Need advice on water quality

[snookman28]

Ok, so I’m relatively new to keeping soft corals. Tank has bee up for about four months now and about a month ago, I added GSP, Kenya Tree, Rhodactis mushrooms and neon green cabbage coral, and a rock flower anemone. Everything seemed good but then my Cabbage coral closed up and has not opened for an about 3 weeks. GSP, my rock flower anemone also has its mouth open and I don’t think that’s good. I do 20% water changes ever two weeks. I also dose Kalkwasser in my ATO and Phytoplankton for pods. I have always run carbon in a bag in my sump.

My water parameters this morning are as follows:
Salinity 1.023
Temp 77.4
Alkalinity 9.8
Ammonia 0.06
Nitrite 0.004
Nitrate 0.2
Phosphate 0.05
Calcium 470

Do you guys see any glaring reason why my soft corals are not thriving?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

What kind of lights do you have and what intensity? By the looks of the rock and sand, I am guessing the lights are very low. If algae can't grow then corals can't grow either.

What type of flow in the tank?

EDIT: Nitrate is also very low.

 

[Jekyl]

Newer tanks are always unforgiving. There's a whole mess of things going on in the maturation process that just take time.

All that being said a few things I notice are the salinity is a tad low as well as nitrate as mentioned above.

My most important advice I can give though is to immediately get that GSP at least 5" away from your main structure. It's not growing now, but over night it will take over and ruin your tank.

 

[snookman28]

What kind of lights do you have and what intensity? By the looks of the rock and sand, I am guessing the lights are very low. If algae can't grow then corals can't grow either.

What type of flow in the tank?

EDIT: Nitrate is also very low.

I have two Nicrew 100 lights that are set at max of 45% White 35% blue. I thought soft corals liked lower lights. They are on a controller with a slow progression ramp on and ramp off. They run on max lights about about 7 hours a day and total about 10 hours. I have been trying to feed heavy to get my nitrates up.

 

[snookman28]

Newer tanks are always unforgiving. There's a whole mess of things going on in the maturation process that just take time.

All that being said a few things I notice are the salinity is a tad low as well as nitrate as mentioned above.

My most important advice I can give though is to immediately get that GSP at least 5" away from your main structure. It's not growing now, but over night it will take over and ruin your tank.

 

[snookman28]

Yah, thanks for the advice. I watched all the warning videos about GSP and was not going to take a chance with that overtaking the main structure.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I have two Nicrew 100 lights that are set at max of 45% White 35% blue. I thought soft corals liked lower lights. They are on a controller with a slow progression ramp on and ramp off. They run on max lights about about 7 hours a day and total about 10 hours. I have been trying to feed heavy to get my nitrates up.

What size is your tank? I have one nicrew 100 watt on a 32 gallon, set at 75% for leather corals. I would suggest to turn the lights up slowly, "low light" can mean different things to different people, but I find that people err on the side of caution too much.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I have two Nicrew 100 lights that are set at max of 45% White 35% blue. I thought soft corals liked lower lights. They are on a controller with a slow progression ramp on and ramp off. They run on max lights about about 7 hours a day and total about 10 hours. I have been trying to feed heavy to get my nitrates up.

Just as some extra info, when we refer to low light or high light, it usually refers to the placement in the tank, meaning the top of the rocks are high light and down on the sand is low light. It doesn't mean provide low light to the entire tank.

Most of us like to have a mixed reef tank, general guidelines are about 75-100 par on the sandbed and 150-200 par in the middle and 250+ par up top. So when we say 'low lighting' it means put it down by the sand or the bottom of the rocks. 7 hours a day peak is kind of borderline enough/not enough. This is all just my opinion though. Good luck

 

[SliceGolfer]

A young tank will go through many changes leading to instability. Keeping on top of core parameters will go a long way to ensure your tank is successful. You're already tracking many core parameters, so good job on you!

Things that stand out and already mentioned:
1. Salinity: at 1.023 sg, that is low. You should target 1.025/1.026. A specific gravity of 1.023 translates into 30.5ppt for those of us who track parts per thousand vs specific gravity (35ppt is the goal).
2. Alkalinity: 9.8 is high when your nitrate and phosphate are this low. A great target is 8.5-9 dKH.
3. Nitrate: With your tank being new, keeping nitrate and phosphate above zero might prove difficult and you will have to feed heavy or supplement through dosing. A target of 5-10ppm is a good target.
4. Phosphate: Similar to nitrate, so #3 applies here, too. A target of 0.05-0.10 is a good range. I try to maintain a 100:1 ratio of nitrate to phosphate.
5. Lighting: Agree that it appears in the photos your lighting is not intense enough. Spectrum, intensity, and photoperiod are the three key items with lighting. Sounds like you have a good start here, but I would increase intensity and extend the photoperiod. On my tanks, I have one hour of ramp in both sides of the photoperiod and then a minimum of 5 hours at full desired intensity.

Good luck moving forward!

 

[snookman28]

What size is your tank? I have one nicrew 100 watt on a 32 gallon, set at 75% for leather corals. I would suggest to turn the lights up slowly, "low light" can mean different things to different people, but I find that people err on the side of caution too much.

I have 55 Gallon tank. Just a big box store tank that I converted to saltwater and added sump. I am going to increase the lighting and move my cabbage coral to a medium/high flow area to see if that helps.

 

[snookman28]

A young tank will go through many changes leading to instability. Keeping on top of core parameters will go a long way to ensure your tank is successful. You're already tracking many core parameters, so good job on you!

Things that stand out and already mentioned:
1. Salinity: at 1.023 sg, that is low. You should target 1.025/1.026. A specific gravity of 1.023 translates into 30.5ppt for those of us who track parts per thousand vs specific gravity (35ppt is the goal).
2. Alkalinity: 9.8 is high when your nitrate and phosphate are this low. A great target is 8.5-9 dKH.
3. Nitrate: With your tank being new, keeping nitrate and phosphate above zero might prove difficult and you will have to feed heavy or supplement through dosing. A target of 5-10ppm is a good target.
4. Phosphate: Similar to nitrate, so #3 applies here, too. A target of 0.05-0.10 is a good range. I try to maintain a 100:1 ratio of nitrate to phosphate.
5. Lighting: Agree that it appears in the photos your lighting is not intense enough. Spectrum, intensity, and photoperiod are the three key items with lighting. Sounds like you have a good start here, but I would increase intensity and extend the photoperiod. On my tanks, I have one hour of ramp in both sides of the photoperiod and then a minimum of 5 hours at full desired intensity.

Good luck moving forward!

All great advice. Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback. I am going to try to increase the salinity with the next water change. I am feeding heavy now (I only have 4 fish, shrimp, CUC in the 55-gallon tank) so I always cringe when I see all that food swirling through the water like a snow globe. I test once a week so Im going to try to raise the Nitrate / Phosphates and track it. I may have to turn off my skimmer or leave my filter sock in there for a longer period.

 

[Solo McReefer]

Nitrate is low

I would feed everything Reef Chili and Reef Roids

See if that works

Add some CUC to clean up what the corals poop out and what they don't eat

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I always cringe when I see all that food swirling through the water like a snow globe.

This is not a good tactic and will cause a massive algae problem. Smaller fish can only eat 5-6 pieces of food, all the rest gets uneaten and raises dissolved organic compounds (doc's) in the water which feeds algae, and can cause health issues to some sensitive animals.

Feeding more means feeding small amount often, 3-4-5 times per day.