Could this be why I've been losing SPS?

[kevin_e]

You could always dose a little Flourish Nitrogen. It’s potent stuff and I recommend adding half of their dosing guideline.

Is that a viable option? I've used in a planted tank. I would be nervous about other substances that may not be beneficial.

 

[Crustaceon]

It’s pretty good for small adjustments but nothing I would use long term due to the urea content. I like your idea of adding a blenny. I have a starry blenny and they have loads of personality. One of my favorites for sure.

 

[kevin_e]

Well I haven't seen any tissue necrosis for a littlw while now. Since I've started monitoring really. Thats good news.

I have a 2016 model Apex system enroute to further help stabilize and failsafe my aquarium. I want to automate feedings to keep nitrate up. I also want to setup the Apex ATO, really to have the FMM to monitor my
topp off container. My salinity wasn't always stable because I or my GF would unplug the beeping Aqua Smart ATO notifying me that water was low and sometimes forget for days to refill. Sometimes my retuen would remind me by sucking air. Obviously salinity increased and suddenly decreased in these scenerios. Not good. Also want a high water sensor on my skimmer collection cup. This is another thing I got lazy about checking to clean.

As for nitrate, it is still at 1 ppm today. Has remained there since I started the twice daily feedings 5 days ago. Will keep monitoring for a few weeks and see what happens.

Alk is staying pretty consistent now and has for about 10 days. Still on the higher end, bit stable. That's what is most important.

 

[kevin_e]

Apex is here. Apex ATK and auto feeder are enroute. Will be in on Monday. All will help will some small chores. Keeping fish well fed to raise nitrates. Notify me of low water in top off co tainer to prevent salinity chnages. Important things.

 

[Crustaceon]

I added an eheim auto feeder to my setup last week and it cracks me up how nice it is to have an auto feeder after never having one, lol.

 

[kevin_e]

I added an eheim auto feeder to my setup last week and it cracks me up how nice it is to have an auto feeder after never having one, lol.

Absolutely. Some time sit is 2-3 days between feedings for me. Need to normalize that if I want to raise and maintain nitrates.

 

[ycnibrc]

Well I go through the whole 6 pages and I don't remember seeing u mentioned dosing any bacteria source nor food for the acro. First of all this just my observation not criticism. Your tank start with dry rock which mean no bacteria to begin with and for 1.5 year you just do normal reef keeping which build up some bacteria with 5 little fishes. Maining the alk, Cal and mag is part of the equation but not completely.
The main different between a mature tank and a young tank is the bacteria population. If only keeping the Alk,Cal, and mag stable and u can keep acros then anybody can do it. Throw in the salinity, temp , light and flow same thing. I can set up a brand new tank and buy all good equipment and check every hour to make sure everything stable still I will not be able to keep acros alive for long.
I hope this will make more sense.

 

[Crustaceon]

Well I go through the whole 6 pages and I don't remember seeing u mentioned dosing any bacteria source nor food for the acro. First of all this just my observation not criticism. Your tank start with dry rock which mean no bacteria to begin with and for 1.5 year you just do normal reef keeping which build up some bacteria with 5 little fishes. Maining the alk, Cal and mag is part of the equation but not completely.
The main different between a mature tank and a young tank is the bacteria population. If only keeping the Alk,Cal, and mag stable and u can keep acros then anybody can do it. Throw in the salinity, temp , light and flow same thing. I can set up a brand new tank and buy all good equipment and check every hour to make sure everything stable still I will not be able to keep acros alive for long.
I hope this will make more sense.

The question should be whether the tank initially cycled or not. If it did, then the bacteria population should be fine. I think the idea of waiting a year or so for the tank to stabilize before adding sps like acros has less to do with the maturation of the tank and more with gaining the experience over that year and learning how to keep stable water parameters which are critical for things like acros. As for this tank, keeping nutrients too low in conjunction with not feeding enough/not using coral food (often a nitrate source too) is probably the culprit. And as we know, coral has a symbiotic relationship with its zooxanthellae and gain much of its nutritional from it. If the zooxanthellae isn’t happy due to a lack of “fertilizer” in the water, odds are the coral won’t be either, even if it has plenty of bacteria to snack on.

 

[ycnibrc]

Bacteria don't live forever if you don't replenish or feed them eventually they will be reduce. If Alk, Cal , Mag , light, flow, temp , trace element change can kill acros then none of us can buy frags or corals since it's a big change between 2 tank.

 

[kevin_e]

Well I go through the whole 6 pages and I don't remember seeing u mentioned dosing any bacteria source nor food for the acro. First of all this just my observation not criticism. Your tank start with dry rock which mean no bacteria to begin with and for 1.5 year you just do normal reef keeping which build up some bacteria with 5 little fishes. Maining the alk, Cal and mag is part of the equation but not completely.
The main different between a mature tank and a young tank is the bacteria population. If only keeping the Alk,Cal, and mag stable and u can keep acros then anybody can do it. Throw in the salinity, temp , light and flow same thing. I can set up a brand new tank and buy all good equipment and check every hour to make sure everything stable still I will not be able to keep acros alive for long.
I hope this will make more sense.

Makes sense to me. This isnt my first rodeo though. I've had successful 20g, 55g and 120g SPS tanks.

 

[Crustaceon]

Bacteria don't live forever if you don't replenish or feed them eventually they will be reduce. If Alk, Cal , Mag , light, flow, temp , trace element change can kill acros then none of us can buy frags or corals since it's a big change between 2 tank.

At trace nutrient levels low enough to impact nitrifying bacterial levels, a tank will be well past the point of keeping algae or zooxanthellae and tends to transition into dino and cyano territory. I think if simply not feeding has brought the tank to this point, corals and other inhabitants are in the process of dying or probably died long ago. I agree the tank absolutely has to be fed, either to maintain a low but healthy nitrate and phosphate level or kept at a slightly lower nutrient level with high export and more frequent feedings of aminos, etc. to compensate. I also believe if bacteria main source of coral nutrition, everyone would be carbon dosing specifically for that reason.

 

[kevin_e]

Ok, so I got a brand new pack of Hannah ULR reagent in from BRS. The others were expired and it turns out my readings were wrong.

PSA: Keep unexpired reagents in house. Toss expired ones.

With the new reagent packets I got a reading of 2 ppb phosphorus, or 0.006 ppm of phosphate. Yes, that's 0.006 ppm, NOT 0.06 ppm.

Far different from the 0.11 ppm I got with the expired reagent.

So:

Nitrate: 1 ppm
Phosphate: 0.006 ppm

Seeing an issue here?

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Yes. The combination of really, really low nutrients, high lighting and high alkalinity is really, really not good for acros. Keep in mind, however, that if you have substantial algae in the tank, you might get very low nutrient readings. It's still not a good thing, but there's a difference between a nearly sterile tank with no algae growth to speak of and very low nutrients and one that's a little "dirty" with substantial algae and low nutrient readings.

After reading through these 6 pages, I'd say that you've nailed this with the help of Crustaceon. Generally speaking, dosing is required for an acro tank, whether using 2-part or a calcium reactor. Most of that's not the actual consumption of alkalinity and calcium, it's maintaining constant levels for months/years on end.

You mentioned a couple of pages back that you were going to go to weekly alk/calcium testing. I'd suggest that for the moment while you're hand dosing and getting the tank back on track, you do alk testing at least once every 2 days. Alkalinity stability is that important to an acro tank.

Finally, you mentioned feeding more and/or adding a 5th fish to boost your nitrate/phosphate numbers. That's certainly a possibility, but have you considered simply adding coral foods, such as ReefRoids, Oyster Feast, or something similar?

 

[kevin_e]

Yes. The combination of really, really low nutrients, high lighting and high alkalinity is really, really not good for acros. Keep in mind, however, that if you have substantial algae in the tank, you might get very low nutrient readings. It's still not a good thing, but there's a difference between a nearly sterile tank with no algae growth to speak of and very low nutrients and one that's a little "dirty" with substantial algae and low nutrient readings.

After reading through these 6 pages, I'd say that you've nailed this with the help of Crustaceon. Generally speaking, dosing is required for an acro tank, whether using 2-part or a calcium reactor. Most of that's not the actual consumption of alkalinity and calcium, it's maintaining constant levels for months/years on end.

You mentioned a couple of pages back that you were going to go to weekly alk/calcium testing. I'd suggest that for the moment while you're hand dosing and getting the tank back on track, you do alk testing at least once every 2 days. Alkalinity stability is that important to an acro tank.

Finally, you mentioned feeding more and/or adding a 5th fish to boost your nitrate/phosphate numbers. That's certainly a possibility, but have you considered simply adding coral foods, such as ReefRoids, Oyster Feast, or something similar?

Thank you for the input. I've actually been monitoring alk every 3-4 days for 2 weeks now. Alk isn't budging. Until there is a trend in alk. loss, I won't be dosing. I've run dosers and calc reactors on older SPS systems.

My alk. readings over the last 2 weeks on 5 seperate days are (in ppm) 178, 180, 176, 179 and 179. With testing kit/human error in mind, it doesn't really get any more stable than that. I'm not going to be dosing alk in this tank right now. It doesn't need it.

Salinity, alk., calc., temp. and mag. are all stable. I've been monitoring those every 3-4 days as well. Salinity and temperature are checked daily by Apex and cross verfied by a thermometer and refractometer every 3-4 days.

This may not be where my issues originated. Poor husbandry and testing are probably to blame. I think I am on the right path there. However, where I think I need to focus right now is on these low nutrients. That seems to be where improvement needs to be made now.

1 ppm nitrate for weeks and now 0.006 ppm phosphate with brand new reagent.

I'm not really big on coral foods. Never have been. I'm a firm believer in feeding a well stocked tank and exporting heavily. I think I neez to feed more and or up my bioload. We'll see if the Apex autofeeder improves and stabilizes my nutrients with more feedings throughout the day.

 

[kevin_e]

Another update. I noticed my pH meter on the new Apex was reading 7.3-7.6. I didnt think much of it as it seemed unbelievable. I calibrated and still, similar reading.

I cracked the window by the tank Sunday morning and today, the aquarium is reading 8.26. It has slowly raised for the last 24 hours into a disireable unit.

We have 3 dogs and 2 ppl in a tightly enclosed 1200 SF apt. Did I just find the cause?

 

[Crustaceon]

Another update. I noticed my pH meter on the new Apex was reading 7.3-7.6. I didnt think much of it as it seemed unbelievable. I calibrated and still, similar reading.

I cracked the window by the tank Sunday morning and today, the aquarium is reading 8.26. It has slowly raised for the last 24 hours into a disireable unit.

We have 3 dogs and 2 ppl in a tightly enclosed 1200 SF apt. Did I just find the cause?

Wow, that’s a crazy Co2 issue. Keeping in mind that ph plays a significant role in coral calcification with 7.8 being the very low end of the spectrum, I would say yeah, that could be a cause provided all other parameters are within a normal and stable range.

 

[kevin_e]

Wow, that’s a crazy Co2 issue. Keeping in mind that ph plays a significant role in coral calcification with 7.8 being the very low end of the spectrum, I would say yeah, that could be a cause provided all other parameters are within a normal and stable range.

I should clarify that after I calibrated a 2nd time my pH rose from 7.6ish to 7.8ish (towards and of light cycle). So the 7.3 may have been inaccurate, but either way, i think I have been dipping into 7.6-7.7 routinely.

Whats crazy is I run my skimmer like outside and have a CO2 scrubber.

I'm going to get a 2nd calibration fluid set to verify.

 

[Crustaceon]

I should clarify that after I calibrated a 2nd time my pH rose from 7.6ish to 7.8ish (towards and of light cycle). So the 7.3 may have been inaccurate, but either way, i think I have been dipping into 7.6-7.7 routinely.

Whats crazy is I run my skimmer like outside and have a CO2 scrubber.

I'm going to get a 2nd calibration fluid set to verify.

Or you could just get a cheapy api high range ph test for now as long as it’s relatively “fresh”. Those ph probes do wear out too.

 

[kevin_e]

Or you could just get a cheapy api high range ph test for now as long as it’s relatively “fresh”. Those ph probes do wear out too.

Thisnis one of those new double junction Neptune ones.

 

[kevin_e]

So after 2-3 weeks of stable alk readings, my alk dropped 20 ppm over the last 7 days. No water changes in the span.

Seems like something is starting to grow again in my tank. I'm fine with the drop. I want to get closer to 150 ppm instead of 180. Midweek I will check again. I should ve around 150 ppm by then. Then ill start dosing about 3 ppm per day to maintain.

Anyways, thought alk usage was a good sign. I'm guessing the
Usage coincides with my pH rise. Opening the window these last 7 days has allowed my pH to average 8.15 instead of the normal 7.6 or so.