High Tide Aquatics

Ryan’s 40G first reef

I can’t figure out how your n/p keep coming up as 0 as you are not carbon dosing, have low coral stocking, light filtration, etc. you still have fish right? My fishless QT that I don’t feed has more nutrients then you.
 
Qwiv said:
I can’t figure out how your n/p keep coming up as 0 as you are not carbon dosing, have low coral stocking, light filtration, etc. you still have fish right? My fishless QT that I don’t feed has more nutrients then you.
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I'm deeply confused as I feed minimum 1 cube of spirulina brine or reef frenzy nano daily + sometimes a bunch of pellets. I only empty my skimmer every few days and change my floss every 2-3 days. My GHA/bryopsis isnt even that bad, just on the sand bed and in a few spots. I have 5 fish, 2 shrimp and at least 20 snails that I can see from my desk.
 
I think you've actually just explained your issue:

I only empty my skimmer every few days
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While that's not super wet skimming, that's far more than just running it for aeration, it's normal skimming. Running it for aeration, or dry, would be more like emptying it never or emptying it every couple weeks.

change my floss every 2-3 days
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Changing the floss every 2-3 days is also quite frequent (normally frequent).

Food dropped into the tank won't increase phosphate/nitrate much when it goes in. It'll increase both when it's broken down. Either by the fish eating and digesting it (the food that gets eaten) or by bacteria and such decomposing it. By removing the floss that frequently you're removing the food before it breaks down and releases nutrients into the water through decomposition. That's good if that's what you want to reduce nutrient load, but counterproductive otherwise.

For instance, the old style of fishless cycle of a tank was you get some raw shrimp (or fish or whatever's cheap) and toss it into your tank. You then wait the week or two for it to break down enough to release ammonia and the nitrate cycle to kick off. By removing the floss that frequently you're removing the food before it breaks down and releases nutrients into the water through decomposition. It'd be like assuming ammonia would spike in a tank in 2 to 3 days after you start that cycle.

Tying it together
You are feeding a good chunk, but with not a lot of fish to eat it a big chunk will end up in the floss. You're likely then removing much of that before it actually breaks down. The stuff that does break down you're skimming off. That's the way that's all supposed to work, but for the levels to go up there has to be enough making it past all that filtration (floss, skimmer, did you ever add that refugium?) to stay in the water column.

Solution wise that all seems to imply add more things that are eating food (fish, lps?), and/or reduce physical removal of food (change floss less frequently, or remove it, or remove most of it), and/or truly dry skim.

Edit: rewrote to make it betterer
 
Last edited:
richiev said:
I think you've actually just explained your issue:


While that's not super wet skimming, that's far more than just running it for aeration, it's normal skimming. Running it for aeration, or dry, would be more like emptying it never or emptying it every couple weeks.


Changing the floss every 2-3 days is also quite frequent (normally frequent).

Food dropped into the tank won't increase phosphate/nitrate much when it goes in. It'll increase both when it's broken down. Either by the fish eating and digesting it (the food that gets eaten) or by bacteria and such decomposing it. By removing the floss that frequently you're removing the food before it breaks down and releases nutrients into the water through decomposition. That's good if that's what you want to reduce nutrient load, but counterproductive otherwise.

For instance, the old style of fishless cycle of a tank was you get some raw shrimp (or fish or whatever's cheap) and toss it into your tank. You then wait the week or two for it to break down enough to release ammonia and the nitrate cycle to kick off. By removing the floss that frequently you're removing the food before it breaks down and releases nutrients into the water through decomposition. It'd be like assuming ammonia would spike in a tank in 2 to 3 days after you start that cycle.

Tying it together
You are feeding a good chunk, but with not a lot of fish to eat it a big chunk will end up in the floss. You're likely then removing much of that before it actually breaks down. The stuff that does break down you're skimming off. That's the way that's all supposed to work, but for the levels to go up there has to be enough making it past all that filtration (floss, skimmer, did you ever add that refugium?) to stay in the water column.

Solution wise that all seems to imply add more things that are eating food (fish, lps?), and/or reduce physical removal of food (change floss less frequently, or remove it, or remove most of it), and/or truly dry skim.

Edit: rewrote to make it betterer
Click to expand...
I shut the fuge down and replaced it with a Tunze 9004 DC skimmer. I guess I am normal skimming, I will turn it down to dry skim only. I'm speed limited by the rate my LFS can get in my oddball requests but ill try to get 3 more fish asap. I cant change the filter floss any less frequently as it clogs and messes with my ATO and thus salinity. In freshwater I had no issues with over filtration but I do here. I'll bump up pellet feedings as a much lower percentage of them get eaten and caught in the floss.
 
Lost power (THANKS PG&E!) and am running only my return pump on minimum speed. Hope they make it! Time to go buy a generator.
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rdriggett said:
Powers back on. Temps hit 76.5 which I don’t think will kill anything.
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I pretty much have always run at 75-76, you'll be fine. It's more important that you moved quickly to keep circulation going!

Also what test kits are you using for each parameter? Just wondering because your Ca and Mg might be beyond the upper limits of the kits and some Nitrate/Phosphate kits can be difficult to read if you have even minor colorblindness.
 
Darkxerox said:
I pretty much have always run at 75-76, you'll be fine. It's more important that you moved quickly to keep circulation going!

Also what test kits are you using for each parameter? Just wondering because your Ca and Mg might be beyond the upper limits of the kits and some Nitrate/Phosphate kits can be difficult to read if you have even minor colorblindness.
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It woke me up so i got water movement going within minutes.
Hanna - alk
Redsea - no3
Redsea pro - calc, mag
Salifert - po4
 
rdriggett said:
It woke me up so i got water movement going within minutes.
Hanna - alk
Redsea - no3
Redsea pro - calc, mag
Salifert - po4
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So for these Ca and Mg test kits you're definitely at the absolute cap of what they can measure, I'd cut off dosing then until you reach levels where you can accurately test for. Unless it's all from your salt mix.

For the power being out now, try to make sure you keep surface agitation by directing any flow to the surface and running pumps relatively low speed to extend battery life.
 
ALK is dropping despite 15ML/day of AFR. 8.2 from Hanna and 7.2 from RedSea. I dont know who to believe. Calcium is 420-450 and mag is ~1500. Should I get alk/calc/mag test kits from Salifert? I was hoping I would have alk consumption beginning to be dialed in by now but it's looking like it wont be by my vacation.
 
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