Turning skimmer off to increase nutrients

bellasdad0911 · Jan 7, 2018

I have recently been baffled with extremely slow growth and pail colors especially after a large water change ( 16 gallons on a 150g total volume system ). I have had some RTN episodes as well. I recently changed from Red Sea coral pro salt back to reef crystals and I do have to say the swings are minimal and colors have increased. I dose Red Sea energy, and 4 part trace elements as well as microbacter 7 which in the last week I have noticed that since I ran out and my mail order bottle froze and exploded on shipping, my sps seemed to be better. I attribute this to the fact that the microbacter turbo charges the bacteria and eats away nutrients therefore not helping my low nutrient levels. It does not show detectable in a test. I have also been doing doses of reed roids to help add food for my sps. I have been reading about turning the skimmer off at night or during the days as I believe the skimmer will strip the additives I have added and also to increase my nutrients to a higher level. The tank is clean with no algae on overflows or glass, sand etc. the skimmer is a aquamaxx cones 2 which is rated higher that my 120g tank and 30 gallon sump. Any a help or thoughts would be great

Fishfinder · Jan 7, 2018

Turning your skimmer off will keep more nutrients in the water. As long as it doesn't effect your oxygenation it should help

Daniel Waters · Jan 7, 2018

You might want to give a little more detail, such as tank volume, lighting, flow, actual tank parameters, and livestock. And you might want to ask more specific questions if you want more helpful responses.

My guess is low nutrients with unstable alk causing tissue necrosis. Changing salt brands could be part of the issue, but I have no idea if you match alk of your new saltwater with the tank alk levels. Are you dosing and monitoring. ALK is typically my first thing I look at with SPS RTN instances.

As far as turning your skimmer off, I would not recommend that. It probably wouldn't hurt if you did, though. If you're not getting enough nutrients, why don't you reduce the microbacter? I'm not familiar with that product, but if it's designed to reduce your nutrient levels and you want higher nutrient levels, then why are you continuing to dose it? Also, your skimmer will not remove your additives such as trace minerals and such. Skimming pulls out organic material.

tdileo · Jan 7, 2018

Remember that your skimmer is what removes the bacteria that lower your nitrates as well as other organic. So if you shut the skimmer off, your microbacter will become useless as the bacteria using he carbon and NO3 will simply die and release it back into the water. I agree with Daniel Waters, it would be a better idea to lower your microbacter dose, or you can simply feed your fish and corals more.

DLuce510 · Jan 7, 2018

Turning off your skimmer is a option, but why beat around the bush? I've been dosing Nitrogen flourish (potassium nitrate) for years and have had great success.
The problems I've had with turning off my skimmer is trouble with my ATO when the skimmer turns back on. The sump level changed after the excess water from the skimmer evaporated and my ATO has a auto shut off after its been on for a prolonged period of time trying to make up the water. Also the loss of oxygenation not peaking pH. I've also tried over feeding all sorts of things, which had some strange results on some triton water analysis, excess lithium. Over feeding can have unintentional effects based on certain foods and their source.
My suggestion, just add exactly what your looking for, no need to take a windy path.

Newb73 · Jan 8, 2018

Once or twice a week i turn off almost all filtration for 12 to 24 hours and feed reef energy or plankton

bellasdad0911 · Jan 8, 2018

Specs are as follows:

Alk 8.5 stable with reef crystals.
Nitrates undetectable
Ph- 8.1
Po4 - 0.2 0.4 depends on the day
Calcium 460
Mag1350-1400
Temp- 80

Nitrates have been the biggest factor as I was dosing stump grinder to increase but I do not like that as much as good old fashioned fish poop. As I said it’s 150g total volume. Lighting is dual hydra 52 HD’s running at 50% with david saxbys tune file.

The reason I used the microbacter was to seed new rock that I added to the scape. Since then it helped bring down po4 but the no3 was always been untraceable. So far so good colors are getting deeper. I have held back on water changes for 2 weeks to get the nutrients up and everything including fish seem happy.

drawman · Jan 8, 2018

I would try to get nitrates in the water whether through feeding more, turning of export (skimmer), or dosing. I think you will notice improvement and this is where I would start. If you don't like dosing then get more fish and keep feeding.

Sounds like you are well on your way.

Reef Jeff · Jan 8, 2018

When I started carbon dosing I had the same issue with nitrates reducing to zero. I finally found the dose that keeps nitrates at the sweet spot for my setup. While I was at zero I kept the skimmer running and fed as usual and dosed small doses of NaNO3 solution to keep nitrates detectable. Now my nitrates and phosphates are at a low steady level with a small dose of NOPOX and I don't need to add nitrates anymore. Definitely helps coral colors and growth and keeps cyano away.

Daniel Waters · Jan 8, 2018

bellasdad0911 said:
Specs are as follows:
Po4 - 0.2 0.4 depends on the day

I'm assuming this is a typo and you meant 0.02 to 0.04? If not, I would be shocked that you have no nitrate yet your PO4 is this high relative to your nitrate.

All your other parameters seem good to me. I still think maybe an alk swing coupled with low nutrients may have created your issues. Also, I find any time I switch salt brands or products that it ticks my corals off.

You have several avenues you can try to increase your nutrients. I would definitely reduce any carbon dosing till you find the sweet spot. Maybe turn your skimmer off 1/2 day once or twice a week, maybe adding more food for corals, or you can simply dose like some people do. My nutrients got so low from my refugium / chaeto harvesting that I could hardly feed enough to make a dent. I tried reducing my refugium lighting period and eventually just took my refugium down 2 months ago. My nitrates now are running around 5 ppm to 7.5 ppm. A little higher than I'd like but my corals seem to prefer this over 0!

bellasdad0911 · Jan 8, 2018

Well that’s exactly it. I do feed heavy. 1 cube my sis, 1 cube mega marine algae, 1 cube mega Marine and 1 cube krill, twice a day to feed 1 large hippo, yellow tang, flame angel, 2 Chromis, 4 damsel ( just added for poop reasons ) pseudo chromosome, six line, diamond Tony, 2 clowns, one maroon, and a blue jaw trigger. You would think that would be enough... but obviously not. So now with the skimmer off I am going to wait till I see nitrates show up or I see an adverse effect then turn it back on. Is anyone else using David saxbys AI file tune? I would love to see an alternative that works well for others. I have mad a few my own but you just never know what is tried and true.

Daniel Waters · Jan 8, 2018

That certainly seems like a lot of food to me! Most frozen food contains a lot of moisture, so it's not quite as much as it may look like (but seems like you are feeding liberally!) Also, if the fish are consuming most of the food, then most of that is being converted into energy and mass for the fish, with some being left over in terms of poop. Thus, you might simply consider dosing coral food like reef roids, coral frenzy, or other type coral food and feeding that way. Sometimes I just blend up some enriched brine cubes in tank water and pour into the tank. This way the food is going into the tank and not the fishes bellies! Plus, I've noticed I have a lot more other life increase such as pods and mini bristle stars in my live rock from this.

Are you running an algae turf scrubber or refugium?

bellasdad0911 · Jan 8, 2018

No I am not running either, and to answer your questions yes most of it gets eaten up. My hippo and trigger are machines. I do dose reef roids. So my next question is how often? I have been doing every 2-3 days at night. However should I do it during the day?

Daniel Waters · Jan 8, 2018

Here are my suggestions. Stop dosing the microbacter if you're still doing that or begin reducing your dosage. Dose the reef roids like you're doing (day or night I don't think matters that much), and turn your skimmer off for half a day when you dose the reef roids. Personally, I don't like my skimmer not to run at night, so I'd do the reef roids in the day and try turning the skimmer off then. Monitor your nitrates and see if this has much impact over 2-3 weeks. If that doesn't work, I'd look at some type of chemical dosing that many people use.

bellasdad0911 · Jan 8, 2018

Besides the stump grinder, what’s the best chemical to dose for nitrates? And what dose?

vsutarov · Jan 8, 2018

Dont turn off skimmer,better dial it to skim dry as you can.
NaNO3 or KNO3 is good way to raise nitrates.

bellasdad0911 · Jan 9, 2018

vsutarov said:
Dont turn off skimmer,better dial it to skim dry as you can.
NaNO3 or KNO3 is good way to raise nitrates.

What product do you use for this? Can I get a specific name? Thanks in advance

vsutarov · Jan 9, 2018

I was using Sodium nitrate(NaNO3) from a local chemistry company. It has 99% purity and was very satisfied. I also managed the dino problem with it,now my nitrates are stable.