LPS corals receding

[warriorcookie]

Originally Posted by gmann

"If you had more it rate in your tank you'd probably be able to keep PO4 down without the PhosDown."
- more what?


"When you do a waterchange do you clean off the rocks with a baster and vacuum the sand or do you just take water ot and out water back in?"
-vacuum gravel yes, basting rocks, not so much

If you had more NO3 you're PO4 will come down.

Myka's advice was meant as "Po4 at 0.04 ppm is great. NO3 at 0.00 ppm is not good." She typo'd.

You're bacteria is NO3 limited right now. Get your NO3 up and PO4 will come down. Carbon dosing helps.

Also, blow off your rocks before you do a water change every time.

[Ryan7]

Originally Posted by warriorcookie

If you had more NO3 you're PO4 will come down.

Myka's advice was meant as "Po4 at 0.04 ppm is great. NO3 at 0.00 ppm is not good." She typo'd.

You're bacteria is NO3 limited right now. Get your NO3 up and PO4 will come down. Carbon dosing helps.

Also, blow off your rocks before you do a water change every time.

Look up redfields ratio, but based off your parameters i dont think that is your issue..

It would be unusual for for cal and alk to "stay steady" without dosing and and doing water changes every 4 weeks... but if your levels are acurrate and stay steady i would think it may be some contaminant..

[Ryan7]

Are you filling 12 canadian springs bottles to do water changes?

How do you get your water?

[gmann]

Originally Posted by Ryan7

Are you filling 12 canadian springs bottles to do water changes?

How do you get your water?

They deliver once a month, but for my weekly top offs I pick up from this place in steveston or a crappy tire. I eventually plan to switch over to the steveston shop for my monthly water changes also.

[gmann]

Originally Posted by warriorcookie

If you had more NO3 you're PO4 will come down.

Myka's advice was meant as "Po4 at 0.04 ppm is great. NO3 at 0.00 ppm is not good." She typo'd.

You're bacteria is NO3 limited right now. Get your NO3 up and PO4 will come down. Carbon dosing helps.

Also, blow off your rocks before you do a water change every time.

gotcha. I picked up a bottle of NO3PO4 so will start dosing that this week. thanks

[Animal-Chin]

Personally I'd stop dosing foz down or any other chemical that you're using that isn't just the basic alk, cal and mg. I find if I use any "reef safe" treatment for anything I'm gonna loose a coral or two.

Are your Scoly's under direct light? maybe shade them a bit.

I'd suggest a big water change or two but I know thats hard with your volume of water especially if you aren't making RODI at home. Still when things go buggy I like a couple of big water changes to remove anything that may be in your water.


Are all your other coral totally fine? What else do you have? Do you have a lot of coral and its just a couple that are going bad but everything else is fine?

[gmann]

Originally Posted by Animal-Chin

Personally I'd stop dosing foz down or any other chemical that you're using that isn't just the basic alk, cal and mg. I find if I use any "reef safe" treatment for anything I'm gonna loose a coral or two.

Are your Scoly's under direct light? maybe shade them a bit.

I'd suggest a big water change or two but I know thats hard with your volume of water especially if you aren't making RODI at home. Still when things go buggy I like a couple of big water changes to remove anything that may be in your water.


Are all your other coral totally fine? What else do you have? Do you have a lot of coral and its just a couple that are going bad but everything else is fine?

I just did a 90g water change last month due to a cyano outbreak. I have scheduled a WC this week as the cyano is back and I am about to put in chemiclean.

As for my other corals, zoas, doughnuts, and acans are fine, as are some of my scolies.

as for adding stuff, I am going to stop dosing zeobak and fozdown going forward, and try this carbon dosing that some others have suggested. although I still plan on using prodibio bio digest every 2 weeks.

[gmann]

thanks again everyone for your feedback. really appreciate your advice and tips.

[Animal-Chin]

Just remember that stopping 2 things, starting up a major thing and also adding chemiclean is a lot on your system. Coral hate that...lol

Chemi clean tells you to turn off your skimmer for 2 days, don't do it! just take the collection cup off and let the skimmer just overflow back into the tank. Cutting off the skimmer really reduces the oxygen in your water. This will make your fish and coral very unhappy......trust me......been there....

If your nitrates are already reading 0 why start carbon dosing? When I started using NOPOX as a carbon source my tank went a little wonky and I lost a couple of big sps colonies.

Oh and carbon dosing usually ends up in a cyano bloom when you first start out, a lot of people report this. I had it happen.

I really like bio pellets. They start off slow and sort of gradually ramp up giving your system time to adjust then you just forget about it and re fill the reactor when needed. Pretty stable way of carbon dosing IMO. My nitrates were at 80 when I started and now they are down to 5 but it took 3 months. Nice and slow.

Just some stuff to think about. I can't tell you how many tank crash stories I've heard from reefers trying to quickly fix an issue with dosing or adding chemicals.

Lastly, if you're worried about your scoly's, feel free to give them to me. I'll take them!!! lol

[gmann]

[quote=Animal-Chin;1001760]
If your nitrates are already reading 0 why start carbon dosing? When I started using NOPOX as a carbon source my tank went a little wonky and I lost a couple of big sps colonies.
QUOTE]

im not sure tbh, ive been trying to research this topic all morning at work. it seems to me that nopox will reduce my nitrates, but I need the opposite it seems, and need to introduce nitrates into my system