Hello reefers,
Was hoping some experts might point out if I'm doing anything adjustable or if I should just ride it out - I have a few confounding issues that I think are snowballing to make my job harder than it should be. Sorry for the long post - I am hoping the context may help illuminate anything I should change.
My 50g AIO tank has been doing okay. I generally have good color but struggle to maintain puffy LPS and polyp extension. Corals have good feeding response, but the LPS always seem slightly shrunken. In the recent past I had problems with chalices receding slowly, despite being fed, cyphastrea turning brown and torches having mediocre polyp extension. I do approximately 10-25% water changes about once every 7-12 days. My salt is Red Sea Salt (not coral pro). I've had a few larger swings (temp, salinity, phosphates) in previous months, but the tank has avoided any major disasters or spikes for the last few months.
The tank is lit by a Radion XR15 blue at approx 40% intensity. It has been in acclimation mode periodically as I have acquired newer additions in the last few weeks. My first suspicion is my lighting is fluctuating too much which is contributing to my issues.
I have a planted refugium with Gracilaria run on a nightime cycle of 11p - 8a. My goal is to provide pod space for my mandarin (who is doing well after 6 months
) and use the algae as a method of nutrient export. I rarely run my skimmer unless my phosphates start to run higher than I'd like, as I've found with the growth of the gracilaria, running both can bottom out my phosphates quickly. I am noticing some growth of green hair algae or long turf algae clumps in the refugium, which I attribute to the higher lighting. I am having trouble telling if the algae down there is uptaking all the nutrients from my food, but I do feed the corals directly with pumps off most of the time.
I dose 2 part, but I found that my water chemistry has tended on the high calcium, moderate alk, and normal magnesium for a while, so I haven't needed to consistently dose calcium or magnesium as alk uptake hasn't really hit its stride yet. I've seen small growth and am getting nickel sized pieces of coralline starting to show, so I know the tank is getting CLOSE but isn't quite there.
Now to get to the darn point!
Some background on my parameters:
I dose approx 20 drops CoralAminos, mainly because my nutrients hover around
5-12ppm nitrate (sometimes 3-5 ppm, Nyos test) and
phosphates 15-20 ppb phosphorus (according to ULN "Phosphorus" Hannah Checker).
I feed roughly every 2-3 days and always add a few dashes of BeneReef every night to broadcast feed.
Finally, I run a decent amount of carbon (approx 1 cup) in a reactor in my sump. I only run it every other day at night time for around 5 hours to avoid removing too many organics. My tank has sinularia, mushrooms, chalices, torches, acans and some aiptasia I'm currently working on removing.
In the recent past I had problems with chalices receding slowly, despite being fed, cyphastrea turning brown and torches having mediocre polyp extension. I dose around 8mL soda ash solution per Randy's 2 part recipe, and with this dose I noticed a slow increase in alk with some positive coral response initially. However, because my alk is currently gone higher than I'd like, I am temporarily not dosing alk and monitoring it daily until it's closer to what I want (9ish).
Here are the parameters I'm aiming for. The ones in parentheses I currently have:
Alk 8.6-9.2 (around 10.6-11)
Calc 370-450 (480)
Mag 1350-1450 (currently 1800??? - I noticed my mag was lower - around 1230 - so I dosed approximately 20ml of magnesium soln made with bulk BRS powder slowly into a high flow zone. I thought I was safe as my alk was already high and I was under the impression the mag dose is typically much higher in volume.)
Here's my questions:
Should I let this drop without a water change or would a water change -or series of small ones - be beneficial here as a reset? How much of an alk drop with my current parameters would be safe in one sitting? How quickly can I bring the parameters back to what I'm looking for? I'm presuming it's better to drop alk than raise it sharply for the coral, but I am trying to minimize any further crazy changes. Or, is it better to stay at 11 and help the corals adapt to the current alkalinity for a while before lowering it again?
Thanks very much - sorry it's so long winded!
Was hoping some experts might point out if I'm doing anything adjustable or if I should just ride it out - I have a few confounding issues that I think are snowballing to make my job harder than it should be. Sorry for the long post - I am hoping the context may help illuminate anything I should change.
My 50g AIO tank has been doing okay. I generally have good color but struggle to maintain puffy LPS and polyp extension. Corals have good feeding response, but the LPS always seem slightly shrunken. In the recent past I had problems with chalices receding slowly, despite being fed, cyphastrea turning brown and torches having mediocre polyp extension. I do approximately 10-25% water changes about once every 7-12 days. My salt is Red Sea Salt (not coral pro). I've had a few larger swings (temp, salinity, phosphates) in previous months, but the tank has avoided any major disasters or spikes for the last few months.
The tank is lit by a Radion XR15 blue at approx 40% intensity. It has been in acclimation mode periodically as I have acquired newer additions in the last few weeks. My first suspicion is my lighting is fluctuating too much which is contributing to my issues.
I have a planted refugium with Gracilaria run on a nightime cycle of 11p - 8a. My goal is to provide pod space for my mandarin (who is doing well after 6 months
) and use the algae as a method of nutrient export. I rarely run my skimmer unless my phosphates start to run higher than I'd like, as I've found with the growth of the gracilaria, running both can bottom out my phosphates quickly. I am noticing some growth of green hair algae or long turf algae clumps in the refugium, which I attribute to the higher lighting. I am having trouble telling if the algae down there is uptaking all the nutrients from my food, but I do feed the corals directly with pumps off most of the time.I dose 2 part, but I found that my water chemistry has tended on the high calcium, moderate alk, and normal magnesium for a while, so I haven't needed to consistently dose calcium or magnesium as alk uptake hasn't really hit its stride yet. I've seen small growth and am getting nickel sized pieces of coralline starting to show, so I know the tank is getting CLOSE but isn't quite there.
Now to get to the darn point!
Some background on my parameters:
I dose approx 20 drops CoralAminos, mainly because my nutrients hover around
5-12ppm nitrate (sometimes 3-5 ppm, Nyos test) and
phosphates 15-20 ppb phosphorus (according to ULN "Phosphorus" Hannah Checker).
I feed roughly every 2-3 days and always add a few dashes of BeneReef every night to broadcast feed.
Finally, I run a decent amount of carbon (approx 1 cup) in a reactor in my sump. I only run it every other day at night time for around 5 hours to avoid removing too many organics. My tank has sinularia, mushrooms, chalices, torches, acans and some aiptasia I'm currently working on removing.
In the recent past I had problems with chalices receding slowly, despite being fed, cyphastrea turning brown and torches having mediocre polyp extension. I dose around 8mL soda ash solution per Randy's 2 part recipe, and with this dose I noticed a slow increase in alk with some positive coral response initially. However, because my alk is currently gone higher than I'd like, I am temporarily not dosing alk and monitoring it daily until it's closer to what I want (9ish).
Here are the parameters I'm aiming for. The ones in parentheses I currently have:
Alk 8.6-9.2 (around 10.6-11)
Calc 370-450 (480)
Mag 1350-1450 (currently 1800??? - I noticed my mag was lower - around 1230 - so I dosed approximately 20ml of magnesium soln made with bulk BRS powder slowly into a high flow zone. I thought I was safe as my alk was already high and I was under the impression the mag dose is typically much higher in volume.)
Here's my questions:
Should I let this drop without a water change or would a water change -or series of small ones - be beneficial here as a reset? How much of an alk drop with my current parameters would be safe in one sitting? How quickly can I bring the parameters back to what I'm looking for? I'm presuming it's better to drop alk than raise it sharply for the coral, but I am trying to minimize any further crazy changes. Or, is it better to stay at 11 and help the corals adapt to the current alkalinity for a while before lowering it again?
Thanks very much - sorry it's so long winded!
