Here are the important bits:
Nitrate are between 40 and 80ppm after a two week trip away from my tank. I have done a 10% water change and am planning to do another one daily until it is back to normal. What can I do to fix the issue right now, and what are some suggestions for future trips?
Here is the whole story: I have a waterbox 20 cube mixed reef with a pair of clownfish. I've tried to keep a low maintenence/highly automatic tank because I'm forced to leave for a week or two at a time and my pet sitter only feeds the fish. This includes an ATO, automatic filter fleece roller from ReefnRoll, all for reef and sometimes kalkwasser dosing, wifi enabled lights and powerheads, and remote temperature and salinity monitoring. After my most recent trip, I returned to some dead sps including my two montipora caps (one of which was a green and red grafted one from TSA), a pavona, a stylopora and also a very small unnamed zoa colony. This was because the nitrates spiked very high (between 40 and 80ppm, I only have an API kit for high range nitrates) while I was gone seemingly because I missed two water changes. Strangly enough my montipora digita and chalice coral survived with only some color loss and receded tissue despite being more sensitive on paper. My rasta zoas, bubble tip anemone, clove polyps, candycane coral, gsp and fish/inverts are fine and there is a tiny bit of tissue left on the pavona, but I did lose about half my corals. I'm doing a 10% water change every day until it is back to normal. What else do I need to do to recover?
I set up an auto feeder before I left so the pet sitter couldn't have overfed them this time, because I thought they did last time when I returned to high nitrates. What can I do to prevent these spikes when I'm gone in the future? I've tried a chamber 2 refugium but the algae slowly shrunk and just never took off despite the abundance of nitrates and theoretically decent lighting. Should I run media to remove the nitrates while I'm gone? I love my little desktop tank and I hate to come back to so many casualties. It's honestly making me reconsider trying the whole reefkeeping thing while in my current situation.
Nitrate are between 40 and 80ppm after a two week trip away from my tank. I have done a 10% water change and am planning to do another one daily until it is back to normal. What can I do to fix the issue right now, and what are some suggestions for future trips?
Here is the whole story: I have a waterbox 20 cube mixed reef with a pair of clownfish. I've tried to keep a low maintenence/highly automatic tank because I'm forced to leave for a week or two at a time and my pet sitter only feeds the fish. This includes an ATO, automatic filter fleece roller from ReefnRoll, all for reef and sometimes kalkwasser dosing, wifi enabled lights and powerheads, and remote temperature and salinity monitoring. After my most recent trip, I returned to some dead sps including my two montipora caps (one of which was a green and red grafted one from TSA), a pavona, a stylopora and also a very small unnamed zoa colony. This was because the nitrates spiked very high (between 40 and 80ppm, I only have an API kit for high range nitrates) while I was gone seemingly because I missed two water changes. Strangly enough my montipora digita and chalice coral survived with only some color loss and receded tissue despite being more sensitive on paper. My rasta zoas, bubble tip anemone, clove polyps, candycane coral, gsp and fish/inverts are fine and there is a tiny bit of tissue left on the pavona, but I did lose about half my corals. I'm doing a 10% water change every day until it is back to normal. What else do I need to do to recover?
I set up an auto feeder before I left so the pet sitter couldn't have overfed them this time, because I thought they did last time when I returned to high nitrates. What can I do to prevent these spikes when I'm gone in the future? I've tried a chamber 2 refugium but the algae slowly shrunk and just never took off despite the abundance of nitrates and theoretically decent lighting. Should I run media to remove the nitrates while I'm gone? I love my little desktop tank and I hate to come back to so many casualties. It's honestly making me reconsider trying the whole reefkeeping thing while in my current situation.