Tank Parameters all over the place

[spuri87]

so much great information.. So good to see some real positive results from water changes, definitely gives me confidence to spend time, money and energy doing them on a weekly basis for few months until things become stable!

If you want to test whether your rocks leach phosphate. Add a piece of rockscape into a container of fresh saltwater. Let it sit for a day or two and test the phosphate level.

such a great suggestion.. I always love out-of-the-box (literally in this case) ways to do something.. thanks for sharing

This is odd and something was done wrong. It works in 100% of the cases if done correctly.

Not sure how or why lanthanum chloride “didn’t work”

I think it's coz phosphates were leaching from the rocks, something on the lines of above ^^.. Even my LFS was surprised, as the same 'solution' has apparently done wonders for their other clients.

Reef crystals isn’t the same as purple box instant ocean

Yeah sorry, I used IO Purple Box before switching.. may switch back to that as I see some good reviews in one of the comments above

Now I only feed enough so that it is all consumed in less than a minute. I feed mostly frozen food (3.5 cubes per day, rinsed with RODI) and a very very small amount of pellets 1-2 times a day (emphasis on very small amount!). I also feed one nori sheet in a 112g display tank + 30 gallon sump. You certainly need to feed more given your tank size and fish load but it sounds like you are over feeding.

I see a thread by @Alexander1312 on the feeding haha.. It's always subjective and I tried to adopt what I felt was right for the fish whilst practicing Ich Management (UV + vitamins + lot of feeding).. but now that that's under control, I may have to rethink about the feeding strategy.

PH-is that the average, high, or low?

Whenever I measured (mostly during the afternoon 3-4 hours window), it was always in 7.8-8.0 range

I would also add a lot of fast-growing soft coral to soak up nutrients and shade rock/sand

I love this suggestion! thanks for sharing

I use polyfil and I see it gets clogged every 2-3 days.. but I keep them in there for about a week (coz I am a slacker).. Maybe that's also contributing towards the high numbers? How often do people change fish diaper (aka polyfil)? Also, will acting more bacteria (PNSB OR Microbacter OR turbofritz OR good bacteria from other successful tanks (DBTC)) will help in any way with the current situation or they just will probably create more Nitrates coz they will be consuming the Ammonia faster?

 

[MichaelB]

Leaving dirty clogged filter material equal Nitrate factory. In some cases it's better not to use any mechanical filtration if you won't swap them every three days or so.

Same thing for socks or whatever else catches particles. If you wanna be a slacker without that issue get a automated filter roller

Maybe set a phone reminder?

 

[Alexander1312]

@Alexander1312 -technically yes. However, at the time my need for nitrate reduction vs Phosphate reduction was significantly less so went with bacto balance as it a little softer on the nitrates. @spuri87 may indeed be better served by the Elim-NP if he goes that route. Also quite interesting -so I had it stable at 8 NO3 and .3 PO4 but wanted to bring down the Phosphate a bit more for a better N/P ratio. When I added diluted lanth-yanked my nitrate down with it to 1.1 in a week until I interjected sodium nitrate to get it back up. Slowly readjusting the lanth and carbon dosing so I don't need to dose nitrate.

Thats actually the biggest downside of carbon dosing, that it will bring down both but often nitrates faster (relatively speaking since nitrate will always remain higher than PO4), and thats why I chose GFO (over lanthanum) to address PO4 specifically.

Elimi NP is still good in bringing down phosphates but should not be used if your NO3 are already at a lower single digit level. However, as long as NO3 is double digit, using Elimi NP can be quite effective and supplementing water changes.

If nitrate drops too much, supplementing with ammonia dosing vs nitrate dosing is my preference.

I am not in favor of lanthanum as it is too complicated to setup properly, higher risk of precipitation without being skimmed out (and in my case with the ozone usage, there is not an easy install).

 

[Alexander1312]

Salt: I don’t believe there is much difference between the various salt brands other than 1) some salts mix much cleaner than others, and 2) some are more expensive than others. The most common salt amongst the coral farmers and high end SPS vendors is Reef Crystals or Instant Ocean. These also happen to be very economical but also mix dirty due to the use of decaking agents (harmless but an eye sore). I have used Red Sea Coral Pro, Tropic Marine Pro Reef, and Nyos Pure. The TM and Nyos mix very cleanly and quickly, but they are not cheap. The RedSea ProReef works fine but has very high alk and mixes dirty. I mostly use Nyos Pure since I prefer a clean mixing salt and Nyos Pure can be found at same price or cheaper than Tropic Marine if you wait for sales. Nyos also has alk of 8.5 (around the level I keep my tank) whereas Tropic Marine is 7.0.

Sorry had to make a couple of comments on the salt statements you made above, with which I am not fundamentally disagreeing:

I am note sure if the reference about which salts are most often used by professionals are not misleading. Quality Marine, uses Tropic Marin salt unless they changed very recently, Top Self in my opinion also do not only use these type of salts, and prefer higher end salts for their more critical tanks (including Tropic Marin I believe). So maybe there is a ton of basement farmers who use these type of inexpensive salts to manage their cost, including Zoos, so not sure if this an adequate representation of usage by quality vendors. I could be wrong.

But the main point I wanted to make is that all salts use anti caking agents, and there is only one salt on the market that I know of which does not, which is the new Purity salt from the joint venture product of Tropic Marin and Fauna Marin.

Also, Tropic Marin has lower alk because pro farmers often run closer to an ULNS model and want to be better able to manage their alk avoiding higher alk values within a low nutrient environment which s not liked by SPS. I have also started to run my system closer to 7.5 dkh and found SPS doing better.

 

[BAYMAC]

Coral holding at a wholesaler doesn't need high end salt. The corals 99% of the time don't live there more then a few weeks tops.

 

[andyman]

I've been in your situation and your looking at the wrong parameters. First your ph is swings over time. but even with a ph of 8.0 its low. Corals have an easier time when pH are higher (8.1 at nite to 8.4 when the lights are on.) Your po4 are high but not too bad. Heck my po4 are 0.3-0.5 and my corals are growing out of control.

you need to get your water tested and you may need to dose trace elements. Strontium , bromide, etc. I realized my corals realy took off when I started adding trace elements. My po4 and nitrates are also high (in the double digits). I was worried about it due to people offering advice but I didn't really see problems until my no3 was at triple digits. Thats when I realized I had to fix the problem.

I have not changed water in 3 years. Not even 1 percent. All i do is top off. Do yourself a favor, get your water tested for trace elements, and if you think you have pathegons do a aqua biome test. Do those 2 test first before seeking advice. Nobody here will be able to help you because no body knows your tank better then yourself. I wouldn't even follow my advice above without an ICP test for trace elements. I personally use ICP-MS from reef moonshiners and have had great success. My only problem now is keeping the corals from growing on top of each other.

One more thing, if your corals are currently weak and unhealthy turn down your brightness of your lights. When corals are stressed, the lights causes more stress and often leads to STN. Turn down the lights until you figure out whats wrong. I use to think my LED's were killing my corals so I would turn them down to 70 even 50 percent. I thought it was acclimation issues from whoever I bought the corals from. Now that I have my tank dialed in, I have all my lights at 100% except for the frag tank which is at 80. and the frag tank is only at 80 because I'm trying to keep the algae under control.