I have been keeping reef tanks for about 20 years now with some short breaks here and there because of relocating, having kids, life etc... My latest tank was started in November. One thing that has majorly changed since the last tank I had was that I didn't start with live rock this time. All of my other tanks always started with live rock and most of it has been with me from the very beginning. I never expected getting a tank dialed in to be so hard using this fake rock. I under stand a lot more why now though. It isn't only lacking the bio diversity that we live rock came with but it's also not porous. All of these seem like different type of cement shapes. When you break a piece of live rock in half you can see how porous it is and when you break this in half it looks like a solid piece of ceramic tile. Another change that I have noticed is that equipment finally works. All of the crap we were sold that was beta tested on us is finally being manufactured the properly and works! That being said with a lack of bio diversity and robust filtration I found myself having the same issues most of these threads are about. A month in I got horrible Dinos. Of course even with over feeding 5 times a day I couldn't get a nitrate of phosphate to register on test kits. To get rid of the Dinos I did 3 day blackouts, dosed no3 and po4 and a lot of manual removal. They got so bad that they killed coral. I was removing them from every surface possible multiple times a day and just could not get them under control. I was also adding a lot of bottled bacteria. I added Microbacter 7, MicrōBacter CLEAN, Dr Tims waste away, Dr times one and only and Fritz turbo start all multiple times. I started seeing some cyan as well or what I may have convinced myself was cyano. I did 2 back to back chemiclean treatments which really helped a lot! They even helped with Dinos. I also did a 5 day lights out with the chemiclean treatment. I lost most of the coral anyway so at that point I had to do what I had to do. After the treatment I did a water change and added more of all of the bacterias listed above (alternating them daily). I also continued dosing no3 and po4. My tank basically looks new again now. No Coraline algae yet, but no algae either and most of the coral didnt survive (so it looks clean and new). I have been testing daily during this entire time. My p04 as of a few days ago was at 0.5 which is a tad higher than I'd like but nothing too crazy. It also held at that number for about a week which I was ok with. I did stop dosing it a week ago too once I got the 0.5 reading. NO3 did decline a little at first. I have everything written down. My No3 levels went from lower to now too high. Here are all the results.
90% of these tests are done at night too before the dosing of additional nutrients, so about 20 to 22 hours after the last dose. I am using the Brightwell products for the nutrient dosing. I use hanna checkers for testing. Each capful is 5ML
1/25
PO4 .03 added 1 cap
NO3 zero added 4 caps
1/26
PO4 .08
NO3 still zero added 10 caps
1/27
PO4 .01 added 1 cap (maybe prior days reading was error, was my thought)
NO3 still zero added 15 caps
1/28
PO4 zero added 2 caps
NO3 11.4 added 15 caps
1/29
PO4 zero added 4 caps
NO3 15.7 added 10 caps (at this point I am still dosing because I still have a crazy amount of Dinos and just want to raise the no3 levels so the nitrifying bacteria in my tank cant outcompete the dinos)
1/31 tested prior to chemiclean and then did the treatment
PO4 .03 left alone
NO3 21.7 left alone
2/5 this is after back to back treatments and lights out the entire time
PO4 0.5 left alone
NO3 11.7 added 7 caps
2/7
PO4 0.5
NO3 11.5 and 8.7 (ran it twice) setup on doser for 25 ml daily, also did 25ml before that, so that day got 50 ml (10 caps)
2/12
PO4 0.5 (still holding which I am pleased with)
NO3 26.5 cut doser to 10 ml daily, but 17 were already dosed (stopped it mid dose)
2/14
PO4 .11
NO3 34.6
I now turned off no3 dosing, but why has my po4 just sky rocketed???? I have also not been running my full lighting as to make sure no Dinos come back. I cut my lighting to about 25% of its usual cycle.
FYI my system is 100 gallons of water, I run a fleece roller, UV, skimmer, Ozone for an hour a night and have a nicely growing refugium with cheat and a lot of marine pure bricks and other balls and plates. I know its very robust but my thinking was that id rather have a system that produces zero nutrients and then dose them so I can get it dialed in and have them super steady than have to worry about removing them and overdoing it from time to time.
I know this is a rant but I figured id be as detailed as possible. I don't want to run GFO. I fear that it will strip the phosphates too quickly and I'll lose whatever coral I have left. I also don't run carbon. I wanted to stay away from those annoying two this time. thats why I run the ozone for water clarity and also know that it's the same every day and dont have to worry about carbon being exhausted and then replacing it when it works too well etc.. I know how to carbon dose, I did it for about a year using vodka. It will kill the chaeto though which I don't want. My alk is at 8.9, so not too high for carbon dosing. How else can I bring the PO4 down though? I don't want to do a water change because I just did one a week ago and I really dont want to disturb the bacterial population and maybe bring back the Dinos (I know they live on surfaces and not in the water column, but I am still actively dosing microbacter 7, so I need whatever is in the water column to remain there so they populate and regenerate on surfaces. The NO3 isn't a problem yet, as I was dosing it until tonight, so I just stoped, hopefully that works (I am not creating a problem before I see that it is one). Hopefully it tapers down and I'll find the right balance between dosing it where it wont fluctuate. If I carbon dose it should help the bacteria in the tank take off. What happens when I stop though. This hobby always keeps me on my toes, even after 20 years! I also forgot what it's like having a new tank. the last tank ran for 8 years up until 2 months ago. Mostly the same fish and coral too... I am hoping @Randy Holmes-Farley sees this and responds as he usually does. I also listen to him like my reef bible!
Thanks in advance,
Adam
90% of these tests are done at night too before the dosing of additional nutrients, so about 20 to 22 hours after the last dose. I am using the Brightwell products for the nutrient dosing. I use hanna checkers for testing. Each capful is 5ML
1/25
PO4 .03 added 1 cap
NO3 zero added 4 caps
1/26
PO4 .08
NO3 still zero added 10 caps
1/27
PO4 .01 added 1 cap (maybe prior days reading was error, was my thought)
NO3 still zero added 15 caps
1/28
PO4 zero added 2 caps
NO3 11.4 added 15 caps
1/29
PO4 zero added 4 caps
NO3 15.7 added 10 caps (at this point I am still dosing because I still have a crazy amount of Dinos and just want to raise the no3 levels so the nitrifying bacteria in my tank cant outcompete the dinos)
1/31 tested prior to chemiclean and then did the treatment
PO4 .03 left alone
NO3 21.7 left alone
2/5 this is after back to back treatments and lights out the entire time
PO4 0.5 left alone
NO3 11.7 added 7 caps
2/7
PO4 0.5
NO3 11.5 and 8.7 (ran it twice) setup on doser for 25 ml daily, also did 25ml before that, so that day got 50 ml (10 caps)
2/12
PO4 0.5 (still holding which I am pleased with)
NO3 26.5 cut doser to 10 ml daily, but 17 were already dosed (stopped it mid dose)
2/14
PO4 .11
NO3 34.6
I now turned off no3 dosing, but why has my po4 just sky rocketed???? I have also not been running my full lighting as to make sure no Dinos come back. I cut my lighting to about 25% of its usual cycle.
FYI my system is 100 gallons of water, I run a fleece roller, UV, skimmer, Ozone for an hour a night and have a nicely growing refugium with cheat and a lot of marine pure bricks and other balls and plates. I know its very robust but my thinking was that id rather have a system that produces zero nutrients and then dose them so I can get it dialed in and have them super steady than have to worry about removing them and overdoing it from time to time.
I know this is a rant but I figured id be as detailed as possible. I don't want to run GFO. I fear that it will strip the phosphates too quickly and I'll lose whatever coral I have left. I also don't run carbon. I wanted to stay away from those annoying two this time. thats why I run the ozone for water clarity and also know that it's the same every day and dont have to worry about carbon being exhausted and then replacing it when it works too well etc.. I know how to carbon dose, I did it for about a year using vodka. It will kill the chaeto though which I don't want. My alk is at 8.9, so not too high for carbon dosing. How else can I bring the PO4 down though? I don't want to do a water change because I just did one a week ago and I really dont want to disturb the bacterial population and maybe bring back the Dinos (I know they live on surfaces and not in the water column, but I am still actively dosing microbacter 7, so I need whatever is in the water column to remain there so they populate and regenerate on surfaces. The NO3 isn't a problem yet, as I was dosing it until tonight, so I just stoped, hopefully that works (I am not creating a problem before I see that it is one). Hopefully it tapers down and I'll find the right balance between dosing it where it wont fluctuate. If I carbon dose it should help the bacteria in the tank take off. What happens when I stop though. This hobby always keeps me on my toes, even after 20 years! I also forgot what it's like having a new tank. the last tank ran for 8 years up until 2 months ago. Mostly the same fish and coral too... I am hoping @Randy Holmes-Farley sees this and responds as he usually does. I also listen to him like my reef bible!
Thanks in advance,
Adam
