Apparently the too much light issue is worse then I thought. About half of my acros are showing stress, I have tip dieback on my pearlberry and red planet. My aussie toxic yellow large colony has been hit hard I am not sure if it will survive, my highlighter is not looking too good.

I am wondering if the intense light (week) combined with the extremely low phosphates has caused the problem. I was running the GFO for several days with no phosphates and bright lights.

I knew the power outage affected the timer but I didn't think it would have affected the program.

I have covered my tank with a layer of transparent tracing paper to reduce the light to the corals, once they are responding well opening their polyps I will slowly remove the tracing paper.

You should see if your alk is fluctuating...I would start with that first then worry about your lights. You should also stop the GFO for a week also.

Alk is at 9.5dkh. It went up from about 8.5 naturally when I brought my nitrates up. I have added very little buffer in several weeks

I haven't been using GFO since April 13, since my phosphates zeroed out.

I am currently checking nitrates, phosphates daily, alkalinity every other day and calcium twice a week.

My calcium requirements have more then tripled.

I checked everything last night

Alk-9.8dkh
Calcium- 450
Nitrates -1.5ppm
Phosphates at .006ppm or 2 ppb phosphorus on hanna ULR

If I were to guess without looking at your tank, I would think po4 might have been striped way too fast. I think you'll need to let it runs its course and don't do anything drastic, bump up the feeding a bit for sps corals using oyster feast or sps food like vitilas or any filter feeding food along that line. Wait a few days and see how the corals react.

I think your right. That is what I have been doing, I have upped the feeding, fed Oyster Feast last night and will do again. I am also feeding the fish several times a day. I have reduced the lighting to reduce stress.

Over the past few months the phosphate has been on a roller coaster ride, up as high as .3ppm before I dosed nitrates to absolute 0. I had to use a ton of GFO to keep the phosphates down. I was a little hesitant about taking the GFO off line too fast, I reduced it in half about 10 days ago and a half again about a week ago and I must have waited too long.

My goal is to get the tank stable, its just I don't know what stable is yet.

It takes time to be able to read your tank and it's inhabitants. Slow and steady wins the race. Post some pics here if you can.

Agreed. I thought I was taking it slow and steady, carefully monitoring the parameters, however I didn't expect the Led's to be on full for a week (normal is 75%-80% only for a short period). I also didn't expect the phosphates to drop so fast.

Live and learn my friend....live and learn. :wink:

I am attaching an image of two of the corals worst hit by the light and phosphate changes. My phosphate is still 0, not running any GFO and feeding heavily. I am going to lower my nitrates to raise the phosphates.

I have attached side by side. second picture was taken April 8. The other picture was taken today.

This is a Highlighter Acro
Attachment 15844

This is a Toxic Aussie yellow
Attachment 15845

Why can I only upload a few images? I have to delete existing images to upload new ones. This means the previous images in this post get removed.

There must be a way because people have many many years with of images in their posts.

I use Photobucket. I've used Dropbox, and I think there's also Flickr

I'm using tinypic and seems to be alright.

I used to use Photobucket but now it's so loaded with ads that it bogs down my computer. Can't sand that site anymore. I switched to Flickr which is much faster, but lacks the handy multiple URL selection that you get off Photobucket. Flickr you have to go to each photo individually to get the URL to post here.

How's the feeding going?

Checked Param's again?

Do the corals look any better?

Feeding heavily, all kinds of foods

Checked the parameters last night phosphates still 0 nitrates 1.5ppm. the last 2 days reduced the nitrate I was adding by 50%. Today I am not going to add any nitrates. I have to get the phosphates up above 0. They have been 0 or close to 0 for a week or more.

Too early to tell about the corals, nothings dead yet but many of them are showing tip dieback and polyps are not extended or fully extended.

Lessons learned 0 phosphate or 0 nitrates are not a good thing. The ideal situation is having the correct balance. Looking at getting phosphates to add to tank.

I have added 4 smaller pieces of live rock that I have been "cooking" for several months. I treated the rocks with a peroxide dip to remove any remaining unwantables. These rocks came from a phosphate rich tank. Hopefully they slowly leach some phosphate into the tank to help manage my 0 phosphate issues.

I will keep you posted, fingers crossed.

Wish I could give you some of my .025ppm phosphates lol :lol:

I think I am figuring this out and am beginning to understand where I went wrong.

I have not added any nitrates to the tanks in about 4 days, I did a 20% water change this morning. This afternoon my nitrates are still 1.5ppm and my phosphates are 0. I have used multiple different test kits and different reagents from different packages with the same results. The calcium levels and the alkalinity levels are stable without adding any 2 part solution. This tells me that I have shut down the photosynthetic activity in my tank, including the coralline algae.

There is not a lot of information on the web about the relationship between phosphates and nitrates. Most of us including myself (past tanks) have never had to really think about the relationship because our goals were to lower them as much as we can because they were always high. Problem is I designed a tank that efficiently uses up the nitrates and phosphates so well I have one that is bottomed out at all times.

It appears that your nitrates can only go so high when your phosphate becomes the limiting factor. Because I should have seen a reduction in nitrates with the 20% water change.

I can't get myself to look at my corals. I feel that I have let them down. It is not the cost of replacing the corals that bothers me its that I am in charge of their care. I take great pride in my past ability at keeping corals and fish alive for long periods of time.

I will do another 20% water change tomorrow and will continue to do so until I get the balance of phosphates to nitrates in place

Having unbalanced po4 and no3 level is definitely not a good. It limits the growth since po4 in your case contributes to a vital part of it. Here is a one of the speaker from 2016 macna and I think he can explain this better than I can.https://youtu.be/ZRIKW-9d2xI

That's a very interesting video not to mention the speakers was pretty funny

Definitely one of the better speakers....some are so dry lol

Thanks for the video. It kind of opens your eyes to how little we know about what the corals truly need. Many of the top experts in the field have been running their reef tanks with much higher phosphates and nitrates then most of us hobbyist reefers do and had great success with those numbers. They have also had long term stability that few achieve.

I purchased some KH2PO4 yesterday and added it to my tank. I used a calculator that MYKA sent me to figure out how much I needed to add. I ended up adding 1ml of a solution of 1gram of KH2PO4 to 250mls of ro water. My phosphates are now at .02ppm.

I added .5ml of the solution today. I want to get my phosphates to .03 with my nitrates at 1.5ppm. Try to maintain that Redford ratio mentioned in the video. I will take this really slow and try to stabilize my tank to settle my corals down. I am happy I finally have measurable phosphates.

Keep in mind that the Redfield Ratio is the uptake ratio of phytoplankton. It is not the ratio in the ocean, nor is it the uptake ratio of corals. It is a good guideline to use though, just as long as you understand it. Really all the Redfield Ratio is doing is putting in perspective how tiny of an amount of PO4 you need in comparison to NO3.

FWIW, 1.5 ppm NO3 is 50x PO4 at 0.03 ppm. Redfield Ratio is 16x. :)

The way I see it is that no matter how hard we try to mimic nature, we just can't do it nearly as well, so we use fertilizers (literally haha) to try to supplement the corals. It works in many cases, but not all. It depends what's missing or lacking in your own system. There are examples all over the map of tanks with high nutrients and SWEET Acros, and there are examples of SWEET Acros in immeasurable amounts of nutrients. Everyone's tank is different, and this may not be your magic potion.

The ratio is actually 33 to 1 because phosphate is 31% phosphorus by weight and nitrate is 21% nitrogen by weight.

I started with no nitrates and had unhealthy corals I dropped the phosphates to 0 and have very unhealthy corals.

For now I want to get the phosphates to .03ppm and stabilize it for a while. My nitrates for now seem to want to stay at 1.5ppm

I tested my phosphates this morning and they are back down to 0 so I added another 1ml of the solution and re test it tonight.

Yeah you're right about that, but it still doesn't matter. :)

Read through this discussion. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2109768

Thanks for the input. I had already read that thread. I don't believe the magic answer is the Redfield ratio, however it may be a good place to start. Seeing as I am currently manually adding both nitrate and phosphate or else I will bottom out I have to shoot for some value and not blindly add both solutions. I really just want to create some stability so my corals can recover.

I tested again tonight and my phosphates are still 0 so I added another 1ml of the phosphate solution (want to take it slow). What I did notice which I am happy about is the nitrates have began to drop a bit and the alkalinity and the calcium have started to drop again as well. It has been a week since my tank has used any calcium and alkalinity so this may be good. Although it is just likely the coralline algae has kicked back in.

Yeah, me too. I'm not seeing any difference in the corals yet. I dosed NO3 up to 5 ppm, and PO4 I add 0.02 ppm every evening which the Hanna ULR Checker is able to confirm. The following morning PO4 is still 0.02 ppm, but by evening the green cyano has sucked it all out of the tank, and I'm back at 0 ppb. I'm hoping the cyano cycles out, and the corals start using it instead. I'm not sure it's the magic concoction for my tank yet, but it's too early to tell for sure.

Tank update:
For several days I have managed to maintain acceptable levels of phosphate and nitrates, although once my phosphate started coming up my nitrates started heading down. So I am adding daily doses of both phosphates and nitrates.

Too early to tell full damage to corals. Some of the harder hit corals are starting to extend their polyps so I am hopeful that the worse is behind me. "Fingers crossed, touch wood".

There is definitely a direct relationship between nitrates and phosphates. Each one controls the other when running low levels in a nutrient low reef tank.

From my experience when nitrate is the limiting nutrient (0 nitrate), poor colours and slow growth rate.
When phosphate is the limiting nutrient and has truly bottomed out bad things happen, much worse then low nitrates.

It is funny how some acros were not really impacted and others were devastated. Once I have a full grasp on the impacts I will provide a list of the corals and how they were affected in my tank under my adverse conditions.

Even though I suffered some serious setbacks I consider this experiment a success. Remember in the first post I said this was an experiment and I have kept all the data. I have learned far more than if I was just blindly lucky and had succeeded because I wouldn't have known why I succeeded.

I have had the same experiences.

I believe it's all due to the origin of the coral. I know Aussie SPS are from some of the lowest nutrient water, they need massive flow, intense lighting and ulns to be happy but others are from a more "dirtier" water like Bali might be a whole different ball game. We as reef keepers throw together corals from all over the world with different water parameters and expect every single one to be flourishing but that's just not possible. If 3 out of your 20 corals aren't happy and the rest are doing great, I think it might be time for you to re-house those 3...I am glad to hear everything is on a rebound. I will be expecting picture update soon! :wink:

You make a very good point! I can't grow Red Planet to save my life, yet Aussie corals are the most "bomb-proof" ones I have. It them low nutrients. :D

I thought I would provide an update for anyone following my plight.
I has been over 3 weeks since I screwed things up and let my phosphates drop quickly to zero. I am hoping things are stabilizing. I have been adding my nitrate and phosphate solutions daily to keep the phosphates between .01 and .04 and to keep my nitrates around 1ppm.

Growth has been stunted on all sps, the zoas seem to be completely unaffected and are definitely doing better since starting to add nitrates. Some of the SPS are starting to grow again.

The following corals were hit hard (keeping fingers crossed):
Highlighter acro (might not make it)
Shades of fall acro (might not make it)
Pearlberry acro
Red Dragon acro

The following corals were moderately hit (hopeful will survive):
Cali Blue Tort
Toxic yellow acro
Purple bonsai acro. I have spares in my 40 gallon that were not affected.
Needle in the haystack acro
Hawkins enchinata
Red Planet acro (tip dieback although is starting to colour up nicely)

The following corals are not affected other than lack of growth: Some of these are actually looking better.
Birdsnest
Pocillopora
Green slimmer acro
Green hulk acro
Blue matrix acro
blue Formosa acro
Glowstick acro
Pink Lemonaide acro
blue millipora acro
Pink prostrata acro
Tri colour acro

My three montiporas were unaffected by the phosphates but are currently at war with monitopora nudibranches. This is a war I do not think the monti's can win.

Will provided pictures once the final outcome has been determined.

Thought I would add my results;
I stopped dosing Nitrogen back in January of this year. My corals slowly recovered with only 4 fish. I added 7 more fish at the end of April. Since then I've been feeding pellets daily for lunch, and either flakes or frozen for dinner. All daily. There's enough food sometimes to make a small snow storm and I'm still getting zero NO3. PO4 is still hovering between zero and 0.03

I'm hesitant right now to start tinkering with dosing Phosphorus and Nitrogen.
I'd like to get my NO3 up some to help my corals.

I'll need to have a slow time in my life to focus on it ...

I believe my tank has stabilized and the corals that survived have coloured up and are starting to grow.

The following corals did not make it:
Pearlberry
Highlighter
Red Planet
purple bonsai
Blue millipora

Most of the corals that have survived are now much more colourful. then before I started this experiment.

My initial plan to try to get my nitrates to 2ppm is not attainable. In raising up my nitrates I caused my phosphates to crash which almost wiped out all my corals. I started adding phosphates to help balance the nitrates, however I found that the amounts I needed to add of nitrate and phosphate to get desirable numbers was way too labour intensive.

I am now not focusing on my nitrate numbers only my phosphate numbers. I add enough nitrates to maintain phosphates at between .005 to .08ppm phosphorus.

In order to maintain this number I am adding 1.5ml of KNO3 and .5ml of KH2PO4 every day. I am checking my phosphate levels (hanna ULR) every second day and adjusting the amounts accordingly.

I tried feeding heavily for a while to help increase my phosphate and nitrates but ended up stopping that when my vermetid snail populations grew exponentially.

I am attaching a picture of 1 coral in particular from December (colours pale) to 1 week after I started adding nitrates colour better, After crash and the current colour as of 2 weeks ago.[

ATTACH]15985[/ATTACH]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/167567799@N03/30521935477My tank seems to have settled down and the colors have started to return to my corals. I have temperature and nutrient problems but everything seems to be OK for now.

I am trying to upload pictures from Flickr this is my first time so let me know if it works.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/167567...posted-public/

Not sure why I can only post links not images
https://www.flickr.com/photos/167567...n/photostream/

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1951/...b84bafab_k.jpgPA200072 by Glenn Murray
Success

Yay
Now you just need to figure out how to down-size them a tad :lol: