What should be my next step?

[old_lady_4am]

Hello! I need advice on what should be my next step. Any help would be much appreciated.

I have a sumpless 75 gallon with a Tunze skimmer, live rock and sand, fish and mainly soft corals with a few lps. It’s been up and running 5 months. Since then, I’ve battled gha, lite bubble algae, dinoflagellates and most recently Cyanobacteria. I’ve done nopox, phosphateE, fluxrx, multiple water changes and most recently chemiclean. I just completed another water change. Hanna checker reads phosphates 0.14 and nitrates 4.4.

Do I dose phosphateE next? Do I dose Dr. Tim’s waste away? What should I do?

 

[Wrassenaround]

IME a tank that is 5 months old is still maturing and going through fluctuations of various levels. It took a good 6+ months for my tank to stop having algae and bacteria blooms.
With out seeing your fish list you might be over feeding or have overstocked your tank to soon. In the past when I have dealt with nuisance algae I have started regularly dosing @AlgaeBarn's OceanMagik and it never fails me. How often are you doing water changes and what is your fish list?

 

[Lavey29]

Reef tanks go through various ugly stages the first year. Dumping all those chemicals in just opens the door for other problems. It's a bandaid fix and you are not addressing the source of your problems. Weekly water changes, diverse cleaner crew, proper lighting and flow. Focus on maintaining correct parameters with diligent weekly testing.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello! I need advice on what should be my next step. Any help would be much appreciated.

I have a sumpless 75 gallon with a Tunze skimmer, live rock and sand, fish and mainly soft corals with a few lps. It’s been up and running 5 months. Since then, I’ve battled gha, lite bubble algae, dinoflagellates and most recently Cyanobacteria. I’ve done nopox, phosphateE, fluxrx, multiple water changes and most recently chemiclean. I just completed another water change. Hanna checker reads phosphates 0.14 and nitrates 4.4.

Do I dose phosphateE next? Do I dose Dr. Tim’s waste away? What should I do?

There is presence likely and changing nitrate and phosphate likely and I am focusing on light. A couple of pics under white lighting will be helpful in this case.
Your phosphates are elevated and can stem from use of tap water, increasing amount of food fed or using coral foods such as reef roids.
Is your tank at or near a window? If not, I would look at your percentage of light intensity or hours of white light provided.

 

[old_lady_4am]

IME a tank that is 5 months old is still maturing and going through fluctuations of various levels. It took a good 6+ months for my tank to stop having algae and bacteria blooms.
With out seeing your fish list you might be over feeding or have overstocked your tank to soon. In the past when I have dealt with nuisance algae I have started regularly dosing @AlgaeBarn's OceanMagik and it never fails me. How often are you doing water changes and what is your fish list?

1 clownfish
1 filefish
1 Pajama cardinal
1 Bangai cardinal
1 Fathead Anthia
1 Royal Gramma
1 Firefish
1 Diamond gobie
1 Lawnmower blenny

I feed 1 cube in the morning and 1 at night. Weekly, at least 25%, water changes.

 

[old_lady_4am]

Reef tanks go through various ugly stages the first year. Dumping all those chemicals in just opens the door for other problems. It's a bandaid fix and you are not addressing the source of your problems. Weekly water changes, diverse cleaner crew, proper lighting and flow. Focus on maintaining correct parameters with diligent weekly testing.

I do weekly water changes, have 3-5 power heads going at one time/no dead spots in my tank, have snails and 1 shrimp, test everyday in the am and pm, 2 Kessil a500 on a schedule at 40% intensity, no red, green or violet.

 

[Wrassenaround]

1 clownfish
1 filefish
1 Pajama cardinal
1 Bangai cardinal
1 Fathead Anthia
1 Royal Gramma
1 Firefish
1 Diamond gobie
1 Lawnmower blenny

I feed 1 cube in the morning and 1 at night. Weekly, at least 25%, water changes.

For what you have you might want to think about only feeding 1 cube a day. You don't have any "big" fish that would require a lot of food. The Anthias being the only one that may need more than one feeding a day. Even with that you could try a cube in the morning and a partial cube later just for the anthias. I feed once a day for my lyretail and its fat and healthy.

 

[Lavey29]

I do weekly water changes, have 3-5 power heads going at one time/no dead spots in my tank, have snails and 1 shrimp, test everyday in the am and pm, 2 Kessil a500 on a schedule at 40% intensity, no red, green or violet.

What are your complete current parameters? I see phosphate slightly elevated and nitrates slight low. Should be 10.

 

[Lavey29]

I should add that all of us went through hurdles the first year pretty much with ugly stages due to instability. But after one year my tank seemed to go through an evolution and became much more stable and predictable so you may just need some more maturing time.

 

[old_lady_4am]

There is presence likely and changing nitrate and phosphate likely and I am focusing on light. A couple of pics under white lighting will be helpful in this case.
Your phosphates are elevated and can stem from use of tap water, increasing amount of food fed or using coral foods such as reef roids.
Is your tank at or near a window? If not, I would look at your percentage of light intensity or hours of white light provided.

I make my own saltwater with Aquatic Life 4 stage RODI unit with IO Reef Crystals. Tank is not receiving light from a window. I don't use coral food. My kessil light schedule is 41% intensity, blue and white, between 8am-6p with a small ramp up and down before 8a and after 6p.

 

[old_lady_4am]

There is presence likely and changing nitrate and phosphate likely and I am focusing on light. A couple of pics under white lighting will be helpful in this case.
Your phosphates are elevated and can stem from use of tap water, increasing amount of food fed or using coral foods such as reef roids.
Is your tank at or near a window? If not, I would look at your percentage of light intensity or hours of white light provided.

I'll take a photo and post.

 

[old_lady_4am]

For what you have you might want to think about only feeding 1 cube a day. You don't have any "big" fish that would require a lot of food. The Anthias being the only one that may need more than one feeding a day. Even with that you could try a cube in the morning and a partial cube later just for the anthias. I feed once a day for my lyretail and its fat and healthy.

Will do!

 

[Lavey29]

I make my own saltwater with Aquatic Life 4 stage RODI unit with IO Reef Crystals. Tank is not receiving light from a window. I don't use coral food. My kessil light schedule is 41% intensity, blue and white, between 8am-6p with a small ramp up and down before 8a and after 6p.

You can also try and cut back white light. Corals don't need it. We use it for our viewing purposes. Blues and UV are good with minimal white red and green.

 

[kingoftheHiLLpeople]

Just take your time - a lot of ppl will exacerbate issues by dumping chemicals into their tanks to address every little thing that pops up. As mentioned. I like the idea of slowing down. Tho i dont believe you are feeding exceptionally heavy - how about trying out cutting a cube in half so half am half pm for a bit? W/ continued water change.

 

[old_lady_4am]

I'll take a photo and post.

I turned off my skimmer and powerheads for the photos. The algae is already forming since my water change 1 hour ago.

 

[kingoftheHiLLpeople]

I turned off my skimmer and powerheads for the photos.

Ok as for gorgonian - blast it w/ flow. It has some pretty good detritus build up that needs to be removed. Pic 5 i believe

 

[old_lady_4am]

Ok as for gorgonian - blast it w/ flow. It has some pretty good detritus build up that needs to be removed. Pic 5 i believe

Yes. That build up only happened in the last hour after a 32 gallon water change even with flow blowing on it. In addition to the tank being a washing machine, I have been blowing off the build up in the morning when I wake up, before I go to work, on my lunch break, when I get home from work and a couple times in the evening before going to bed. I have one power head blowing across the bottom right back, one blowing across from the top right and one blowing across from the left middle. The algae forms immediately no matter what.

 

[old_lady_4am]

Ok as for gorgonian - blast it w/ flow. It has some pretty good detritus build up that needs to be removed. Pic 5 i believe

I moved it to the back left corner for better flow. Here is the flow with 4 power heads. Do I need stronger powerheads?

 

[old_lady_4am]

You can also try and cut back white light. Corals don't need it. We use it for our viewing purposes. Blues and UV are good with minimal white red and green.

What do you think of:
CLR - 11
INT - 41
VI - 9

 

[vetteguy53081]

To clarify, Corals especially photosynthetic which you have need some form of white light. Blue is acceptable for growth but the symbiotic single called algae called zooxanthellae which resides within the coral's tissue require white light for production of oxygen which corals require for survival by photosynthesis. It protects the coral's inner algae from potential grazers allowing the nutrients that the coral excretes for survival.
We all know Bright light is required for SPS as well as photosynthetic species so to say white not needed would be contradictive.