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Tank Parameters all over the place

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spuri87

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I never paid attention to tank parameters until recently when I added a few SPS corals from gracious BAR members which don't look too happy in the tank.. I also have CC Tail torch, Ricordia, a hammer and GSP which seem to be doing good though (non SPS corals basically). So I tested all my params (except Magnesium, coz I dont have a test kit yet) and they are all over the place:

pH: 8.0
kH: 7.7
phosphates > .6ppm (Hanna Phosphorous ULR shows 200 ppb which is the maximum it can show, which roughly translates to 0.6 ppm phosphates)
Nitrates > 75ppm (Hanna Nitrates shows 75 which is the maximum it can show)
Calcium: 350 ppm
Magnesium: TBD

I added a lot of fish couple of months ago and I feed heavily (2-3 times mix of dry and frozen food + 2 nori sheets).. which may explain high phosphates and nitrates.. my phosphates when measured in my brand new tank with only live rock I got from LFS was at 0.3 and it only went up from there.. I run Rowaphos and Carbon Rox 0.8 along with Skimmer 24*7, my LFS guy also tried Lanthanum Chloride but that didnt bring down the phosphates either.

Question: How should I handle this situation? What should be my top priority and order of execution? chatGPT suggests bring up Calcium first before tackling other params, but I would like to know from folks in this forum, with ton of experience and some great looking SPS tanks! I recently switched to Red Sea Coral Pro salt, but I have been irregular with water changes, which might have worsened the overall situation.. Can you also suggest what products you suggest to start dosing? I met @Jaggu recently and he mentioned he uses All for Reef.. as a side note, does anyone near San Jose have a Magnesium test kit I could borrow for sometime.. I will order a new kit along with other things required to fix this situation
 
Looks like today is water parameter day :).

My suggestions:

1. Bring down nutrients.
2. Raise CA.
3. Leave MG alone until you address 1 and 2.

Bring down nutrients.
a) Nitrate - optimize skimmer / need to check if it runs at peak performance and if it is properly sized. Large water changes.
b) Phosphate - slowly bring down phosphate by changing your GFO on a weekly basis. I do not recommend lanthanum although this will bring you the results the quickest (which again, speed is not preferable as compared to a steady decline). I use Power Phos but I am a Fauna Marin fanboy and it does not need to be washed before use: https://premiumaquatics.com/product...2&_sid=2bf640dab&_ss=r&variant=48148024099058

Raise CA
Use of all for reef (or ready to reef) is a good idea in the beginning. it is a simple and effective product.
I hate Red Sea Coral Pro salt big time, but you can use it to bring up your CA, since it not only has elevated dkh but also elevated CA. Also, elevated dkh does not make a ton of sense in anything but a fully stocked SPS tank, and can be harmful to corals if your nutrients are too low. But since your nutrients are rather high, you can use what you have and then switch to a more reasonable salt. I would only use either Fauna Marin or Tropic Marin salt, but if price is a concern, you can try the Red Sea Blue Bucket salt.

Happy to chat more.
 
To my understanding with sps I'm any case alkalinity swings are what can kill a tank. Yet I don't believe any is more important than the others considering Alkalinity, Magnesium, and calcium.

Think of them as a pyramid. Alk and calcium making up the lines that meet at the top point. Magnesium being the bottom line that supports the other two.

Alkalinity and calcium are typically the first two that are depleted normally in that order. Magnesium may take longer to be used up for most water changes are enough to keep it stable.

If one of them is off it's very hard nearly impossible to keep the other two in range. I find this extremely accurate relating to Magnesium specifically in my tank. If mag is out of range the others are very hard to keep stable over time.

If asked which to watch the closest Id say Alk because I notice it has the ability to swing or change much faster than the other two.

All for reef is what I use the most. However if your already out of range afr can't adjust one single element. Since it's already combined into a set ratio.

You would need to get them into a desirable range than you need to test everyday at the same time for a week without dosing anything. This will give you a trend of how much of what is used daily. This trend is important because it allows you to determine a daily dose. Start with recommended dose on bottle keep testing every day and adjust dose very slightly until your numbers are holding steady over time.

It's a bit of a process to be sure, yet identifying a dosing amount is the start to keeping tank stable. It will always require future adjustments to the dose as things grow out, things are added, or even worse things doesn't. Right now i probably test maybe twice a month because I'm confident in my numbers being stable. I started testing everyday for a few weeks in a row until things were dialed in.

Po4 being high can cause sps to turn brown so it's also good to get that down as well. Just remember to take it slowly with that gfo reactor when you get it set up. It's also a way to kill coral by removing po4 to fast. Coral actually need it, just in acceptable ranges.

I intentionally say ranges not numbers. Don't have a specific number in mind that you chase after. Just keep things in range.

Calcium 380-450
Alkalinity 8-12 though 8- 9 would be a better range unless ur sps dominate.
Magnesium 1250–1350 ppm - even though some go higher.

These are typically comonly acceptable ranges. You could aim to stay within. Again people do go below or beyond those ranges but thats not mainstream or majority of reefers. If you decide to go beyond don't do it because one person said it works for them. What works for one may not work for you or even most.
 
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It seems like you don’t have enough nutrient export to support the amount of food you are feeding. To me, the high nitrate is a red flag in a new tank. It might be okay in a thriving reef with a lot of coral mass, but not in a tank with a few frags.

For phosphates, I’m not too sure. My tank seems to be doing fine with 0.356 ppm phos. I only saw issues when it was low. Maybe you want to be less than 0.5 ppm.
 
spuri87 said:
I never paid attention to tank parameters until recently when I added a few SPS corals from gracious BAR members which don't look too happy in the tank.. I also have CC Tail torch, Ricordia, a hammer and GSP which seem to be doing good though (non SPS corals basically). So I tested all my params (except Magnesium, coz I dont have a test kit yet) and they are all over the place:

pH: 8.0
kH: 7.7
phosphates > .6ppm (Hanna Phosphorous ULR shows 200 ppb which is the maximum it can show, which roughly translates to 0.6 ppm phosphates)
Nitrates > 75ppm (Hanna Nitrates shows 75 which is the maximum it can show)
Calcium: 350 ppm
Magnesium: TBD

I added a lot of fish couple of months ago and I feed heavily (2-3 times mix of dry and frozen food + 2 nori sheets).. which may explain high phosphates and nitrates.. my phosphates when measured in my brand new tank with only live rock I got from LFS was at 0.3 and it only went up from there.. I run Rowaphos and Carbon Rox 0.8 along with Skimmer 24*7, my LFS guy also tried Lanthanum Chloride but that didnt bring down the phosphates either.

Question: How should I handle this situation? What should be my top priority and order of execution? chatGPT suggests bring up Calcium first before tackling other params, but I would like to know from folks in this forum, with ton of experience and some great looking SPS tanks! I recently switched to Red Sea Coral Pro salt, but I have been irregular with water changes, which might have worsened the overall situation.. Can you also suggest what products you suggest to start dosing? I met @Jaggu recently and he mentioned he uses All for Reef.. as a side note, does anyone near San Jose have a Magnesium test kit I could borrow for sometime.. I will order a new kit along with other things required to fix this situation
Click to expand...

Before you start mucking with dosing things, I'm guessing since you don't have that much coral for that size tank, coral growth is not what is creating a calcium deficiency. My guess is your salt mix you used first was already deficient. What salt did you use to start? First thing I would do is make sure that the salt you are using is providing the levels of the parameters you want to run your tank. Red Sea Pro has a very high alkalinity, 12+ dkh, I probably wouldn't recommend beginners use that salt. Running that high of alk, requires some pretty strict monitoring of water parameters and while your tank alk is not that high now, continuing to use that salt, will eventually bring it pretty high. If you're wanting to use red sea, I'd use the normal blue bucket salt.

After you pick a salt more in tune to your choice of parameters, then I would just do a few 25% changes over the course of a week. Painful, yes, but important to try to level set with your salt mix that is running the parameters you want. It will also bring help lower nitrates and phosphates. Dosing with 2-part, all for one or kalk can come after this.

Your calcium level, while not ideal, would not likely cause coral to die by itself. Calcium at that level would slow growth quite a bit though. Magnesium can grow coral at a wide range and is more important for not precipitating out calcium and carbonate (alkalinity). That wouldn't be my immediate concern.
 
Dunno if you remember the conversation we had about your aquarium being a baby ? Well it’s still a baby. You gotta treat it like one. Putting in intermediate or advanced corals isn’t gonna work. Especially when you’re a baby also in the hobby. Slow is Fast. Fast is Dead.

So what would I do ? Add easy corals, no sps. Let your bio grow. Dose nothing. Do you water changes.

Wait until you can grew and keep coralline algae before you try sps. Then grow easy sps first. They are all different
 
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spuri87 said:
I never paid attention to tank parameters until recently when I added a few SPS corals from gracious BAR members which don't look too happy in the tank.. I also have CC Tail torch, Ricordia, a hammer and GSP which seem to be doing good though (non SPS corals basically). So I tested all my params (except Magnesium, coz I dont have a test kit yet) and they are all over the place:

pH: 8.0
kH: 7.7
phosphates > .6ppm (Hanna Phosphorous ULR shows 200 ppb which is the maximum it can show, which roughly translates to 0.6 ppm phosphates)
Nitrates > 75ppm (Hanna Nitrates shows 75 which is the maximum it can show)
Calcium: 350 ppm
Magnesium: TBD

I added a lot of fish couple of months ago and I feed heavily (2-3 times mix of dry and frozen food + 2 nori sheets).. which may explain high phosphates and nitrates.. my phosphates when measured in my brand new tank with only live rock I got from LFS was at 0.3 and it only went up from there.. I run Rowaphos and Carbon Rox 0.8 along with Skimmer 24*7, my LFS guy also tried Lanthanum Chloride but that didnt bring down the phosphates either.

Question: How should I handle this situation? What should be my top priority and order of execution? chatGPT suggests bring up Calcium first before tackling other params, but I would like to know from folks in this forum, with ton of experience and some great looking SPS tanks! I recently switched to Red Sea Coral Pro salt, but I have been irregular with water changes, which might have worsened the overall situation.. Can you also suggest what products you suggest to start dosing? I met @Jaggu recently and he mentioned he uses All for Reef.. as a side note, does anyone near San Jose have a Magnesium test kit I could borrow for sometime.. I will order a new kit along with other things required to fix this situation
Click to expand...
What is the problem you are trying to fix?
 
Alexander1312 said:
Bring down nutrients.
a) Nitrate - optimize skimmer / need to check if it runs at peak performance and if it is properly sized. Large water changes.
b) Phosphate - slowly bring down phosphate by changing your GFO on a weekly basis. I do not recommend lanthanum although this will bring you the results the quickest (which again, speed is not preferable as compared to a steady decline). I use Power Phos but I am a Fauna Marin fanboy and it does not need to be washed before use: https://premiumaquatics.com/product...2&_sid=2bf640dab&_ss=r&variant=48148024099058
Click to expand...
Bring down nutrients first look like a decent plan.. I change GFO once every 2 weeks and never saw a dent, phosphates have always been high.. seems like water changes are the way to go..

2 bad reviews of Red Sea Coral pro makes me a little worried :).. I got a couple of buckets during thanksgiving, but I guess if I do 25% water changes, the kH wont go up by much, since it will be an aggregate of what I already have in my tank right now + 12.0 that the new water will assist with.. will look into buying the blue bucket next.. thanks
 
MichaelB said:
To my understanding with sps I'm any case alkalinity swings are what can kill a tank. Yet I don't believe any is more important than the others considering Alkalinity, Magnesium, and calcium.

Think of them as a pyramid. Alk and calcium making up the lines that meet at the top point. Magnesium being the bottom line that supports the other two.

Alkalinity and calcium are typically the first two that are depleted normally in that order. Magnesium may take longer to be used up for most water changes are enough to keep it stable.

If one of them is off it's very hard nearly impossible to keep the other two in range. I find this extremely accurate relating to Magnesium specifically in my tank. If mag is out of range the others are very hard to keep stable over time.

If asked which to watch the closest Id say Alk because I notice it has the ability to swing or change much faster than the other two.

All for reef is what I use the most. However if your already out of range afr can't adjust one single element. Since it's already combined into a set ratio.

You would need to get them into a desirable range than you need to test everyday at the same time for a week without dosing anything. This will give you a trend of how much of what is used daily. This trend is important because it allows you to determine a daily dose. Start with recommended dose on bottle keep testing every day and adjust dose very slightly until your numbers are holding steady over time.

It's a bit of a process to be sure, yet identifying a dosing amount is the start to keeping tank stable. It will always require future adjustments to the dose as things grow out, things are added, or even worse things doesn't. Right now i probably test maybe twice a month because I'm confident in my numbers being stable. I started testing everyday for a few weeks in a row until things were dialed in.

Po4 being high can cause sps to turn brown so it's also good to get that down as well. Just remember to take it slowly with that gfo reactor when you get it set up. It's also a way to kill coral by removing po4 to fast. Coral actually need it, just in acceptable ranges.

I intentionally say ranges not numbers. Don't have a specific number in mind that you chase after. Just keep things in range.

Calcium 380-450
Alkalinity 8-12 though 8- 9 would be a better range unless ur sps dominate.
Magnesium 1250–1350 ppm - even though some go higher.

These are typically comonly acceptable ranges. You could aim to stay within. Again people do go below or beyond those ranges but thats not mainstream or majority of reefers. If you decide to go beyond don't do it because one person said it works for them. What works for one may not work for you or even most.
Click to expand...
Regular testing is what I plan to do as well for next 2 weeks.. same time of the day and test for Alk, Phosphates and Nitrates.. Will start testing Calcium later when I start dosing.. Good to hear 3 good reviews about All for Reef, thanks for sharing
 
spuri87 said:
Bring down nutrients first look like a decent plan.. I change GFO once every 2 weeks and never saw a dent, phosphates have always been high.. seems like water changes are the way to go..

2 bad reviews of Red Sea Coral pro makes me a little worried :).. I got a couple of buckets during thanksgiving, but I guess if I do 25% water changes, the kH wont go up by much, since it will be an aggregate of what I already have in my tank right now + 12.0 that the new water will assist with.. will look into buying the blue bucket next.. thanks
Click to expand...
It's not bad salt for a sps dominate tank or someone using it for a specific purpose.
Where your at it would cause major swings in alkalinity so it's a no go.
 
Royce023 said:
It seems like you don’t have enough nutrient export to support the amount of food you are feeding. To me, the high nitrate is a red flag in a new tank. It might be okay in a thriving reef with a lot of coral mass, but not in a tank with a few frags.

For phosphates, I’m not too sure. My tank seems to be doing fine with 0.356 ppm phos. I only saw issues when it was low. Maybe you want to be less than 0.5 ppm.
Click to expand...
How do you recommend having enough nutrient export except refugium? I dont want to go Refugium route, as I heard it may make my sump really messy, but happy to do it if thats the last resort!
 
RandyC said:
Before you start mucking with dosing things, I'm guessing since you don't have that much coral for that size tank, coral growth is not what is creating a calcium deficiency. My guess is your salt mix you used first was already deficient. What salt did you use to start? First thing I would do is make sure that the salt you are using is providing the levels of the parameters you want to run your tank. Red Sea Pro has a very high alkalinity, 12+ dkh, I probably wouldn't recommend beginners use that salt. Running that high of alk, requires some pretty strict monitoring of water parameters and while your tank alk is not that high now, continuing to use that salt, will eventually bring it pretty high. If you're wanting to use red sea, I'd use the normal blue bucket salt.

After you pick a salt more in tune to your choice of parameters, then I would just do a few 25% changes over the course of a week. Painful, yes, but important to try to level set with your salt mix that is running the parameters you want. It will also bring help lower nitrates and phosphates. Dosing with 2-part, all for one or kalk can come after this.

Your calcium level, while not ideal, would not likely cause coral to die by itself. Calcium at that level would slow growth quite a bit though. Magnesium can grow coral at a wide range and is more important for not precipitating out calcium and carbonate (alkalinity). That wouldn't be my immediate concern.
Click to expand...
I was always horrified by the term 'dosing'.. feels like nightmares coming to life! I used IO Reef Crystal Purple box before switching.. I will switch to Blue bucket after these 2 buckets are exhausted. ACK on water changes, feels like the way to go
 
Also patience is golden. You didn't get high po4 overnight don't expect to lower them over night. Regular water changes and gfo will work given time.

When you feed are you feeding the same amount like measuring it some kinda of way.
Ie x amount cubes of frozen, this much pellets. Make the amounts constant verse just randomly dropping different amounts in. Being constant removes varriants it let's you learn your trends.

If you won't change water ever week do a larger every other week. If once a month do a 3x amount of a water change as you would do once a week. Again lol just find a routine and aim to stick to it.
 
Turkeysammich said:
Dunno if you remember the conversation we had about your aquarium being a baby ? Well it’s still a baby. You gotta treat it like one. Putting in intermediate or advanced corals isn’t gonna work. Especially when you’re a baby also in the hobby. Slow is Fast. Fast is Dead.

So what would I do ? Add easy corals, no sps. Let your bio grow. Dose nothing. Do you water changes.

Wait until you can grew and keep coralline algae before you try sps. Then grow easy sps first. They are all different
Click to expand...
ACK, I do not plan to add any SPS.. got a couple of them as starter SPS (Bill Murray DBTC and 1 from @newfly as part of tank breakdown).. Glad I added these, otherwise would have never tested my nutrients thinking LPS and Soft corals are looking good.. I dont plan to add anymore to the tank before I fix these issues, just need to hear about the recommended route from the pros
 
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newfly said:
If your referring to the sps I gave you, they come from Alk 7-7.5, cal 440, mag 1450, nitrate <5 , phosphate near 0
Click to expand...
Yeah the one you gave me and Bill Murray.. Also Monti I got from Roy doesnt look colored up either.. I understand they may take time to adjust in new settings, but I want to have a stable environment going forward.
 
Thales said:
What is the problem you are trying to fix?
Click to expand...
sometimes simplest questions are the best.. this one made me think :) I do not plan to add SPS to the tank just yet, but the 2-3 I added don't look healthy and that's clearly due to the maligned numbers I shared above.. At some point in time in the future, I may choose to go for a SPS tank, until then its all about learnings for me on how to have a stable environment with parameters in acceptable range.. I thought I would always stay a fish guy, until I saw a few of the BAR members tanks with flourishing Corals.. :)
 
My all for reef suggestion was to get your three main parameters stable once you have good number of corals in the simplest way possible.

As I mentioned on our chat, there are different ways to deal with same issue.
For example, if your nitrate is 0, you can add fish, feed heavy to current fish, or dose nitrate. All of those will eventually rise nitrate level. It is just that, which option best suits you ( example If I have a 20g, It might not be a good idea to add more fish).
In your case, You have a big tank and tons of fish already, I would focus one thing at a time,
I would start from phosphate, I would do a water change and have some macro algae running to reduce phosphate levels. Once level seem fine (I don't think there is perfect number we can chase, just a safe number) and your coral start thriving, you will feel motivated and may be will add more corals. The corals will start consuming nutrients and major 3. Then we can look at dosing and so on....
Be patient and focus on the process, good things take time in this hobby.
This is my suggestion and what I would do. Like I mentioned, there are different solution for same issue.
Good luck!
 
spuri87 said:
Bring down nutrients first look like a decent plan.. I change GFO once every 2 weeks and never saw a dent, phosphates have always been high.. seems like water changes are the way to go..

2 bad reviews of Red Sea Coral pro makes me a little worried :).. I got a couple of buckets during thanksgiving, but I guess if I do 25% water changes, the kH wont go up by much, since it will be an aggregate of what I already have in my tank right now + 12.0 that the new water will assist with.. will look into buying the blue bucket next.. thanks
Click to expand...
With these PO4 parameters, you will have to do both. I forgot to ask, how do you run your GFO? In a media reactor? Which brand, and how much?

The salt just does not make sense for many people, yet so many get this sold to through LFS, and I was one of them when I started out. While milleporas will probably die by just looking at the salt bucket and the expected alk swings that come with it, I think you can still use up what you have for bringing down your nutrients while they are still high, and should not need to worry.

Looks like the FritzPro could also be an option price and parameter-wise: https://www.saltwateraquarium.com/f...-aquatics/?searchid=9352822&search_query=salt
 
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