So I have a problem... low NO3/PO4

Centerline · Oct 10, 2016

Yes, I have screwed up a new tank!

I have a new tank at my office that is about 8 weeks old.

//---------------------TANK SPECS-------------------//
Red Sea Reefer 450 (about 90 gallons)
Reef Octopus 202-8 Skimmer (oversized for tank)
Sicce / Syncra 1350 return pump (15 x volume)
2 Gyre 150s (lots and lots of flow)
2 AI Hydra 52 HDs (running at 40%)
50 lbs rock (10 lbs very fresh gulf live rock, 40 lbs BRS dry rock)
1-2" aragonite sand bed

18 small fish
Various crabs
Various LPS
Various SPS frags
A clam

Feeding 3x daily cubes and flake
Dosing Zucht Extra Special (LPS) daily
Dosing NO3POX4 daily at .5 recommended level for LPS tank.
Dosing Prodibio every 15 days

12 hour light cycle

//-----------------------END SPECS-------------------//

Because I have a hard time learning important lessons I cleverly cycled the tank very quickly by adding Prodibio and feeding the Prodibio and bacteria on the live rock Red Sea NO3PO4X. As soon I was sure this was working I added 10 blue green damsels and started feeding them. During this time I continued to dose NO3POX4 at .5 the recommended amount for the tank. This all worked very well - almost no detectable cycled. After 2 week of testing I was satisfied the tank was good to go and started adding a few coral (lps and some sps frags). At week 4 I added several other fish and doubled my feedings to twice a day. All of the damsels made it through with flying colors.

At week 5 I noticed that the SPS I added were turning white. At first I cursed myself for purchasing the AI 52 HDs rather than a nice MH/T5 combo like I'm used to but had seen a bunch of really nice tanks running AIs so decided to give it a few more weeks before cursing the sexy looking but coral killing AIs.

All of this time my nitrates were testing at 4ppm or less and phosphates were tested at 0 with a hanna low range checker. I have a ULR checker coming in todays mail.

Knowing this was an issue I started to feed 3 times a day. Flakes and cubes all three times.
Still no movement aside from temporary spikes. I also started dosing LPS amino daily.

So here it is at week 8 and my SPS have pretty much all turned white or almost so. LPS look OK. Oddly they are all growing.... I could obviously use a little advice here.

Thank you.

drawman · Oct 10, 2016

It sounds overall like you've been rushing things and nothing happens fast in this hobby. SPS are very challenging coral and you never want to add them until the tank is ready. I would start testing your levels (alkalinity and nitrates) daily or several times a week to make sure you're in line. You may need to back off from the NoPox. Put the brakes on adding new SPS and see if you can get any of them to rebound - it sounds like your tank needs to become more established for SPS at this point.

Your tank looks very nice btw.

Centerline · Oct 10, 2016

drawman said:
It sounds overall like you've been rushing things and nothing happens fast in this hobby. SPS are very challenging coral and you never want to add them until the tank is ready. I would start testing your levels (alkalinity and nitrates) daily or several times a week to make sure you're in line. You may need to back off from the NoPox. Put the brakes on adding new SPS and see if you can get any of them to rebound - it sounds like your tank needs to become more established for SPS at this point.

Your tank looks very nice btw.

Thanks for your advice and compliments. You know though this is not the first time I have done this and I'm just confounded as to what the heck is going on! You start tossing 3 cubes of food into a 90 each day you expect to see some nutrients! I think you are dead on about things moving too fast!

drawman · Oct 10, 2016

Yeah to me your nitrates are just fine for SPS and if the LPS are doing good then things don't appear to be starving. If your PO4 is really reading 0 with the hanna checker then maybe back off on the NoPox some to see if you can get nitrate/phosphate levels to rise.

Are you using GFO or any other phosphate media?

What are your other parameters at (ca/alk)?

dragon99 · Oct 10, 2016

Tagging along to see the suggestions. I'm experiencing something similar with growth but pale colors. I have 8-10ppm NO3, but the only time I get phosphate to show up is a short time after dumping food in (like unwashed mysis).

Centerline · Oct 10, 2016

drawman said:
Yeah to me your nitrates are just fine for SPS and if the LPS are doing good then things don't appear to be starving. If your PO4 is really reading 0 with the hanna checker then maybe back off on the NoPox some to see if you can get nitrate/phosphate levels to rise.

Are you using GFO or any other phosphate media?

What are your other parameters at (ca/alk)?

No, no other PO4 mediation aside from the NO3POX and the Prodibio. I was running BRS ROX carbon but stopped a few weeks back.
With respect to the LPS they look OK, but honestly I'm not sure they aren't a little pale themselves.
Just put the NOPOX doser on standby.

Thanks!

Centerline · Oct 10, 2016

drawman said:
Yeah to me your nitrates are just fine for SPS and if the LPS are doing good then things don't appear to be starving. If your PO4 is really reading 0 with the hanna checker then maybe back off on the NoPox some to see if you can get nitrate/phosphate levels to rise.

Are you using GFO or any other phosphate media?

What are your other parameters at (ca/alk)?

Cal 475
ALK 10.5
Mag 1375

Thanks!

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 10, 2016

turn off the skimmer stop feeding bacteria. lower the light intensity. add air stone for 02 till the skimmer comes back on line comes in a couple weeks. then skim drier or get another skimmer. do some water changes to put back some of the minerals the skimmer pulled out.

i know people are afraid to turn off a skimmer. it works. you dont "need" a skimmer.

Centerline · Oct 10, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
turn off the skimmer stop feeding bacteria. lower the light intensity. add air stone for 02 till the skimmer comes back on line comes in a couple weeks. then skim drier or get another skimmer. do some water changes to put back some of the minerals the skimmer pulled out.

i know people are afraid to turn off a skimmer. it works. you dont "need" a skimmer.

No skimmerless fear here! Ran a skimmerless SPS tank for 3 years and had some of the best growth and coloration I have seen.
So this implies that I'm overfeeding the bacteria and over skimming the nutrients out of the tank. Correct? Hadn't really considered the skimmer!

Perhaps its time to reconsider the Prodibio as well?

Any suggestions on the light intensity? I'm running my AIs at 40% - afraid to turn them up anymore.

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 10, 2016

Centerline said:
No skimmerless fear here! Ran a skimmerless SPS tank for 3 years and had some of the best growth and coloration I have seen.
So this implies that I'm overfeeding the bacteria and over skimming the nutrients out of the tank. Correct? Hadn't really considered the skimmer!

Perhaps its time to reconsider the Prodibio as well?

Any suggestions on the light intensity? I'm running my AIs at 40% - afraid to turn them up anymore.

not up, down. les food too much light = fading. try a lux meter. the red one from amazon $14.

and yea the bacteria are doing too good a job probably. and the skimmer may be making it a little too clean by stripping the organics and possibly minerals.

once the system settles in start up the skimmer again see what happens.

Centerline · Oct 10, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
not up, down. les food too much light = fading. try a lux meter. the red one from amazon $14.

and yea the bacteria are doing too good a job probably. and the skimmer may be making it a little too clean by stripping the organics and possibly minerals.

once the system settles in start up the skimmer again see what happens.

Thank you for the help!
Ill grab a lux meter. I do have a par meter (150 on the sand) and set the lights to produce similar numbers that I have experienced under 250 MHs in a tank that is approximately the same height and produced great results.

dragon99 · Oct 10, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
not up, down. les food too much light = fading. try a lux meter. the red one from amazon $14.

What lux would you suggest targeting? I'm running 25-30K (peak center under light) ~1 above the waterline right now. Corals are at least 6-8in under water.

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 10, 2016

dragon99 said:
What lux would you suggest targeting? I'm running 25-30K (peak center under light) ~1 above the waterline right now. Corals are at least 6-8in under water.

depends on led and livestock. on a softie zoa lps id start at that 25k lux and see how it goes. you may be able to go up, depending on live stock. Im at 40k lux in my 24in and the mushrooms hate it. and shrivel the one acro just gets bigger.

if 100,000 lux is 2000 par (sunlight conversion as a base) than 2000 lux is 40 par. so I make my adjustments at 2000 lux.

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 10, 2016

Centerline said:
Thank you for the help!
Ill grab a lux meter. I do have a par meter (150 on the sand) and set the lights to produce similar numbers that I have experienced under 250 MHs in a tank that is approximately the same height and produced great results.

then dont sweat it. a meter is a meter. id guess just a nutrient issue.

drawman · Oct 10, 2016

Also you're running your alkalinity on the high side. This along with high lights and low nutrients can increase the risk of RTN. I wouldn't go doing anything drastic by changing your alkalinity (you could slowly let it drop IF that is your end goal) but it's something to keep in mind. At the very least keeps things stable. Do you know what the alkalinity was in the tank where you got your SPS from? How long have you had them for?

If you are stripping nutrients from your tank hopefully getting some back will keep the SPS happy. Just don't swing too far the other way

nervousmonkey · Oct 10, 2016

+1. I have never had success when adding SPS to a tank before about 6 months of setting up the tank. Then you will make it worse by making all kinds of changes at once, even taking GAC out changes the water chemistry, and SPS just want stability. Drawman is right about the high alk and low nutrients. The corals grow from uptaking carbon from carbonate and bicarbonate, which is great until they make proteins, where nitrogen is the critical ingredient. That sets the growth limit for your coral and SPS just won't grow well, even though there is a lot of available carbon. I am unsure as to why an SPS will RTN, or just slowly die, but you need more time for your tank to mature, don't change things all at once, and keep your N and P levels a bit higher.

ReeferMaddness843 · Oct 10, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
turn off the skimmer stop feeding bacteria. lower the light intensity. add air stone for 02 till the skimmer comes back on line comes in a couple weeks. then skim drier or get another skimmer. do some water changes to put back some of the minerals the skimmer pulled out.

i know people are afraid to turn off a skimmer. it works. you dont "need" a skimmer.

I agree on cutting skimmer. I had an outage during the hurricane and have had a few threads and questions in reference to low/no nutrients (but seems to work in my tank for whatever reason so not really concerned with tinkering anymore, been told several times if it ain't broke don't fix it. That's just my situation). Anyways, when my skimmer was off for 9 hours, I still have undetectable nutrience, but my corals look happy as can be . My acans mainly have all fattened up a bit immediately following the skimmer cut off for a bit.

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 10, 2016

ReeferMaddness843 said:
I agree on cutting skimmer. I had an outage during the hurricane and have had a few threads and questions in reference to low/no nutrients (but seems to work in my tank for whatever reason so not really concerned with tinkering anymore, been told several times if it ain't broke don't fix it. That's just my situation). Anyways, when my skimmer was off for 9 hours, I still have undetectable nutrience, but my corals look happy as can be . My acans mainly have all fattened up a bit immediately following the skimmer cut off for a bit.

Yea it's a funny balance. I think age has quite a bit to do with it too. An old tank makes food. Maybe.

nervousmonkey · Oct 10, 2016

I think that may be part of the answer @saltyfilmfolks . Older tanks can produce food because of the biodiversity that exists in a mature tank but not a new one. Hmmm, something to think about. Good call man!