stripping your tank

slayerhellfire · Mar 20, 2018

So I am really thinking my skimmer is too big for my zoa dominated tank, my nitrates are low almost undetectable by API, maybe 1 maybe, phosphates are 0.04 hanna checker. It seems like my zoas are starving, smaller, not opening, color loss. I have ruled everything else out. My parameters are stable ALK 8.0, CAL 490, MAG 1420. I do a 10 gallon water change once a week. I just cant wrap my head around my this tank is not thriving, Its been up for over a year now, and for awhile zoas looked great then somthing happened, not sure what it was but I have been ruling things out and fixing problems and now it's a matter of nutrients I believe. I feed every day, my stock list is 2 bigger clowns, yellow eye kohl tang, malanarus wrasse, 3 chromis this is a 60 shallow with a 40 breeder sump, prob 75 gallon TWV. I did turn off my skimmer yesterday and noticed some zoas that were not open are open more today. The skimmer is a reef octopus 160 INT I believe rated for 200 or more tank heavy stocked. So I think my nutrient export is too good since I don't have a heavy stocked tank, let me know what everyone thinks on this, I really don't want to add more fish since I am limited to what I can put in here since I am worried about aggression.

saltyfilmfolks · Mar 20, 2018

Why not skip water changes and skim a dry as possible.
My zoas have always loved spot feeding as well.

slayerhellfire · Mar 20, 2018

saltyfilmfolks said:
Why not skip water changes and skim a dry as possible.
My zoas have always loved spot feeding as well.

well yes but the nutrients still get collected into the body of the skimmer which is large and never make into the water column unless I turn the skimmer off which then fluxes my water level lol, I do spot feed. Since turning my skimmer off yeserday I have noticed improvement in my zoas already

netdawg · Mar 20, 2018

if you have a small load from fish, is there an option for you to ditch the skimmer (ensure you have good aeration) and go with something like a HOB sump model or something that can add cheato to the cycle? Might be easier to maintain that way

slayerhellfire · Mar 20, 2018

netdawg said:
if you have a small load from fish, is there an option for you to ditch the skimmer (ensure you have good aeration) and go with something like a HOB sump model or something that can add cheato to the cycle? Might be easier to maintain that way

yeah I have a huge sump a ton of room, tank has been up for well over a year so cycling not a issue

netdawg · Mar 21, 2018

saltyfilmfolks said:
Why not skip water changes and skim a dry as possible.
My zoas have always loved spot feeding as well.

I'm with Salty here... skip water changes (always with increasing testing until you are comfortable) and either peel back skimming a ton or try my recommendation of alternating light cycles sump/display and add some cheato to the mix.

Reef Jeff · Mar 21, 2018

Just ran across your thread and wanted to comment on the same issue. I started reefing 20+ years ago and for the first year was very successful. Mostly soft corals, zoas, palys back then. I really got into using various forms of filtration (large skimmer, phosphate removers, nitrate removers, etc). Started having trouble with my corals looking less than healthy and started having algae outbreaks. I just assumed my organics, PO4, and NO3 were too high. Now that I have more experience, I discovered my problem was too few nutrients. I would have NEVER guessed that and back then the test kits were not near as good so I had no way to be sure. I have the same tank running today and finally found out my corals look much better when I have a specific level of nutrients and dissolved organics in the water. In fact, I have a decent bio load and have to dose NO3 and PO4 to keep levels up. As soon as levels drop everything starts looking “not so good”. It’s amazing how going from no or very low phosphates up to .03+ causes everything to open up and color up. Today I try to maintain 1- 2 ppm NO3 and around .05-.08 ppm PO4. I also target feed everything a few times a week. I started being successful again once I stopped overfiltering. I still run an appropriately sized skimmer 24/7 and carbon 24/7, but I do not use GFO anymore. That has always caused issues for me due to dropping PO4 too low.