Alkalinity seems slightly low too
Destroyers or Opportunists?
- Thread starter Cook
- Start date
yeah, I consider 6.9 to be dangerously low, enough to explain casualties and require immediate but slow correction. My recommendation is get that up to 8.4 or so... and increase any faster than 0.3 dkH per day.
Also, this may drop your Calc, which is also very low (and so is magnesium). So increase your calcium too. I would aim for 435... but it’s hard to overdose on calcium so don’t feel bad about overshooting.
and for good measure, can you confirm your temperature adjustment with a glass thermometer?
I thought the numbers were pretty low but only been doing this a year and not overly confident so I just put soft comments out there in case I’m wrong
- Messages
- 122
- Reaction score
- 135
IMO, phosphates at 0.05 and nitrates at 5 ppm are values on the edge. Below those levels is not enough headroom to allow for variations in feeding and competitive consumption. Also, according to Dr. Tim, nitrates below 10 ppm can create a situation where cyanobacteria can out-compete the autotrophs for nitrate and phosphate. According to the Tropic Marin people, corals require these autotrophs as a pathway for phosphate uptake. Also, the recommendation of 0.03 ppm phosphate should really be a minimum, not a target. If you read Rand Holmes-Farley's Reef Aquarium Water Parameters. You will see he gets the 0.03 value from the level required by phytoplankton and other life forms. And even says it is a limiting level. So below that level, autotrophs and plankton would be limited. IMO, this has 2 effects. First, the lack of a phosphate pathway will starve the coral itself and reduce the photosynthesis of the zooxanthellae. I think this is why the lack of phosphate hits corals so hard and fast. Second, the reduced photosynthesis causes a lack of sugar production which reduces nutrition/energy in the coral slime. This slime is necessary to feed the polyps and tissue that are not exposed to the light such as the underside and base. Once these tissues start to die the heterotrophic bacteria bloom and can quickly overwhelm the defenses of a starving coral. Thus the bottom-up STN we see. Again, these are just my thoughts.
When my tank crashed I saw this necrosis on a massive scale. Immediately followed by dinos. I suspected all kinds of other causes and it took me a couple of years and a few battles with dinos to understand what happened. At the time I had a medical issue going on. The tank missed a lot of feedings and the macroalgae in the refugium grew without any export. So I had a nutrient competitor, the macroalgae, becoming more efficient while the nutrient import, the feeding, was being reduced. Thus, creating a perfect storm. I lost every SPS in the tank. Acros, montis, pocis, and stylos were all gone within 3-4 days. I now know the immediate appearance of the dinos was an indication of low nutrients.
I now target phosphates at 0.1 and nitrates 10-20. I even add nitrate and phosphate to bring my change water to these levels.
@Cook could you describe the setup of this tank.
We fought a Dino battle early on, probably because of all the phosphate leakage from the dry rock we didn’t ore cycle but also because of lack of nutrients. I feel like everything does a bit better if my nutrients stay in this range as well.
I think it's easier to send you to my Frag tank thread. My previous failed experiment, Cook's RS 170 is also there somewhere. I'm no stranger to dino's and I have deliberately been feeding more and I have more bioload in this tank than I had in the RS170. I am planning to add 3-4 more fish in the next 30-45 days depending on quarantine results. After the dino battle, I'm in the camp of a little higher is better than too low for phosphate. I'm just using ROX carbon, no phosphate reducers. I can dose phosphate and nitrate if needed.
atlantareefclub.org
Cook's 40 Gallon Breeder Frag Tank
So, with no additional bleach to be found, I've moved to an alternate plan for after the 10-14 days of treatment with the Chloroquine Phosphate, tomorrow is already day 7 for them. I went to pickup dog food Thursday at Petco and the $1 a gallon sale was on. So, I will move to the tank transfer...
atlantareefclub.org
I would bring dK up slowly above 8, as well as calcium above 400 and mag above 1350. Nitrates and phosphates I would not worry about until your other chemistry is in balance. Make sure your salinity is accurate- running from 1.024 to 1.026 is fine. Above this is stressful. Many LFS even run their tanks hypo at 1.023. But dK always needs to be adequate for your sticks. Softies and lps are more forgiving although they appreciate better levels as well for long term growth and health in our artificial reefs. With respect to nitrates and phosphates there are wider ranges - consistency is what is important for all measurements- no wide swings as that can cause issues. But even nice tanks like Melevs reef can run super high nitrate/phosphates and still be successful.
Agreed. I would not worry about nutrients until after calc, Alk, and Mag are fixed. I’ve regularly ran tanks far below those nitrate and phosphate levels for most of the past 10 years with no such tank issues. But low Alk will derail a tank quickly and consistently.
Andrew, what do you think is the best way to slowly raise Alk? Mine’s fine for now but we’re about to get started on the upgrade to the 180 and guess we will have to go through new tank syndrome again
1) first, choose a brand for calc/Alk supplements.
2) different brands have differing concentrations. Based on that brand, begin dosing relatively large amounts to get the change that you want. Most brands will have a recommended dosage in order to affect a certain dkH change based on the number of gallons of your tank. Follow this calculation for a 0.3 dkH to determine how much you need to dose.... and then cut that amount in half, just in case.
3) Test your water frequently, at least 1 hour after dosing (or simply test before dosing). After several days, If you’re seeing a 0.15 dkH increase per day on average, then you know the quoted calculation/estimate is accurate, and you can then increase to 0.3 if needed. Or just stay at 0.15 dkH per day. But if you’re seeing less than 0.15 dkH/day, then increase. And if you’re seeing over 0.3 dkH, then decrease your dosage.
4) And as you start to near 8.0 or 8.2... slow down the dosing significantly, until you reach a stable level where the average Alk is neither decreasing nor increasing, and is stable at 8.4dkH (acceptable range 7.5-9.5 dkH).
5) If calcium is low too, as in this case, do the same with calcium. But offset your Alk and calcium doses by several hours. Overdosing calcium does little (other than affecting your Alk a lot). Overdosing Alk can wipe out your tank... so be careful with alk.
Notes:
If you don’t have a doser yet, I recommend it. Jebao has always had cheap and reliable dosers. You can often get a 3 pump doser for $50-60 or so... and 2 pumps is sufficient for most people. But if you want to drop some $$ on a nicer one, I also recommend it! I program my Alk for (half-daily doses) twice per day, and calcium for twice per day.
If you want to help the Alk or calc dissolve more... you can always take a water pitcher, scoop out tank water, dose into the pitcher tank-water, give it a good mix, wait 30-60 seconds, and then pour the pitcher back into the tank.
2) different brands have differing concentrations. Based on that brand, begin dosing relatively large amounts to get the change that you want. Most brands will have a recommended dosage in order to affect a certain dkH change based on the number of gallons of your tank. Follow this calculation for a 0.3 dkH to determine how much you need to dose.... and then cut that amount in half, just in case.
3) Test your water frequently, at least 1 hour after dosing (or simply test before dosing). After several days, If you’re seeing a 0.15 dkH increase per day on average, then you know the quoted calculation/estimate is accurate, and you can then increase to 0.3 if needed. Or just stay at 0.15 dkH per day. But if you’re seeing less than 0.15 dkH/day, then increase. And if you’re seeing over 0.3 dkH, then decrease your dosage.
4) And as you start to near 8.0 or 8.2... slow down the dosing significantly, until you reach a stable level where the average Alk is neither decreasing nor increasing, and is stable at 8.4dkH (acceptable range 7.5-9.5 dkH).
5) If calcium is low too, as in this case, do the same with calcium. But offset your Alk and calcium doses by several hours. Overdosing calcium does little (other than affecting your Alk a lot). Overdosing Alk can wipe out your tank... so be careful with alk.
Notes:
If you don’t have a doser yet, I recommend it. Jebao has always had cheap and reliable dosers. You can often get a 3 pump doser for $50-60 or so... and 2 pumps is sufficient for most people. But if you want to drop some $$ on a nicer one, I also recommend it! I program my Alk for (half-daily doses) twice per day, and calcium for twice per day.
If you want to help the Alk or calc dissolve more... you can always take a water pitcher, scoop out tank water, dose into the pitcher tank-water, give it a good mix, wait 30-60 seconds, and then pour the pitcher back into the tank.
Thanks Andrew, I’m going to print this off! I currently have a four head jebao doser that I’m currently using to dose 2 part
I wanted to say thanks for everyone that provided their thoughts and experiences, increasing alkalinity and calcium levels has seemed to stabilize things, I was closer to a tank crash than I realized. I did have tank parameter targets that weren't that far away from many of the suggestions, they just trended down more quickly than I believed possible in a short period of time. I may have been my own worst enemy for this experience and how I was manually dosing the tank while the frags were small was perfectly acceptable, but as they grew, the Alk swings were becoming larger, causing me to mistake the burnt tips from those swings as a pest attack. When I went back to my frag tank post and reviewed the images, there is some evidence that slow tissue necrosis from the bottom up was happening much earlier than I noticed. It's odd then that almost all of my losses totally survived the huge alkalinity spike of last summer to be done in by alkalinity swings, but it's a lesson in coral tolerance, one time versus constant. I should have the calcium reactor online in a day or so to alleviate my manual dosing entirely. What I will say in addition to close this out is this: Seawater alkalinity is 7 dkH and while I was not trying to run to an ultra low nutrient system specification, in effect, that's where my levels were which certainly have a smaller tolerance for success.
Thank you for this thread because I think we’re in the same boat here and I’m learning a lot from this thread too
