Taking my Skimmer offline

[tang daddy]

Originally Posted by Frogger

I have had one of my tanks (75 gallon RedSea Reefer) set up for over 2 years now and have had a very difficult time keeping any measurable nitrates in the system. Without nitrates my phosphates run a little high. Not really an issue with algae growth because nothing grows well with low nitrates. Unfortunately corals don't grow well without nitrates either.

I started adding nitrates to my system a year and a half ago. This has been met with mixed success. It was great for a while unfortunately adding nitrates crashed my phosphates which resulted in loosing half of my corals within a week.

Since that initial crash I have been adding nitrates and phosphates to my tank to try to keep a balance. Unfortunately this requires constant testing because these are fickle additions and the values can crash or get out of hand real quick if not monitored closely.

About 5 months ago a large yellow tang died and I couldn't find the body anywhere. This caused my nitrates and phosphates to spike by a huge amount for about a month and a half. This caused my corals to loose colour.

In that time hair algae started to grow very fast and without the yellow tang to graze I was starting to get worried, used GFO to help keep the phosphates below .1ppm wasn't anything outside of large water changes I could do for the nitrates. Purchased an algae turf scrubber to try to help manage the nutrients and for other very important reasons.

Before I could hook up the algae turf scrubber my nitrates zero'd out again real quick. One day it was 30ppm and a couple days later couldn't get a reading from Redsea Pro test kit. Phosphates came down as well. About a week after this happened I hadn't started adding nitrates yet and I got a cyno bloom. It was growing on all the rocks and the sand.

After doing some research I found out that a cyno outbreak is common when there is no nitrates in the water and there is stored nitrates in the rock and gravel (from the nitrate spike). Cyno Bacteria will create these mats to be able to process nitrates out of the calcareous surfaces. The cure for this type of cyno outbreak was to raise my nitrates back up to the 1 to 2 ppm level. After about 2 months of doing 2 times daily blowing the cyno off the rocks and weekly water changes and siphoning out as much mats as possible I finally broke down and used Chemiclean to finish it off.

After I got everything under control I hooked up the ATS. I have been adding nitrates and phosphates daily to keep measurable amounts of nitrates and phosphates. The ATS is working great running on a nighttime lighting schedule to maintain ph and O2 levels removing copious amounts of algae.

Daily monitoring of my phosphates, nitrates and alkalinity is not a sustainable process that I want to continue.

I have been reducing my skimmer use because I believe it is the reason that my phosphates and nitrates are unmanageable. I have been over skimming the water.

I think with the ATS I can manage the nitrates and phosphate much better and only use the skimmer when it is needed. Hopefully reducing the need for daily testing.

Every tank is different what works on your tank works on your tank but doesn't work on other tanks. I currently have a 40 gallon sps tank that has been running for 17 years and I only test nitrates and phosphates once every 6 months, test alkalinity once every few weeks and change 10% water once a month if I feel like it. This tank has been in balance colors and growth of the corals are great for several years.

I don't test every day on the 75 gallon because I have nothing better to do I do it because if I didn't I wouldn't have anything but fish and zoas.

I read the long novel... great play by play!
Now I know what you’re going to say but I believe that natural balance is the recipe for a healthy reef. I don’t use gfo gac anything and now don’t even dose trace...
A healthy bio load where I control how the fish are fed, for awhile I had Lps heavy tank which required a lot of feeding and then wc to offset the nutrients. I can safely say that this summer I did no waterchanges, and a 20g end of season just to reset things. I don’t clean my frozen food in a strainer and feed pretty dirty when I feed pellets. More recently I have fed everyday and corals are colouring up a lot. A healthy fish load on an established tank with dirty feedings can benifit your reef, however you need a way for nutrient export so I believe my success is from the Xenia garden sucking up the nitrates and macro farm that is constantly thriving...

I believe you’ve seen my set up once before and remembered the real Chinatown of Richmond...lots of fish creates biodiversity, lots of feeding equals more food for corals and lastly algae farm leaves the display meticulously clean!

Good luck bro hope your tank is better.

[Frogger]

Thanks for the input, your where I want to be. My other tank is already there.

I read the long novel... great play by play!
Now I know what you’re going to say but I believe that natural balance is the recipe for a healthy reef. I don’t use gfo gac anything and now don’t even dose trace...
A healthy bio load where I control how the fish are fed, for awhile I had Lps heavy tank which required a lot of feeding and then wc to offset the nutrients. I can safely say that this summer I did no waterchanges, and a 20g end of season just to reset things. I don’t clean my frozen food in a strainer and feed pretty dirty when I feed pellets. More recently I have fed everyday and corals are colouring up a lot. A healthy fish load on an established tank with dirty feedings can benifit your reef, however you need a way for nutrient export so I believe my success is from the Xenia garden sucking up the nitrates and macro farm that is constantly thriving...

I believe you’ve seen my set up once before and remembered the real Chinatown of Richmond...lots of fish creates biodiversity, lots of feeding equals more food for corals and lastly algae farm leaves the display meticulously clean!

Good luck bro hope your tank is better.

[Frogger]

After several weeks I have seen no improvement in the tanks consumption of nitrates and phosphates. Actually my tank needs more. Last week I ended up turning on my skimmer for 8 hours every night because a skimmer is removing more than just nitrates and phosphates.

Since I lowered my temperature from the mid 80's down to 78F (don't trust your thermometer/controller), added a ATS, reduced my skimmer time and better managed the phosphates/nitrates I have seen very positive results and my 2 part calcium and alkalinity usage has more than tripled.

I went from adding 30 to 45 mls of each calcium and Sodium carbonate to now adding over 150mls of each in my 75 gallon tank per day. I try to keep my dkh between 8.5 and 9.

My ph has stabilized at close to 8.3 24 hours a day. If I had an oxygen test kit I would bet my nighttime O2 levels are much higher now that I have a ATS and lower temperatures.