New to Reef2Reef, could use some SPS guidance & opinions

rocknut · Jan 17, 2014

So I have been keeping reef aquariums for about ten years at this point, some moderately successful, some not so much. My current tank has been up and running since July 2013, and I feel that I am at a crucial point and am hoping for some guidance from everyone here at Reef2Reef. I have been typically posting on another internet forum, but have been reading more and more on this site lately, so wanted to introduce myself and my tank as well. Here is the nutshell version of my setup:

150 gallon acrylic display - coast to coast overflow running entire length of the back wall.

Tunze 6101, 6105, and wavebox for flow.

Bubble King Supermarin 200 skimmer

ATI Sunpower T5 fixture - (5) Blue +, (2) Coral+, (1) Purple

Additional filtration - BRS GAC, BRS GFO (just added 2 weeks ago), Warner Marine Ecobak pellets (putting a re-circulating reactor online this weekend, as current media reactor tumble not cutting it).

Profilux doser using BRS CA, ALK, and MG

So, nothing was added as far as SPS until about October, and everything looked really good for the first two months: everything was encrusting, colors were coming up, etc. About a month ago I noticed some base recession around a Stubber Stag frag, that continued until the piece was basically dead. Nothing else affected except for one other piece, which was of course the fastest growing piece in the tank. Additionally had some burned tips:

Now, I have been running the Ecobak pellets since day one, but after running Zeovit on a previous tank, I know that you need to keep ALK lower when using a carbon source like biopellets, so with that in mind I test for ALK at least twice each week, and my numbers have been very steady staying right around 7.5 DKH. To me this seemed like burned tips from high ALK, but the highest my ALK has ever been was 8.5 DKH (Hanna Checker cross checked with Salifert). About the time the ALK bumped up to 8.5, I had a bloom of algae mainly in one spot in the tank:

This algae has not gone away. My plan was to add some GFO and hope that by reducing the PO4 in the water it would go away on its own. I did add 5 turbo snails to my CUC last night (previously about 20 snails, and 20 hermits).

Strange thing is that the algae has been 90% confined to this one spot, just a few patches in maybe four other spots, the rest of the rock has been amazingly clean since the beginning. Anyway, my theory was that I must have had a nutrient spike that caused the corals to slow down in growth, algae to bloom, the ALK to go up with the reduced growth, and maybe this caused the recession and tip burn?

In addition to the recession on the photo above I also had another issue when I was away from the tank at Christmas, my Mom (bless her) added some additional RO/DI water fearing that the ATO wasn't keeping up and caused my skimmer to overflow into the sump, and dump a weeks worth of skimmate into the tank. Over the past three weeks I have bumped up my water changes to 10 gallons every 3-4 days (20 gallons each week) using ESV salt trying to get everything back into balance, and will continue to do this for the time being. As above, I have used a standard Vertex media reactor for the Ecobak pellets but have never been impressed with this (25% of the pellets tumble as they should, the rest, not so much). So I have a re-circulating reactor that I will use instead getting hooked up this weekend.

I am really hoping that some of the kind folks here at Reef2Reef can check out a few of the photos of my corals taken this week, and give me some seasoned advice regarding how to proceed. Keep moving forward with the increased water changes and hopefully everything will right itself? Make some changes? I'm hoping that the corals themselves will give some indication.

this one seems to be doing the best. Lighter tissue showing good growth, great polyp extension night and day.

This one has great polyp extension, but has stalled growth wise since the nutrient spike issue a few months ago.

Here are my water parameters:

ALK - 7.6 DKH (Hanna Checker & Salifert)
CA - 430 ppm (Salifert)
MG - 1350 (Salifert)
NO3 - 2 (Red Sea)
PO4 - 0.05 (Hanna Checker which is +/- 0.03 so it could be anywhere from 0.02 to 0.08)
K - 380 (Salifert)
Temp - currently 79

I tried to keep this post short (and failed) so I appreciate everyone's time reading thru this. I feel I understand the basics but just haven't ever had any great success with SPS in my past tanks, and am hoping to turn the corner on this one, and push forward going the right direction.

oicani · Jan 17, 2014

I'm not sure if I can help, but after reading your post, have you measured pH & phosphates?

rocknut · Jan 17, 2014

oicani said:
I'm not sure if I can help, but after reading your post, have you measured pH & phosphates?

Thanks for taking the time to read thru my post!
My PO4 last measured 0.05 using a Hanna checker (so with the +/- 0.03 variance, it could actually be anywhere from 0.02 thru 0.08).
Ph typically runs from 8.00 up to 8.20 average depending on the time of day.

ebushrow · Jan 17, 2014

It seems to me if the algae is growing on one rock, it might be leaching phosphates into the water. The hanna checker is good, but when you have algae using up the phosphates, the readings can be a bit misleading. Have you checked your rodi for phosphates and nitrates? Sometimes they will leach in from your storage tank and sometimes they are not removed by the rodi and they do not register on the TDS meter. I would def. check the PH of the water as that is an easy fix if you haven't already. Keep us posted.

Zero Nitrates · Jan 17, 2014

Nice tank!
Maybe think about running alk higher for growth then bring it back down when you are trying to get more color.

rocknut · Jan 17, 2014

ebushrow said:
It seems to me if the algae is growing on one rock, it might be leaching phosphates into the water. The hanna checker is good, but when you have algae using up the phosphates, the readings can be a bit misleading. Have you checked your rodi for phosphates and nitrates? Sometimes they will leach in from your storage tank and sometimes they are not removed by the rodi and they do not register on the TDS meter. I would def. check the PH of the water as that is an easy fix if you haven't already. Keep us posted.

I will definitely run some phosphate and nitrate tests on my RO/DI water. I use a Spectrapure MaxCap to make the water, and use one of the 40 gallon water containers from US Plastics that everyone seems to use for storage, but will definitely check. I agree that their are definitely higher nutrients in the water than my tests are picking up just because of the algae growth on that rock. Strange part is, that is basically the only spot that is growing any real algae. Few small patches in about 4 other spots in the tank, but none other than that, or on the sand bed. I have been thinking that if that spot on the rock is pumping out PO4, that as long as I slow down the supply from other places, it should run out eventually!

oicani · Jan 17, 2014

I agree with ebushrow seems the algae is growing on one rock, it might be leaching phosphates into the water. Personally I would toss the rock. It's not worth keeping in the tank especially if you having other problems. Also your ALK seems fine where it's at. I wouldn't increase unless I had all other variables factored out.

oicani · Jan 17, 2014

Just another though... But do you test for Iodine?

rocknut · Jan 17, 2014

You know, iodine is the one thing I have never tested for. I have some Lugol's Solution, but I've never used it. I also agree with you about the ALK. My target has always been 7.5 with the biopellets.

oicani · Jan 17, 2014

You need to get the whole algae thing situated first but check iodine levels to at least know if it's another variable you can factor out before increasing Alk.

oicani · Jan 17, 2014

Here's something for you too read and ponder on. Hope this helps!

http://www.reef-eden.net/iodine_in_the_reef_aquarium.htm

rocknut · Jan 17, 2014

oicani said:
Here's something for you too read and ponder on. Hope this helps!

Iodine

That is really interesting. The author mentions drab/pale looking montipora as being an additional symptom of low Iodine, which I have also noticed. Might need to look at picking up an Iodine test kit.

oicani · Jan 17, 2014

Good, keep me posted!

rocknut · Feb 10, 2014

oicani said:
Good, keep me posted!

Just wanted to update a few things from my earlier post:

So, I went ahead a doubled up on my water changes, changing out 10 gallons of water, twice each week, using ESV Salt. Also, put some GFO online to bring my PO4 levels down. Also, I was able to change out my sub-standard Vertex media reactor that was running my biopellets, with a new recirculating reactor. Have to say, it might absolutely be overkill, but it works great. The waiting list for the Reef Dynamics model was too long, so I started doing some research and bought one from a company called AquaLund. My NO3 levels were sitting right at 3 after running my EcoBak pellets for about six months, and after running the new recirculating reactor for 5 days, they were completely undetectable.

Also wanted to come up with a solution to make sure I NEVER had another skimmer overflow again, as I think this "nutrient bomb" that hit my tank in December when seven days of skimmate dumped into my sump started some of the problems I was having. So, I ordered a skimmate locker from Avast Marine that will shut off the skimmer when the collection chamber is full. Also went ahead and got a self cleaning skimmer neck cleaner, the "swabbie" as well. So skimmer is definitely running at the top of its game now!

PO4 levels weren't taking much of a hit however, and actually went up to about 0.1. Using some PO4X4 in my media reactor (only 100 ml at a time) they have now come down to 0.03 as of last night. Going off of a suggestion from oicani from earlier, I did pick up a Red Sea Iodine test kit, and am getting a level of 0.3, so that is a little lower than the recommended 0.6. Not sure what I'm going to do about this yet, as I am a little hesitant to start adding Lugols to the tank (read so many mixed reviews of this).

So, SPS colors have been making a huge comeback, and growth has been strong over the past month, so these changes seem to be moving the tank in the right direction!

One issue that I still haven't quite figured out is in regards to my basic chemistry levels in the tank: my Alk has been very steady since December, sitting right at 7.2 dkh for the past three weeks (using Hanna Checker), but my calcium levels were always hovering right around 390. So, gradually 1-2ml at a time I have been increasing my daily dosing amount to bring this up closer to 420-430, and actually got it up to 450. Strange thing is that it has taken more daily calcium additions than alk additions to maintain this level. Seems that anyone else you talk to is using considerably more alk solution each day in relation to calcium?

Anyway, here are my levels:

Alk - 7.2 dkh (Hanna Checker and Salifert0
CA - 450 (salifert)
MG - 1375 (salifert)
NO3 - undetectable (Red Sea)
PO4 - 0.03 (Hanna Phosphorus Checker)
K+ - 370 (salifert)
I - 0.3 (Red Sea)
Salinity - 34 ppt (VeeGee Refractormeter)

Thanks for reading!