Help...ready to give up on reefing

[Afoer499]

I've been overfeeding since Friday. Tested today for nitrates and up to a little bit of color on the red sea kit, between 0 and 2 in color. Did about 20% water change over the course of the weekend to help with the possibility of contaminants from bad rodi filters. Now my cyano is spreading bad. Still doesn't make sense to have zero nitrates but algae is spreading.

 

[FishTruck]

I will replace my membrane as well just to be safe. The timeline of corals dying off would seem to coincide with exhausted rodi. I will be doing at least a 20% water change tonight and again this weekend to hopefully clear things out. Overfeeding and some more flow should hopefully help as well.

I have had this happen three times - RO/DI not working properly with coral loss. Where I live... if my final tds is not zero, my acros will start to brown out, lose tissue, and then croak. It took me a year to figure it out the first time. The turn around when fixed is usually pretty dramatic (improvement in corals). The story is always the same, new tank, doing great, then suddenly the corals start to die.

 

[Afoer499]

I have had this happen three times - RO/DI not working properly with coral loss. Where I live... if my final tds is not zero, my acros will start to brown out, lose tissue, and then croak. It took me a year to figure it out the first time. The turn around when fixed is usually pretty dramatic (improvement in corals). The story is always the same, new tank, doing great, then suddenly the corals start to die.

Seems exactly what I have had happen. I have a tds meter on the way to test for this.

 

[Afoer499]

Have continued the overfeeding. Nitrates are slowly coming up. My new phosphate test came today and I am a little on the high side at .09. Any recommendations for bringing this down without effecting everything else? Maybe switching my reactor from carbon to gfo?
I also began a small dosing regimen for alkalinity to bring that up a little. Currently up from 7 to 8.6 over the past few days.

Thanks for all the help

 

[Afoer499]

I also added a second mp10 on the opposite wall from the original. These along with my return pump create my flow.

 

[FishTruck]

IMO... Phos .09 is fine for now. You don't have any acropora in your tank at this point, so there is probably no reason to push your phosphates lower just yet. No higher on the Alk. High and rising ALK is really tough on corals, a low Alk not so bad.

Just make sure you are putting 0 tds water in from your RO / DI system then you can rely on strategic water changes to control your phos and get rid of anything that snuck through your RO system.

Also... double check and make sure it's cyano and not dinoflagellates. Dealing with the two requires different strategies.

 

[Afoer499]

IMO... Phos .09 is fine for now. You don't have any acropora in your tank at this point, so there is probably no reason to push your phosphates lower just yet. No higher on the Alk. High and rising ALK is really tough on corals, a low Alk not so bad.

Just make sure you are putting 0 tds water in from your RO / DI system then you can rely on strategic water changes to control your phos and get rid of anything that snuck through your RO system.

Also... double check and make sure it's cyano and not dinoflagellates. Dealing with the two requires different strategies.

I will be installing the tds meter on the rodi tonight to make sure everything is at 0.

I wasn't too worried about the elevated phosphate but was thinking long term to add the gfo instead of the carbon. Good idea?

It looks like cyano to me. A purple sheet in slower moving spots at the front of the sand bed. Not thick but would like to get it under control before it spreads.

 

[reefinatl]

No matter what you do (get bigger tank, more flow, stronger lights) none of it will make a difference if you have 0 or close to 0 nitrates and phosphates............this seems to be a huge Trend in new or fairly new reefers lately with all of them at 6-12 month mark with dying corals and 0 nitrates and phosphates.... anyways good luck if you dont change this. I struggled with this for years until I finally believed someone and raised them. I truly think this site needs a sticky post for this at top of most fourm. Also would be nice if it was send out to new members in a welcome email as being the number 1 issue with new reefers and new posts coming up about this multiple times a day that new reefers obviously don’t read or believe like I did at first

The better cheaper refugium lights are partially to blame. I've never run a skimmer or filter sock only refugium. I had some level of difficulty in 2007-2012 in my first round of the hobby keeping nutrients down and algae in the dt under control with a basic freshwater light over a 20g long. Now I have a cheap Amazon grow light and can't keep nutrients above zero feeding pellets and a cube of mysis daily to a nearly empty 90g. Keep reducing the photoperiod on the fuge to find the spot.

Collectively the hobby is a 180 with regards to nutrient control vs a decade ago. It used to be hard to keep them low, now it's challenging in some cases to keep them above zero.

 

[Afoer499]

The better cheaper refugium lights are partially to blame. I've never run a skimmer or filter sock only refugium. I had some level of difficulty in 2007-2012 in my first round of the hobby keeping nutrients down and algae in the dt under control with a basic freshwater light over a 20g long. Now I have a cheap Amazon grow light and can't keep nutrients above zero feeding pellets and a cube of mysis daily to a nearly empty 90g. Keep reducing the photoperiod on the fuge to find the spot.

Collectively the hobby is a 180 with regards to nutrient control vs a decade ago. It used to be hard to keep them low, now it's challenging in some cases to keep them above zero.

I have been really low on the algae reactor lighting. Only run it at night about every other day and have left what's in there to grow so that it doesn't produce anymore chaeto to try to slow nutrient export. Am I correct in that thinking?

 

[FishTruck]

Have continued the overfeeding. Nitrates are slowly coming up. My new phosphate test came today and I am a little on the high side at .09. Any recommendations for bringing this down without effecting everything else? Maybe switching my reactor from carbon to gfo?
I also began a small dosing regimen for alkalinity to bring that up a little. Currently up from 7 to 8.6 over the past few days.

Thanks for all the help

I just noticed you have an algae reactor... so that's a :no" for GFO... and a YES for tuning the light schedule on your reactor and water changes to get your nutrients where you want them. (The GFO will inhibit algae growth in the reactor - counterproductive).

I am thinking that your low nitrates might have been limiting algae growth... so just by seeing if the algae in your reactor takes off a little bit with the higher nitrates... the phosphates may come down.

 

[Afoer499]

I just noticed you have an algae reactor... so that's a :no" for GFO... and a YES for better lighting or a longer light cycle to get you phosphates where you want them. The GFO will wipe out your reactor algae.

Better lighting than a radion xr15 pro??

 

[FishTruck]

Better lighting than a radion xr15 pro??

Lol, I meant the light in your algae reactor. I was talking about getting your algae reactor to control your phosphates... - and GFO will be counterproductive. Options to consider....

Maybe... do nothing since your nitrates are up... just watch for increased algae production in the reactor and a subsequent drop in phosphates. Maybe, your algae was nitrate starved.

Maybe, check the lighting specs in your algae reactor to match the needs of your particular alage (PAR and spectral balance) and then increase or decrease the light cycle. Algaebarn has good information on that.

 

[Afoer499]

Lol, I meant the light in your algae reactor. I was talking about getting your algae reactor to control your phosphates... - and GFO will be counterproductive. Options to consider....

Maybe... do nothing since your nitrates are up... just watch for increased algae production in the reactor and a subsequent drop in phosphates. Maybe, your algae was nitrate starved.

Maybe, check the lighting specs in your algae reactor to match the needs of your particular alage (PAR and spectral balance) and then increase or decrease the light cycle. Algaebarn has good information on that.

I will look into it. I have the reactor set up with the led strip lighting it came with and it grows a good amount of chaeto. I have not trimmed it in a while though so that it would not grow more trying to raise nitrates. I think I will pull some now and see if that helps.

Thank you for the replies.