In a bag, around 140gms Rowaphos.. Recently @MichaelB gave me a reactor, but hvnt added it to the system yet.. Yeah I need to exhaust these 2 buckets, before I buy any more salt.. I heard good things about FritzPro from my LFS as well, will look into this, thanks for sharing!
Tank Parameters all over the place
- Thread starter spuri87
- Start date
Alexander1312
Supporting Member
Yes, if you are serious about lowering PO4, then you need to get that reactor working.
I am not a fan of that Rowaphos. If you do not want to use the Fauna Marin product, I suggest to use this going forward: https://premiumaquatics.com/product...2&_sid=db399e596&_ss=r&variant=47329527595250
Interesting
Any reasons why you prefer these over Rowaphos.. A quick search shows Rowaphos to be a little superior than PowerPhos.. but do you have some instances you could share where you felt one was better than the other?
Alexander1312
Supporting Member
Mainly the handling is easier, as it will not color the water and does not need to be rinsed. Kolar is cheaper but needs to be rinsed.
thanks for sharing.. yeah, I do rinse before adding them to the tank.. Weirdly, internet and their instructions dont say anything about rinsing rowphos, but one time I didnt, I saw so much black stuff come out as soon as I added the bag that I immediately removed it and rinsed it before adding it back!
It seems like you’ll be doing a lot of things others have suggested. I would just feed less and perform routine water changes. I was able to control my nutrients without chemical intervention.
@spuri87 -
Ok looking at those numbers -
PH-is that the average, high, or low?
For softies -almost doesn’t matter what your PH I find -but for for acros, other sensitive sps they tend to do better (in my tank) at 8ish at the low.
Alk & CA are acceptable currently but way off for what you should be getting given your current tank set up and choice of salt. It really sounds like precipitation is occurring or measurement error -but given both low numbers I am leaning precipitation- how much are you mixing it (in time) and are you using it immediately? Given your comment about irregular WC’s made me wonder. Red Sea actually makes a point about using it immediately. Also are you taking measurements with each batch as to ca, alk, and salinity itself. And what are you using to measure salinity after mixing. This salt seems unforgiving in terms of mistakes..
If you are doing regular water changes at this point you shouldn’t need to dose alk/ca at this juncture. But I do use All for Reef and been doing so for years on my current tank.
I think once the water issue is solved it will solve a lot of the issues.
On to phosphates and nitrates - water changes def helps with nitrates -I find it doesn’t do much for phosphate but having “old rocks” may be leaching po4 back into my tank.
Given the high nitrates and phosphate-another solution is carbon dosing. But this you will need a doser as precision matters. Not sure how big your tank is- but there is a difference between 1.7 and 2.0 Red Sea Coral Pro salt ml in terms of
Impact for example. It really does a good job of kicking nitrates in the shin. Does ok on phosphate but it can stall. You need to test nitrate regularly to make sure it doesn’t fall through the floor. I use tropic Marin’s bacto balance for that. I know people use vinegar or vodka but I find that it helps to have some guidance from a company on a starting point for ml/gal.
Little curious to what your LFS guy did with the lanth? Seems a bit peculiar..
All this will be sorted out but it takes time.
Ok looking at those numbers -
PH-is that the average, high, or low?
For softies -almost doesn’t matter what your PH I find -but for for acros, other sensitive sps they tend to do better (in my tank) at 8ish at the low.
Alk & CA are acceptable currently but way off for what you should be getting given your current tank set up and choice of salt. It really sounds like precipitation is occurring or measurement error -but given both low numbers I am leaning precipitation- how much are you mixing it (in time) and are you using it immediately? Given your comment about irregular WC’s made me wonder. Red Sea actually makes a point about using it immediately. Also are you taking measurements with each batch as to ca, alk, and salinity itself. And what are you using to measure salinity after mixing. This salt seems unforgiving in terms of mistakes..
If you are doing regular water changes at this point you shouldn’t need to dose alk/ca at this juncture. But I do use All for Reef and been doing so for years on my current tank.
I think once the water issue is solved it will solve a lot of the issues.
On to phosphates and nitrates - water changes def helps with nitrates -I find it doesn’t do much for phosphate but having “old rocks” may be leaching po4 back into my tank.
Given the high nitrates and phosphate-another solution is carbon dosing. But this you will need a doser as precision matters. Not sure how big your tank is- but there is a difference between 1.7 and 2.0 Red Sea Coral Pro salt ml in terms of
Impact for example. It really does a good job of kicking nitrates in the shin. Does ok on phosphate but it can stall. You need to test nitrate regularly to make sure it doesn’t fall through the floor. I use tropic Marin’s bacto balance for that. I know people use vinegar or vodka but I find that it helps to have some guidance from a company on a starting point for ml/gal.
Little curious to what your LFS guy did with the lanth? Seems a bit peculiar..
All this will be sorted out but it takes time.
I make saltwater and mix them using a pump overnight along with a heater ( I add heater a night before I plan to do WC). but I usually don’t use it immediately the next day, just want to keep it in reserve.. I think Thomas shared a video about the same in the past where Instant Ocean is OK if mixed and kept for days, but RedSea Salt isn’t.. honestly though, I have done a WC only twice in last 2 months. I do keep Carbon 0.8 Rox in my sump, not sure if you meant the same when you said Carbon dosing or something else.. I have a 230g tank.. My LFS guy dosed LC when my tak showed high phosphates on day 1, without any bioload.. it didn’t make a dent and kept creeping up to the level I have currently.
As a side note, I heard so many debates that WC is or is not necessary.. can people swear by water changes and say with certainty that nutrients imbalances will be resolved if I do 25% WC every week for 2 months? Not questioning the advice, but I just hope someone can raise their hand and say - hey, I had the same issues and it got resolved with WC x times every y days.. will boost my confidence to do WC religiously (not saying that I would not do it otherwise
).. there is so much advice on the internet, and people suggests WC for things like ich treatment as well lol, just looking for real advice from a team of pros in this forumThere are a lot of ways to run a tank. You should listen to the different viewpoints and figure out how you want to run your tank. This will inevitably change with time as you try new things.
My number one piece of advice is to make sure you are measuring salinity correctly. This was one of my biggest mistakes when I started my tank. This resulted in me purchasing 5 different instruments to measure salinity, of which I returned 3 of them. My key learning is to make your own calibration solution. Specifically, to make 35 PSU calibration solution mix 3.788grams of table salt into 100ml of RODI. You can get a microgram scale on Amazon to measure the salt. Unless you are using a Tropic Marine Hydrometer for the VeeGee STX-3 Refractometer there is a decent chance your salinity is off. It may not be by much but getting your salinity right may reduce the need to dose alk/cal/mag.
My #2 advice is to get your nutrient import and export under control. When I started my tank I fed the fish way too much. Now I only feed enough so that it is all consumed in less than a minute. I feed mostly frozen food (3.5 cubes per day, rinsed with RODI) and a very very small amount of pellets 1-2 times a day (emphasis on very small amount!). I also feed one nori sheet in a 112g display tank + 30 gallon sump. You certainly need to feed more given your tank size and fish load but it sounds like you are over feeding. If you don’t have a Reefmat or something similar that would be worth looking into.
The rest is really up to you. To lower nitrates sometimes people carbon dose. I have no experience with that since I have low nitrate issues.
I used to run a refugium but took it offline since it didn’t seem to do much and I prefer a clean sump. Even with no refugium my phosphates can get as low as 0.03ppm and nitrates near zero. If you want a more natural way to reduce nitrates you can buy a couple gallons of Seachem Matrix and add it to your sump. I added two gallons of Seachem Matrix to my system but ended up removing half of it since my nitrates kept bottoming out. To keep the sump tidy I put the matrix in small mesh bags which can be easily added and removed.
For phosphates the two main chemical or media options are GFO or lanthanum chloride. Both have their pros and cons. I prefer lanthanum chloride but I dose it very carefully (highly diluted slow drip over 24 hours into an high flow area in my sump). Thankfully I have not had to use LC for over 2 years. If you are dosing LC you may either be dosing too little or your rocks and sand are so saturated with phosphate that some is being released into the water column as you remove it with LC. If you got your live rock from an LFS, it may have come completely infused with phosphate and it could take months to extract the phosphate from the rock. If you want to remove the phosphates from the rock quicker, you treat the rockscape in a holding bin with LC. This requires unmounting all the coral but if you tank is new it will be easier to do now than later.
If you want to test whether your rocks leach phosphate. Add a piece of rockscape into a container of fresh saltwater. Let it sit for a day or two and test the phosphate level.
Salt: I don’t believe there is much difference between the various salt brands other than 1) some salts mix much cleaner than others, and 2) some are more expensive than others. The most common salt amongst the coral farmers and high end SPS vendors is Reef Crystals or Instant Ocean. These also happen to be very economical but also mix dirty due to the use of decaking agents (harmless but an eye sore). I have used Red Sea Coral Pro, Tropic Marine Pro Reef, and Nyos Pure. The TM and Nyos mix very cleanly and quickly, but they are not cheap. The RedSea ProReef works fine but has very high alk and mixes dirty. I mostly use Nyos Pure since I prefer a clean mixing salt and Nyos Pure can be found at same price or cheaper than Tropic Marine if you wait for sales. Nyos also has alk of 8.5 (around the level I keep my tank) whereas Tropic Marine is 7.0.
If you test magnesium and it is low, I have a bunch of solution sitting around which you are welcome
To have. I have not had to dose mag for over two years and no longer test for it (other than via ICPs).
My number one piece of advice is to make sure you are measuring salinity correctly. This was one of my biggest mistakes when I started my tank. This resulted in me purchasing 5 different instruments to measure salinity, of which I returned 3 of them. My key learning is to make your own calibration solution. Specifically, to make 35 PSU calibration solution mix 3.788grams of table salt into 100ml of RODI. You can get a microgram scale on Amazon to measure the salt. Unless you are using a Tropic Marine Hydrometer for the VeeGee STX-3 Refractometer there is a decent chance your salinity is off. It may not be by much but getting your salinity right may reduce the need to dose alk/cal/mag.
My #2 advice is to get your nutrient import and export under control. When I started my tank I fed the fish way too much. Now I only feed enough so that it is all consumed in less than a minute. I feed mostly frozen food (3.5 cubes per day, rinsed with RODI) and a very very small amount of pellets 1-2 times a day (emphasis on very small amount!). I also feed one nori sheet in a 112g display tank + 30 gallon sump. You certainly need to feed more given your tank size and fish load but it sounds like you are over feeding. If you don’t have a Reefmat or something similar that would be worth looking into.
The rest is really up to you. To lower nitrates sometimes people carbon dose. I have no experience with that since I have low nitrate issues.
I used to run a refugium but took it offline since it didn’t seem to do much and I prefer a clean sump. Even with no refugium my phosphates can get as low as 0.03ppm and nitrates near zero. If you want a more natural way to reduce nitrates you can buy a couple gallons of Seachem Matrix and add it to your sump. I added two gallons of Seachem Matrix to my system but ended up removing half of it since my nitrates kept bottoming out. To keep the sump tidy I put the matrix in small mesh bags which can be easily added and removed.
For phosphates the two main chemical or media options are GFO or lanthanum chloride. Both have their pros and cons. I prefer lanthanum chloride but I dose it very carefully (highly diluted slow drip over 24 hours into an high flow area in my sump). Thankfully I have not had to use LC for over 2 years. If you are dosing LC you may either be dosing too little or your rocks and sand are so saturated with phosphate that some is being released into the water column as you remove it with LC. If you got your live rock from an LFS, it may have come completely infused with phosphate and it could take months to extract the phosphate from the rock. If you want to remove the phosphates from the rock quicker, you treat the rockscape in a holding bin with LC. This requires unmounting all the coral but if you tank is new it will be easier to do now than later.
If you want to test whether your rocks leach phosphate. Add a piece of rockscape into a container of fresh saltwater. Let it sit for a day or two and test the phosphate level.
Salt: I don’t believe there is much difference between the various salt brands other than 1) some salts mix much cleaner than others, and 2) some are more expensive than others. The most common salt amongst the coral farmers and high end SPS vendors is Reef Crystals or Instant Ocean. These also happen to be very economical but also mix dirty due to the use of decaking agents (harmless but an eye sore). I have used Red Sea Coral Pro, Tropic Marine Pro Reef, and Nyos Pure. The TM and Nyos mix very cleanly and quickly, but they are not cheap. The RedSea ProReef works fine but has very high alk and mixes dirty. I mostly use Nyos Pure since I prefer a clean mixing salt and Nyos Pure can be found at same price or cheaper than Tropic Marine if you wait for sales. Nyos also has alk of 8.5 (around the level I keep my tank) whereas Tropic Marine is 7.0.
If you test magnesium and it is low, I have a bunch of solution sitting around which you are welcome
To have. I have not had to dose mag for over two years and no longer test for it (other than via ICPs).
Alexander1312
Supporting Member
Lawrence made a good point. The coral pro needs to be used a few hours after mixing. So your method does not work well for this type of salt.
something else. Carbon dosing is, some use vodka, some use reef products, good in feeding bacteria which accelerates consuming nutrients. @L/B Block I believe you are referring to Elimi NP not Bacto Balance. Elimi NP is TM’s carbon dosing product, and quite good.
This is odd and something was done wrong. It works in 100% of the cases if done correctly.
Yes, I swear.
Seriously, there is nothing sure in this hobby, except that things might go fundamentally wrong. If you cannot live with the uncertainty, then this will be challenging for you.
Water changes are a way. I change 40-50 gallon weekly to keep my nutrients in a semi ok state in a 150 gallon tank. I have been doing this for months. If you are concerned with water changes, find a way to make them easy. It might not fix the issue, specifically not for phosphate, Lawrence is correct, but lowering nitrates is difficult doing it in other ways except carbon dosing. You can read in my journal what I have started doing.
Not questioning the advice, but I just hope someone can raise their hand and say - hey, I had the same issues and it got resolved with WC x times every y days.. will boost my confidence to do WC religiously (not saying that I would not do it otherwise
The post above has a great suggestion: Mix fresh saltwater and measure the Alk. Is it at the expected level? I just did this on my freshly mixed saltwater and it was dead on at 8.5 which means I need to fix the high Alk in my display tank
I mix 50 gallons of saltwater at a time. With Nyos Pure the salt is dissolved within 15 minutes or so but I often run the mixing pump for half an hour just in case.I make saltwater and mix them using a pump overnight along with a heater ( I add heater a night before I plan to do WC). but I usually don’t use it immediately the next day, just want to keep it in reserve.. I think Thomas shared a video about the same in the past where Instant Ocean is OK if mixed and kept for days, but RedSea Salt isn’t.. honestly though, I have done a WC only twice in last 2 months. I do keep Carbon 0.8 Rox in my sump, not sure if you meant the same when you said Carbon dosing or something else.. I have a 230g tank.. My LFS guy dosed LC when my tak showed high phosphates on day 1, without any bioload.. it didn’t make a dent and kept creeping up to the level I have currently.
As a side note, I heard so many debates that WC is or is not necessary.. can people swear by water changes and say with certainty that nutrients imbalances will be resolved if I do 25% WC every week for 2 months? Not questioning the advice, but I just hope someone can raise their hand and say - hey, I had the same issues and it got resolved with WC x times every y days.. will boost my confidence to do WC religiously (not saying that I would not do it otherwise
For water changes: you likely cannot go wrong with 10% a week or 15%-20% every two weeks. Can you run a reef tank with no water changes? Sure you can but more of the absolutely stunning tanks do water changes. If you don’t like doing water changes for some reason you can try to make the process easier. If I just wanted to pump out 10% of my tank water and replace it with fresh saltwater form my storage barrel I could do that in 10 minutes or less using the Sicce Zero pumping have connected to a Python hose. Of course water changes take me longer since I use that time to scrape down the display tank and do some basic maintenance.
Last edited:
PizzaOven
Supporting Member
I think the advice of weekly ~20% water change is a good starting point. It's much more forgiving than trying to manage nutrient export, trace elements, algae, etc. without water changes. Of course, there are plenty of successful and amazing looking tanks that don't do regular WC, but this is a harder recipe for success IMO.
If I were in your shoes, I would work on getting nutrients under control through large regular water changes to start. I would also add a lot of fast-growing soft coral to soak up nutrients and shade rock/sand. Long term you can dial back water changes through other means (GFO, LC, Carbon dosing, etc.), but these require careful dosing and testing.
Thales
Past President
Ah, gotcha, great reasoning. Then mess with the levels!sometimes simplest questions are the best.. this one made me think
That said, I have kept corals growing and spawning at those levels.
Coral reefer
Past President
Reef crystals isn’t the same as purple box instant ocean
@Alexander1312 -tropic Marin has two different carbon dosing products-Elon-np and bacto balance depending on the starting N.
@spuri87-not to reiterate the points above but to add another viewpoint on WC? Do you have an apex on your tank (or hydros). One thing that we did with the house remodel was to have a drain that the tubing goes into so I am doing an about 1.5 gal water change per day which amounts to about 15% water change per week. I was going without it for a bit-which was fine for about 3 months and then trace elements were getting out of whack (ICP) -easiest way to fix is water changes.
If you have an apex you can borrow my DOS for a bit -currently not in use.
But it was Kensington reefer who said it best in that w/o water changes it’s like being in an elevator with someone farting to that effect.
For this tank we are using natural sea water (NSW). We have only a 60 gallon so affordable at full price. But it’s something I don’t have to mix -stays steady over the week and gives some exercise hauling water jugs up/down my stairs. It may be cheaper to have it delivered between the salt buckets and your water bill making RODI water..
Also as someone said -rollermats can really help. I have one. When I had to wait for a replacement part my nutrients really jumped
That week.
. @spuri87-not to reiterate the points above but to add another viewpoint on WC? Do you have an apex on your tank (or hydros). One thing that we did with the house remodel was to have a drain that the tubing goes into so I am doing an about 1.5 gal water change per day which amounts to about 15% water change per week. I was going without it for a bit-which was fine for about 3 months and then trace elements were getting out of whack (ICP) -easiest way to fix is water changes.
If you have an apex you can borrow my DOS for a bit -currently not in use.
But it was Kensington reefer who said it best in that w/o water changes it’s like being in an elevator with someone farting to that effect.
For this tank we are using natural sea water (NSW). We have only a 60 gallon so affordable at full price. But it’s something I don’t have to mix -stays steady over the week and gives some exercise hauling water jugs up/down my stairs. It may be cheaper to have it delivered between the salt buckets and your water bill making RODI water..
Also as someone said -rollermats can really help. I have one. When I had to wait for a replacement part my nutrients really jumped
That week.
Alexander1312
Supporting Member
Technically yes, but Bacto Balance also has nutrients in there and should not be used for nutrient reduction but nutrient maintenance. Only Elimi NP is their true carbon dosing product which acts less aggressively and immediately than eg Vodka does and is therefore my preference over these cheaper forms of carbon dosing.@Alexander1312 -tropic Marin has two different carbon dosing products-Elon-np and bacto balance depending on the starting N
@Alexander1312 -technically yes. However, at the time my need for nitrate reduction vs Phosphate reduction was significantly less so went with bacto balance as it a little softer on the nitrates. @spuri87 may indeed be better served by the Elim-NP if he goes that route. Also quite interesting -so I had it stable at 8 NO3 and .3 PO4 but wanted to bring down the Phosphate a bit more for a better N/P ratio. When I added diluted lanth-yanked my nitrate down with it to 1.1 in a week until I interjected sodium nitrate to get it back up. Slowly readjusting the lanth and carbon dosing so I don't need to dose nitrate.
btw @Alexander1312 - I don't mean to be using emojis- I think certain characters are invoking it
Coral reefer
Past President
Not sure how or why lanthanum chloride “didn’t work”
In using it on multiple systems with what I would call great results. Dosing pump adding tiny bits of diluted solution directly into skimmer body