A little Help Please

[tonyga]

I'm noticing my arcans are losing vibrancy, my birds nest is almost dead even my flower pot isn't opening much. Good news is zoas, rose and rainbow anemone look great as well as the rest of my lps and torches

Salinity 1.023
Temp 77-77.5 fluctuates
Nitrates 15.3
PH 8.3
Phosphates .38
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 0
Calcium 383

This is a 40 cube, plenty of flow...lighting is a reef90

Any thoughts? I just did a 5 gallon water change after I saw the phosphates and PH. Maybe over feeding? I do 2ml of calcium, all and magnesium a day. Red Sea AB+ 2 to three days a week.

Water looks great.. I have a small sailfin, a lightning and storm clown, goby n pistol and a bow tie damsel. Everyone is peaceful and fish doing great SPS is my concern. Even see a little white on the tips of my Monte's

 

[NAS]

If your phosphate is .38 that is too high. Try running some GFO in a reactor. Also what is your alk?

 

[siege]

Agree with NAS. Also, nitrate of 15 is also a bit on the high side, general guideline is 4 - 10 or so.

Fine for some corals for sure, but maybe not the ones in question?

 

[tonyga]

I'll check alk this morning. No reactor here

 

[Hunna]

I'm noticing my arcans are losing vibrancy, my birds nest is almost dead even my flower pot isn't opening much. Good news is zoas, rose and rainbow anemone look great as well as the rest of my lps and torches

Salinity 1.023
Temp 77-77.5 fluctuates
Nitrates 15.3
PH 8.3
Phosphates .38
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 0
Calcium 383

This is a 40 cube, plenty of flow...lighting is a reef90

Any thoughts? I just did a 5 gallon water change after I saw the phosphates and PH. Maybe over feeding? I do 2ml of calcium, all and magnesium a day. Red Sea AB+ 2 to three days a week.

Water looks great.. I have a small sailfin, a lightning and storm clown, goby n pistol and a bow tie damsel. Everyone is peaceful and fish doing great SPS is my concern. Even see a little white on the tips of my Monte's

From a quick glance, and not knowing a ton, I’d say your salinity is low at 1.023. And anytime I’ve had a dip below 1.024 has been when I’ve notice things unhappy. I usually aim for right under 1.026 with my reader and that seems to have been working well so far.

 

[sharis100]

Maybe check your lighting schedule too. When hyposalinity plus lighting schedule maybe too intense or too low for water parameters and higher nitrates, you can lose coloration in corals.

 

[tonyga]

Maybe check your lighting schedule too. When hyposalinity plus lighting schedule maybe too intense or too low for water parameters and higher nitrates, you can lose coloration in corals.

Thanks. Lighting is mostly blues with a 20% white gradually starts at 8 and gradually to moons by 8. Nitrates seem to be ok may be higher then my norm but probably from feeding which I'm cutting back.

 

[sharis100]

Thanks. Lighting is mostly blues with a 20% white gradually starts at 8 and gradually to moons by 8. Nitrates seem to be ok may be higher then my norm but probably from feeding which I'm cutting back.

I would suggest to Slowly raise your salinity. And if possible Cut back on length timing of lights ant full power until salinity higher. Also check and make sure there are no contaminants in water- bad magnet or something else etc. Make sure no pest issue either. There are many reasons for color bail out ie loss of coloration, death in corals.

 

[siege]

From a quick glance, and not knowing a ton, I’d say your salinity is low at 1.023. And anytime I’ve had a dip below 1.024 has been when I’ve notice things unhappy. I usually aim for right under 1.026 with my reader and that seems to have been working well so far.

Oh shoot I didn't even look for/at salinity... yeah, SLOWLY raise salinity... i.e., turn your ATO off and do 10% weekly water changes with water at 1.0264 until it creeps up to that point, and try to maintain it there.

Livestock can take dips down (as long as it isn't too low) fairly readily, but they generally don't like rapid increases in salinity.

 

[gill]

In my experience, salinity is not the issue. Nitrates and Phosphate are too high. My corals always objected as levels crept to those ranges. Keep nitrates at 8-10 and phosphate below 0.2. There’s a dozen ways to do that, pick a few and start bringing them down. For me, Phosguard worked well, as well as biopellets, but both of those work best in reactors.

 

[tonyga]

After a couple back to back water changes and calibrating the refractometer:

Salinity 1.025
PH 8.1
Phosphates .12
Nitrates 11
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Alk 11dkh
Mag 1260
Temp stays at that 77.8 to 78

Things are all looking good. Need to raise calcium for sure. Wanted to make sure I was good for the new torch. My zoas are looking great. Water clarity is awesome as well

 

[aquaworld75]

Good to hear things are going better! In my experience mixed reefs (softies, LPS, SPS) are sometimes tough to give every coral the balance they need. For my SPS dominated tanks keeping the salinity 1.026, CA 420+, MG at higher levels, etc. with a 2-4 part doser, Kalk drip, or event a CA reactor (was when I saw real growth and vibrancy). In the end a good balanced salt mix (1.026) constant water changes really help too. I had a period of time where my tank was blah.. and couldn’t figure it out..was salinity.. things got much better when I got it back up to 1.026 .

 

[tonyga]

I think I'll stick with Los and softies. Maybe start an sps tank later. So much harder to keep everything stable on a small er tank than it was on my 125