Tank Going Downhill...

[Trena Cook]

Hi guys! My toadstool leather looks extremely unhappy (at least today some tentacles are out but they weren't for a few days), cabbage leather has looked better (often these days shiny/dark and smaller), pink devil zoas have been staying closed and dying off, GSP have looked better, frogspawn smaller/less inflated, some of the paly's are less green and edges curled under, and my SPS's are dead/dying. AND I can't find my sexy anemone shrimp yesterday or today, so he's either dead or moved, but he'd been in the same area for weeks. Some of this started a month or so ago, but the major issues have been in the last 1-2 weeks (the leathers and SPS's).

Today's Salifert testing:
NO3 10
PO4 0.75
KH 11.2
pH 8.2
MG2+ 1200 (I've ordered some Mg to supplement)
CA2+ 375
SG 1.025

We have chaeto, a new skimmer, a new sump with two Skimz mesh socks, and ATO, two Hydra 26 lights over our 120 gal aquarium with 28? gal sump. The ONLY thing that's really changed in last month is we've started using NoPox but as you can see, Nitrates/phosphates are just now down to a decent level and things seem to be getting worse instead of better. And we are using SeaChem Reef Builder in the top off water to raise/maintain alkalinity and it's working great. We used to run NO3 20-25 (but we didn't have the SPS's) and PO4 0-0.2 but we got up to a consistent NO3 50 and PO4 started climbing to 1.0 so that's when we started dosing about 10-12 ml of NoPox daily and cut our feeding. Otherwise, we have got a Kessil H380 to grow the chaeto and cut our food in half (frozen mysis, Marine Cuisine, and LRS rotated daily and a sheet of nori once a week for the hippo tang and lawnmower blenny.).

Ideas? Could it be the NoPox? Could the low Mg affect it this much?

Thanks!

 

[Big G]

Are you letting the frozen food "slump" in your fridge so you can pour off the excess liquid? That liquid is the nitrate and phosphate generator.

 

[vetteguy53081]

leathers especially when shedding look grumpy. Are you doing water changes and what is your temp and salinity reading?

 

[Hemmdog]

Calcium is low to. Not that they consume that, but for a happy reef environment you want to bump your cal and mag. It’s not the Nopox. Your skimmer is pulling stuff out right? You should need to dump it every 3-7 days.

 

[Dom]

Are you letting the frozen food "slump" in your fridge so you can pour off the excess liquid? That liquid is the nitrate and phosphate generator.

I thought the liquid was good to pour in with the food as it supplies nourishment to filter feeders.

 

[Big G]

I thought the liquid was good to pour in with the food as it supplies nourishment to filter feeders.

Many of us have discovered our nitrates and phosphate rather high unless we thaw and strain off the excess liquid from frozen foods.

 

[ReeferBud]

I’m assuming you mean 0.075ppm of PO4 and not 0.7ppm?

Alk seems a bit high, Ca and Mg low but I don’t think this would result in things going downhill as you describe so quickly.

I don’t like messing with buffers... and starting Carbon dosing could have upset the bacteria and bio balance in your tank...

Could also be a bad batch of salt (happened to me once). I would get new salt and start doing 10-20% water changes for a few days.

 

[ScottR]

Hi guys! My toadstool leather looks extremely unhappy (at least today some tentacles are out but they weren't for a few days), cabbage leather has looked better (often these days shiny/dark and smaller), pink devil zoas have been staying closed and dying off, GSP have looked better, frogspawn smaller/less inflated, some of the paly's are less green and edges curled under, and my SPS's are dead/dying. AND I can't find my sexy anemone shrimp yesterday or today, so he's either dead or moved, but he'd been in the same area for weeks. Some of this started a month or so ago, but the major issues have been in the last 1-2 weeks (the leathers and SPS's).

Today's Salifert testing:
NO3 10
PO4 0.75
KH 11.2
pH 8.2
MG2+ 1200 (I've ordered some Mg to supplement)
CA2+ 375
SG 1.025

We have chaeto, a new skimmer, a new sump with two Skimz mesh socks, and ATO, two Hydra 26 lights over our 120 gal aquarium with 28? gal sump. The ONLY thing that's really changed in last month is we've started using NoPox but as you can see, Nitrates/phosphates are just now down to a decent level and things seem to be getting worse instead of better. And we are using SeaChem Reef Builder in the top off water to raise/maintain alkalinity and it's working great. We used to run NO3 20-25 (but we didn't have the SPS's) and PO4 0-0.2 but we got up to a consistent NO3 50 and PO4 started climbing to 1.0 so that's when we started dosing about 10-12 ml of NoPox daily and cut our feeding. Otherwise, we have got a Kessil H380 to grow the chaeto and cut our food in half (frozen mysis, Marine Cuisine, and LRS rotated daily and a sheet of nori once a week for the hippo tang and lawnmower blenny.).

Ideas? Could it be the NoPox? Could the low Mg affect it this much?

Thanks!

What test kit are you using for your PO4?

I’m assuming if you say .75 it’s .75 because no test kits I know of state .075

I’d get phosphates down first. That looks like the problem. Try phosguard or GFO. Nopox works better nitrates than it does for phosphates. And I wouldn’t use nopox for phosphates anyway.

 

[Trena Cook]

Are you letting the frozen food "slump" in your fridge so you can pour off the excess liquid? That liquid is the nitrate and phosphate generator.

Nope, we'll start doing that! Thanks!

 

[Trena Cook]

What test kit are you using for your PO4?

I’m assuming if you say .75 it’s .75 because no test kits I know of state .075

I’d get phosphates down first. That looks like the problem. Try phosguard or GFO. Nopox works better nitrates than it does for phosphates. And I wouldn’t use nopox for phosphates anyway.

Salifert. The color was between 0.5 and 1.0 or whatever. So I labeled it 0.75 .

Phosphate has been up for months though, and leathers just the last week or so have started looking bad. ??

Thanks, will look into it. We've tried some phosphate remover pellets in a bag in past, but didn't seem to do anything. We had it in the last section of the sump, where the return pump is.

 

[Trena Cook]

I’m assuming you mean 0.075ppm of PO4 and not 0.7ppm?

Alk seems a bit high, Ca and Mg low but I don’t think this would result in things going downhill as you describe so quickly.

I don’t like messing with buffers... and starting Carbon dosing could have upset the bacteria and bio balance in your tank...

Could also be a bad batch of salt (happened to me once). I would get new salt and start doing 10-20% water changes for a few days.

Nope, about 0.75, between the 0.5 and 1.0 on the color chart.

I thought alk was supposed to be between 8 & 12 per Salifert?

Ugh, I can't fill the water that fast....may have to make some trips to the LFS for saltwater. We did just open a new tub of salt (Brightwell Aquatics)...

Thanks!

 

[ScottR]

Salifert. The color was between 0.5 and 1.0 or whatever. So I labeled it 0.75 .

Phosphate has been up for months though, and leathers just the last week or so have started looking bad. ??

Thanks, will look into it. We've tried some phosphate remover pellets in a bag in past, but didn't seem to do anything. We had it in the last section of the sump, where the return pump is.

I do the same thing with my test kits too ;Hilarious I hate going off of color...

Have you vacuumed your sand?

 

[Trena Cook]

Many of us have discovered our nitrates and phosphate rather high unless we thaw and strain off the excess liquid from frozen foods.

Thank you, will start doing that!

 

[Trena Cook]

I do the same thing with my test kits too ;Hilarious I hate going off of color...

Have you vacuumed your sand?

We don't do it much because we have the nassarius snails and a pistol shrimp. Afraid I'll hurt them.

 

[Trena Cook]

leathers especially when shedding look grumpy. Are you doing water changes and what is your temp and salinity reading?

Yes, at least 20-25% every other week water changes, with controlled temp and salinity. We use the Neptune eqt, so temp is (I think, as hubby manages all that stuff) 78 deg +/- 0.5 deg F at all times, controlled with two heaters (1 sump, 1 DT) and two probes) and I don't know salinity, only SG, sorry (hubby in bed, can't ask him right now )

 

[Trena Cook]

Calcium is low to. Not that they consume that, but for a happy reef environment you want to bump your cal and mag. It’s not the Nopox. Your skimmer is pulling stuff out right? You should need to dump it every 3-7 days.

Actually I read today where even softies use Ca, which makes sense to me, because soft tissues use it in the human body as well.

We've got buffers for Ca and I'll get one in for Mg tomorrow.

Yes, we've got a new Skimz skimmer and it's doing a great job...very foamy since using NoPox, and it's about every 3 days with a nice dark stinky skimmate.

 

[Trena Cook]

I thought the liquid was good to pour in with the food as it supplies nourishment to filter feeders.

I thought that as well. But I've also heard that about draining it and I've done it in the past. Don't remember why I stopped doing it...

 

[Trena Cook]

The Ca was in Salifert's normal range. What range do you guys use for Ca?

 

[SmedenS]

How deep is the sand in your tank?

Could it be due to anaerobic zones and poop/fish food leftovers feeding these zones to slowly release Hydrogen sulfide or Metal sulfide?

Is your sand black colored if you carefully dig down on the deepest spots? (stir the sand as little as possible and carefully siphon it out if black, as you dont wish to release a pocket of HS or MS into your tank.)

Nice tank! Hope you can find the root cause and get it back on track asap.

 

[Trena Cook]

How deep is the sand in your tank?

Could it be due to anaerobic zones and poop/fish food leftovers feeding these zones to slowly release Hydrogen sulfide or Metal sulfide?

Is your sand black colored if you carefully dig down on the deepest spots? (stir the sand as little as possible and carefully siphon it out if black, as you dont wish to release a pocket of HS or MS into your tank.)

Nice tank! Hope you can find the root cause and get it back on track asap.

I have a pistol shrimp, so it varies from 1.5 inches to 4 inches...he's quite the busy bee, remodeling his home all the time

We'll check the deep spots but have never seen that before when we've vacuum'd.

We just got two new circulation pumps because we're concerned that we've had dead spots a long time and that's a source of our nitrate/phos problems. We're going to get them installed Sunday and reconfigure our flow patterns.

Thanks!