Help Needed with High Phosphates and Nitrates in My AIO Landen 26g 60p Reef Tank!

[Brisk]

Welcome!

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

Welcome.

 

[Salt_ee]

With whites and blues all the way up.

 

[Salt_ee]

Dont worry about magic balances as we rarely achieve them. However your goal is to get into the .1 range and I dont see an issue with it. I run PO4 by choice around 0.08 - .1 and no issues. What works for one's tank may not work for another and will depend greatly on water used, feeding habits, tank size and type/number of corals in the tank.
Chasing numbers is a no-no however and focus on ranges in lieu of target numbers.

Got it! So I can stop testing twice a day then LOL

 

[Salt_ee]

How high have you let them get? Often they'll increase then level off. I think one of the problems is most people have read that they should be low, like NO3 10 or less and PO4 0.05 or less so they take action to reduce them which is fine if that's your choice but it usually becomes a constant battle to keep them low. This is just from personal experience and not a recommendation because each tank is different. I let my tanks run and see where N and P end up settling at and as long as coral are looking good and I'm not battling nuisance algae I let them run at those levels. I have 3 tanks running and each has settled in at different levels. The one I have the most trouble with is the one that has barely detectable levels and it's full of nuisance algae. The tank below ran for years with NO3 20+ and PO4 0.3-0.45 Early in I was running gfo and I always had gha. I stopped and just let the tank run doing occasional water changes and dosing kalk. This is the tank after 8 years

Pure speculation on my part but I'm starting to think we see so many posts looking for help with nuisance alage, cyano etc are because folks are trying to control too much and not letting the tank settle into a natural balance. I think this is especially harmful with newer tanks that are never given a chance to obtain a balance naturally. I'm not a science guy and am still learning but I really love being able to keep things simple and just enjoy the tank instead of fretting over it.

EDIT : Sunnyx who has tank of the month posted in the thread I linked above and stated his PO4 is 0.9

What a gorgeous tank! One day I hope to have one exactly like it! I tested this morning and I'm at .12 N and .52 P. No GHA in sight and I don't even know what cyano looks like. I did battle GHA and Dinos HARD for the first year and lost a lot of fish and almost all the corals due to it. I finally read somewhere to just black out the tank for 3 days and once I did that, twice in a month I've never seen GHA again, except for a single trochus snail who was covered in it. I let him live for a month and it never went away so I tossed him in the ocean as I was scared it would spread. So for last 5-6 months the tank has been perfect minus the high numbers. I will leave it alone! I do have a heavy feeding hand...I am a sucker for my cowfish begging me for food. I feel a lot better, I mean I have a cowfish, non-photosynthetic gorgonians, overfeed for sure, 26 corals and 4 fish in a 20 gallon tank...duh. I do want to get to a balance of smaller water changes/less frequently but I will take it slow and hopefully get there one day. Or just bite the bullet and go all out with controllers and AWC etc haha

 

[exnisstech]

Sounds like you have a good plan
I feed so much I'm surprised my levels aren't higher lol. I keep 4 kinds of pellets next to this tank for treats and have started pulling algae out of my scrubber and tossing it in the display several times a day. I just can't say no to these guys

This is the tank that replaced the one I posted above. This one started with all dry rock and barebottom but I put a bunch of rock in the sump from the old tank. Levels are pretty close to what the old tank ran NO3 13 and PO4 0.39 last test.

 

[Tamberav]

Cow fish make me smile... they don't look like they are from this planet. Little alien horns/faces and backend looks like two stubby legs trailing behind.

 

[Salt_ee]

I feed so much I'm surprised my levels aren't higher lol. I keep 4 kinds of pellets next to this tank for treats and have started pulling alage out of my scrubber and tossing it in the display several times a day. I just can't say no to these guys

That’s 2 funny!! I wouldn’t dare play with Algae like that after what I went through! I think perhaps the reef roids I’ve been feeding may be the culprit more so than the feeding. It’s what I read anyways so moving forward I’m going to just stick to frozen, dry freeze mysis and live baby brine shrimp I’m hatching once a week. I actually want to see if I can grow the shrimp in a bucket so the cow fish can enjoy them also. Currently he doesn’t even see them, but the other three go bananas over them. Oh and nori for the cow fish. I will go more frequent and less. Btw the pellets may have been the culprit behind my GHA as they were in AF dropping daily before lights out. I kept noticing that some would go uneaten and be in the sand decaying.

 

[Salt_ee]

Sounds like you have a good plan
I feed so much I'm surprised my levels aren't higher lol. I keep 4 kinds of pellets next to this tank for treats and have started pulling algae out of my scrubber and tossing it in the display several times a day. I just can't say no to these guys

This is the tank that replaced the one I posted above. This one started with all dry rock and barebottom but I put a bunch of rock in the sump from the old tank. Levels are pretty close to what the old tank ran NO3 13 and PO4 0.39 last test.

What’s up with the back wall? Should I not be cleaning mine and let whatever all that barnicle looking stuff just grow?

 

[zheka757]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[exnisstech]

What’s up with the back wall? Should I not be cleaning mine and let whatever all that barnicle looking stuff just grow?

It's a personal preference. Many folks love a nice squeaky clean look which is great but I'm too lazy. I've never cleaned my back walls. The tangs graze back there all day so I figure it's benificial, at least that's what I tell myself lol

 

[AetherealKnight]

Welcome to the Reef Party!

 

[Salt_ee]

It's a personal preference. Many folks love a nice squeaky clean look which is great but I'm too lazy. I've never cleaned my back walls. The tangs graze back there all day so I figure it's benificial, at least that's what I tell myself lol

I need to stop hovering around the tank and be more lazy! Thank you!

 

[vetteguy53081]

What a gorgeous tank! One day I hope to have one exactly like it! I tested this morning and I'm at .12 N and .52 P. No GHA in sight and I don't even know what cyano looks like. I did battle GHA and Dinos HARD for the first year and lost a lot of fish and almost all the corals due to it. I finally read somewhere to just black out the tank for 3 days and once I did that, twice in a month I've never seen GHA again, except for a single trochus snail who was covered in it. I let him live for a month and it never went away so I tossed him in the ocean as I was scared it would spread. So for last 5-6 months the tank has been perfect minus the high numbers. I will leave it alone! I do have a heavy feeding hand...I am a sucker for my cowfish begging me for food. I feel a lot better, I mean I have a cowfish, non-photosynthetic gorgonians, overfeed for sure, 26 corals and 4 fish in a 20 gallon tank...duh. I do want to get to a balance of smaller water changes/less frequently but I will take it slow and hopefully get there one day. Or just bite the bullet and go all out with controllers and AWC etc haha

Twice a day? I test once a week.

 

[Jimbhoy13]

Welcome to R2R. Your tank looks great. Lots of good advice given.

 

[Ocean_Queenie]

With whites and blues all the way up.

I love cowfish!

 

[PharmrJohn]

Greetings and Welcome to our collective obsession!!!!

 

[Reef Wizard]

 

[Salt_ee]

Howdy all from Seattle, FL where it has been raining for 2 weeks straight! Which gives me TONS of time to "hover" over my tank LOLI have been watching a lot of BRSTV and Ryan says he feeds like crazy so I trust him. A lot of the other things that come out of his mouth are Klingon to me . I don't want to just go crazy on feeding without addressing exporting tutrients properly and steadily..maintaining a healthy balance.

I desperately want to feed them all the time but with my nutrients always on the rise I am reluctant to.... What did I do despite saying, no more hovering and tinkering? Duh...obviously tinkered some more...I'm obsessed I know but hear me out. I do NOT like GHA or DINOS so they are NOT welcome in my tank!

- I plan to feed BBS every other day. I have a hatchery right next to the tank which provides ample light for the shrimp as they hatch and I can simply drop them in for the first 2 days/then plan to freeze the remainder and start another batch pretty much right away. I will also save remaining BBS and have on hand if I skip a day or week etc.
- I also have Rod's frozen which I have been feeding sparingly and since it comes in a bag its hard to say how much but I would say half a teaspoon max every other day - just break a frozen piece and drop it in as I turn off return and flow for 10min. I think I will start feeding that daily at 7pm so corals can chomp on it through the night.
- Dry frozen mysis I have been feeding every other day in the morning - just a 1/4 of a teaspoon mixed in some salt water but I can start doing that daily in the AM.
- I can put the AF back in the mix and have that also drop in some pellets in the morning daily.

Now some of you are really going to laugh or chastise the crap out of me based on the recent messages, but hear me out
I had a two little fishies reactor I had used a few months ago but decommissioned that was just laying around. I also had a 300gph pump laying around. I felt like the return pump that the LFS manager recommended was just not pulling enough water through the tank. There was stagnant water in first chamber and last chamber. I know it shouldn't really matter as it will just pull nutrients at a slower rate but I'm not entirely sure that's true all the way. I have no more stagnant water, and I can physically finally see the water moving through the intake at a nice rate, where before floating food would just pass by...not anymore! So I put that in place of the 235gph and moved that pump to the GFO/Carbon mix reactor and put that in the last / return chamber which is now creating very nice and strong surface agitation. Yes I am running Chemipure in the media basket as well and its a bigger bag designed for a 50g however it just wasn't doing enough in my opinion so the Phosban reactor is somewhat redundant but I also plan to only run it for 12-16hrs a day. Again my point here is I want to feed more and filter more!
I know...I KNOW...I'm doing all the wrong things here, everything at once, however I'm too OCD to just wait for days and weeks while nutrients are just rising. I tried that early in the hobby and it bit me hard! Tank looked great and all of the sudden GHA and diatoms just came from nowhere and crushed everyhing.
Now I make changes but I'm really meticulous about it. Wear gloves, clean the crap out of everything I'm touching, clean tank every week (chambers, pumps, substrate, glass). Also the tank is looking incredible at the moment so as I tinker I can really see how it affects the inhabitants even better than if its not doing well and I'm throwing the kitchen sink at it all trying to revive. IDK it's just my relentless pursuit to feed more, grow beautiful corals and ULTIMATELY be one of those elites that doesn't perform any water changes but 2-3 times a year.

I did a water test this morning (again) and now I am at .14 N and .29 P. All the other numbers are the same.
So basically the nitrates haven't budged much in 24hrs .13 but the P was at .52 yesterday - moving in the right direction I feel. I did notice that my Ph dropped though as I took out the protein skimmer. I was steady at 8.1 and now I am at 7.9. I am thinking of pulling out the egg crate media basket out of chamber 1 (intake) and modifying it / making it a bit narrower so I can also include the protein skimmer to that chamber. From an economical perspective that will also cut my filter floss consumption in half.
I don't plan to do that right away though as I am leaving in a couple of days to the FL keys and I will be gone for 12 days. I will have my AF drop the minimal amount of pellets once in the am and once in the evening while I am gone. I will also have my wife put in a piece of nori on the clip for the cowfish in the mornings.
I will have a camera pointed at the tank so I can view the status of the tank while I'm away. I also just bought an ink bird controller for the heater and actually have a second titanium heater on the way which I will implement later today once it arrives (redundancy). I don't have a controller, however the tank is hooked up to a UPS battery backup for the return pump and heater. I've tested it and it works great - not sure for how long but I did several tests one of which I left the breaker off for an hour and it was working just fine. I also have a Ecoflow 2700W Delta 2 Battery generator on standby (I live at the beach in FL) .
I did also purchase a Kasa power strip so I have the ability to turn on/off devices remotely or on a timer schedule like the LED for the refugium which is set to only run from 8p-8am. I also plan to run the reactor on a schedule but do you have any recommendations whether it should run through the night or through the day? Once I plug the protein skimmer back in the mix, I also plan to only run that from 12am - 7pm. I usually feed around 7pm before lights out, that gives the corals and fish enough time to consume whatever they will consume without the protein skimmer pulling simultaneously.
How often and how much Reef Roids should I feed to the corals based on what you've seen in my 26g with 26 corals? I also have Fuel which I have been mixing half a cap along with 1/4 reef roids and surface spread that 2x a week with return/powerheads shut off.
Lastly, my new Zoa's aren't doing too hot. I just got them a few days ago but maybe I have them too close to the top as they are shrinking like crazy. Maybe lighting is too much for them at 200-250par? I did dip them initially for 15 min - should I move them back to the frag rack while I'm gone?
I also have Benepets and Brightwell amino on the way, arriving tomorrow as I hear both are good for corals.



Lets hear it ladies and gents - I have tough skin and LOVE learning and sponging criticism and advice equally!

P.S. I swear it looks way better in person LOL. Also I tried doing a video but not sure I know how...maybe there is a file size limit?

 

[Dmmz]

Welcome to R2R!