Alkalinity/Calcium Daily drop with no livestock

[Brew12]

Lol,
What is the "Redfield ratio" used for?

As Randy stated, it is the ratio of carbon, nitrate, and phosphate that phytoplankton consume to grow and reproduce. Since phytoplankton is used as a food source for many corals (and other tank inhabitants) it is used as a goal for the desired balance of nitrates to phosphates. Most hobbyists leave the carbon out since they prefer to deal with Alkalinity. It is very difficult to carry out the ratio and most people actually go much higher on the nitrate side.

 

[anit77]

As Randy stated, it is the ratio of carbon, nitrate, and phosphate that phytoplankton consume to grow and reproduce. Since phytoplankton is used as a food source for many corals (and other tank inhabitants) it is used as a goal for the desired balance of nitrates to phosphates. Most hobbyists leave the carbon out since they prefer to deal with Alkalinity. It is very difficult to carry out the ratio and most people actually go much higher on the nitrate side.

Given that, is it better to get the alk consumption under control before worrying about anything else?

 

[GoVols]

As Randy stated, it is the ratio of carbon, nitrate, and phosphate that phytoplankton consume to grow and reproduce. Since phytoplankton is used as a food source for many corals (and other tank inhabitants) it is used as a goal for the desired balance of nitrates to phosphates. Most hobbyists leave the carbon out since they prefer to deal with Alkalinity. It is very difficult to carry out the ratio and most people actually go much higher on the nitrate side.

Thank you for explaining.
I use Randy's water parameter article for my goals.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/

 

[Brew12]

Given that, is it better to get the alk consumption under control before worrying about anything else?

I have a feeling that it will all come together fairly quickly now that he is getting back to the basics. I would be surprised if he is dosing anything 1 month from now and that his regular water changes will keep his system nice and stable. Well, at least until he gets more coralline/coral growth.

 

[GoVols]

I have a feeling that it will all come together fairly quickly now that he is getting back to the basics. I would be surprised if he is dosing anything 1 month from now and that his regular water changes will keep his system nice and stable. Well, at least until he gets more coralline/coral growth.

+1

 

[alanjeffery]

STOP STOP STOP all the dosing this adding that chasing numbers game, and adding another potion when you don't get the test results you want.
Its a never ending downward spiral, you just end up adding new unknown chemical potions in an attempt to undo the damage done by the chemical you were adding before, to undo the damage of the chemical before......I could go on and on but i hope you get the point .
Ask yourself how much you have spent on unrequired chemicals since you began, could have bought a lot of sweet frags instead.
You got sucked in big time (We are all guilty of falling for this to some degree) by all the hype that is geared toward making you spend many bucks on pretty coloured bottles of snake oil.
In a tank with a low level of livestock, regular good quality water changes (by quality i mean RODI and a quality salt) should be sufficient to maintain adequate water parameters.
You don't start by pouring in all sorts of chemicals and chasing numbers, get the right foundation first. Slowly build up livestock and monitor parameters with regular testing. THEN AND ONLY THEN begin to use additives if the results of your testing tells you that your water changes are not maintaining natural sea water parameters. Keep things in balance, adding one chemical could cause another to fall out of line. The old saying "only dose what you can test for" If you haven't tested and determined that you have a chemical deficiency DONT DOSE.
I hope i haven't come across as preaching, i just felt this thread was long overdue a "dose" of straight talking. Judging from the full tank pic you seem to be off to a good start with the hardware, now just allow the chemical/biological part to balance out naturally. I think you have tried to run before you learned to walk.

One final point, have a look at any online marine aquatics dealer and see which of the their dry goods section has the most product lines.
Why do you think that is?

 

[xilez]

^^ this guy clearly did not read the thread.

 

[Myka]

I think the tank already has quite a lot of fish as he is feeding heavily.

I think you're confusing the OP with GoVols maybe? My post was directed to the OP, @Jeff Miotke . Read the thread title "no livestock". He has a couple Clowns and something else I think in a 75-gallon. Certainly not many fish, nor heavy feeding.

I hope i haven't come across as preaching, i just felt this thread was long overdue a "dose" of straight talking. Judging from the full tank pic you seem to be off to a good start with the hardware, now just allow the chemical/biological part to balance out naturally. I think you have tried to run before you learned to walk.

I tried that this morning, but my post was run over.

 

[Anirban]

I think you're confusing the OP with GoVols maybe? My post was directed to the OP, @Jeff Miotke . Read the thread title "no livestock". He has a couple Clowns and something else I think in a 75-gallon. Certainly not many fish, nor heavy feeding.

I think you missed the first post.....and the post 70
He said..."I feed like 40 pellets of ocean nutrition formula2 at a time for the 8 fish two to three times per day plus a cube of brine shrimp or mysis soaked with .5ml selcon. This is heavy right?"

I think thats not few fish right nor low feeding

 

[Brew12]

I think you're confusing the OP with GoVols maybe? My post was directed to the OP, @Jeff Miotke . Read the thread title "no livestock". He has a couple Clowns and something else I think in a 75-gallon. Certainly not many fish, nor heavy feeding.

When the OP said "no livestock" he was referring to no livestock that should be consuming alkalinity or calcium. He actually has a quite a few fish in the system based on the FTS he posted.

 

[Jeff Miotke]

When the OP said "no livestock" he was referring to no livestock that should be consuming alkalinity or calcium. He actually has a quite a few fish in the system based on the FTS he posted.

You are correct Brew12. That is exactly what I meant in the post title though looking back I can see how it isn't very accurate. Oh well.

 

[Brew12]

You are correct Brew12. That is exactly what I meant in the post title though looking back I can see how it isn't very accurate. Oh well.

The important thing... do you feel good with the direction you are heading or do you still have more concerns?

 

[Jeff Miotke]

STOP STOP STOP all the dosing this adding that chasing numbers game, and adding another potion when you don't get the test results you want.
Its a never ending downward spiral, you just end up adding new unknown chemical potions in an attempt to undo the damage done by the chemical you were adding before, to undo the damage of the chemical before......I could go on and on but i hope you get the point .
Ask yourself how much you have spent on unrequired chemicals since you began, could have bought a lot of sweet frags instead.
You got sucked in big time (We are all guilty of falling for this to some degree) by all the hype that is geared toward making you spend many bucks on pretty coloured bottles of snake oil.
In a tank with a low level of livestock, regular good quality water changes (by quality i mean RODI and a quality salt) should be sufficient to maintain adequate water parameters.
You don't start by pouring in all sorts of chemicals and chasing numbers, get the right foundation first. Slowly build up livestock and monitor parameters with regular testing. THEN AND ONLY THEN begin to use additives if the results of your testing tells you that your water changes are not maintaining natural sea water parameters. Keep things in balance, adding one chemical could cause another to fall out of line. The old saying "only dose what you can test for" If you haven't tested and determined that you have a chemical deficiency DONT DOSE.
I hope i haven't come across as preaching, i just felt this thread was long overdue a "dose" of straight talking. Judging from the full tank pic you seem to be off to a good start with the hardware, now just allow the chemical/biological part to balance out naturally. I think you have tried to run before you learned to walk.

One final point, have a look at any online marine aquatics dealer and see which of the their dry goods section has the most product lines.
Why do you think that is?

I think it is pretty clear in this post that I made a huge mistake. Let me explain how that mistake happened.

I have been out of the reef hobby for 20 years and my previous time was short lived due to relocating. I have been doing freshwater planted tanks in the meantime quite successfully. When I got the itch to get back into the reef hobby last year, I wanted to simplify things by using a system and a set of products designed to be used together. There are a few of them out there and after reading the information on them I decided to proceed with Aquaforest. As I wanted to keep SPS i followed their guide for "SPS Coral aquarium run by Aquaforest Probiotic Method".

Here is the guide and what I did:

"1. Disolve the salt, add nitrification bacteria and filter media"
9/3/2016 Dissolved the probiotic salt and added BioS per the instrutions. Filter media was protein skimmer, GAC and a marine Pure block and filter socks.

"2. Populate the aquarium no sooner than 14 days from day 1(If NO2 and NH4 are not present).We recommend that every animal or coral is introduced into the aquarium gradually so the biological balance is not disturbed."
10/26/2016 there was no measured values of NH4 or NO2. Added 2 clownfish and seven frags of LPS, SPS and Zoas. Started dosing NP Pro and Pro BioS as shown in the guide. Also during this time I had another 20 frags in QT waiting to be placed in the display tank.

"3. After the settlement of life in aquarium we recommend to use following products: (If the tests show decreases of Ca, KH, Mg)"
My tests clearly showed that Ca and KH were low. I started dosing the Component 123 as per the guide.

"4. Feeding livestock. The dosage of each supplement depends on the number, size of fish and corals as well as quantity of administered food."
I was dosing the AF Energy, AF Build, AF Amino Mix and AF Vitality per the instructions on the bottles.

So I followed the guide. Maybe my interpretation of the guide was bad. Maybe I missed something in the guide, maybe some fine print somewhere. What was my mistake? Following the guide?

Anyhow this is the result of following the guide and what I have done since then:
There were signs that things were not going well. Like tank uglies with brown and red slime appearing for a week and then dissappearing and then coming back even worse. Corals slowly browning and losing color. STN of the SPS. By the end of November I knew things were not right and sought out help from the LFS and local reef club. They advised me to stop AF line of products and go to tried and true products. That is what I did. I used BRS 2 part to try to increase the ever falling values of CA and KH to see if I could stabalize the system. Which obviously failed and noone could explain why they were falling in the first place accept for precipitation. Which I could not find in the tank. I even did a reset of the water (90% at least) with the AF Reef Salt (no probiotic). Ive stopped dosing altogether and let the KH value bottom out in the low 5's. Then tried to bring up the values by 2 part dosing. To make matters worse no matter how much Ive overfed the fish the NO3 and PO4 levels are measuring 0. Anyhow, now I'm here and I think Brew12 has given me solid advice which I am following. For the first time in weeks I feel hope.

 

[Myka]

I think you missed the first post.....and the post 70
He said..."I feed like 40 pellets of ocean nutrition formula2 at a time for the 8 fish two to three times per day plus a cube of brine shrimp or mysis soaked with .5ml selcon. This is heavy right?"

I think thats not few fish right nor low feeding

You are correct, I didn't read further than the full tank shot. You're referring to this FTS?

The tank looks like it was set up yesterday. The tank has no measurable NO3 or PO4. The tank needs fish poop. It also needs some of the nutrient reduction methods decreased.

 

[Myka]

I think it is pretty clear in this post that I made a huge mistake. Let me explain how that mistake happened.

So regardless of how you got to where you are now, what are you going to do from this day forward to correct the situation? What are you going to dose? What changes are you going to make? How do you plan to increase nutrients in the water column? Your thread has gotten really messy...

 

[GoVols]

So regardless of how you go to where you are now, what are you going to do from this day forward to correct the situation? What are you going to dose? What changes are you going to make? How do you plan to increase nutrients in the water column? Your thread has gotten really messy...

He is following @Brew12 guidance and that speaks for itself.

Everyone understands how things went wrong from the start. He's on his way to better days and please let Brew get OP's reef stable.

 

[Jeff Miotke]

So regardless of how you got to where you are now, what are you going to do from this day forward to correct the situation? What are you going to dose? What changes are you going to make? How do you plan to increase nutrients in the water column? Your thread has gotten really messy...

Yes it has!

Here is my take from the advice given:

Stop water changes
Start dosing 1ppm of NO3/day and shoot for around 4ppm
Keep feeding pellet foods but stop feeding frozen until tank stabilizes
Slow dose 2 part throughout the 24 hour day to maintain CA/KH values (420-430 and 7 to 8)
Add a few corals/cuc
And wait and observe.

 

[Myka]

He is following @Brew12 guidance and that speaks for itself.

Everyone understands how things went wrong from the start. He's on his way to better days and please let Brew get OP's reef stable.

Er... what????

 

[GoVols]

Er... what????

If ... you ... would ... kindly ... read ... this ... thread ... all ... the ... way ... through ...

@Brew12 has already gave him the guidance he needs.

 

[Myka]

Yes it has!

Here is my take from the advice given:

Stop water changes
Start dosing 1ppm of NO3/day and shoot for around 4ppm
Keep feeding pellet foods but stop feeding frozen until tank stabilizes
Slow dose 2 part throughout the 24 hour day to maintain CA/KH values (420-430 and 7 to 8)
Add a few corals/cuc
And wait and observe.

Great!! Didn't you say PO4 was undetectable? You may hit "absolute zero" PO4 if you dose NO3 without also adding PO4, and that would be very bad. The pellet approach may help this situation though since pellets are high in phosphate, just be aware it could happen. I have nitrate dosed with great success many times, but when I tried it on my current reef about a year and a half ago, I hit absolute zero PO4, and it took months for the Acros to recover.

Are you still adding any bacteria/NP Pro or using any other nutrient reduction resins/medias/liquids/etc? If so, if you cut that back then your tank may be able to repair itself which is always the easy answer. For example, I was in a similar situation as you last year (after recovering from the NO3 dosing lol), with no nutrients. I was also using Aquaforest (currently for over a year now). I stopped using Pro BioS/NP Pro, removed the Siporax from the sump, and started removing the skimmer cup at night (left skimmer running). That's all it took to get some nutrients in my tank, well that and feeding the fish 5x per day.

Keep us updated!