Let's start with the history:
I started a new tank (65g) about 3 months ago (red sea reefer 250 g2) - I skipped the cycling by using liverock & corals from old tank.
- Inhabitants since day 1: 5" medium Powder brown tang, 3" small blue hippo tang, 2 clownfish, 1 damsel, 1 bi-colour blenny and 1 melanurus wrasse
15 snails and 100s of baby snails, 3 shrimps, urchin
Euphyllias, open brains, monti/chalice, zoas/mushrooms/leathers, BTA anemone
- Feeding: 1 cube of mysis or brine + nori + small bits of flakes / per day.
- Alk: 9 / Calc: 420 / Mag: 1320
- 15% W/C weekly
Now to the point:
Recently I have noticed some of my corals were unhappy. Specifically: Euphyllias (Frogspaw, Octospawn). Hammers and torch are doing just fine.
I test my paramters (Alk, Calc, Mag) weekly, and they have been stable using a doser.
I never test my nitrates/phosphates unless there is a problem - my thoughts are: if I feed the tank the same amount everyday, wouldn't my nitrate/phosphate and bacteria be balanced?
But because some of my euphyllias were starting to get angry (less extension), I decided to test my nitrate/phosphate. But because my test kits were very old (a little over a year), I ordered hanna test kits for Nitrate and Phosphate. My phosphate test kit isn't here yet, so I will update on Tuesday/Wednesday. But Nitrate shows 43.5. Higher than I've ever had in any of my tanks. I'm sure my phosphate is very high too (although I haven't seen any browning in my corals).
I'm using an over-sized skimmer and I have a refugium with lots of Chaeto growing.
What other methods have you guys used to lower nitrate/phosphate with tanks with heavy bio-load/feeding?
I started a new tank (65g) about 3 months ago (red sea reefer 250 g2) - I skipped the cycling by using liverock & corals from old tank.
- Inhabitants since day 1: 5" medium Powder brown tang, 3" small blue hippo tang, 2 clownfish, 1 damsel, 1 bi-colour blenny and 1 melanurus wrasse
15 snails and 100s of baby snails, 3 shrimps, urchin
Euphyllias, open brains, monti/chalice, zoas/mushrooms/leathers, BTA anemone
- Feeding: 1 cube of mysis or brine + nori + small bits of flakes / per day.
- Alk: 9 / Calc: 420 / Mag: 1320
- 15% W/C weekly
Now to the point:
Recently I have noticed some of my corals were unhappy. Specifically: Euphyllias (Frogspaw, Octospawn). Hammers and torch are doing just fine.
I test my paramters (Alk, Calc, Mag) weekly, and they have been stable using a doser.
I never test my nitrates/phosphates unless there is a problem - my thoughts are: if I feed the tank the same amount everyday, wouldn't my nitrate/phosphate and bacteria be balanced?
But because some of my euphyllias were starting to get angry (less extension), I decided to test my nitrate/phosphate. But because my test kits were very old (a little over a year), I ordered hanna test kits for Nitrate and Phosphate. My phosphate test kit isn't here yet, so I will update on Tuesday/Wednesday. But Nitrate shows 43.5. Higher than I've ever had in any of my tanks. I'm sure my phosphate is very high too (although I haven't seen any browning in my corals).
I'm using an over-sized skimmer and I have a refugium with lots of Chaeto growing.
What other methods have you guys used to lower nitrate/phosphate with tanks with heavy bio-load/feeding?