New bare bottom nutrients difficult to keep stable

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Reef AquaCult

Reef AquaCult

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I’m a first-time Barr bottomer because I’ve always struggled in past tanks to keep nutrients down. Tank is up for 8 months. If I don’t dose anything and just feed the tank I have zero nitrates and zero phosphates. If i dose nitrates and phosphates I feel like it’s a constant battle to keep them in ideal range. I have about 25-30 small lps and sps frags. Only things I’ve lost are a couple acro frags. After I started dosing corals look better. My tank is a 150g, no skimmer and I took my refugium offline. Tank is fallow right now but I’m ghost feeding it equivalent to 1-2 cubes a day frozen. It’s very difficult to get my 1-5 ppm nitrate and 0.07-0.12 goal phosphate. Twice a week I’m testing and changing dose amount. Any suggestions?
 
Deltec
Are you doing anything that reduces nutrients, that you can cut back on? Carbon dosing, macroalage refugium, biopellets, etc.?
 
Barebottom + refugium is a VERY powerful nutrient removal scenario. I had the same setup and struggled for a long time, was dosing N + P and still had trouble keeping the nutrients up. Ended up with Dinos and had to take the fuge offline for a while.

I think the key is to either limit flow through the refugium or to reduce the photoperiod dramatically.

The BRS 160 series video they talk at some point where they found balance by lighting the refugium ONLY 3 nights per week.
 
Fallow ends this weekend. Agree needs fish! I took my fuge offline because nutrients were 0 and macro was dying. Corals actually improved when I did this. I’m not doing carbon dosing or biopellets. I do have a filter roll which is apparently working maybe too well. I guess I could shunt some flow away from the filter roll.
 
I'm experiencing this same exact phenomenon on my 200G BB. I just turned took my skimmer out of commission to see if it would help. I have 6 fish at the moment and feed pellets twice a day and 2 cubes of mysis. I'm also adding reef roids, reef chilli and Red Sea reef energy. I'll be following to see what others suggest outside of dosing.
 
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Tidal Gardens
Reef AquaCult said:
Fallow ends this weekend. Agree needs fish! I took my fuge offline because nutrients were 0 and macro was dying. Corals actually improved when I did this. I’m not doing carbon dosing or biopellets. I do have a filter roll which is apparently working maybe too well. I guess I could shunt some flow away from the filter roll.
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You'll get your nutrients once you start adding critters back. I wouldn't chase it to hard. Keep adding a bit until then.
 
Tanks been running 8 months. Did you start tank with dry or live rock? Reason I ask is because the last tank I started with dry rock took me almost 1-1/2 years to get NO3 and PO4 stable with a reading. Also battled lots of diatoms. I'm finally able to add coral. I also battled with dosing NO3 and PO4 but kepy at it then one day everything fell in line. For me I put the blame on pukani dry rock. I've been reefing since the late 90's and i've never struggled this long to get parameters in check.
 
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@rfgonzo

dry rock. Sounds like I’m in the same boat you were. I’ve had my share of algae battles too. Crazy to battle algae w zero nutrients. Some of my coral is doing very well but def lost some test acros. Bare bottom so far has been a pain but hopefully things will settle out soon and seas will be smoother.
 
Reef AquaCult said:
@rfgonzo

dry rock. Sounds like I’m in the same boat you were. I’ve had my share of algae battles too. Crazy to battle algae w zero nutrients. Some of my coral is doing very well but def lost some test acros. Bare bottom so far has been a pain but hopefully things will settle out soon and seas will be smoother.
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Not to crazy. That dry rock is nasty stuff with no beneficial bacteria and will suck up nutrients fast so you won't see a reading on hobby test kits. I personally will never set -up another reef tank with it.
 
rfgonzo said:
Not to crazy. That dry rock is nasty stuff with no beneficial bacteria and will suck up nutrients fast so you won't see a reading on hobby test kits. I personally will never set -up another reef tank with it.
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Me too! What a pain
 
Chewy.com
BrandonS said:
BRS just did a follow up on there ULM series and talked about bare bottom and fuge difficulty. Took the fuges out and found the first year is rough without sand.

Good info in that video @bulkreefsupply
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I just made a small sand box for a halichores wrasse, maybe there’s enough surface area to help things a bit After bacteria has time to populate
 
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rfgonzo said:
If i'm not mistaken that video also spoke about dry rock...
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It did. They found that established dry rock made the bare bottom issues go away. But with rock less than a year old they had issues. I had a buddy do the same thing recently. Had 12 year old live rock so no issues setting up a loaded new tank bare bottom. Tried setting up a softy tank with dry rock bare bottom and it still get bacteria blooms.
 
BrandonS said:
It did. They found that established dry rock made the bare bottom issues go away. But with rock less than a year old they had issues. I had a buddy do the same thing recently. Had 12 year old live rock so no issues setting up a loaded new tank bare bottom. Tried setting up a softy tank with dry rock bare bottom and it still get bacteria blooms.
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I would agree from my experience. Took me 1-1/2 years.
 
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