Getting Parameters in Check

Dariel92 · Mar 2, 2023

Hi Everyone,
Looking for some guidance as to what to do here. I just had a baby recently and kind of neglected the tank a bit. I have a 65 gallon mixed reef tank with a few corals and fish. Left it untouched for a while and looks like parameters went to crap. Have a little more free time and wanted to ask for advice on how to get everything back up to normal status.
Currently have 2 clowns and a blue hippo. Most corals being Lps(hammer, frogspawn, elegance, torch) a few zoa's and two stylo's (green and purple) decent sized about 4 inch colonies.
Have been using reef crystals salt now for a bit and have been thinking of switching to get Tropic marine to get down the ALK.
Also started to overfeed a bit to get the Nitrate and Phosphates up.

Corals all look faded and starting to shrink.
Any advice to kind of get everything back to regular would be great.
Tank Parameters
Salinity - 1.024
Phosphate - 0
Nitrates - 0
Calcium - 470
Alk - 13
Mag - 1400

EricR · Mar 2, 2023

If phosphate/nitrate is really 0, I think many would be concerned about that,,, especially with alk that high, but even without

John Bolden · Mar 2, 2023

it

Dariel92 said:
Hi Everyone,
Looking for some guidance as to what to do here. I just had a baby recently and kind of neglected the tank a bit. I have a 65 gallon mixed reef tank with a few corals and fish. Left it untouched for a while and looks like parameters went to crap. Have a little more free time and wanted to ask for advice on how to get everything back up to normal status.
Currently have 2 clowns and a blue hippo. Most corals being Lps(hammer, frogspawn, elegance, torch) a few zoa's and two stylo's (green and purple) decent sized about 4 inch colonies.
Have been using reef crystals salt now for a bit and have been thinking of switching to get Tropic marine to get down the ALK.
Also started to overfeed a bit to get the Nitrate and Phosphates up.

Corals all look faded and starting to shrink.
Any advice to kind of get everything back to regular would be great.
Tank Parameters
Salinity - 1.024
Phosphate - 0
Nitrates - 0
Calcium - 470
Alk - 13
Mag - 1400

It really doesn't look that bad try to get phosphates up and alk down to 10 or so and your good.

Dariel92 · Mar 2, 2023

Thanks!!!! trying to figure out how to get ALK lower. While raising the phosphates and nitrates up.

bushdoc · Mar 2, 2023

The only reasonable way to lower alkalinity is to switch salt to one with lower alkalinity. I would go for one with alk around 8-9 dKH and do small, gradual water changes.
Obviously you need to work on raising nutrients too.
Almost forgot- suggest slowly raising sg to 1.025-1.026, but do it over several days Or few weeks.

Dariel92 · Mar 2, 2023

Thanks

FlowGod · Mar 3, 2023

Once you start showing it love it will look better. Just like bushdoc said, I would focus on stabilizing things slowly. Sad to say I neglected my tank for about a year, all I really did was fill up my ato and dosing reservoirs when they were too low. Needless to say, my parameters were very low and I slowly brought them back up over a few months. I started doing regular water changes again and they tank is coming back around.