i would suggest smaller ones each week or a big one once a month to start off. you started with dry rock and dead sand so there is no way you will have enough bacteria to populate in such a small amount of time for any sps. i bet youll be looking at 9 months until you are able to try sps again, a year to be safe.
 
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rdriggett said:
I don't think I would have made it this far into reefing without BAR!
The worst of my bryopsis is about 3 inches off the sand bed. Is it safe to drain that much water?
I'm still doing 10-20G weekly WC.
My rock is used rock I got from a BAR member. I bleached it and then soaked in multiple baths of water and seachem safe (powdered prime). Does that change anything or will it still have tons of die off?
I'm giving up on acros for a little while as I focus on getting the tank stable and through the uglies.
I'm signed up for the email waiting list from your first link for live sand.

Plan going forward:
Weekly testing and WC
Manual algae removal
I'd still love to nuke it with Flux but I can hold off on that based on feedback.

Questions: My GHA and Bryopsis vacuum up my NO3PO4 before I can test for it. Should I continue minimal frozen feedings or are my bottomed out nutrients risking dinos?
Click to expand...
Would be impossible to know the health of the rocks without testing way beyond our abilities, hence it was just food for thought on why patience is the only tool we really have and managing expectations. Much more rewarding to watch you tank succeed vs fail. The only way to have that is to have a tank that evolves faster than your expectations.

You can probably stop testing Calc/Mg. Not really useful for you now unless you like testing. Try to test Alk at the same time of day if someone hasn't told you that yet. It will change morning/night for example so testing at the same time removes some variables. Probably not needed, but testing and trending your Alk is always a good idea. Look for a trend line vs. actual values.
 
Questions: My GHA and Bryopsis vacuum up my NO3PO4 before I can test for it. Should I continue minimal frozen feedings or are my bottomed out nutrients risking dinos?

Just keep feeding the fish. I'm confident you haven't bottomed out the tank unless you are actively removing Nitrate/Phosphate with Media, Dosing or an Aggressive Algae filter, etc. It certainly could happen, but cross that line when you get there. Your fish will not complain if you feed them more. People who have that problem have done something to actively get there like running a media reactor, carbon dosing, etc.
 
jhuynh said:
march 5th was when you first started your cycle. when was your first and how many water changes have you done so far? and why such a big amount every week? i would suggest smaller ones each week or a big one once a month to start off. you started with dry rock and dead sand so there is no way you will have enough bacteria to populate in such a small amount of time for any sps. i bet youll be looking at 9 months until you are able to try sps again.
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I did the first WC around the 15th I think? to dilute anything before I added fish. I do 1 WC per week. I have no skimmer so I thought I could compensate with big WCs. I will dial them back to 5G/wk.
Will adding direct from the ocean live sand decrease that 9 month timeline by anything?
Questions: My GHA and Bryopsis vacuum up my NO3PO4 before I can test for it. Should I continue minimal frozen feedings or are my bottomed out nutrients risking dinos?
Qwiv said:
Just keep feeding the fish. I'm confident you haven't bottomed out the tank unless you are actively removing Nitrate/Phosphate with Media, Dosing or an Aggressive Algae filter, etc. It certainly could happen, but cross that line when you get there. Your fish will not complain if you feed them more. People who have that problem have done something to actively get there like running a media reactor, carbon dosing, etc.
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Great to hear! I will continue to feed my fish normally. I will not pre react to 0,0. I actually didnt know to test ALK at the same time, thanks for the tip!

MASSIVE SHOTOUT to BAR for helping me with 12 pages of annoying questions in just two months.
 
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"Will adding direct from the ocean live sand decrease that 9 month timeline by anything?"

Do you mean the bagged stuff you buy, like the stuff you used or like go to the beach and get some? The bagged stuff is better than the dry stuff, but it can't be 100% as it has been sitting around in a bag for however long. The idea is to get all the diversity in the tank so it has all the tools needed to grow. If you lost some diversity along the way, it could be a species that is important. No way to know. I am sure your frags brought diversity and everything you add going forward will good/bad. There is really no way to tell what you have. The website I linked will actually test your water, but even that has limitations.

Anything from our beach would be cold water stuff, so not really what you are looking for. You ideally want sand shipped to you under the same conditions you would ship a snail, fish or coral. The bacteria, pods, etc. will multiply so you don't need a ton unless you have more money than time. Their populations will all go up and down in relationship to each other and get to someplace stable. Can't predict when "stable" is if there is such a thing, so "healthy" is probably a better term. Just watch the tank.

When you are happy that algae is gone, bump you lights up little by little until you can get some corals you plan to stock low and you can move what you have in the rocks to their final home. Keep inching forward if things look good. Dial back if things look bad. Observe Daily, Evaluate Weekly. Pretty sure you will be looking much better by Memorial Day.

As for the Bryopsis treatment, you can put the fish/coral in the bucket for a while if there isn't enough water in the tank for them. You can return clean bucket water to the tank too. If you can figure out how to get to the rock with least impact to the tank, that would be best or just get what you can and shade what you can't. I would stop short of pulling the rocks out of the sand and draining as low as I could go.
 
Qwiv said:
Do you mean the bagged stuff you buy, like the stuff you used or like go to the beach and get some? The bagged stuff is better than the dry stuff, but it can't be 100% as it has been sitting around in a bag for however long. The idea is to get all the diversity in the tank so it has all the tools needed to grow. If you lost some diversity along the way, it could be a species that is important. No way to know. I am sure your frags brought diversity and everything you add going forward will good/bad. There is really no way to tell what you have. The website I linked will actually test your water, but even that has limitations.

Anything from our beach would be cold water stuff, so not really what you are looking for. You ideally want sand shipped to you under the same conditions you would ship a snail, fish or coral. The bacteria, pods, etc. will multiply so you don't need a ton unless you have more money than time. Their populations will all go up and down in relationship to each other and get to someplace stable. Can't predict when "stable" is if there is such a thing, so "healthy" is probably a better term. Just watch the tank.

When you are happy that algae is gone, bump you lights up little by little until you can get some corals you plan to stock low and you can move what you have in the rocks to their final home. Keep inching forward if things look good. Dial back if things look bad. Observe Daily, Evaluate Weekly. Pretty sure you will be looking much better by Memorial Day.

As for the Bryopsis treatment, you can put the fish/coral in the bucket for a while if there isn't enough water in the tank for them. You can return clean bucket water to the tank too. If you can figure out how to get to the rock with least impact to the tank, that would be best or just get what you can and shade what you can't. I would stop short of pulling the rocks out of the sand and draining as low as I could go.
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I'm referring to the stuff you linked me previously. I'm a newbie but I know never to stick anything wild in my tank. I will do exactly that with my lights. I didnt consider putting my fish in a bucket while I spray my rocks with H2O2.
 
I think everyone here gone through the same process. Just be patient. I did add the aquabiomic life rock rubble for whatever its worth. I cannot really say it make any noticeable difference.

I didn't read the full 12 page here, but as long as you properly cycle the tank, just wait out the ugly phase. That is what i did. I have my share of problems, alk swing, monti eating nudis, algae , cyno ...etc

If there is any lesson learn, less is more, :) Coral are finicky. Montipora (SPS) grows well on my tank but not others. You will soon learn what species will thrive vs just melt away.

my advise get the parameters (alk, ca, mg) stable as the priority. this may seem easy in the beginning as non of your corals is probably consuming much at this stage, but at some point consumption wil pick up. My mistake is over correct and that kill a lot of my initial corals. I dose nitrate to keep it slightly above 0. Algae is probably comsuming most of your nitrate, so you may get 0 reading . I wouldn't dose nitrate if you have noticable algae issue. If you phosphate is high, use GFO. Post your parameters.

i am fairly new to this, take my advise with a grain of salt.
 
newfly said:
I think everyone here gone through the same process. Just be patient. I did add the aquabiomic life rock rubble for whatever its worth. I cannot really say it make any noticeable difference.

I didn't read the full 12 page here, but as long as you properly cycle the tank, just wait out the ugly phase. That is what i did. I have my share of problems, alk swing, monti eating nudis, algae , cyno ...etc

If there is any lesson learn, less is more, :) Coral are finicky. Montipora (SPS) grows well on my tank but not others. You will soon learn what species will thrive vs just melt away.

my advise get the parameters (alk, ca, mg) stable as the priority. this may seem easy in the beginning as non of your corals is probably consuming much at this stage, but at some point consumption wil pick up. My mistake is over correct and that kill a lot of my initial corals. I dose nitrate to keep it slightly above 0. Algae is probably comsuming most of your nitrate, so you may get 0 reading . I wouldn't dose nitrate if you have noticable algae issue. If you phosphate is high, use GFO. Post your parameters.

i am fairly new to this, take my advise with a grain of salt.
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Tank was properly cycled within 3 weeks and now I'm waiting out the uglies. I know all new reefers have problems, I just want to tackle them as they come up! I posted my params just above in this thread.
 
rdriggett said:
I have coralline growing all over my wave pump. Woohoo! Didn’t seed the tank besides frags and snails.
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pictures?
rdriggett said:
150PAR + 8.3Ph + 13Alk + good flow + accidental seeding seemed to be the winning formula.
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13alk? my opinion, thats way too high if u want sps later on. since your starting off, good to get an idea of what parameters you want and try to make those numbers stable.
 
jhuynh said:
pictures?

13alk? my opinion, thats way too high if u want sps later on. since your starting off, good to get an idea of what parameters you want and try to make those numbers stable.
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3492E413-F855-421A-8158-72B5860530D5.jpeg

B99AAB9D-3996-4F49-801D-52BB368C7EB7.jpeg


I agree 13ALK is too high. It’s just what Instant Ocean Reef Crystals comes out as. I was thinking of switching to TM Pro reef but I have 350 gallons of IORC left.
 
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