Need advice

[Bugger]

Hi my name is John Im from Ontario Canada I have a reef tank and I am afriad I keep starving my corals. I have had never had any in my tank take off and grow aside from a cats paw.
My question is how much AA do I need to add to raise Nitrogen by one point.
Recently I have started adding phosphate to my tank because it was holding out at .001 and I worry that my corals will starve. I use coral booster and Reef power. SHould I add Florish nitrogen. Im just worried that algae will start taking off.

 

[Finhead]

Where are your nitrates at currently? I dose calcium nitrate in m tank to raise them since I don't keep many fish.
But I'll say the Easiest way to add more nutrients to your tank is more fish and feed more fish.

 

[Bugger]

I only have two small damsels they dont eat much. There at 0 all the time
They beat the hell out of everything I put in the tank

 

[Dennis Cartier]

What type of corals do you keep John? That will play a part in what nutrient levels are sufficient.

Dennis

 

[Bugger]

I keep acropora and acans

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I keep acropora and acans

How big is your tank and what is your equipment include?

Equipment aside, one product that I have found that helps improve coral state, especially for under nourished coral, is Reef Energy from Red Sea. You may want to try dosing Reef Energy A & B for a couple of weeks and see if your corals colour improves and you get some tissue growth. If it does have a positive effect, then that would help to confirm that your lack of growth is related to low nutrients. Using DIY dry planted tank nutrients is far cheaper in the long run, but the Red Sea product is an easy way of testing nutritional issues.

Dennis

 

[Bugger]

I was already using that stuff for months I went threw about three 1000ml bottles. I still lost colonies

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I was already using that stuff for months I went threw about three 1000ml bottles. I still lost colonies

Well that is disappointing, but still tells us something. Do you do regular water changes? If so how often and how much?

When you were losing colonies, how did it progress?

Dennis

 

[Bugger]

I do 40 % every two weeks. They just seem to lose PE and then slowly pine away

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Are you losing acans as well as Acropora? What are your colours like? Pale and colourful or browned out? If browned out, what lights are you running.

Sorry for all the questions, but these sorts of problems are often like looking for a needle in a haystack.

For mixing up stock solutions and knowing how much to use of the solution to raise your water column by x ppm , this site is helpful. http://rotalabutterfly.com/nutrient-calculator.php

For sourcing dry nutrient compounds (in Canada), see this site. https://theplantguy.ca/

Dennis

 

[Bugger]

I lost a few acans a wile back. Colors are great pastel. I use t5s 8 bulb mostly blue plus bulbs.
Thanks for the calculator,

 

[Dennis Cartier]

If your bulbs are changed on a regular basis, that should be enough light. Certainly sounds like they are starving. How is your algae growth, do you get much film algae on the glass? Have you had any corals bleach?

If I were in your situation, I would consider dosing potassium nitrate (KNO3) to raise your NO3 to 2 ppm and attempt to keep it there. Same with PO4, I would think you would want to raise that to 0.03 - 0.05 and keep it there. Dosing by hand would be better as auto dosing these types of nutrients can bite you if you don't test often. The calculator site has the selection for Flourish Phosphorus to help determine the dose to raise your PO4 to a given reading. A Triton ICP test would also go along way to check if your parameters are off in some way.

Dennis

 

[Bugger]

With all the water changes I dont think my numbers are off. But yes I will order some flourish tommarrow I already have the phosporous. Corals seem to lose PE and then STN from the base at which point I throw them out. I have some dinos in the tank but with the low nutrients it never took off. My old tank grew corals but I always had problems with algae.