help with corals and nutrient issues

[kozzy]

hi everyone looking for some advice and the best course of action. I made a post yesterday regarding the overall health of my lps deteriorating and came to the conclusion that my zero'd out nutrients are the cause of their poor health. Over the course of a few weeks the flesh bands on my hammers and frogspawn have all receeded almost fully. Some reason my torch is fine but I expect the same thing to likely start happening. Ill throw my parameters below but I dont believe anything else to be the issue. I have dosing tropic marin plus np to increase nutrient levels for about a month and no progress. So i ordered brightwell neo nitro and neo phos as well as tm - phos feed. Im not planning on using them all just wanted the options. I am a little frustrated on what to do as I don't see room for any more fish and I already am feeding quite excessively. Today I actually tested my phos ... 0 as expected... fed reef roids... tested phos to be 0.13.. tested again an hour later and was back to zero. I really dont know how to approach this. For refrence my tank is about 3 months old, have had fish and corals for 2 months. It's a 32 gallon with 4 fish, being lit with 2 ai prime 16 hds, no skimmer (just floss, carbon, and biological media)

alk - 9 - hanna
mag - 1440 salifert
cal- 430 - salifert
salinity - 1.026 - refractometre
temp - 78-79

sorry for the lengthy post just wanted to save the back and forth of all the aspects of my tank lol but thanks in advance to anyone who can provide some insight. I will mention that these things I ordered wont arrive until the 27th at the earliest so thats stressing me out a bit.

 

[scotty333]

Hi
It’s quite notmally in the early stages of setting up the tank , your rock and sand are still absorbing the nutrients, you will find that soon enough you’ll start to see some readings once it’s saturated. Just keep doing what you’d doing and wait it out

 

[kozzy]

Hi
It’s quite notmally in the early stages of setting up the tank , your rock and sand are still absorbing the nutrients, you will find that soon enough you’ll start to see some readings once it’s saturated. Just keep doing what you’d doing and wait it out

hi, thanks for the quick reply. I get that it's 100% normal but how do you suggest I proceed as this process carries out since my corals arent doing well. Ive been reading all these forums and see people that struggle to have detectable nutrients for like a year. I know I ordered the phosphate and nitrate dosings from brightwell but am hesitant with that. Do you think using phosfeed will give the corals what they need and recover until everythings saturated

 

[DonTavo27]

I would try actually spot feeding some of your coral if you aren’t already. LRS reef frenzy is a good frozen option, or any reef nutrition product.

 

[scotty333]

You need to get some stability on your nutrients so when the kits arive you’ll need to dose of each to get a reading of say .1 and 10 then test again 6 hours later and if it’s dropped dose again
Repeat until you find a pattern

 

[kozzy]

I would try actually spot feeding some of your coral if you aren’t already. LRS reef frenzy is a good frozen option, or any reef nutrition product.

none of my euphyllia show any feeding response with frozen foods and I dont think reef roids does much for them as well

 

[scotty333]

none of my euphyllia show any feeding response with frozen foods and I dont think reef roids does much for them as well

But you need readings/food for them so if your bottoming out in hours then that’s why

 

[kozzy]

You need to get some stability on your nutrients so when the kits arive you’ll need to dose of each to get a reading of say .1 and 10 then test again 6 hours later and if it’s dropped dose again
Repeat until you find a pattern

Ill do that thanks. How do I go about the intial phase of that if everything Im dosing just gets absorbed and zerod out? Ive been reading about all of that and dont quite understand how to start if the tank is just absorbing everything

 

[scotty333]

Better actually you dose to .2 and 20 as you may not bottom out in 6 hours

 

[kozzy]

Better actually you dose to .2 and 20 as you may not bottom out in 6 hours

that answers my previous question lol thank you!!

 

[scotty333]

I’ll do that thanks. How do I go about the intial phase of that if everything Im dosing just gets absorbed and zerod out? Ive been reading about all of that and dont quite understand how to start if the tank is just absorbing everything

Follow the dosing instructions, 1ml per x volume = x phos / nitrate
Dose and test 6 hours later and say it drops .05 / 5 you can dose 1/4 the original dose again

 

[kozzy]

But you need readings/food for them so if your bottoming out in hours then that’s why

I shouldve clarified in my post that I still fo feed reef roids 3 times a week for the rest of the tank and nutrient sake. Do you think I should just feed a little bit every night until the brightwell stuff arrives?

 

[scotty333]

none of my euphyllia show any feeding response with frozen foods and I dont think reef roids does much for them as well

Not sure what eupyllias you got ? Trachys, sbcollys ,lobos? Those sorts show feeding tentacles / polyps but euphyllias don’t recognise food in the tank and react
You can drop some cockle or something in n the tentacles and see if it pulls it n

 

[kozzy]

Follow the dosing instructions, 1ml per x volume = x phos / nitrate
Dose and test 6 hours later and say it drops .05 / 5 you can dose 1/4 the original dose again

okay thanks alot. Do you think I should just skip the phos feed and go straight in with the brightwell stuff or start with phos feed and see if anything improves. My only this is I have next to zero algae in the tank besides the slight dusting on the glass. Was showing some dinos and as soon as I started the plus np a month back it all cleared but clearly its not doing anything for nutrients to time to find something else

 

[scotty333]

I shouldve clarified in my post that I still fo feed reef roids 3 times a week for the rest of the tank and nutrient sake. Do you think I should just feed a little bit every night until the brightwell stuff arrives?

Stick with your feeding pattern because that’ll offshoot the purpose here which is stabilising nutrients

 

[kozzy]

Not sure what eupyllias you got ? Trachys, sbcoooys , lobos? Those sorts show feeding tentacles / poppy’s but duphyllias don’t recognise food in the tank and react
You can drop some cockle or something in n the tentacles and see if it pulls it n

when I say euphyllia I am referring to hammer, frogspawn, and torch sorry I thought I had that correct lol. My lobo is actually looking perfectly healthy, he feeds fine, my scoly is also feeding but still looks quite poor health wise most of the time. Pectinia is fine..Acan is fine...favia seems fine. Its just the hammers and frogspawn that are receeding completely and scoly as well

 

[kozzy]

Stick with your feeding pattern because that’ll offshoot the purpose here which is stabilising nutrients

ya your right on that. Makes sense

 

[scotty333]

For instance , once the balance of nutrients is maintained you find an amount of food to maintain that level

 

[scotty333]

when I say euphyllia I am referring to hammer, frogspawn, and torch sorry I thought I had that correct lol. My lobo is actually looking perfectly healthy, he feeds fine, my scoly is also feeding but still looks quite poor health wise most of the time. Pectinia is fine..Acan is fine...favia seems fine. Its just the hammers and frogspawn that are receeding completely and scoly as well

They’re not touching are they?

 

[scotty333]

Think it’s time for a pic pal