Struggling

Kind of. If the PO4 is lets say 0 in the water column but you have algae growing, there has to be PO4 'in the system'. But its out competing the coral. Im not sure you can base cyano on the amount of PO4 as compared to other things - though same say you can. The bottom line is your PO4 in your water (which is where the coral get PO4 from) is lower than recommended.

Yeah it’s just when to add some media to combat po4 being to high, knowing when to is hard as like I said I think testing is pointless.
I often wonder if the carbon dosing also keeps po4 low.
 
I’ve looked at reefbreeders website they used to have recommended heights for the light but can’t seem to find it now if I do I will post the link.
Maybe they had a re think
Did you have any luck finding the rep on here? Then you may get a definitive answer directly from them. Id say stick to the raised height and lowerd intensity, as far as raising your po4 i struggle with that myself. I feed heavy and feed my corals reefroids, liquid oyster, plankton ect and still fight to get it up to a detectable level.
 
I am having good growth though. Acros i put in less then a month are encrusting and have added either noticeable mm to the lenth and thickness or have grown branches.
 
Did you have any luck finding the rep on here? Then you may get a definitive answer directly from them. Id say stick to the raised height and lowerd intensity, as far as raising your po4 i struggle with that myself. I feed heavy and feed my corals reefroids, liquid oyster, plankton ect and still fight to get it up to a detectable level.

Well I had a bad case of vermetid snails so eased back with reef roids etc but maybe I should try adding some coral food again.
 
Yeah it’s just when to add some media to combat po4 being to high, knowing when to is hard as like I said I think testing is pointless.
I often wonder if the carbon dosing also keeps po4 low.
it does
 
I am having good growth though. Acros i put in less then a month are encrusting and have added either noticeable mm to the lenth and thickness or have grown branches.

Frags I add encrust and base but then cease to do anything. PE stops and growth stops.
 
Did you have any luck finding the rep on here? Then you may get a definitive answer directly from them. Id say stick to the raised height and lowerd intensity, as far as raising your po4 i struggle with that myself. I feed heavy and feed my corals reefroids, liquid oyster, plankton ect and still fight to get it up to a detectable level.

And do you use any media or carbon dosing ?

And no can’t find the rep maybe you could pm
Me
 
And do you use any media or carbon dosing ?

And no can’t find the rep maybe you could pm
Me
No media, for the most part. I dont run socks, but do occasionally run floss in a chamber to remove particles that the diamond goby kicks up. I also run a carbon pad sometimes just for water polishing and to cut micro bubbles i get from time to time when the overflow draws to much air. My filtration consist of liverock and sand in my refugeum and a lot of cheato.
 
I have a carbon reactor. I and a chaeto reactor. I tolerate a algae in the tank. Don’t have cuano
 
So what do you do about po4 and nutrient export ?

I use an algae bed in a refugium and manually remove clumps of hair algae that always manages to grow on some equipment surfaces. If you don't have the sump space you can get a hang-on refugium to at least get some assistance with sucking nutrients and CO2 out. Or you can up water changes, but that is an expensive and less effective solution.
 
Hello,

One of the items I haven’t seen mentioned yet, if so sorry in advance is are your coral sps frags tank raised or ocean raised? There is a huge difference knowing where to go on this.
 
I’ve always been determined to not go the cheato route it is so messy.

I run siporax stacked in a egg crate box with just some live rock in the sump and filter floss in top of the siporax crate.

Siporax keeps nitrate between 5 and 10 consistently.

Here’s my sump..

D4607B8A-6270-4B0D-9DD3-B67BD6B21F40.png
 
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I use an algae bed in a refugium and manually remove clumps of hair algae that always manages to grow on some equipment surfaces. If you don't have the sump space you can get a hang-on refugium to at least get some assistance with sucking nutrients and CO2 out. Or you can up water changes, but that is an expensive and less effective solution.

I run ATI essentials and they advise no water changes.
I used to do 10% water change a week but have stopped now which has led to less heavy metals like zinc,nickel etc.
I’m pretty sure I was adding it in with my water change salt mix.
 
I contacted reefbreeders and linked your thread.
As far as cheato, i dont know what mess your referencing as i only pull out a 1 gallon size amount every 2 weeks. Literally takes 30 seconds and exports a lot of nutrients.
 
Hello,

One of the items I haven’t seen mentioned yet, if so sorry in advance is are your coral sps frags tank raised or ocean raised? There is a huge difference knowing where to go on this.

Hi Sarah I’m pretty sure they are frags from colonies that have been passed about predominantly.
No wild Aussie or such like afaik
 
Hi Sarah I’m pretty sure they are frags from colonies that have been passed about predominantly.
No wild Aussie or such like afaik

The reason I ask is because wild colonies (which are rare, and colonies grown in the ocean) are extremely sensitive. For example my lfs sps colonies I have had for years did great. I had lots of other even more sensitive colonies but see only tank raised. Every one of my lfs sps died, one was my purple bonsai that I had for five years. Now I had also a tank grown purple bonsai that I had bought maybe three months ago. None of my tank raised sps suggered or anything. Some lost a little color but it’s already back now. The two purple bonsai where within five inches and on the same rock. Today the tank raised grows like a weed, the other died.

If there are any tank parameters that swing, wild caught sps or sps farmed raised in the ocean may be aftected. Knowing I lost all my sps which my lfs confirmed all came from ocean farms says something. Some of them may not be use to led, when I had to move tanks, all of my ocean sps did terrible under t5 and mh. But going back under leds they perked right up.

So the only parameter that went high on me was salinity and it went from 1.025 to 1.029. All but one of my ocean sps rtn within 8 hours. The purple bonsai even after things were corrected struggled to survive, and I dipped it and cut above the rtn and super glued the cut tissue.

I do not recommend switch your lights in the middle of this. It could very easily end up killing the rest of your sps. They are very sensitive to adverse light changes. I added a third orbit marine pro, for extra light and decreases the other two by 33%. The tank grown corals seemed to be okay but other sps, lps and softies didn’t like it and it was the same high end powerful orbit pro and on for less hours. Once I removed the light and went back to the older program, all my corals except scans responded and bounced back in good health.

I can’t say 100% this is the problem, but worth looking into. I hope all works wells.

Sincerely
Sarah
 

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