1 yo...160g sw volume... corals not growing well

[kris2001]

My expensive blasto I've had for a month without issues developed a tear in the skin. What to do? Her babies are ok though, but they're facing away from the reef brite xho....
Blasto is under a ledge so no direct light from MH, t5....

Last week i killed a small aiptasia right between the heads of blasto, using kalk.
I ensured the blasto didn't get the kalk...

And...

My DT is year old. I have a mixed reef. Mushroom,
Euphylia does well. Sps don't grow fast even monti grow slow rate. Cyphastrea very slow. Frag tank has led... same growth there, so it's the sw quality.

A goldmeister chalice does well at the bottom.

Lights are MH 250WX2, 2 t5 blue, 1 reef brite xho in the front at an angle into the side of front.... hitting the blasto.... its 2 feet away from xho.

Parameters are normal. Reef crystals Wc 20% monthly. No dosing since nothing gets depleted!

I dose coralamino weekly 10ml... into rodi reservoir.

I feed DT daily with fish food, roids...i have 10 fish.

Skimmer, vodka dosing 2 min daily, phosphate rx 12 drops once a month between wc....

ANN zero, alk 7.5 -8 dkh, ca 400, mg 1500, po4 is .05 to .08 ppm ...

Temp is 78f.

Chaeto doesn't grow well.

Question is 2 fold:

1) after a year i still don't see good growth, even zoa don't encrust...
What's wrong with my system. ..?

Is it because i started with dry rock since last Halloween?

2) is the xho too intense for that blasto?
Without it he's literally heavy shade!

Pls advice thx
Kris

 

[DC Reefer]

Not sure what ANN is? What is your nitrate level?

 

[kris2001]

Not sure what ANN is? What is your nitrate level?

ANN is ammonia nitrite nitrate.

Nitrates always been zero. Just tested again today it's zero.

I hear you need some nitrates for the reef...

Can i increase it by feeding more, but then po4 might shoot up

 

[Bfragale]

In my experience you need no3 and po4 in the system. My po4 at .7 no3 at 25 ppm. All corals are happy - you might have too low for the corals likings.

 

[Super Fly]

Skimmer, vodka dosing 2 min daily, phosphate rx 12 drops once a month between wc....

ANN zero, alk 7.5 -8 dkh, ca 400, mg 1500, po4 is .05 to .08 ppm ...

agree w @Bfragale, think ur water's too clean. My PO4 sometimes goes to 0.16-0.18 w no adverse results. May I ask why u r dosing vodka and PO4 RX?

 

[DC Reefer]

I was able to get my nitrates up by supplementing my frozen foods with PE pellets. Once it started to rise I did notice some of my corals which were getting pretty grey started getting some color back and one that was mostly dead now has some new growth coming in. I also started dosing KZ Flatworm stop a couple of weeks ago which may be contributing also.

 

[kris2001]

Oh my , In my last build I had corals growing great , except a few... When I started this build my PO4 was very high , I ran GFO 2 months then weaned off and did vodka . I reduced that too to like 2 min daily in BRS doser ~ 2.5 ml / daily.

Sea water has No3 at 0.7 ppm and Po4 at 0.03... Thought we must mimic it

When my PO4 hits 0.1 or more I do phosphate RX 12 drops and it reduces it to half.

No wonder chaeto does not grow LOL.

So what must my target No3 and Po4 be to get some growth/color. Without aiding any HA growth?

Shall I shoot for .2 ppm po4 and 5 ppm No3?

I just turned off Vodka dosing... All i need to do is feed and wait for po4 to climb... and not dose po4 Rx.

BTW if I do wc every 6 weeks that wont help since corals need other mineral elements to grow healthy.

Superfly and befragile:
Do you run any chaeto ?

 

[TDEcoral]

I know this is controversial, but I think starting with dry rock has something to do with it.

 

[Uncle99]

I keep mine balanced, phosphate around 1/10th of nitrate.
So for a phosphate of .1ppm I would run nitrate at 5-10ppm

 

[kris2001]

I know this is controversial, but I think starting with dry rock has something to do with it.

Forgot to add , base rock was seeded with like 20% live rock... I have pods running around now too.

 

[kris2001]

I even run my skimmer quite thick/dry instead of wet skimming ... I think it is a good thing since the organics won't be skimmed heavily Shall I run skimmer alternate days to increase Po4 and No3 in DT?

 

[kris2001]

I keep mine balanced, phosphate around 1/10th of nitrate.
So for a phosphate of .1ppm I would run nitrate at 5-10ppm

Nice DT...btw that ratio needs another zero in it ..eg : 0.1 ppm po4 : 10 ppm no3 is 100 times

 

[Uncle99]

Nice DT...btw that ratio needs another zero in it ..eg : 0.1 ppm po4 : 10 ppm no3 is 100 times

Right on....lousy at the math thing

 

[Flippers4pups]

I wouldn't dose anything. No vodka, no Phosphate remover...... Just normal water changes and feed the tank.

Me, I'm old school. 10 gallon weekly water change on a 240 gallon total water system that's 5 years old now. I add calcium hydroxide (Kalkwasser) to my ATO reservoir. My system runs around 40+ N03 and P04 around .04. I dose Phosphate when it get low. I don't dose anything else. Every tank is different.

 

[Super Fly]

Oh my , In my last build I had corals growing great , except a few... When I started this build my PO4 was very high , I ran GFO 2 months then weaned off and did vodka . I reduced that too to like 2 min daily in BRS doser ~ 2.5 ml / daily.

Sea water has No3 at 0.7 ppm and Po4 at 0.03... Thought we must mimic it

When my PO4 hits 0.1 or more I do phosphate RX 12 drops and it reduces it to half.

No wonder chaeto does not grow LOL.

So what must my target No3 and Po4 be to get some growth/color. Without aiding any HA growth?

Shall I shoot for .2 ppm po4 and 5 ppm No3?

I just turned off Vodka dosing... All i need to do is feed and wait for po4 to climb... and not dose po4 Rx.

BTW if I do wc every 6 weeks that wont help since corals need other mineral elements to grow healthy.

Superfly and befragile:
Do you run any chaeto ?

I wouldn't dose anything. No vodka, no Phosphate remover...... Just normal water changes and feed the tank.

Me, I'm old school. 10 gallon weekly water change on a 240 gallon total water system that's 5 years old now. I add calcium hydroxide (Kalkwasser) to my ATO reservoir. My system runs around 40+ N03 and P04 around .04. I dose Phosphate when it get low. I don't dose anything else. Every tank is different.

Can't grow chaeto for the life of me, some folks just can't for some reason. Instead I grow caulerpa for NO3 control and it grows well. Like @Flippers4pups said, each tank is different so try and play around with your tank's levels to determine which is the NO3 to PO4 ratio sweet spot for your tank. One you've established it, then maintain at that level... I'd let the corals be your guide instead of chasing the "recommended" levels, as long as they're looking happy and colorful w/o any nuisance algae. Here's some eye candy for ya

 

[kris2001]

Ok I'm not doing wc, no dosing, just feed daily that's it.

Targeting:
Maintain po4 at 0.1ppm max... panic at 0.5 ppm , nitrate @ 10 ppm.

By not running skimmer for couple weeks will it get to my result fairly easily?

Silly question but replacing filter sock biweekly would help building nitrates right?

 

[Super Fly]

yes reducing skimmer will help raise PO4 as well as reducing filter sock cleaning/replacement... I only use filter sock for few days when i want to polish water, otherwise it's just cheap filter floss that I toss/replace weekly. I would monitor PO4 levels often while skimmer is off to determine ideal skimmer run time for your tank.

 

[kris2001]

Great.

Also my alk is 7 dkh...my zoa are struggling.
Need to raise slowly by dosing alk diy randy's recipe....
Targeting 9dkh slowly.

I know increasing it fast would stress coral....

What's the ideal rate of increase?

How about 0.50 dkh every 2 - 3 days?

It's safe right?

I'm dosing using BRS DOSER every 6 hr...2 min run time each time... for a start.

 

[Uncle99]

.5 dkh every 2-3 days is more than fine.

 

[Peng1606]

I had same problem. Had reef tanks previously using the lazy man technique ie didn’t do much other than occasional water change... and they did well. Corals grew etc...But also had aiptasia, hair algae etc.
Then set up my 650 gallon tank (750 gallons total) and decided to run biopellets, skim heavily... was going for clean system with no hair algae etc. Nitrates 0, phos 0.... and corals didn’t last. They faded over 2-3 months, zoanthids shrunk and disappeared... reduced skimming and biopellets... added phosphate, nitrates, amino acids.... and now have nitrate 8-10, phosphate 0.1.... zoanthids have new polyps, corals frags showing growth.