Beginner in need of help with a picoreef

[Kaisentlaia]

I’m really confused

Me too.

From Aquaforest Reef Mineral Salt webpage:

Aquaforest Reef Mineral Salt is a Sodium Chloride (NaCl) free sea salt. It contains all the other basic components found in natural seawater, such as Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium, Bromine, Fluorine, Barium, Iodine, and trace elements.

I've been using this salt in the wrong dosage because I was weighting it as if it was Reef Salt. With Reef Mineral Salt salinity is much MUCH lower compared to Ca/Mg/Alk. Adding more to match my tank salinity caused all the other parameters to jump sky high. Apparently the two are not the same thing: Reef Salt is the one that should end up with 1025sg, 411 Ca, 1300 Mg and 7.5 dKh (which I should then integrate with either kalkwasser or Kh Plus to reach 8+) once mixed.

Now that I know which parameters I should monitor, what are the optimal ranges, and I have all the needed test kits hopefully I'll be able to bring everything back to normal.

 

[Kaisentlaia]

Quick update: the corals are looking better and better. The big mushroom's injury is healing I think (it does have a bit of rock coming out of a hole near its mouth tho, but the hole is getting smaller every day and it doesn't look like it's about to melt anymore). The striped mushroom is opening a bit more every day, not fully extended yet but not all scrunched up either. It's usually more extended than this but I took the picture after moving it by mistake while cleaning and it retracted a little.

And the unknown zoas are definitely beginning to open more, albeit veeeery slowly.

Parameters still stable, I've been adding 1 additional hour of white light every day with no ill effects aside from algae growing a bit quicker but still very manageable. The right salt has finally been shipped, I hope it will arrive before the weekend so I'll be able to begin with gradual water changes to bring the parameters back in check.

I'm doing quick daily maintenance: topping off, sand stirring, rock and glass brushing and blowing detritus off rocks and coral with the turkey baster. Takes only a couple of minutes and the tank is always spotless. I'll definitely keep up with it, daily cleaning is much easier than weekly. I hope some CUC will help with maintenance too (especially with hard to reach algae spots), I ordered some but my order has been delayed by a cold snap. Hopefully I'll get them next week.

 

[dedragon]

you should switch immediately that isnt a salt mix at all. you should be using aquaforest reef salt or sea salt. Mineral salt is for dosing when you have lots of corals growing and are losing out on trace elements and not to be used as a regular salt mix for the tank

 

[dedragon]

or any other brand, i use red sea salt (the blue bucket)

 

[Kaisentlaia]

you should switch immediately that isnt a salt mix at all. you should be using aquaforest reef salt or sea salt. Mineral salt is for dosing when you have lots of corals growing and are losing out on trace elements and not to be used as a regular salt mix for the tank

Yeah I know... now. Sadly we're in lockdown so I can't go to the store to pick up some salt, and they don't sell it on Amazon over here so no fast shipping. Thankfully it's on its way and hopefully it will arrive in the next couple of days.

As soon as it will arrive I'll start with daily water changes.

 

[dedragon]

and start doing more water changes immediately with the new salt mix when you can get it, you have probably have thrown other stuff into the tank with the reef mineral (a lot of stuff we dont usually test for directly)

 

[dedragon]

good to know, what salt did you order this time ?

 

[Kaisentlaia]

what salt did you order this time

Aquaforest Reef Salt, the right one this time. At least I won't be lacking any micros from now on...

 

[Double monti 61]

You should have done what you thought was best for your coral. I like to read as much as I can about reef tanks ,coral and invertebrates to try and learn as much as I can and I do not try to emulate other tanks. 15 gallons of love no protein skimmer no gfo no carbon no socks or fleece rollers just about a 2.2 gallon water change per week

 

[dedragon]

just wanted to make sure . Its definitely stressful being thrown straight into the saltwater hobby, its a steep learning curve from freshwater. Zoas look pretty far gone but once the tank is back in working order you can quickly add some more corals and fish because the tank is cycled, albeit a bit biologically stressed rn.

 

[Kaisentlaia]

Its definitely stressful being thrown straight into the saltwater hobby

I wholeheartedly agree

Zoas look pretty far gone

Actually they're looking much better now than before the rip cleaning. Before they were constantly smothered with algae and they had been closed for months! Only one polyp would sometimes open after a good scrubbing but it would last only a couple of days before the algae took over again. Now there are 4-5 polyps that are beginning to slowly open up. Looks like a big improvement to me!

I won't be adding any fish since this is a pico only some snails and shrimp, and I've been looking into getting some more frags as soon as the water parameters will be good and stable.

 

[dedragon]

wasnt really sure about overall size of this tank, 1 or 2 citron or warpaint gobies would look amazing in really small tanks , especially if there is no sps coral.

 

[Kaisentlaia]

It's a small 3.5 gal, maybe a goby would fit but waaay down the line. I'm kinda tempted to try a cheap pocillopora in there, so maybe fish wouldn't be the best idea.

 

[dedragon]

citron and warpaint like to aggressively clean mostly acropora undersides in an attempt to make a nest, idk if they do it to poci or stylophora though. They dont move much so i actually think just one might do fine in your system (the fish police are gonna come down on me for this one). They like to perch on rocks or corals all day, pretty chill fish.

 

[dedragon]

its prob one of the only fish i could even think to attempt in such a small tank

 

[Kaisentlaia]

I saw that warpaint (clown?) gobies are the smallest of their kind and I did think about it for a moment. I've kept fish in pico freshwater tanks that lived happily and even bred, but of course depends a lot on the fish, if they're sedentary and stick to tiny territories it can be done but it's tricky. I won't attempt it with saltwater though until I get the hang of it, first I need to be able to keep my parameters stable long term.

 

[58e970b2-3f88-4897-87ba-5]

I haven’t seen any of those gobies around here lately. I have seen a couple clown gobies come through local stores (Canada) though.

They seem to be a similar size and people occasionally put them in picos. I don’t know anything about if they have long term success though.

Clown Gobies also sound like they are not SPS safe...

 

[Kaisentlaia]

Salt is here!

The right one. I'm mixing some water right now. I'll do a 50% wc right away and I'll keep changing small amounts in the next days until parameters are good.

 

[Kaisentlaia]

Water change is done and went very well. Matching temp with a second heater was much easier and matching salinity was a breeze now that I'm using the right salt.

A 50% water change brought back Ca to 500 and Mg to 1500, still too high but at least not insanely high anymore. I managed to lower alk as well, it's 8.9 now, way more reasonable.

I moved the rocks around a bit so the corals are mad at me now but the zoa is definitely opening up more! I can see two half open polyps and another 4 beginning to open right now, I guess they're appreciating the change. The pistol shrimp is still alive and kicking and probably offended by the rockscape readjustment, and the starfish is hanging in there as well. So far so good!

Thanks everyone for the good advice, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

 

[Kaisentlaia]

Week 2 update

The tank is doing well and I'm doing daily water changes to fix the salt mishap:

As you can see, hair algae is growing quite a bit on the zoa rock:

Still just a fraction of what it was before the rip cleaning but annoying nonetheless, I'm almost back to my original light schedule so that's probably what's accelerating the growth. I can't scrub this rock very well with my trusty toothbrush because of all the crevices so it's hard to keep it clean. I want snails darn it!

I'm debating taking it out today and do another round of cleaning, maybe a little peroxide dabbing in the worse spots too, being careful to avoid the zoas. They'll hate me but it's for their own good. I've been thinking about a rescape and that would need taking the smaller rocks out anyway so I could take the chance for some in-depth cleaning.

The zoas are definitely recovering, no fully open polyps yet but more and more polyps beginning to shily open up ever day. The two frags I got didn't melt completely yet, I think there's a single survivor polyp per frag and still closed up, I'm leaving them alone and maybe one day they will bounce back, you never know.

The cabbage leather has a transparent shiny coating on it, I think it slimes/sheds at every water change. Nevertheless, looks like it has plenty to eat. Some microscopic bugs survived the ordeal (you can see tiny dark speckles moving in this video if you look close enough):

I'd still like to add some more tiny critters, I'm considering getting some live copepods and throw them in there in the hope they'll colonize and give the corals something else to munch on. Lockdown is ending tomorrow so I'm planning to stop by at the LFS and see if they have any cheap frags I could get, I'd really like a duncan and maybe some gsp.

Parameters are still stable, salinity still on the lower end (1023) and nitrates dropped to 1 again after the water change but I'm doing daily feeding to try and keep them up. Ca and Mag slowly slowly getting lower with the water changes.

Overall this looks more and more like a success every day, but looks like it will take quite a bit for the tank to make a full recovery.