IMO turning off the skimmer during the night is not good idea, it could be very dangerous especially when tank is heavily fed , you can simply remove the cup of the skimmer (IMO it is better to leave it skimming all the time). My suggestion is to start dosing nitrates and feeding with low phosphate frosen food like brine shrimp and stop other foods (both fish and coral) and Sponge power. If you like Xtra you can continue dosing it (it is aminos, amonnia, and nitrates).
Sorry, I know you did'not ask me for advises, but I like very much your tank and your reefkeeping approach.
Stoyan, I have heard a lot of advice in my greater than 2 decades of reefkeeping, and after all this time there are two things I can tell you for sure - you never know everything, and good advice is priceless. I always listen to advice - I apply my own experiences, do a little research, and give it a shot. So in many less words, I appreciate your advice and see you as a trusted source, so thank you for following along.
I understand your concern with the skimmer. The skimmer sprays too much if I just remove the cup, and soaks the inside of the stand, which runs down the panels and gets my floors wet. They are not waterproof floors, so this is very bad. You do remind me though that I was thinking to fabricate a little concave cap to go over the neck of the skimmer (with cup removed) to hold the spray in. I will do this. That said, I was monitoring pH while turning the skimmer off at the end of the photoperiod it is 8.2 and in the AM just before I turn the skimmer back on it is 7.9. This is definitely a bigger swing than I would like. I also have a CO2 scrubber that I need to hook up to the skimmer since it's that time of year here (freaking cold outside).
As I mentioned, I've really noted no difference in using the Sponge Power, but I have it, and figured I'd use it up. It doesn't seem to cause any issues. I don't know what's in it though. The Reef Roids and Reef Chili - I'm not sure that I see much effect using these either. I will take your advice and cut these out, and just continue with the Xtra as it has been the "magic ingredient" for my tank recently. I'll continue with the 3 drops ProBioS 2x per week too. What about the Coral Snow? I use in replacement of carbon.
I am fairly certain that the homemade mash I feed is low phosphate, all the ingredients are inspected for phosphate preservatives on the packaging, regardless the tank certainly doesn't have a phosphate issue. Here is a typical recipe (all human grade ingredients except the FAF gelatin and vitamins):
White shrimp (shells on) 500 g
Wild Pacific salmon 200 g
Green Lipped Mussels 200 g
Squid 100 g
Flying Fish Roe 15 g
Florida Aqua Farms vitamins 10 g
Nori (green, dry) 5-8 g
Wild Salmon Oil 5000 mg
Hawaiian Astaxanthin 600 mg
Florida Aqua Farms Gelatin 50 g
I just finished today's 10-gallon water change using Aquaforest Probiotic Reef Salt, and tested parameters
before the change:
SG 34 ppt (I adjusted this to 35 ppt
during the water change)
Ca 415, 425 (old Salifert, new Salifert)
Alk 148/144 ppm, 8.28/8.06 dKH (Hanna, old reagent, new reagent)
Alk 7.85 dKH (Salifert)
Mg 1240 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Mg 1200 ppm (Salifert...this kit read 134 ppm lower than Triton in August)
K 390 ppm (Salifert...this kit read 60 ppm higher than Triton in August) I added 10 g Potassion-P which should raise about 20 ppm.
PO4 6 ppb, 0.018 ppm (Hanna ULR)
NO3 1-1.5 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
NO3 ~ 2.5 ppm (Salifert)
I am so happy! This is the highest nitrate reading I've ever seen in this tank. Once every 6-8 weeks I do a big testing like this with numerous kits. Otherwise I just test alkalinity with both Hanna and Salifert every 2 weeks or so. I'm going to do another Triton test as soon as I remember to grab a kit from the LFS.
I was keeping alkalinity in the 6.8-7.0 dKH range for the entire life of the tank, and was recently thinking to try a slightly higher alkalinity to see if I could spur some better growth rates. Between Oct 4th and Nov 14th alkalinity slowly rose to 8.9/8.6 dKH (Hanna/Salifert) because of my lack of testing. I figured this was certainly too high though so I cut the dosers back and dropped it down to 7.96 dKH (Salifert) by the 18th. I decided to stay at this spot, and that's where I am today too. Corals were visually unaffected by the slow alkalinity spike thankfully!
I will take some pics tonight.
I really like the way images are handled in this forum compared to that other one. I was surprised to learn a number of folks are also members here.
