Reef nutrition

Rygh's 250 gallon - Rev 3

Some of the coral is looking distinctly unhappy after my vacation last week.
Jack-o-Lantern Lepto looks like it is toast.
:-(
It was looking a bit pale before, with a few thin spots, now it is really looking white.
Tips of some SPS sticks are not looking great either.

The usual Alk/Ca/Salinity/PH/etc all seem ok.

My big suspect - starvation.
I started up my old Algae scrubber when I rebooted the tank, to get rid of all the crud.
My Nitrates have been dead zero now, and little algae grows except in scrubber.
When I was gone, it was only auto-feeding pellets to the fish, so that may have taken it over the edge.

I have had similar looking problems in the past when Nitrates stay really low like that.

Time to disconnect the scrubber.
Probably do some big water changes as well, just in case.
 
Things were doing well again - and now an Alk problem.

We had a small power failure, usually no big deal.
But for some reason my Litermeter doser decided to put itself in a "ALL PUMPS OFF" mode.
And I did not notice for a while.
Alk was about 5 when I tested it. Ouch!
Corals are very unhappy.
 
Flagg37 said:
Yikes, 5?!! How long was it off? How aggressively are you dosing to bring it back up?
Click to expand...
Probably off for a week.
I also dose Kalk on a separate system, so it did not crash too fast.
Not bringing it up that fast. Damage is done to a few SPS, others are fine, crazy swings might make it worse.
 
This stick is probably toast due to Alk mishap. Still some pink showing, but algae is growing on dead parts.
Encrusting corals and softies are all fine though.

coral4.JPG
 
So all of my acros bit the dust. :mad:

I had a series of bad alk swings a few weeks ago, due to a failing dosing pump, and a lack of testing on my part.
(See above)
Several died, and the rest were receding from the base rather badly after that.
Then I had a powerhead go out while on vacation, so fairly stagnant flow.
I came back, and nothing but dead sticks covered in a film of algae.

Alk swings + poor flow is obviously bad news for pointy stick corals.

Not all that big of a deal, since I did not really have many anyway, but still sad.

All my other corals are fine though. LPS/encrusting/etc.
The softies are loving the lower flow.

I am thinking maybe I will just start avoiding pointy sticks for a while.
They can be so finicky.
 
Another crash that could have been saved with a trident.

That’s really too bad man.

How many power heads do you have in your tank? Does that one really provide the majority of your flow?
 
Not so sure the trident could have saved it, I mean if you look he recognizes the alk issues. quite a while back, it's just the lack of flow that borked it all.
 
Flagg37 said:
Another crash that could have been saved with a trident.

That’s really too bad man.

How many power heads do you have in your tank? Does that one really provide the majority of your flow?
Click to expand...

A Trident a month ago would have helped me notice Alk problem earlier.
Connecting powerheads to current monitor might have helped me notice if I had not been on vacation.

I have 4 powerheads. Two on each end, at top. Each about 2500 GPH.
One stopped, and the other 3 need cleaning, so really a combination.
But also, when one stops, the flows do not collide right, so stays at surface.

And - It is a long tank, and I have never really been that happy with flow in the middle,
and of course, most acros happened to be in the middle.
 
So some good news / bad news.
After vacation, definitely a bunch more pest anemones.
So clearly the big reboot did not get everything.

The good news : They appear to be Aptasia, not Majanos.
Before, I killed them tiny, so it is almost impossible to tell the difference.
But a few grew larger. Larger than Majanos, and nice thin tendrils.

And that is fairly good news, because there are better fixes for aptasia.
Might order some Berghia Nudibranches soon.
 
Sorry if I missed it but how did aptasia get in there? I thought you cleaned off or got rid of the stuff you had and then put it back in. Did you add other stuff in too?
 
Flagg37 said:
Sorry if I missed it but how did aptasia get in there? I thought you cleaned off or got rid of the stuff you had and then put it back in. Did you add other stuff in too?
Click to expand...
I do not know for sure.

I had mostly Majanos, but some Aptasia.
Yes, I cleaned everything, with bleach. But it is not impossible something survived.
I have also added corals since, so they may be new.
 
So I think I will be purchasing a ReefBot water tester.

I was really in to the Neptune Trident, and may have bought one if they were not always sold out.
But then the Mindstream system finally went on sale....
I didn't really want one, since I am so skeptical of that company.
But it really got me thinking - what about Phosphates and Nitrates and other things???
If I am going to spend all the money and time on a fancy tester, why not test more?
ReefBot can test anything that uses liquid dye type tests.

Sure, ReefBot is very DIY-like. But to me that is almost a plus.

I don't care about integration into Fusion.

It uses standard tests, so refills are not an issue.
 
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