Frustrated with the hobby.

[ninjamyst]

Classic case of doing too much. Stop nopox, stop changing carbon all the time, stop dosing anything besides alk and ca. Try leaving your tank alone for a month.

 

[Pico bam]

Classic case of doing too much. Stop nopox, stop changing carbon all the time, stop dosing anything besides alk and ca. Try leaving your tank alone for a month.

This was one of my first thoughts. Another thought is how long are your lights on try 8-9 hours a day for a month or two. Alot of people leave the lights on for 12 hours or more. Its insanely easy to kill coral that way.

 

[LAX Noob Reef]

I actually think your nutrient might be too low with GFO / Skimmer / Chaeto. Have you try leaving the GFO off? Also have you consider dosing some bacteria to help stabilize the tank more?

 

[Matt Winstead]

Yup, just the Nopox, move to a “maintenance” dose of 8ml day, but, I would decrease only 2-3ml week until you reach that.

I’ve been running that dose for 4 years.

In a 3 year old reef, 5-20ppm nitrate and 0.05-.2ppm phosphate would be normal expectations.

That flux in your chart seems a bit odd to me, is that done by probe, if so, I’d check your phosphorus with a Hanna UL checker.

I test with HANNA for phos and nitrate.

 

[Matt Winstead]

Hard to tell on the chart but I'm guessing the large PO4 drops may coincide with the weekly changing of GFO.

Exactly you're correct that's it.

 

[Matt Winstead]

This was one of my first thoughts. Another thought is how long are your lights on try 8-9 hours a day for a month or two. Alot of people leave the lights on for 12 hours or more. Its insanely easy to kill coral that way.

I'm at 9 hours full intensity with a 1.5 hour ramp on both ends.

 

[Matt Winstead]

I actually think your nutrient might be too low with GFO / Skimmer / Chaeto. Have you try leaving the GFO off? Also have you consider dosing some bacteria to help stabilize the tank more?

What kind of bacteria?

 

[Kjames]

With all those fish it would be hard to keep waster under control. Are you doing everything you can to not overfeed in the first place? And I agree with the "doing too much" replies.

A filter roller and auto water change system could be your best friend. Remove the poop in real-time.

 

[Pico bam]

I'm at 9 hours full intensity with a 1.5 hour ramp on both ends.

A thought of myne would be backing off the lights. try nocking 2 hours or so off. And remove things like gfo and nopox and even carbon slowly. By all means control phosphate and nitrate if it gets to high. Maybe try just a phosphate remover, phosphate-e by brightwells is strong and sufficient. Especially if you have a refugium this should work. I generally have a 95% or so success rate with corals and I feel like its easily attainable. Good luck! Hope this is helpful.

 

[ninjamyst]

I'm at 9 hours full intensity with a 1.5 hour ramp on both ends.

9 hours peak is a lot... Too much light can definitely kill LPS.

 

[Matt Winstead]

 

[LAX Noob Reef]

What kind of bacteria?

I'm doing Fritz 9, which seem to be pretty good so far. You want "Live" one, not those that are dormant, but here is a simple list:

Fritz 9 - Fritz
Microbacter 7 - Brighwell
Proidibio
Dr Tim 1 and only

Do it in small dosage. You want small changes at a time, nothing to big.

 

[Matt Winstead]

A thought of myne would be backing off the lights. try nocking 2 hours or so off. And remove things like gfo and nopox and even carbon slowly. By all means control phosphate and nitrate if it gets to high. Maybe try just a phosphate remover, phosphate-e by brightwells is strong and sufficient. Especially if you have a refugium this should work. I generally have a 95% or so success rate with corals and I feel like its easily attainable. Good luck! Hope this is helpful.

Thanks just dropped to 1130a-930p with ramp up and down

 

[BiggestE222]

I'm at 9 hours full intensity with a 1.5 hour ramp on both

I'm at 9 hours full intensity with a 1.5 hour ramp on both ends.

Here is my photo period. Running about 45% on my XR30 fixture

 

[BiggestE222]

I will lower my period. I see my gold hammer while polyps out it seems to tighten up a bit the last 90 minutes

 

[BiggestE222]

I also added cloud cover to 20%

 

[WVNed]

You’re just saying they’re cheapest, so they’re best? More often the opposite is true, think Amazon and wal mart. I don’t have problems with their prices, I don’t like how they pass sales pitches as “helpful advice,” which is all their videos have become.

I don't watch the videos and almost every bit of media our society produces is to influence us in some way.
It seems silly to get upset over that to me. It isn't like they took down the old videos and replaced them with the new ones either.

 

[Pico bam]

This is my schedule I usually run my lights at 40-50% intensity in a 14" deep sr-120.

 

[FishGeist]

Stop Nopox, Put Refuigium on Reverse 12hr, Diversify the macro in your Refugium, Switch from GFO in your reactor to Seachem SeaGel, (Phosguard/Carbon Mix) and change that every 3 months. Only feed lightly once a day.

 

[hokiereef]

I like all this advice everyone is saying on doing too much. Ive found that to be true from experience. I’ve been there. You end up chasing it. I’m in the hobby 20 years. I’ve done every dumb thing and learned. Still learn weekly.
I lost all of my high end torches recently. I feel your pain. This hobby can be brutal.
I’m a big LPS guy. Love euphyllia, gonis, trachys, etc. I find that a lot of these hard core nutrient controls apply more to the stick head acrofreak crowd and sometimes you can get caught up in it and over complicate.
I also watch BRS videos regularly. Always listening, and those guys are great. I know when they talk about Nitrate/Phosphate control they talk about choosing one method, and sticking to it. My take is that you dial the food down (slowly) and pick one method (fuge, gfo, etc.) to control it down to good levels. LRS food is great.
I have had success running a refugium. It’s painful until you get it dialed in, but what I like is that it is self correcting. Meaning if the nutrients drop, the algae stops growing. You can find an equilibrium, it’s natural. I also dose phyto daily. Nothing like copepods to feed the LPS at night.