I don't get it...... I'm about to give up

[150 Gallon Reef]

I have a waterbox 60.2 setup with an orphek atlantik compact light, approximately 10 months old. The tank was going great for about 7 months until I had a velvet outbreak in the tank which I had to go tank fallow for 60 days. Unfortunately the tank has had issues ever since the fish were removed unfortunately. I turned off my skimmer while fallow and continued to feed like there were fish in it. I struggled to keep nitrates and phosphates up and ended up bottoming out at 0. Once the fish went back in, I was able to bring up the nitrates but the phosphates fluctuated. They continued to stay at 0 and jumped up to .2 in about a week and a half time. I have unfortunately been struggling with cyano, about 3 weeks after the fish removal to present day.

I also had a red bug outbreak in the tank about 3 weeks ago which I treated with interceptor. Only hurt my smooth skin acro I had. Took care of the bugs.
My sps and a couple encrusting LPS have been receding and STN due to low nutrients.
My levels are as follows:
Alk- 8.4 red Sea
Cal- 430 red Sea
Mag- 1400 red sea
Nitrates- between 4 and 8ppm red Sea
Phosphate: .07 Hanna
These levels have been steady for approximately 2 weeks sand I'm still getting my milli and birdsnest STNing. My montis are getting slight white tips or looking pale. But my jkr rainbow, orange passion, and Walt Disney look great with great color.

My ro water is reading 0 tds
I only skim for 8 hours a day to maintain proper nutrient levels
I have a doser which keeps alk and cal sea.

I DONT GET IT! Any advise or help would be great. Sorry for the long post, but wanted to get as much out on the table. Thank you

 

[Johniejumbo]

Hmmm. I’m fully unqualified to help. Seem stability is now being maintained and time should help heal what can be healed. It can take a while for corals to repair. Hopefully the eyes of some more sps experienced reefers will chime in.

 

[Fishbro]

I would just turn off your skimmer for a week or two and maybe feed a coral food (reef roids or something) and frozen food for the corals? So the tank is fallow right now too? If it’s fallow just feeding the corals and maybe turning off the skimmer will help. More people should chime in too for help!

 

[fishguy242]

i would say keep skimmer going 24/7,keep feeding corals,pics??

 

[bobby.w.hodges]

Low nutrients can cause all of the symptoms you described with your coral, including cyano. If there are no fish in there I would suggest giving the coral a mixture of reef roids and amino acids like red sea reef energy. Coral needs the nutrients in fish poop to stay thriving, the aminos are a very simple food source that should be readily available for the coral to use.

One thing that I have done in the past is actually dose skimmate back to the tank, it's full of nutrients. Yea, I know......

 

[fishguy242]

Low nutrients can cause all of the symptoms you described with your coral, including cyano. If there are no fish in there I would suggest giving the coral a mixture of reef roids and amino acids like red sea reef energy. Coral needs the nutrients in fish poop to stay thriving, the aminos are a very simple food source that should be readily available for the coral to use.

One thing that I have done in the past is actually dose skimmate back to the tank, it's full of nutrients. Yea, I know......

i have done same corals love it,skimmer takes back out

 

[Mastiffsrule]

hi,

Sorry about the troubles. A picture to see how bad it is will help see what we are dealing with. I thought you said fish were in, sorry if I misread. If fish are in I would first get back into your routine and you usual parameters.

If you are running the skimmer, leave it like fish guy said. Your #’s now look ok. If your numbers stay stable I would battle with cleaning and a good CuC first. (Edit-for cyano. the bugs may be the cause of the milli and nest issues)

 

[Joedubyk]

It's going to take some time for your corals to recover, if they will even recover at all. Just because they have tissue left doesn't mean they're going live through the tank crash.. low nurtrients can and will kill them. Some will react better than others. Regardless, now that your nutrients are high(er) you need to continue to feed your corals. Aminos are your best bet as reef roids will have to break down, so will fish food for sps to eat it. Don't stop running your skimmer, because you need good export as well. Lots of water changes will help, too. Make sure your RO/DO is good and your filters are all fresh. SPS love water changes.

 

[150 Gallon Reef]

I thought red bugs only go after smooth skinned acros? That's how I found them, when they were on my smooth skinned. And fish are in now. They have been in for about 5 weeks. Only have 3 unfortunately

 

[150 Gallon Reef]

It's going to take some time for your corals to recover, if they will even recover at all. Just because they have tissue left doesn't mean they're going live through the tank crash.. low nurtrients can and will kill them. Some will react better than others. Regardless, now that your nutrients are high(er) you need to continue to feed your corals. Aminos are your best bet as reef roids will have to break down, so will fish food for sps to eat it. Don't stop running your skimmer, because you need good export as well. Lots of water changes will help, too. Make sure your RO/DO is good and your filters are all fresh. SPS love water changes.

If I run my skimmer 24/7, my nutrients bottom out again at 0

 

[fishguy242]

put skimmate back in as needed ,do change following day this is a 150 ? what is skimmer rated for ,we all know bigger is better ,but poss too big? pics can help here

 

[SifuMemphis]

If I run my skimmer 24/7, my nutrients bottom out again at 0

True, but at that point, i would just further increase feeding

 

[Joedubyk]

If I run my skimmer 24/7, my nutrients bottom out again at 0

Then DOSE nitrates and phosphates. I dose niratres and my corals love it in addition to feeding. You must feed a lot, and export a lot. You have a good situation, but if you feed less, you're juist going to keep starving corals. feed more and get your nutrients up. As you are experiencing right now there is NOTHING worse than starving corals. I've learned that myself the hard way

 

[Graffiti Spot]

In my experience birdnest are really prone to rtn if nutrients drop or rise quickly. Let’s see some pictures of the healthy corals and the ones that are having issues. Best way for anyone to help you.

 

[jsbzcmcdaniel]

Did you start with dry rock? There is a large thread on here because many including myself has had identical issues. With dry rock we do not have all the beneficial bacteria. My tank is 14 months old and was about ready to call it quits. I started adding different bottled bacteria to the system and added miracle mud to my sump. To me the bacteria is what really turned the system around.

 

[150 Gallon Reef]

In my experience birdnest are really prone to rtn if nutrients drop or rise quickly. Let’s see some pictures of the healthy corals and the ones that are having issues. Best way for anyone to help you.

Did you start with dry rock? There is a large thread on here because many including myself has had identical issues. With dry rock we do not have all the beneficial bacteria. My tank is 14 months old and was about ready to call it quits. I started adding different bottled bacteria to the system and added miracle mud to my sump. To me the bacteria is what really turned the system around.

Here are some pics of some STNing sps. I started with live sand and with Walt Smith liverock. I used bio-spira (a ton of it) to start my tank up and have been dosing prodibio bioclean (basically a carbon dosing) since month 2 of the tank. Everything was going great with it up until the tank fallow. Everything has been stable for about 2 weeks now, but some sps are showing white tips now.

 

[fishguy242]

i going on opinion dip em,clip em,keep nutrients up

 

[jda]

Stop adding any additives - especially organic carbon. You cannot carbon dose on a typical tank since this will unnaturally drive N (especially) and P (secondary, but still an issue) too low. This is why both bottom out when you turn the skimmer on since you are removing these. I cannot stress how much of a bad idea using organic carbon was...

Forget about your N and P levels. Feed more. Availability of a trace amount of N and P is more important than any residual levels. Corals much prefer to get their N from ammonia/ammonium and using nitrate is only a last resort - this is why dosing nitrate to help corals is not all that effective... but it can poison dinos and do other things like that.

You did not mention your lights, but do not mess with them while you are figuring other things out.

 

[vetteguy53081]

A couple of things:
You treated for bugs. Are you sure you got the eggs too. they are a nightmare and like roaches. . . .just don't go away.
What is salinity? I had similar a couple of years ago to find 3 instruments told me at 1.025 and it was actually 1.031 the whole time.
I suggest to take a good water sample to a trusted LFS and have them check and verify your readings and to compare with yours.
I would run skimmer to assist in water quality in addition to bringing up Just slightly towards 9

 

[150 Gallon Reef]

I stopped using prodibio since the tank fallow for the exact reason of not being the nutrients too low.
When the tank was stocked before the fallow, the prodibio kept nutrients at a perfect level, almost all the time.