Another New Reefer

[muzikalmatt]

Nitrate, phosphate and magnesium. I’ll be doing a water change tonight and had to replenish my clean up crew.

Should I be dosing my tank for the coral? Aside from the duncan the rest are softies. Also, I have very little coralline growing. Should I address that?

Honestly your nitrates and phosphates aren't that high (0.5ppm), especially for a softie tank. Even your Duncan should have no issues with those levels. Typical safe ranges for nitrates, especially in a softie tank, are between zero and 10ppm. You don't want dead zero as it will starve your corals and potentially cause a dyno or cyano outbreak. However, if you get above 10ppm you should do a water change to bring levels back down. My IM Nuvo 40 was up around 20-30ppm nitrate for a month or so before my refugium brought the levels back down and most of my corals showed no sign of distress. As for phosphates, 0.5ppm is a little high but nothing catastrophic. Water changes should bring it back down.

Your magnesium level being that low is really surprising. Have you tested multiple times to confirm the results? What test kit are you using? What salt mix are you using for your water changes? Your alkalinity and calcium levels seem quite balanced, so it's surprising to see your mag so low.

Regarding dosing, you should not need to dose at all with your current stocking levels. Soft corals aren't going to consume much, if any, alkalinity or calcium and your one duncan coral should be fine with just water changes, especially since you said you don't have much coralline algae growth. If you're curious to know your alk consumption rate, test over a few days at the roughly same time of day and see how much your alk drops over those few days. It's unlikely that the drop will be significant enough to necessitate dosing.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[dbl]

Welcome to R2R and your new reefing family. Thanks for no longer lurking and sharing your tank/story with us. I am a sucker for a peninsula after all.

 

[rodney]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[WMR]

Welcome to R2R!!! Nice tank, good start. Are you planning to add any more fish or crabs or shrimp, if so, rehome the dottyback, he’ll attack them

 

[Auquanut]

Welcome to the family. Sounds like you're getting some good advice already. I was the same as you. Started with a 29 biocube and within 7 months put up a 125. Thak you for your kind words about our community. Our staff, Reef Squad and active members are truly an amazing group of people. I think you're going to like it here.

 

[Emarley]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[Rip3618]

I probably jumped the gun regarding upgrading the light. It’s a good light. My corals aren’t any deeper than 12” so I’m sure the light is plenty for them.

 

[Rip3618]

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome! I can already tell I’m going to enjoy r2r!

Completed a 25% water change today. Because my tank is small I wasn’t going to invest my money and time into a RO/DI filter and mixing my own water. I figured grabbing water from my LFS every couple weeks would suffice. I got to tell ya, it ain’t as convenient especially since I’m doing weekly changes! After doing the math a RO/DI filter and salt mix will pay for itself in six to eight months. That will be my next upgrade.

I’m going to give filter floss and Chemi-pure Blue a try. I’d like to see if I have an improvement with my water quality over the IM Purity Pack. Don’t get me wrong, the Purity Pack was pretty decent but I like tinkering with things to try for better results.

A few more questions while I’ve got some “newbie” attention.

How soon after my water changes should I be testing the parameters (I’m using Sailfert kits)?

Should I consider addressing my lack of coralline growth?

With nine small corals (I bought a zoa plug and a firecracker polyp plug last night, the addiction is real!) and three fish can I add one more fish in my 20 gal. or am I at my bio-load limit?

 

[Mastiffsrule]

 

[vetteguy53081]

We WELCOME YOU !!!!

 

[muzikalmatt]

A few more questions while I’ve got some “newbie” attention.

How soon after my water changes should I be testing the parameters (I’m using Sailfert kits)?

Should I consider addressing my lack of coralline growth?

With nine small corals (I bought a zoa plug and a firecracker polyp plug last night, the addiction is real!) and three fish can I add one more fish in my 20 gal. or am I at my bio-load limit?

I would test the water the next day after a water change to see the results, but you could probably do it a few hours later and see the actual affects.

If you're not getting coralline growth, you may need to seed the tank with it. If you used completely dry rock and your coral plugs don't have any coralline on them, you may need to add some to get it jump started.

Regarding your bio-load, given your current nitrate/phosphate levels you're probably good to add another fish, but it really depends on your tank's overall nutrient stability (import vs. export). If your nutrient export can keep up with the bio-load you can certainly add more fish. Right now I'm seeing extremely low nutrients in my tank so I'm considering adding a fish to up the bio-load.

Corals typically don't add to the bio-load unless you're feeding them, and generally you only need to worry about stony corals need for alkalinity and calcium.

 

[LiveWire]

Welcome to the REEF!!

 

[Rip3618]

I would test the water the next day after a water change to see the results, but you could probably do it a few hours later and see the actual affects.

If you're not getting coralline growth, you may need to seed the tank with it. If you used completely dry rock and your coral plugs don't have any coralline on them, you may need to add some to get it jump started.

Regarding your bio-load, given your current nitrate/phosphate levels you're probably good to add another fish, but it really depends on your tank's overall nutrient stability (import vs. export). If your nutrient export can keep up with the bio-load you can certainly add more fish. Right now I'm seeing extremely low nutrients in my tank so I'm considering adding a fish to up the bio-load.

Corals typically don't add to the bio-load unless you're feeding them, and generally you only need to worry about stony corals need for alkalinity and calcium.

Thanks for the advice, muzikalmatt.

I tested the water after about 20 hours. The results were within range with the exception of the nitrates. Nitrates remained at 5ppm. I’m using the Salifert test kit and tested twice with the same result, 5 ppm. Thinking I was reading the Sailfert results wrong, I retested with my API kit and got 20 ppm. Holy hell, the API is going in the garbage! All in all, I’m very happy with the test results which shows I’m finally getting things dialed in. Should I be concerned with the high nitrates though?

Is coralline necessary or suggested or do I not need to worry about it? What exactly is the benefit of coralline?

 

[muzikalmatt]

Thanks for the advice, muzikalmatt.

I tested the water after about 20 hours. The results were within range with the exception of the nitrates. Nitrates remained at 5ppm. I’m using the Salifert test kit and tested twice with the same result, 5 ppm. Thinking I was reading the Sailfert results wrong, I retested with my API kit and got 20 ppm. Holy hell, the API is going in the garbage! All in all, I’m very happy with the test results which shows I’m finally getting things dialed in. Should I be concerned with the high nitrates though?

Is coralline necessary or suggested or do I not need to worry about it? What exactly is the benefit of coralline?

Nitrates at 5ppm isn't actually that high, especially for a tank with mostly soft corals. Even some SPS can tolerate levels much higher than that. You want to have some detectable nitrates to ensure your tank isn't nutrient deficient. If you're consistently testing at 0ppm nitrates (and phosphates) you're going to run into issues such as cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates. Your corals need some nitrates and phosphates, so don't chase after zero. If you can keep nitrates below 10ppm you shouldn't have any issues with softies or LPS.

Coralline algae isn't something that's absolutely necessary. It's more of a good indicator that a tank is healthy and can support the growth of calcifying corals like LPS and SPS. In addition, I think there have been some studies showing that corals can encrust over coralline algae easier than just plain rock, but don't quote me on that. I also happen to love the look of purple coralline algae, so there's the aesthetic appeal for some people. If you really want it in your tank there are several products you can buy to seed your tank with it, but I've never personally tried any of them. Some of my live rock came with it already on it and it grew throughout my tank from there. You could also see if a fellow reefer or LFS has a piece of rock rubble or a frag plug that has some coralline growing on it to seed your tank.

 

[AiKkz]

Welcome!!! that dotty looks like he's saying "hello" lol, awesome!

 

[Nano1908]

Welcome!

 

[Rip3618]

Nitrates at 5ppm isn't actually that high, especially for a tank with mostly soft corals. Even some SPS can tolerate levels much higher than that. You want to have some detectable nitrates to ensure your tank isn't nutrient deficient. If you're consistently testing at 0ppm nitrates (and phosphates) you're going to run into issues such as cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates. Your corals need some nitrates and phosphates, so don't chase after zero. If you can keep nitrates below 10ppm you shouldn't have any issues with softies or LPS.

Coralline algae isn't something that's absolutely necessary. It's more of a good indicator that a tank is healthy and can support the growth of calcifying corals like LPS and SPS. In addition, I think there have been some studies showing that corals can encrust over coralline algae easier than just plain rock, but don't quote me on that. I also happen to love the look of purple coralline algae, so there's the aesthetic appeal for some people. If you really want it in your tank there are several products you can buy to seed your tank with it, but I've never personally tried any of them. Some of my live rock came with it already on it and it grew throughout my tank from there. You could also see if a fellow reefer or LFS has a piece of rock rubble or a frag plug that has some coralline growing on it to seed your tank.

Excellent. That’s a relief my nitrates aren’t bad. I guess it can’t hurt to grow some coralline.

 

[Dp916]

welcome to r2r