Tank suffering but parameters all good...?

[Neuratox]

I'm at a total loss and can't understand why my tank is doing so poorly. I could really use some input from those more experienced than myself.

My current tank is an 65 gallon display and 15 gallon sump with about 100lbs of marcos dry rock, 2 hydra 32s, and 2 red sea reefwave 25s. I started it at the end of September in 2020. There are 4 redhead gobies, 2 clowns, a firefish goby, and 5 talbots damsels, plus a cleanup crew of snails. Its a mixed reef tank. Water change is 15% approximately once a week. I autodose Ca2+ and Soda Ash and check them fairly frequently to make sure the levels aren't fluctuating too much.

My current parameters are:
Temp - 78.8F
Salinity - 1.026
pH - 8.0
Alk - 8.2
Ca2+ - 540
Phos - 0.01
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Iodine - 0.06
Potassium - 440
Iron - 0

My previous tank was a great success, with coral and coralline encrusting all over the rock and glass. I restarted in a new tank because I wanted a new tank (red sea reefer XL 300) rather than a used one and because of an aiptasia outbreak. I also thought that by using a higher quality LED that I would get better color from my acros. It was honestly quite a beautiful tank and was about 2 years old. I put everything I learned into the new tank during the build and thought I would be even more successful. The current tank has struggled the whole time, with frequent losses of coral and slow growth. Coralline algae came on much slower and was hardly noticeable before completely bleaching recently. About 4 months ago I started seeing a significant amount of STN in a few of my acros as well as the aforementioned beaching of coralline and even a few other hard corals. I suspected that I had the lights too high (even though I had been using the same settings for a year at that point). Even after changing the light settings a little lower it continued. I've test my water parameters numerous times and everything seems fine. I have no reason to suspect that there is anything wrong with the water that I use during water changes as we use the same water (mixed at the same time) in my son's 25 gallon tank - all of his coral looks stunning. Out of the blue I'm suddenly having red cyano show up too. I did a 3 day blackout and this seemed to cause an issue with algae showing up. Its also worth noting that I don't think my light is too high because my acros are still constantly a dull color, with some being much more brown than anything other color.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong? What I should check? Why has this one been so difficult?

 

[Quietman]

I sometimes think that having your first tank go well from the start sets an expectation the next one will. All tanks are different. And it may never be an 'easy' tank. My tank took two years plus before it clicked and I stopped having issues. You seem to be doing everything right. Just keep it up, address issues as they come up and continue to be patient.

 

[blaxsun]

Off the top of my head, really low nitrates and phosphates are two glaring red flags. Whether these were a contributing factor or merely a symptom resulting from the algae outbreaks isn't clear.

I wonder if water changes of 10% weekly as opposed to 15% would help?

Can you give us a breakdown of your cleanup crew?

 

[Rmckoy]

as mentioned above extremely low phosphates along with zero nitrates is something I’d consider needing to be addressed but also curious why calcium is 540ppm
A little on the high side .

potassium being 440 where reef Aquaria I believe should be in the 380-420 range . A little high but don’t think that’s a contributing factor .
Have you confirmed the nutrient levels to be accurate with another test kit ?

confirm they’re accuracy before dosing or trying to slowly lower each value .

 

[Rmckoy]

For parameters I aim more for
Nitrates 5-10 ppm
Phosphates 0.03 to 0.1
Cal 380-420 ( mine is stable at 425
I have not measured potassium in years as it should be replenished with water changes
There are many products to dose to bring phosphates and nitrates up along with feeding a little heavier and relaxing on water changes .
It’s possible you’re exporting more than youre
Putting in .
Cal and alk …. I think it would also depend on what salt you’re using .

 

[Jimmyneptune]

It could be several things or just one.
We can only guess.
I have a tank that has struggled it was in the laundry room / furnace room. High co2 near the floor where skimmer made it worse for my tank. Moved the tank and seeing more stability.
It could be trace elements. You could try pro coral A and K. You may have a coral, CUC, dry rock, or compound, like a gfo, binding up or consuming a trace element. Supplementing with a broad spectrum of trace elements may help out.

You stared with dry rock. It seems like dry rock has a different time frame for everyone to reach stability, months or years. You may not be there yet.

Your son has a successful tank. Maybe add some live rock from his tank or introduce some of his tank water into yours. when he does a water change swap out your water for his.

good luck.

 

[Neuratox]

Thanks guys. The Calcium is up because it was a fresh mixture of calcium additive and I must have added a little less water than usual making the concentration of the stock solution higher. I caught this pretty quickly and diluted my stock and adjusted my dosing system. I'm not sure why the potassium is where it is, I don't dose that. I used the red sea test kit to quantify this as I did with all other parameters aside from the nitrogenous products. I can certainly feed heavier to try to bring up the nitrate and phosphate.
Would any of this have resulted in bleaching though? Especially of the coralline. I have never seen that happen before.

 

[Hydrored]

Thanks guys. The Calcium is up because it was a fresh mixture of calcium additive and I must have added a little less water than usual making the concentration of the stock solution higher. I caught this pretty quickly and diluted my stock and adjusted my dosing system. I'm not sure why the potassium is where it is, I don't dose that. I used the red sea test kit to quantify this as I did with all other parameters aside from the nitrogenous products. I can certainly feed heavier to try to bring up the nitrate and phosphate.
Would any of this have resulted in bleaching though? Especially of the coralline. I have never seen that happen before.

Zero phosphate and Nitrates will bleach coral and coralline

 

[Neuratox]

The overwhelming majority seems to lean toward an increase in nitrates and phosphates. Looks like I'm gonna have some fat fish. Haha. Thanks everyone! I'll start making the appropriate changes immediately.
Cheers,
Jon

 

[Rmckoy]

The overwhelming majority seems to lean toward an increase in nitrates and phosphates. Looks like I'm gonna have some fat fish. Haha. Thanks everyone! I'll start making the appropriate changes immediately.
Cheers,
Jon

Corals can live with zero nitrates. But zero phosphates is bad …

don’t be shy with food . . Make them fat and healthy

 

[Hydrored]

The overwhelming majority seems to lean toward an increase in nitrates and phosphates. Looks like I'm gonna have some fat fish. Haha. Thanks everyone! I'll start making the appropriate changes immediately.
Cheers,
Jon

Just feed good quality fish food, do not slam that tank with coral food and over compensate. You’ll have your hands full quick.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

The overwhelming majority seems to lean toward an increase in nitrates and phosphates. Looks like I'm gonna have some fat fish. Haha. Thanks everyone! I'll start making the appropriate changes immediately.
Cheers,
Jon

I agree that the NO3 and PO4 are low, but with a well fed tank, I have seen coral thrive with those numbers. Just curious, what were your NO3 and PO4 numbers in your other tank as well as your son's tank?

Have you considered an ICP test?

Have you ever mapped out your tank with a PAR meter? Two Hydra 32's on a 300L tank may not be enough light for acros.

Did you use any of the rock from your other tank?

 

[blaxsun]

The overwhelming majority seems to lean toward an increase in nitrates and phosphates. Looks like I'm gonna have some fat fish. Haha. Thanks everyone! I'll start making the appropriate changes immediately.
Cheers,
Jon

What do you all have for cleaning crew?

 

[sfin52]

The algea in the coral need to feed. Starving them of nitrates and phosphates will cause a decline in algea and coral health. Not to mention 0 nitrates or phosphates is a danger zone and could cause a dinoflagellate bloom.

 

[Dan_P]

I'm at a total loss and can't understand why my tank is doing so poorly. I could really use some input from those more experienced than myself.

My current tank is an 65 gallon display and 15 gallon sump with about 100lbs of marcos dry rock, 2 hydra 32s, and 2 red sea reefwave 25s. I started it at the end of September in 2020. There are 4 redhead gobies, 2 clowns, a firefish goby, and 5 talbots damsels, plus a cleanup crew of snails. Its a mixed reef tank. Water change is 15% approximately once a week. I autodose Ca2+ and Soda Ash and check them fairly frequently to make sure the levels aren't fluctuating too much.

My current parameters are:
Temp - 78.8F
Salinity - 1.026
pH - 8.0
Alk - 8.2
Ca2+ - 540
Phos - 0.01
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Iodine - 0.06
Potassium - 440
Iron - 0

My previous tank was a great success, with coral and coralline encrusting all over the rock and glass. I restarted in a new tank because I wanted a new tank (red sea reefer XL 300) rather than a used one and because of an aiptasia outbreak. I also thought that by using a higher quality LED that I would get better color from my acros. It was honestly quite a beautiful tank and was about 2 years old. I put everything I learned into the new tank during the build and thought I would be even more successful. The current tank has struggled the whole time, with frequent losses of coral and slow growth. Coralline algae came on much slower and was hardly noticeable before completely bleaching recently. About 4 months ago I started seeing a significant amount of STN in a few of my acros as well as the aforementioned beaching of coralline and even a few other hard corals. I suspected that I had the lights too high (even though I had been using the same settings for a year at that point). Even after changing the light settings a little lower it continued. I've test my water parameters numerous times and everything seems fine. I have no reason to suspect that there is anything wrong with the water that I use during water changes as we use the same water (mixed at the same time) in my son's 25 gallon tank - all of his coral looks stunning. Out of the blue I'm suddenly having red cyano show up too. I did a 3 day blackout and this seemed to cause an issue with algae showing up. Its also worth noting that I don't think my light is too high because my acros are still constantly a dull color, with some being much more brown than anything other color.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong? What I should check? Why has this one been so difficult?

Your new aquarium is new, that’s all.

This hobby has not really progressed much in understanding why stuff can die so easily in new systems nor why the “nasties“ happen so frequently. We have come up with great narratives about new systems not being “balanced”, or the microbiome not being “diverse”, and the system is ”too clean”. Pretty much nice sounding words for “I don’t know”.

What this may mean is just because you had a successful system before you won’t have trouble starting your next one. @Lasse has started many, many aquaria and can give you some ideas for why it is happening and how to move forwards.

 

[Lasse]

@Lasse has started many, many aquaria and can give you some ideas for why it is happening and how to move forwards.

I may or may not

First - I agree that the low NO3 and PO4 could be an issue - especially in a new tank where it can be assumed that the flow of nutrients through the system is quite small. The amount you read on your meters is the leftover (not used) nutrients of your system. You will never see the flux of nutrients through the system.

Second - every aquarium is an unique ecosystem there the outcome decides of many different parameters and inputs. If there would be an unbalance - your parameters will swing. This is valid for most biological system - they will strive for stability but suddenly - one parameter changes and you will have a response from the system that can create swings before a new stability - on another level - will take place. The parameters we can measure and analyze in a reef aquarium are mostly the large one - the important ones. But a small input of a parameter can lead to unbalance. Many times - we have no chance to know which.

In order to make a good environment for anaerobic break down in my aquarium I have constructed an active flow through my DSB (Reversed). I need an input of water but also an input of DOC in order to takedown the redox till around minus 190 mV. The flow and the injection of DOC (ethanol) must be dynamic - if ORP rise - flow must go down and injection of DOC must rise - if ORP goes down - the water flow must rise and the DOC injection must decrease. This is the two major players in order to give the system a certain ORP - but there is more parameters that can influence the system. Below - you will see how my system react on these type of interactions. It try to balance up through changing the two main parameters and after a while with instability - the system goes back to stability. You can see how regulating in an automatically way of the two main parameters (water flow and DOC injection) can bring the system into an instabile mode but after a while - it goes back to stability. When this type of disturbances occur - I normal do nothing - just let it go. If I would interact - there is a large risk that it will be worse, Black = ORP. Light blue = waterflow and light blue is DOC injections, The waterflow should be multiplicated with 100

What i try to say is mostly that if you keep the main parameters in order - do not do many interactions and if you do - do them one after the other. Try to figure out next important parameter - wait and se if there is any responses, change next parameter - check and so on.

Sincerely Lasse