Thoughts on over skimming

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by mr.wilson

What's you reasoning on not using carbon? Do you use any ion exchange resins or phosphate removers? You might want to reconsider carbon if you are cutting back on skimming to take care of secondary metabolites.

How is your salinity (sodium level specifically) with your balling system? You may have an ionic imbalance of some sort, but the fact that your issues are with LPS I would still guess it's a nutrition issue and not chemical. The amino acids may do the trick. If the problem persists you could take the plunge and try vitamin C (ascorbic acid) dosing.

I like using carbon but I haven't gotten around to building a sump that will really allow for it. I do feel the proper sump would be beneficial and I should move it up the priority list, which will happen soon enough with winter around the corner.

I don't currently use a balling system, it was in the original plan but I'm not set on it yet. I currently just use Kalk and water changes to maintain everything at this point in time. Salinity stays constant as far as I know. I'm definitely going to try the amino and the vitamin C intrigues me so I'll have to look into it.

[mr.wilson]

I haven't tried vitamin C dosing, other than a bit in the food for lateral line disease, but this thread is pretty thorough. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1602494

I'm surprised your nitrate and phosphate is zero and your calcium is 400 and alk 8, considering you have so many stony corals and you don't use carbon, phosphate remover, algae or coral harvesting, much in the way of a sand bed, ozone or UV sterilization. You also seem to have modest feeding practices (no phyto, baby brine, or rotifers). Usually coraline algae is a probiotic way of outcompeting nuisance algae, but you have stated that you discourage its growth. You don't have a calcium reactor or a balling system, not even a two-part system. Maybe it's a lot easier to maintain calcium with no coraline algae to compete against.

Your old tank looked like it had the works, and the new one is pretty minimalist. What do you attribute your success to?

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by mr.wilson

I haven't tried vitamin C dosing, other than a bit in the food for lateral line disease, but this thread is pretty thorough. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1602494

I'm surprised your nitrate and phosphate is zero and your calcium is 400 and alk 8, considering you have so many stony corals and you don't use carbon, phosphate remover, algae or coral harvesting, much in the way of a sand bed, ozone or UV sterilization. You also seem to have modest feeding practices (no phyto, baby brine, or rotifers). Usually coraline algae is a probiotic way of outcompeting nuisance algae, but you have stated that you discourage its growth.

Your old tank looked like it had the works, and the new one is pretty minimalist. What do you attribute your success to?

Thanks for the link.

I could try different test kits, mine are fairly old (Salifert Nitrate and Elos Phosphate) but they're not expired so I assume they're accurate. I'm always wondering what my clams are doing for me, perhaps I should look more into it.

Yeah my old tank went through about every kind of equipment available and it did get overly complicated in the end even when I tried to simplify things. I contribute my success to stability more than anything and just sticking to the basics. I believe most of what I was doing in the past was not necessarily needed and the goal with my new tank is determine the bare basics and keep things as simple as they need to be. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them in my build thread, the tank is still a work in progress.