Help with BTAs

[ratposs]

Hi all! I am having some difficulties with my reef tank. I recently went on vacation for a week and had a good friend watch the house again. For the second time, I have come home from vacation to my aquarium nearly on life support. He is attentive to taking care of things when I remind/ask him, but I will have to have my local store do checkups while I am out of town in the future. I have 4 BTAs and right now, they are in rough shape. I am doing what I can to save them, but I need some serious advice. Two of them are closed up, and one is super small.... Like I said, I just got back from vacation, so I am doing everything I can to help the chemistry recover. Here are the current chemistry levels:
ORP-393
PH 8.1
Temp- 78.5
Alk- 13.03
Calcium- 530
MG- 1468
My Phosphates are pretty high right now, and I am going to do a phosphateRx dosing this afternoon. I will attach (hopefully) a photo of both my apex readings and my lighting settings. I am feeding on an autofeeder once a day and frozen food once a week. any advice?

 

[ratposs]

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Do you have pictures of them? Your calcium is a little high, so is your alk,

 

[ratposs]

Also, it is a 90 gallon display with a 20 gallon sump

 

[Malum Argenteum]

You have a 90g display with one Fluval running the screenshotted schedule?

For the future, it might be best (and is pretty easy) to set up an Apex controlled tank to get by for a week, unless there are seahorses or something in there.

 

[ratposs]

Do you have pictures of them? Your calcium is a little high, so is your alk,

There is a second bta in that second photo behind the one in question.

 

[ratposs]

You have a 90g display with one Fluval running the screenshotted schedule?

Yes.

 

[TokenReefer]

Sorry for your troubles? What did you have them do? Anything other than just feed the tank?

 

[ratposs]

Sorry for your troubles? What did you have them do? Anything other than just feed the tank?

He was supposed to be keeping an eye on water levels and cleaning out the skimmer cup. There is an auto feeder, so he didn't need to worry about that. I was also having connectivity issues with the apex, but I got those taken care of today. He had dumped the waste water from the DOS system as well.

 

[ratposs]

You have a 90g display with one Fluval running the screenshotted schedule?

For the future, it might be best (and is pretty easy) to set up an Apex controlled tank to get by for a week, unless there are seahorses or something in there.

No seahorses. I have the apex set up, but I ran out of time getting ready for our trip and couldn't fine tune anything before we left.

 

[Malum Argenteum]

Yes.

My experience with the Fluvals is using the FW model (2 of them, on a 75g, running about 75%) on a medium tech planted tank, so take this for what it is worth. I would suspect a serious lack of light to be playing a role.

Do you feed the anemones regularly?

What water do you use (tap, RO, etc)?

He was supposed to be keeping an eye on water levels

What is the salinity/SG, and how much does it deviate?

 

[ratposs]

My experience with the Fluvals is using the FW model (2 of them, on a 75g, running about 75%) on a medium tech planted tank, so take this for what it is worth. I would suspect a serious lack of light to be playing a role.

Do you feed the anemones regularly?

What water do you use (tap, RO, etc)?


What is the salinity/SG, and how much does it deviate?

I use RO. They probably need to be fed more often, but the two cleaner shrimp are greedy and steal the shrimp chunks. The salinity is at 1.025 and really doesn't fluctuate much.

 

[Malum Argenteum]

the two cleaner shrimp are greedy and steal the shrimp chunks.

Consider feeding the shrimp away from the nems right before you feed the nems. Alternately, feed enough that it doesn't matter that food gets stolen This is what I tend to do -- feed corals and nems enough that the food they don't eat constitutes the fishes' meal.

What are you dosing? The calcium and alk are really high -- not that this would necessarily affect the nems, but it suggests that parameters are not being kept in line well at all.

What is NO3? If PO4 is high, then probably NO3 is too -- but there's no algae in the photos. Something isn't right here, unless the tank is full of tangs.

 

[ratposs]

Consider feeding the shrimp away from the nems right before you feed the nems. Alternately, feed enough that it doesn't matter that food gets stolen This is what I tend to do -- feed corals and nems enough that the food they don't eat constitutes the fishes' meal.

What are you dosing? The calcium and alk are really high -- not that this would necessarily affect the nems, but it suggests that parameters are not being kept in line well at all.

What is NO3? If PO4 is high, then probably NO3 is too -- but there's no algae in the photos. Something isn't right here, unless the tank is full of tangs.

No tangs. Don't know the NO3. I don't think I have a kit for that. The only substantial algae is in the refugium. Overall, super clean. I haven't had any algae to scrub from the display since I got the new tank about 4 months ago. I just started dosing for calcium and alk about 2 weeks ago. Still trying to find that sweet spot. Currently, I am dosing Alk at 5ml per day, and Cal at 75 ml per day. FYI, the Calcium and Alk have both dropped since I started this thread. They are now at 503 and 12.67 respectively.

 

[ratposs]

No tangs. Don't know the NO3. I don't think I have a kit for that. The only substantial algae is in the refugium. Overall, super clean. I haven't had any algae to scrub from the display since I got the new tank about 4 months ago. I just started dosing for calcium and alk about 2 weeks ago. Still trying to find that sweet spot. Currently, I am dosing Alk at 5ml per day, and Cal at 75 ml per day. FYI, the Calcium and Alk have both dropped since I started this thread. They are now at 503 and 12.67 respectively.

Consider feeding the shrimp away from the nems right before you feed the nems. Alternately, feed enough that it doesn't matter that food gets stolen This is what I tend to do -- feed corals and nems enough that the food they don't eat constitutes the fishes' meal.

What are you dosing? The calcium and alk are really high -- not that this would necessarily affect the nems, but it suggests that parameters are not being kept in line well at all.

What is NO3? If PO4 is high, then probably NO3 is too -- but there's no algae in the photos. Something isn't right here, unless the tank is full of tangs.

Also, I have had to open the windows a lot lately to get fresh air to accommodate for low ph. It has dropped a lot in the past while the Alk has stayed high, and I don't want to use a ph buffer because it will spike the alk with it.

 

[Spare time]

Waaaay too little light, and you don't know the nitrate.

 

[ratposs]

Waaaay too little light, and you don't know the nitrate.

Any advice on the lighting levels?

 

[Malum Argenteum]

Not sure pH is worth worrying about in this situation. I sure wouldn't dose anything for it, if I understand the current tank correctly. pH is definitely interesting to help figure out what the system is up to, but forcefully adjusting it is a little over the top for most situations.

Why are you dosing Ca and alk? Were they low? Looks like your tank might do pretty well with water changes and the occasional Ca/alk correction.

Any advice on the lighting levels?

Based on my use of Fluvals in FW (where they work pretty well for me), if I used them for SW I'd personally put at least three of those fixtures on a 90g and start with about a 75% level on white, and other colors adjusted to appearance.

 

[ratposs]

Just found a multi use test strip. Everything is looking good except the water hardness is a bit high (maybe 250mg/L?). The Nitrates are right around 20 mg/L

 

[Malum Argenteum]

Best get a decent test kit. I would not use a test strip to make any decisions from. I like Salifert for NO3, personally.

FYI, hardness isn't relevant in a marine tank.