Corals not consuming Calcium and alkalinity

[Noodles_Jefferson]

Hello, fine people! Been a long time since i posted. I have a problem. I checked the forum for related topics bit didn't see this specific issue. I have a small 29 gallon reef tank that is doing well. I used to dose Red sea A B and C but recently switched over to All-for-reef which I like because it's one supplement for Calcuim, mag, and alk with trace elements. The corals are thriving and some are even spreading. The issue is that my Alk has been at 12.4 for a while. Calcium at 460 and mag at 1380. parameters are not crazy but a bit on the high end. I turned off my doser for over a week now and the levels are not dropping which to me means they aren't consuming anything. But they look great. i was told that my tank was too clean. Phosphates at .04. ok so i fed everything a little more to try to bring that up a bit. No effect. Then i was told to to increase my lights. I have a marine orbit LED lighting system. I was running Blue and white at 60% red and green at 20%. I increased blue and white to 70% (I didn't want to increase it too much too fast) so far still no effect. What could be keeping my corals from consuming alk and Calcium? Do they simply not want to grow? Do they have any kind of instinctual behavior like if there's not a lot of room in the tank they stop growing? I've been doing this for a while and I have never encountered an issue like this where the corals are thriving but not consuming anything. TIA!

 

[Reefer Matt]

Hello, fine people! Been a long time since i posted. I have a problem. I checked the forum for related topics bit didn't see this specific issue. I have a small 29 gallon reef tank that is doing well. I used to dose Red sea A B and C but recently switched over to All-for-reef which I like because it's one supplement for Calcuim, mag, and alk with trace elements. The corals are thriving and some are even spreading. The issue is that my Alk has been at 12.4 for a while. Calcium at 460 and mag at 1380. parameters are not crazy but a bit on the high end. I turned off my doser for over a week now and the levels are not dropping which to me means they aren't consuming anything. But they look great. i was told that my tank was too clean. Phosphates at .04. ok so i fed everything a little more to try to bring that up a bit. No effect. Then i was told to to increase my lights. I have a marine orbit LED lighting system. I was running Blue and white at 60% red and green at 20%. I increased blue and white to 70% (I didn't want to increase it too much too fast) so far still no effect. What could be keeping my corals from consuming alk and Calcium? Do they simply not want to grow? Do they have any kind of instinctual behavior like if there's not a lot of room in the tank they stop growing? I've been doing this for a while and I have never encountered an issue like this where the corals are thriving but not consuming anything. TIA!

Hey there! Have you tried another test kit to verify? And what parameters is your new salt mix at? It is also possible you don’t need to dose yet.

 

[Ron Reefman]

It doesn't look like you have many sps or lps corals. So parameters not moving in just one week isn't totally surprising. I'd give it more time.

 

[Noodles_Jefferson]

Hey there! Have you tried another test kit to verify? And what parameters is your new salt mix at? It is also possible you don’t need to dose yet.

Thanks, I should have included that. I use the Hanna tester for alk and i use the salifert test kits for calcium and mag. All kits are new- less than a week old. i also bring samples to the fish store and they test with a computerized API machine that tests for literally everything and it coms back slightly lower but pretty consistent with my test results. Salt is at 31 using the hydrometer. The only thing they said was out of range was that the phosphates were too low and nitrates too low (practically non-existent) which I never knew could be a bad thing.

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

To second @Ron Reefman I only see one coral - the Bubble - that is a stony coral that would consume Alk/Ca. (Maybe that's a tubinaria or something similar in the top right, can't quite tell from the photo).

The rest of what I see in the photo are "softies" and have no skeleton (they do consume some Alk/Ca but at absolutely minimal levels). Because of the lack of skeleton and very low requirements of these corals they are not likely to impact your Alk/Ca consumption.

I would expect Coralline to maybe take up more at this point based on what I see.

Next thing I see is that you've made what seem to be a lot of changes recently, this will lead to stress in the coral. Stress = less growth = less consumption.

I try not to change one parameter a month in my tanks if I can control it - meaning if I want to change my light schedule and my PO4 levels I would do one this month then the other next. For clarification, by "change" I am not talking about dosing back up to the levels I target - but moving the target.

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

Thanks, I should have included that. I use the Hanna tester for alk and i use the salifert test kits for calcium and mag. All kits are new- less than a week old. i also bring samples to the fish store and they test with a computerized API machine that tests for literally everything and it coms back slightly lower but pretty consistent with my test results. Salt is at 31 using the hydrometer. The only thing they said was out of range was that the phosphates were too low and nitrates too low (practically non-existent) which I never knew could be a bad thing.

So here comes a potential "number chasing" comment...

There are a lot of philosophies about what parameters to keep, and this is especially true with NO3 and PO4. There are Ultra-Low Nutrient Systems (ULNS) that essentially try to keep them all at/near 0 all the time, there are people that prefer high levels (PO4 .08+ and NO3 20+) and everything in between.

Stability is key, pick what keeps your corals happy and what you can maintain long term. If that's 0 NO3 and .02 PO4 fine, just understand you may need to help supplement your corals with aminos or something.

Changing this numbers a lot because you're getting conflicting information is going to stress your corals out.

Consider finding a friend with a tank that you like (the tanks/corals not necessarily the friend) that is similar to what your goal is then ask what they are maintaining. Then you have a resource that you can rely on that's nearby.

 

[Noodles_Jefferson]

So here comes a potential "number chasing" comment...

There are a lot of philosophies about what parameters to keep, and this is especially true with NO3 and PO4. There are Ultra-Low Nutrient Systems (ULNS) that essentially try to keep them all at/near 0 all the time, there are people that prefer high levels (PO4 .08+ and NO3 20+) and everything in between.

Stability is key, pick what keeps your corals happy and what you can maintain long term. If that's 0 NO3 and .02 PO4 fine, just understand you may need to help supplement your corals with aminos or something.

Changing this numbers a lot because you're getting conflicting information is going to stress your corals out.

Consider finding a friend with a tank that you like (the tanks/corals not necessarily the friend) that is similar to what your goal is then ask what they are maintaining. Then you have a resource that you can rely on that's nearby.

ok thanks. i guess I'll just keep the doser off until levels come back down and then start it back up slow while I keep testing until the parameters are where they need to be. I guess as long as they look healthy it's fine. For context, I started going to a store that has been giving me the best advice. I used to have a fairly significant green algae problem and my corals weren't doing great. Like I'd put a gargonian like the one in the picture I posted in this thread. They would last about a month before starting to deteriorate and never flowered. These are the changes I made based on advice from the store:
switched from a penguin 350 HOB filter to the Seachem Tidal 55 (using Sera crystal clear and chemipure media)- within a week the algae problem had vanished.

switched from red sea to the all-for-reef for supplements. This gorgonian has been in the tank for several weeks now with no signs of deterioration and is flowering nicely. This is why I'm not too worried but still wanted to check in with the experts to see if there was something i'm missing. I do also add fuel which has carb, vitamins, fatty and Amino acid.

I say all of that to say when my tank was dirtier than it is now, the tank was consuming alk and calcium

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

So I've noticed a correlation - and there seems to be a belief as well as I've seen systems built around it - that when corals have access to higher nutrients they will grow faster thus consuming Alk/Ca faster.

The drawback of higher nutrients is the risk of unwanted algaes and the like.