Reef nutrition

65 gallon tank

Darkxerox said:
Copepods will take out the diatoms over time, don't worry about them.
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No panic at all here, just sharing my thoughts, tank was completely sterile a week ago beyond the seeded bio media in the sump. So I didn’t wanna have cuc starving to death making me slow to add them. I feel I can now add a good bit more without that concern.
 
tribbitt said:
i can donate 3 hermits to the cause if I can find them, and some dwarf ceriths.

Diatoms typiically fade though, and I would venture to say that diatoms are one of the most benign algaes you can have. They occupy space that otherwise might get infested with other algaes
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I won't object if you have extra, my main tank has a full clean up crew, grow out tank can use a few more. 65 gallon is a step above nil. I'll definitely be ramping up the amount in it soon.

Please don’t give them to me if you need them. I made a order in the group buy for 4 peppermint shrimp and 2 pithos carbs. So those will help too. 2 shrimp for the 65 and 1 for each of the other tanks. 2 crabs are for the grow out tank.

If you could spare them, i can grab them at cfm so no rush.
 
First real issue in this tank. I noticed overnight from wednesday to Thursday every hammer and frog spawn in the tank suddenly shrunk up and wouldn’t extend at all. Skeleton ridges were visible on many. At least 20 different corals same issue when they were puffy the day before.

I broke out the test kits last night.

9/19/2024
Mag 1275 salifert
Po4 test #1 0.00? Test #2 0.00 hanna
Alk 7.3 hanna
Calc 433 hanna

Added reef roids to attempt to start raising po4, I saw the slightest improvement afterwards in some of the hammers. My bigger concerns would be possibly getting dinos from bottoming out or loosing all those hammers.


**Just checking to see would low p04 cause them to shrink up like that?

1.) I have no gfo in this tank only active carbon, a curve 5 skimmer, and a 30 gallon hob filter under the canopy with tiny carbon filter that comes with them.

2.) I swapped the filter floss that got yucky the night before they all closed up. I only added the filter floss to the tank for the first time last monday.

3.) I also added 2 turbos, and 10 astria snails. When I got the fish that i probably shouldn't have.

I plan to add brodcast feed reef roids a few times this week until I get po4 readings or see a response in the hammers.
 
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I do not believe the dinos will come only from a few days of not having a sufficient phosphate reading since you are testing your water regularly/weekly (?). But you should definitely get a reading ASAP to minimize the risk.

I know you are not testing Nitrate, but I assume these are also possibly 0, which would mean you have a great problem (IMO) that your tank is consuming more nutrients than it receives, and you can feed more to get these parameters (slowly) up.

Turning off your skimmer could be another immediate/short term measure, which would raise nitrates more than phosphates though. And there could be an impact on PH so only a short term measure to see readings quickly.
 
MichaelB said:
First real issue in this tank. I noticed overnight from wednesday to Thursday every hammer and frog spawn in the tank suddenly shrunk up and wouldn’t extend at all. Skeleton ridges were visible on many. At least 20 different corals same issue when they were puffy the day before.

I broke out the test kits last night.

9/19/2024
Mag 1275 salifert
Po4 test #1 0.00? Test #2 0.00 hanna
Alk 7.3 hanna
Calc 433 hanna

Added reef roids to attempt to start raising po4, I saw the slightest improvement afterwards in some of the hammers. My bigger concerns would be possibly getting dinos from bottoming out or loosing all those hammers.


**Just checking to see would low p04 cause them to shrink up like that?

1.) I have no gfo in this tank only active carbon, a curve 5 skimmer, and a 30 gallon hob filter under the canopy with tiny carbon filter that comes with them.

2.) I swapped the filter floss that got yucky the night before they all closed up. I only added the filter floss to the tank for the first time last monday.

3.) I also added 2 turbos, and 10 astria snails. When I got the fish that i probably shouldn't have.

I plan to add brodcast feed reef roids a few times this week until I get po4 readings or see a response in the hammers.
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I notice that I can get away with ridiculous amounts of reef roids in my tank.

I will be toning down my coral feeding since @derek_SR has linked me an extremely insightful article on DOCs, but just for a comparison I add probably 10+mL of slurry a week, more if I feel like things want it. In a 20 gallon. And I get 0.05ppm PO4

I’m not sure if it’s related to my macroalgae.

Phosphate has been slowly rising so my plan to lower feeding and water change more seems very timely.


On the dino’s problem: I bottomed out my phosphate for a couple of weeks and I got dino’s. I fixed it in a week by daily broadcast dosing of reef roids. That one week I must’ve gone through half my supply lol

Just don’t leave it at 0 for a long time
 
MichaelB said:
First real issue in this tank. I noticed overnight from wednesday to Thursday every hammer and frog spawn in the tank suddenly shrunk up and wouldn’t extend at all. Skeleton ridges were visible on many. At least 20 different corals same issue when they were puffy the day before.

I broke out the test kits last night.

9/19/2024
Mag 1275 salifert
Po4 test #1 0.00? Test #2 0.00 hanna
Alk 7.3 hanna
Calc 433 hanna

Added reef roids to attempt to start raising po4, I saw the slightest improvement afterwards in some of the hammers. My bigger concerns would be possibly getting dinos from bottoming out or loosing all those hammers.


**Just checking to see would low p04 cause them to shrink up like that?

1.) I have no gfo in this tank only active carbon, a curve 5 skimmer, and a 30 gallon hob filter under the canopy with tiny carbon filter that comes with them.

2.) I swapped the filter floss that got yucky the night before they all closed up. I only added the filter floss to the tank for the first time last monday.

3.) I also added 2 turbos, and 10 astria snails. When I got the fish that i probably shouldn't have.

I plan to add brodcast feed reef roids a few times this week until I get po4 readings or see a response in the hammers.
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Sounds like the major change recently because the fish was the filter floss. Remove that and see what happens. Also keep an eye on if any of the fish are nipping. There's very little for them to forage and tangs need tons of grazing.

When the foxface died, how long was it rotting? Still it's very strange to have a fish die within a day unless something happened to it. How did you introduce it again?
 
Darkxerox said:
Sounds like the major change recently because the fish was the filter floss. Remove that and see what happens. Also keep an eye on if any of the fish are nipping. There's very little for them to forage and tangs need tons of grazing.

When the foxface died, how long was it rotting? Still it's very strange to have a fish die within a day unless something happened to it. How did you introduce it again?
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Almost instantly got the fish it out. It wasn't sitting in there to decompose. My filter floss was gunked up alot when i changed it. The Issues came after I swaped it with hammers to a clean floss. The very next morning issue started. They were looking great before that.

I wouldn't call it scientific by any means butnmy general thoughts if it makes since? Is the dirty filter floss probably was the last remaining Po4 source. Took that out and not much left. Skimmer isn’t producing skimmate either it did last week. This week not a drop.

My filtration on my main tank isn't this efficent so i have to use Rowaphos. All water in this tank has to go through the filter floss and skimmer section. My main tank some of the water slips pass the filtration.

The tank was Heavily seeded from rock and biobmedia from my main tank. If that makes a difference.

I also only feed once a day same as my other tanks.

I could turn skimmer off as someone recommended but as mentioned earlier it hasn't been skiming anything this week so not really sure it would make a difference?

I have tons of food pellets/flakes/ phyto I could feed the tank with, if thats recommended? i started with reef roids thinking not to start by doing anything extreme.

All that stuff i rarely ever feed in my main tank do to higher po4 issues.
 
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It could be, I just want to make sure your floss isn't contaminated from the manufacturer or anything. Just cut the floss all together for simplicity sake right now.

Is your skimmer producing any bubbles or head at all?

Also if you have "dirty" water from other tanks, try doing a water change, e.g. fresh saltwater into the other tanks, then the old water from those into this tank.
 
Darkxerox said:
It could be, I just want to make sure your floss isn't contaminated from the manufacturer or anything. Just cut the floss all together for simplicity sake right now.

Is your skimmer producing any bubbles or head at all?

Also if you have "dirty" water from other tanks, try doing a water change, e.g. fresh saltwater into the other tanks, then the old water from those into this tank.
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Tank has micro bubbles from skimmer.

I will pull out the floss when i get home.
I have different types of floss from other companies i could use if contaminant is a possibility? Or no floss at all?

I can do that next water change.
 
How long have they looked shriveled? Sometimes they just do that. Give if a few days before you do anything. Lots of people do drastic things to correct issues that aren't there.
 
derek_SR said:
How often do you feed the fish?
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Only once a day. Like only enough to feed fish what they can eat in less than 2 mins.

I have been placing a 1 inch by 2 inch peice of seaweed on a clip since getting the clown tang only in the 65 once a day.

I take one frozen mysis cube with water from my main tank just above the top of the cube. And I feed all 3 tanks with that one cube.

The cube is standard frozen cube from a Mysis tray.

Total fish.

Main 32
2 large maroons
1 xl banghi cardinal
1 6 line wrasse

Frag tank
2 adult size perc clowns

65gallon
1 xl pj cardinal
1 the melanurus wrasse
1 juv clown tang.
 
MichaelB said:
Only once a day. Like only enough to feed fish what they can eat in less than 2 mins.

I have been placing a 1 inch by 2 inch peice of seaweed on a clip since getting the clown tang only in the 65 once a day.

I take one frozen mysis cube with water from my main tank just above the top of the cube. And I feed all 3 tanks with that one cube.

The cube is standard frozen cube from a Mysis tray.

Total fish.

Main 32
2 large maroons
1 xl banghi cardinal
1 6 line wrasse

Frag tank
2 adult size perc clowns

65gallon
1 xl pj cardinal
1 the melanurus wrasse
1 juv clown tang.
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There's debates about how much to feed, but fwiw a single cube across all those tanks and one small piece of seaweed a day seems far down the very light end of the spectrum. I'm not sure where I currently am on that spectrum, but I'd likely be feeding that much to just one of your tanks. Especially if you have any other inverts (shrimp) or coral that would be getting fed.

I also think it'd be very surprising if a fish was dying from low nutrients. I'm not sure I've ever heard of that hypothesis before. The floss being contaminated or something unrelated happening when you were cleaning seems more plausible.

As a reference, I feed my frag tank probably 1 to 2 cubes equivalent a day (of reef jerky, spread across multiple feeds on a timer), and only have 4 fish in it. Even with that I'm dosing N to get levels consistently readable. Skimmer is just there to make bubbles, not collecting. Only thing besides corals is am the fuge on a reverse cycle to try and keep pH up.
 
richiev said:
There's debates about how much to feed, but fwiw a single cube across all those tanks and one small piece of seaweed a day seems far down the very light end of the spectrum. I'm not sure where I currently am on that spectrum, but I'd likely be feeding that much to just one of your tanks. Especially if you have any other inverts (shrimp) or coral that would be getting fed.

I also think it'd be very surprising if a fish was dying from low nutrients. I'm not sure I've ever heard of that hypothesis before. The floss being contaminated or something unrelated happening when you were cleaning seems more plausible.

As a reference, I feed my frag tank probably 1 to 2 cubes equivalent a day (of reef jerky, spread across multiple feeds on a timer), and only have 4 fish in it. Even with that I'm dosing N to get levels consistently readable. Skimmer is just there to make bubbles, not collecting. Only thing besides corals is am the fuge on a reverse cycle to try and keep pH up.
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I had major p04 issues in my biocube32 so i always feed that way i use to actual cut the cube in half before getting 65.

Do you think i should feed more in the larger tank?
 
MichaelB said:
I had major p04 issues in my biocube32 so i always feed that way i use to actual cut the cube in half before getting 65.

Do you think i should feed more in the larger tank?
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I’d say definitely. I only have 5 small fish in the 50 low boy and I split 1 cube in 1/2 and feed twice a day and then another feeding with pellets usually. And sometimes I think it’s not enough lol
 
Is this your first time using this filter floss ? Back in the day. When I used filter socks. I noticed when I put new ones in. Things would get strange for a day or two. Like there was chemicals in the socks. Just something to think about.
Or when I had a roller mat. And I rolled it too much. My skimmer would trip out and over flow.
 
Turkeysammich said:
Is this your first time using this filter floss ? Back in the day. When I used filter socks. I noticed when I put new ones in. Things would get strange for a day or two. Like there was chemicals in the socks. Just something to think about.
Or when I had a roller mat. And I rolled it too much. My skimmer would trip out and over flow.
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Not the first time using it its the first time i changed it. Things looked great first time I added it. Only went south when i changed it.

I did feed reef roids again today, and dropped in a few tdo pellets, later hammers looked slightly better after that but not fullynto how they should look.

I unplugged the skimmer today. I will keep a eye on things over the weekend.

If things get any worse i can always take the hammers out and try to cram them back into my 32 cube. They were looking extremely unhappy when i first posted this. Now they just looked stressed after the roids. I'm a little less concerned today than I was yesterday. However things are no where near where i can relax.
 
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