Please help me save my tank.

[Kaludar]

Also how does your Richordia Mushroom look? It's health is a good indicator of water quality (Nutrients/Lighting/Water Parameter Stability)
It is open? Shrunken? or no changes from before.?
Acans are touch and go, and sometimes it's anything.

Richordia is open and healthy, it has actually split and reproduced since being put in the tank. Blasto is also open and growing new polyps at a pretty fast rate.

 

[Triggreef]

I stopped it 100%. I was dosing 7ml daily. One of the things that has been the most confusing to me is there seems to be two main camps when it comes to nutrients, people at my LFS and some on here say my nutrients are way too high and that i want to shoot for just trace of nitrate and phosphate, and then others say nutrients aren't the enemy. I went with the trace nutrient camp right off the bat, and was convinced i was starving my corals, and now i stopped nopox and my corals are still dying but instead im starting to get algae growth.

Do you think its possible that I never created a suitable bacteria biome in my tank by using nopox so early on in the tank life ?

Well also be cautious of who you get your info from. Nutrients are probably not your problem. Here is a shot of my tank, one side anyway. And my last po4 reading was .80 with Hanna, down from my norm 1.2 ish. My no3 is generally around 5 to 10.

 

[WallyB]

I'm producing much less skimmate now that I stopped nopox, it also smelled awful when i was using nopox ( strong rotting egg smell) that is gone now. Im assuming the smell was from the dead bacteria.

Egg Smell is Sulfur. I'm not a NoPox Expert, but read that Folks have wiped out their Tanks using NoPox Improperly.
I never got into using it, since LFS store said "once you start, you can't just Stop".
You might want to read up on that. I think you stopping NoPox may have cause some kind of Bacteria Die off, and the Sulpur Dioxide gas.

 

[CuzzA]

You also have almost no coraline algae, this tells me your tank hasn't been stable if it's been up for 11 months. I think you've got a lot of things working against you.

High nitrates (filter bag turnover?), angel in small tank (very little algae?), likely alk fluctuations (no coraline?), FWIW, I test alk and po4 daily. When I ran bags I changed them daily. I would do water changes to bring down nitrates, re-home the angel. Start dripping kalk and monitor your parameters for a few months until they're dialed in, then slowly start adding sticks and harder to keep LPS, like scolys.

 

[WallyB]

Richordia is open and healthy, it has actually split and reproduced since being put in the tank. Blasto is also open and growing new polyps at a pretty fast rate.

ok. Then don't panic. Don't do too much (Drastic changes)
Sometime we over react to one coral not doing well, and then damage the others that are (doing fixes).

 

[Kaludar]

Wow, beautiful tank. Also thanks for the responses so far guys.

I have been considering getting some liquid phosphate to dose my tank to around .10 and then start using microbacter 7 to try to boost my beneficial bacteria. Is this a bad idea?

To the person who asked about my skimmate, its producing very dark skimmate, but I also have my skimmer turned down to the lowest setting to try to reduce my export a bit.

 

[Kaludar]

I should also mention that I have a trident and apex on my system and my alk is kept stable at around 8-8.20 dKH. I am running a Dos pump to keep alk and calcium stable. I have all the gadgets, just none of the success. Lol.

 

[Sarah24!]

Tank is about 11mo old. I have a few spots of coraline, but not much. I started running no-pox very early on in the life of the tank and stopped a few weeks ago. My theory is that maybe i stunted the normal development cycle of the tank by running no-pox so early?



I could retest but it definitely looked like it.

Hello,

As we try and piece what’s going on with your tank, one major thing stands out. You absolutely can not just come turkey stop no pox. You must reduce it and even then once at a min, taper it even more. It’s not ideal and will absolutely kill your corals. If you have the instructions still pretty on page six they are pretty blunt and say do Not stop dosing just do the bare min. If you miss a day, then resume next day. But I have seen lots of tanks crash because aka nopox (which I have used for 3 years on my tank), but it was a last resort. It does work but extreme consistency with it is key.

I don’t know much about your tank, if it was mine I would start (based on what volume), which mine is 30ml, until nitrates drop to maybe 10ppm (what did they use to be at is huge key). I must say this carefully, the level of nitrates and phosphates is well kinda irrelevant. Now I say this because the lfs here is a solid sps high end sps and his nitrates are 50ppm. My tank is fairly low probably under 2ppm. Now swapping frags back and forth, (same alk etc parameters), phosphates were different and my corals died in his and his in mine. They are live animals and will adapt to their environment. Example humans are suppose to not eat much red meat fast food etc, and tons of veggies. Well one of the oldest living humans lol had fast food almost every day of his life. But my point is they could be shocked do to nitrate change and depletion of the nopox. If they are use to 20ppm then that’s not it. I’d lean more towards cutting the nopox, or something we have not seen yet. The mag was a little high. Calcium and alk should be higher if it’s about 10ppm and lower If under 2ppm etc. so with your 20ppm I’d say 8-9 alk and 450 cal maybe 480. Low maybe 7 lowest and cal close to 400. Again every single tank is totally different. What works in mine may won’t work in yours. I probably did 20 swaps with my lfs and neither one of us could keep them alive. We have the same lights, (most equipment as well). Main difference he never tests nitrates etc when we did it was 50ppm. Yet his tank is just gorgeous solid sps. Another thing that helps with this is to dose the item seed. It will definitely raise the nitrates and phosphates and good bacteria you need.

 

[GSnake]

i started going somewhere with acros after about a year of my tank, so don't give up. no pox is suppose to feed bacteria so they can grow and consume higher amounts of nitrate/phos in the tank, by stopping nopox you might have reduced bacteria population / strength. without bacteria populations, you might create too sterile of a tank, in the ocean there is tons of bacteria / plankton . i would consider continuing nopox or something similar.

 

[fishguy242]

going old school add a few lbs true live rock,coral vite,try to stay stable in params

 

[Triggreef]

I stopped it 100%. I was dosing 7ml daily. One of the things that has been the most confusing to me is there seems to be two main camps when it comes to nutrients, people at my LFS and some on here say my nutrients are way too high and that i want to shoot for just trace of nitrate and phosphate, and then others say nutrients aren't the enemy. I went with the trace nutrient camp right off the bat, and was convinced i was starving my corals, and now i stopped nopox and my corals are still dying but instead im starting to get algae growth.

Do you think its possible that I never created a suitable bacteria biome in my tank by using nopox so early on in the tank life ?

They say not to stop all at once with nopox or carbon dosing. That said I stopped on one tank after several years of it and had no issues from it.

 

[WallyB]

Wow, beautiful tank. Also thanks for the responses so far guys.

I have been considering getting some liquid phosphate to dose my tank to around .10 and then start using microbacter 7 to try to boost my beneficial bacteria. Is this a bad idea?

To the person who asked about my skimmate, its producing very dark skimmate, but I also have my skimmer turned down to the lowest setting to try to reduce my export a bit.

Don't mess around with Additives to fix your tank stability. It will cause the opposite (and drive you and Corals nuts)

If you have a Trident, then your KEY Parameter are fine (assuming you are keeping them stable). Stable mean within a reasonble swing (Alk +- 0.5dkh swing is fine, but not much more).. WHen you adjust your ALK/CALC/MAG, do it (((((SLOWLY))))

Let the tank be, if even 50% of the corals are doing fine. You sometime need to look at what kind of corals are not doing well. (You just learned from using NoPox, so don't add more Junk)

You goal is for the Tank to Stabilize without too many chemicals. Fish Poo and Adequate Filtration is all you need (Called Nutrient Import/Export)

Losing a few sensitive corals in first year of tank is kind of normal.

After 25 years in this Hobby, I still can't keep a Acan alive for Long.

Just so you don't feel bad about losing one at this early stage.

Pay attention, and see how things go.

 

[WallyB]

And to put things into perspective, SO YOU DON'T CHASE NUMBERS, or Chemicals like people might tell you do to.

This is my LPS/MIX tank couple years ago, when I HAD ACANS

NITRATE= 40 ppm (STABLE!!)
Phosphates= 0.3 or higher (STABLE!!)

Yes, I killled those two Acans (Like Always) but nothing else.

 

[Kaludar]

Don't mess around with Additives to fix your tank stability. It will cause the opposite (and drive you and Corals nuts)

If you have a Trident, then your KEY Parameter are fine (assuming you are keeping them stable). Stable mean within a reasonble swing (Alk +- 0.5dkh swing is fine, but not much more).. WHen you adjust your ALK/CALC/MAG, do it (((((SLOWLY))))

Let the tank be, if even 50% of the corals are doing fine. You sometime need to look at what kind of corals are not doing well. (You just learned from using NoPox, so don't add more Junk)

You goal is for the Tank to Stabilize without too many chemicals. Fish Poo and Adequate Filtration is all you need (Called Nutrient Import/Export)

Losing a few sensitive corals in first year of tank is kind of normal.

After 25 years in this Hobby, I still can't keep a Acan alive for Long.

Just so you don't feel bad about losing one at this early stage.

Pay attention, and see how things go.

So would you suggest to not even dose any microbacter 7 to try to rebuild some bacteria incase the rapid nopox harmed by bacteria ?

 

[WallyB]

So would you suggest to not even dose any microbacter 7 to try to rebuild some bacteria incase the rapid nopox harmed by bacteria ?

I never answer a question, if I don't know with certainty. So I don't know (how to deal with a NoPox shock, if this is the case for you)
Bacteria will come back naturally.
Adding Bacteria can cause an Bacteria Bloom, and I've seen that happen when you add too much, which can deplete your oxygen in tank, and suffocate your fish. (If a bacteria bloom starts (Tank goes cloudy white), then you must add an air stone to aerate the tank (Till tank clears up).

So if your tank is going through some bacteria instability, let it stabilize (on it's own). PATIENTLY!!!
Any instability is not solved overnight, or a few days (1-2). We are talking a week or two.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Don't mess around with Additives to fix your tank stability. It will cause the opposite (and drive you and Corals nuts)

If you have a Trident, then your KEY Parameter are fine (assuming you are keeping them stable). Stable mean within a reasonble swing (Alk +- 0.5dkh swing is fine, but not much more).. WHen you adjust your ALK/CALC/MAG, do it (((((SLOWLY))))

Let the tank be, if even 50% of the corals are doing fine. You sometime need to look at what kind of corals are not doing well. (You just learned from using NoPox, so don't add more Junk)

You goal is for the Tank to Stabilize without too many chemicals. Fish Poo and Adequate Filtration is all you need (Called Nutrient Import/Export)

Losing a few sensitive corals in first year of tank is kind of normal.

After 25 years in this Hobby, I still can't keep a Acan alive for Long.

Just so you don't feel bad about losing one at this early stage.

Pay attention, and see how things go.

^this. People depend on chemicals and additives way too much. Do some water changes and let the tank do its thing!

 

[WallyB]

So would you suggest to not even dose any microbacter 7 to try to rebuild some bacteria incase the rapid nopox harmed by bacteria ?

The bacteria didn't harm your tank. The bacteria die off, and sulfur gas may have.
Clean you skimmer often, and get it to clean up your system.

Can't hurt to add an air stone, or any kind of surface aggitation.

Maybe add some carbon if you don't already have some in your system. (BUT NOT MUCH!!)

 

[xxkenny90xx]

going old school add a few lbs true live rock,coral vite,try to stay stable in params

^this is how you establish beneficial bacteria in your tank if your worried about die off

 

[WallyB]

Wow, beautiful tank. Also thanks for the responses so far guys.

I have been considering getting some liquid phosphate to dose my tank to around .10 and then start using microbacter 7 to try to boost my beneficial bacteria. Is this a bad idea?

To the person who asked about my skimmate, its producing very dark skimmate, but I also have my skimmer turned down to the lowest setting to try to reduce my export a bit.

TURN UP THE SKIMMER!! (It removes the Toxins, die off, etc)
If you want to add nutrients...Feed Fish more (only what they will eat, so no waste)

And now that You have an Algae situation on your hand, expect this to get worse, till it gets better.
COnsider some Clean up Crew to eat free food (Algae). You choices of Sails, etc.

 

[WallyB]

Just want to say.....

Looks like you have a great setup. Lighting, Flow, Skimmer, TRIDENT and PAR meter. It's all you need for EVENTUAL SUCCESS.

The additives, chemicals ARE NOT what you need for that Future Success.
Yes, you will need some ALK, MAG, and Calcium (but only if Water changes are not enough)

Patience, Stability, are the two key things you WILL NEED.
Learning along the way (to get better at stability), will come whether you like it or not. Some losses, and struggles (with Cyano, Algae).
How to place corals, what corals won't work in your tank, etc. (What fish are not good for Coral Tanks, etc)

It took me over 20 years to learn about not messing around with my Tanks with the ADDICTIVE and Satisfying (drops, caps, and cupfuls...of additives/products that are NOT NEEDED).
You are ahead of the game by 19 years.