.

Go back one page idk what happened there lol

Well that should bring you guys up to speed

Here is where im at and asking for some HELP/advise

Over the last month after the new addition of the goby and new pump (gyre) and maybe even new bio load I've noticed SPS not happy some colonies STN and losing tissue others less polyp extension and just not looking like the pics from few months ago

After testing retesting and looking back at my log book I narrowed it down to a few things

1) flow got crazy high with the new3 pump I changed from 2 mp10s on wave mode to 2mp10s plus gyre and I changed from a lot of wave flow to direct flow resulting in tissue loss on sps in the direct flow

2) sand goby while nice kicked up insane amount on sand in the first few weeks releasing stuff into my water that's hasn't been stirred in over a year that paired with flow probably made the sand storm sand blast that didn't help with tissue loss
3) tho ive done water changes same 2weeks seems tho im not catching up with p04 anymore and probably not changing my GFO fast enough for the new nutrient released from the sand bed

4) I did a full water test after my 2 week 25G WC yesterday and also I pulled out my old nitrate test that hasn't needed to be used for years and Found the problem

Calc-450
Alk-7.5
Mag-1325
Phos-0.20 Hanna (usually 0.10 after 2 weeks ) so this has been slowly rising last month
Nitrate- 30 !!! omg this has been zero for years I stopped testing it now since add of new fish this is 30 bingo

So .. Aside from anther WC on Thursday whats my plan of attack? I slowed the pumps and my next plan is to start carbon dosing with vodka maybe as my current 2 week wc plus GFo and Carbon isn't cutting it


Your help is needed thanks
Craig Dillman

Any ideas

Well, as I think you know, should get phosphates and nitrates down. For serious P04 challenges, Fozdown works well, but do it slowly so you don't get too big a drop at once.

You need low P04 (< 0.10) if you want your SPS to do well.

K do you suggest getting the p04 down to where it was then start carbon dosing or

You can do both at the same time, but P04 is your bigger problem. I only tried carbon dosing for a very short time, and didn't like the work and attention involved. So have used only a bio pellet reactor for a long time. Keeps N03 at zero (or at least so low I can't measure any). And I go for a year+ without having to touch it. Once N03 is down to zero, pellet consumption slows down to almost nothing.

But with P04 that high, it will take some effort with Fozdown (carefully) to bring it down. Once it is down (all leached out of your sand and rocks), then it is easy to maintain with just GFO.

Yea I run carbon and gfo about 1.75 cups of it p04 is usually 0.08-0.10 and my nitrates have never been above 1-2ppm in ny tank just over the last month it's creeped up with goby sifting the 2year old sand bed that hasn't been touched that with the new pump and I think caused this whole thing

Well, the goby is doing a good thing if he is stirring and cleaning up your sand bed. But your filter/sock should be catching the suspended material, and your skimmer doing its job as well. You might have a while of higher P04, but that's where the Fozdown can help, to get it back down.

Ok thanks I'll get some of that and start the vodka dosing as I wanted to anyway and I'll keep you guys in the loop

Vodkas for people
Vinegars for fish:lol:
Why not vinegar over vodka? It's cheaper but you dose more

No reason actually i thought vodka was just more potent figured they worked the same, is there any difference is one "better " than the other

No not that I have researched.

Ok awesome i think I'm gonna start with vinegar gonna do one more WC then start dosing on the weekend

Daily dossing is a pita....

Get a biopellet reactor and don't look back....

A good reactor and bio pellets is going to cost you more. Get yourself a Jebao doser they are cheaper and make daily dossing easy peasy . Than you can dose alk cal mag and carbon . I have been dossing vinegar for a month and I am getting the same results as I did with bio pellets .

Do you have a doser with an unused dosing pump? That'd be handy right about now. :D

Turkey basting the rock before each water change and gravel vacuuming the sand will help a lot in reducing nutrients. Do you have anything like bioballs, ceramic rings, sponges, etc in the sump? Do you have filter socks or filter pads? How often do you change them? How often do you feed the fish? What do they eat? How much do they get? Are you wet skimming or dry skimming? Which skimmer? (I'll go look if it's listed)

i had an idea a couple days ago, but forgot to post it ...

You're dealing with a new sand-sifting fish who is stirring up all these PO4 and NO3 readings ...
What if you were to remove the top layer of your sand ? Isn't this where the readings are coming from due to your new sifter fish ?
Siphon out 1/2 to 3/4 of your top layer, but leave a bit for the new fish to 'feed on' ?
I don't mean to remove 1/2 - 3/4 deep, but rather remove the top layer of 1/2 to 3/4 of your whole tank's footprint.
Replace the top layer with new sand and the new dude can live off the part you haven't removed.

Then, in a week or two, you can remove the rest and replace it again with new sand.

Just a thought ...

Ok thanks guys yea I run filter socks and lately having to change them about every 3 days, getting medium skimmate might go more wet now I threw in more gfo also and in going to do another 30g we tokorrow I did one on Thursday to and one on Monday to try to reduce stuff, I'm thinking of buying hay jebaco dosed and doing vinegar dosing but gonna try to get the levels back down to where they were before the new fish and pump

The sand looks clearer then it ever has like there is nothing in it now he did a crazy good job (maybe too good)

Gonna do the wc and retest stuff tomorrow see where I'm at and cut my cheeto is half again it also is growing like crazy too

Nothing beats a good sand sifter goby for keeping your sand nice and clean. Of course if it is dirty to start, you will go through a period of exporting nutrients including the DOCs. Just be diligent with your filter socks, skimmer and P04 removal. But once you are through that, your tank will shine, and your SPS will love you...

Thanks for the help guys I think after I get over this and dosing set up things are going to be epic

25 gallon wc done and retested

salinity 1.026
P04- down to .16 from .23 5 days ago so dropping good
Nitrate- 20ish down from 30-35ish
Alk- 8.7
Calcium -430
Mag -1400

Tank looking better from all these Wc all in a week, Started Vinegar dosing added my first 3.2ml today

http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index....arine-aquarium

Using the 100g as a reference to start small its 125g with a 60g sump minus rock so ill see how the 100g level works and go from there

Well about 10 day into dosing the vinegar up to 10.4 ml per day haven't noticed too much change ( stuff isn't getting worse ) noticed zero algea on the glass haven't had to scrape it in 10 days and still looks clear

skimmate looks darker and seems to be skimming more nastiness out

Tested and nitrates are a bit lower at say 25 but i did do big WC so thinking that was what moved it not the carbon dosing yet P04 is a bit lower to changing GFO pretty often its about 0.09 now

onward

I'm going away for the weekend getting someone to come by to watch the fish and feed them and stuff but don't want them to dose anything

Would it be ok to add the doses to my ATO I have it marked how many days ATO will last so I can add it to there

Or is missing 3 doses that bad I'm at 10.4ml now


What would you guys do?

Hence why I use biopellets.....

I'm getting a doser here soon but until I get it all set up

Well nitrates still sky high say 30-40 I'm doing a 75g water change as we speak and that should be around 50-60% of total water volume then I'm going to head out for the weekend and do another big % water change when I get back on Tuesday and go from there if this don't fix it idk what will

Still dosing the vinegar slowly no problems yet but no results either

Vinegar takes about 4weeks to work and longer if you have high levels.


I'm not sure where your getting e numbers to dose but with vinegar you really don't need to gradual rise slowly , randy says 15ml per 100g of wat and double this weekly up until around 45ml

I do this and have gotten countless others to use this recipe

1ml per gall for 7 days
2 ml per gallon for 7 days
3 ml per gallon for 7 days
4 ml per gallon for 7 days

Repeat and raise as necessary , once nitrates hit zero then start to cut back in half increments , so if you make it to 5ml per gallon , then the next week drop down to 4.5 then week later to 4 then to 3.5 etc. this is to find your maintenance dose as the dosages to bring the levels down will be higher then it is to maintain them when they are lower :)

If you need to miss three days simple go back to the week before when you start again:)

Good luck

Ok awesome thanks maybe I started too slow when I'm back I'll ramp it up and see how it reacts

Oh and adding it to your ato is fine as long as its not sitting in the h2o for longer thn 3-5 days after that it's useless:)

Thanks for the help never had water issues like this must have just been the new fish and pump and not keeping up with my bigger %wc

And it's evidence that the water changes for removal of nitrates are only masking the bigger issues , if your nutrient rise is greater than what you remove then you'll slowly accumulate. Something as simple as 0.5ppm is 3.5ppm in a week and 7 in two and so on and so on. Sometimes the rise is so small it takes months to even notice you've been going up.

Adding more nitrogen sources simply speeds all this up more so.

Water changes have great advantages but I don't consider nutrient export one of them maybe a bonus to be had but certainly not it's best feature :)

You'll get there attack in small battles and wear your enemy down step by step, there's no rush to do this unless you feel the tanks inhabitants are in danger or decline

Good luck buddy

Denny

Yea only a few corals have shown issues a few of my high end acans have lost a bit of color and 2 sps my monti stenosa and another acro all seem a bit stressed while the rest if the tank looks awesome so hoping with the wc and the carbon dosing I can pull it all back

On a side note my frogspawn is loving the dirty water and my bubble tips and Duncan's never looked better

Week 3 weeks in and things are looking really good ordered a new nitrate test kit should be in this week to get some reliable numbers but after the 2 massive water changes and the dosing (doing about 30ml a day till tomorrow bump up)

P04 is down to like 0.06 Nitrate kits is real expired says 30ish my other one says 15 so we will see when new kit comes

Some of the corals look incrediblly different and the few sps colonies that were really struggling are starting to get the polyps back and starting to come back, my zoa's have taken off and able to make frags of almost every colony over the last weeks

Still waiting on the high end acans to color back up and recover

ill get some pics up here today if i can

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...psbsc9eviw.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2e3aonuc.jpg

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...pss7lrfeqd.jpg



Update

Looks good. I like your aquasacape. Why do you have one of your light fixtures higher?

....Well funny story kinda... when I was installing them I didn't use long enough screws to go threw the board and hit a stud and in the middle of the night 1 day later the whole light fixtures fell into the water... managed to not start a fire or fry the drivers and also to save most of the leds but some on the left 2 most fixtures burnt out And i haven't got around to doing another order to replace them so I upped the output on the drivers to compensate but the left most one didn't lose any and it was noticeably more bright and with that rock higher corals seemed to like it like that so I just went with it

Love your tank size Craig

Yea it's good and manageable 72x20x20