Question for the Gurus

deville n reef · Aug 10, 2016

What would be the symptoms of water that was too clean ..??
Other than a total collapse ...??
Too clean for chaeto, xenias seem ok,
Gsp seems ok.,hammer seems OK,
But I've been at war with my skimmer not producing since the first 2 cups of thick black sewage..maybe a few chunks by morning is it all it will produce ..
Ph8.0 ,amm 0, trites 0, trates 0,
Kh 10.5, calc 420-440

DeniseAndy · Aug 10, 2016

Are those your only corals? What is your algae situation? brown, green, hair, none? Coralline? Quick look at numbers and dkh seems a bit high, but without more on tank inhabitants and such cannot say for sure.

What are your swings like for the alk, ph, temp? Over 24hrs? What are your lights and flow like?

mcarroll · Aug 10, 2016

I think you just skimmed all there is to skim - worry not.

However, if the skimmer is too over-sized for the system, it may have a little trouble forming a head that can get into the skimmer cup under normal circumstances. If nutrients are low, it may never skim "for real".

WetWhistle · Aug 10, 2016

Normally your corals will show you signs of it being to clean. Lack of coral growth, color issues in corals, polyps not extending the tissue fully, Chato\macro algae not growing, algae on the glass is slower in growth then it normally is are all common signs. If the corals look healthy you might not need to worry as already mentioned you might have skimmed what you need to. Just in case I would test all your parameters. If they end up being to clean you can start running your skimmer part time and turn it on and then off after a few days.

brandon429 · Aug 10, 2016

and I would add to that as well that clean water also doesn't have to correlate to coral starvation, because dissolved wastes should be low and swimming pods/floating plants and bacterial aggregates getting eaten live should be high (the ocean)

You can feed corals like a stallion and still have perfect water params if you can find that consumption or export before rot balance. target feeding, using live foods that self maintain in suspension until getting chomped, all keep the dissolved wastes really low while packing highest nutritional value to the predators, in this way mega clean water never starves corals.

JJ1796 · Aug 10, 2016

My water is what I would consider perfect too, stable parameters with zero nitrates. My skimmer only pulls stuff when I feed heavily for the most part. I only have to dump the cup maybe every couple weeks and it's not even full then. Just feed a little more and your chaeto will grow better, but if you have zero nitrates it's doing what it's supposed to do anyways. BTW your DKH is fine as long as it doesn't move up or down too much. Mine will swing about .5 depending on the time of day.

WetWhistle · Aug 11, 2016

brandon429 said:
and I would add to that as well that clean water also doesn't have to correlate to coral starvation, because dissolved wastes should be low and swimming pods/floating plants and bacterial aggregates getting eaten live should be high (the ocean)

You can feed corals like a stallion and still have perfect water parameters if you can find that consumption or export before rot balance. target feeding, using live foods that self maintain in suspension until getting chomped, all keep the dissolved wastes really low while packing highest nutritional value to the predators, in this way mega clean water never starves corals.

I totally agree. You can have low nutrients and if your corals are getting enough food they will be fine. I feed the crap out of my fish (they will get some food from this) and stir up detritus to feed my corals, my corals also get lots of live foods from my refugium. I have really low levels of nutrients but my corals are fine because they get supplemental foods to make up for the nutrient deficit. So tanks that are can still be very productive.

deville n reef · Aug 12, 2016

JJ1796 said:
My water is what I would consider perfect too, stable parameters with zero nitrates. My skimmer only pulls stuff when I feed heavily for the most part. I only have to dump the cup maybe every couple weeks and it's not even full then. Just feed a little more and your chaeto will grow better, but if you have zero nitrates it's doing what it's supposed to do anyways. BTW your DKH is fine as long as it doesn't move up or down too much. Mine will swing about .5 depending on the time of day.

Well let me shed some light on the alk being SOO dang high.
Ok I'm 2 years into reefing thought I knew it all and went and started a new reef with red sea coral pro..
Yes I know 15dkh and no calcium consuming inhabitants.
I've since traded the bucket of red sea for some io reef crystals.

deville n reef · Aug 12, 2016

Yes you all have definitely helped once again.
I appreciate all of you...
I added a new piece of cured in my backyard Fiji shelf so the tank would have some thing to do...u guys hit it on the head...
It's. StRted skimming after the new shelf and I fed my hammer a piece of frozen food boy he loves a nice treat bi weekly target fed my zoas the cloudy stuff and it went back to producing skim.
It is a bit large for my system but being a Coralife 65 super skim and the horror stories I read.I wasn't paying attention to venturi and the valve on the pump needs to be closed a bit in order to chop the water with air so...all the above and all of your wonderful input we are back...
And my chaeto died to be honest guys this is the other half reason why I was asking

deville n reef · Aug 12, 2016

I mean who can kill chaeto..?
My refugium is hang on and I'm almost sure if was the marble size piece I was sent I usually have to trim it back weekly same lighting so I was sort of just at a Lisa