is it possible for a tank to be running to clean?

[BayStYat]

I havent had to clean the glass in months. tank looks to clean. I have not seen any coral growth since this. is this an issue I am unaware of?

 

Thanks

[TheKleinReef]

Yes. Nutrient deprivation. I ran into that problem before and I struggled with SPS STN/RTN.

 

Like any animal, corals need nutrients to grow and they absorb many of those nutrients from the water, if there's nothing to absorb other than the light, health will decline.

[BayStYat]

Yes. Nutrient deprivation. I ran into that problem before and I struggled with SPS STN/RTN.

 

Like any animal, corals need nutrients to grow and they absorb many of those nutrients from the water, if there's nothing to absorb other than the light, health will decline.

Thank you

 

What is the remedy? I am new to this.

[TheKleinReef]

You need to put nutrients back into the tank either with a higher bioload, or coral foods.

[BayStYat]

You need to put nutrients back into the tank either with a higher bioload, or coral foods.

awesome thanks. I use Ocean Snow to feed corals 2 times a week. just 3 small fish feed M W F.

[TheKleinReef]

awesome thanks. I use Ocean Snow to feed corals 2 times a week. just 3 small fish feed M W F.

 

adding a variety will help.

 

When my tank was nutrient deprived I had a pretty hefty feeding schedule to get it back on track, once I got it back to a little past ideal, I adjusted as necessary.

 

Throughout the week I used different mixtures of:

KZ Coral Vitalizer

KZ Pohl's Xtra

Acropower

Elos Amino Acids

Phyto

Rod's Food

Mysis

[CronicReefer]

awesome thanks. I use Ocean Snow to feed corals 2 times a week. just 3 small fish feed M W F.

Try feeding the fish everyday. They will benefit from it and so will the corals with the added nutrients from the food/fish waste.

[jimbonds]

TheKleinReef is absolutely on. There are some other factors though. I don't know what your setup/routine is like so I'll assume you did what I did and explain based on that.

 

There are two parts here, nutrients and trace elements. Corals need, like most living animals, carbon ©, nitrogen (N), and phosphorous (P). The carbon comes from the byproducts of photosynthesis. Most corals can absorb nitrogen and phosphorous directly from the water column. As a side note, they can actually get nitrogen from ammonia/ammonium (NH3/NH4+) but because that's toxic to fish we try to keep it down. So nitrates (NO3) are the predominant dissolved nitrogen source in the water column. As for phosphorous, that's available in phosphates (PO4). Corals (most) can also obtain N and P from heterotrophic feeding. So feeding your fish feeds the corals in two ways. 1) The uneaten particles of fish food suspended in the water can be eaten heterotrophically along with some detritus that gets stirred up when you stir your sand and spray your rocks. 2) The fish secrete NH3/NH4+ from their gills as they take in oxygen and their feces decays it lets off PO4, both of which can be absorbed from the water column.

 

The other part is the trace elements. The bottom line is corals need these. Usually these are maintained by water changes as good salt mixes contain these elements in a balance close to what is found in the oceans. Also, many two part additives contain trace elements and calcium reactors will add the trace elements found in the aragonite they dissolve. The catch is that it's strongly believed that over skimming with a wet skimmate and over use of activated carbon can strip these elements out of the water, especially in a nano tank with a small water volume. With regards to this last part, I've never seen any scientific evidence to support the claim, only anecdotal experience. I will, however, say that my own experience seems to support it.

 

I run a 29 gallon biocube. I had been running matrix and phosguard as well as a Tunze 9001 protein skimmer for nutrient export. Eventually I saw slow tissue recession and started to loose corals slowly. In the end I discovered, through lots of testing using the most sensitive tests I could get (I highly recommend the Hanna ULR Phosphorous checker), that I had completely stripped the water column of nutrients and trace elements. After removing the skimmer, matrix, and phosguard, and overfeeding for three weeks I finally detected phosphates. Everything was so nutrient deprived it just soaked up everything I put in.

 

Today I run my tank with filter floss only, change my water once every two weeks, add 4 Tbsp of Matrix once a week and run it for only 24 hrs, and feed heavily. I feed flakes and pellets daily, add half a cube of mysis every other day, and 1/8 tsp of Reefroids on the other days. With all of this feeding and no nutrient export my NO3 remains undetectable and my PO4 is steady around 0.01-0.02ppm.

 

I very carefully dose strontium and iodine in addition to my 2-part and Mg. As these are toxic at fairly low levels I test them very very carefully. With all of my changes to nutrients and elements things have come back strong and the tank is looking really really good.

 

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any questions.

[Nano sapiens]

 

 

The other part is the trace elements. The bottom line is corals need these. Usually these are maintained by water changes as good salt mixes contain these elements in a balance close to what is found in the oceans. Also, many two part additives contain trace elements and calcium reactors will add the trace elements found in the aragonite they dissolve. The catch is that it's strongly believed that over skimming with a wet skimmate and over use of activated carbon can strip these elements out of the water, especially in a nano tank with a small water volume. With regards to this last part, I've never seen any scientific evidence to support the claim, only anecdotal experience. I will, however, say that my own experience seems to support it.

 

 

 

Many years ago, Ken Feldman looked into skimmers and GAC in detail in an attempt to determine how effective they really were at removing bacteria, DOCs, TOCs,, etc.

 

You can search for all his articles on the Advanced Aquarist website, but this one is especially relavent since it looks at running reef aquaria using vaious 'methods' of nutrient control::

 

Feature Article: Total Organic Carbon (TOC) and the Reef Aquarium: an Initial Survey, Part II

 

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/9/aafeature2

[BayStYat]

Thank you All for the help.

 

I have a 20L with skimmer and a AC70s one for the skimmer and the other for the media.

 

I do a 25% water change every 10-12 days.

 

I feed corals 2 times a week Fish MWF

 

Orbit Pro light

 

2 small clowns

1 Domino Damsel

1 cleaner shrimp

1 Salty Light Foot Crab

1 Turbo Snail

1 Hermit

 

I hand dose with Iodine, KH buffer, reef basis Calcium

 

[BayStYat]

TheKleinReef is absolutely on. There are some other factors though. I don't know what your setup/routine is like so I'll assume you did what I did and explain based on that.

 

There are two parts here, nutrients and trace elements. Corals need, like most living animals, carbon ©, nitrogen (N), and phosphorous (P). The carbon comes from the byproducts of photosynthesis. Most corals can absorb nitrogen and phosphorous directly from the water column. As a side note, they can actually get nitrogen from ammonia/ammonium (NH3/NH4+) but because that's toxic to fish we try to keep it down. So nitrates (NO3) are the predominant dissolved nitrogen source in the water column. As for phosphorous, that's available in phosphates (PO4). Corals (most) can also obtain N and P from heterotrophic feeding. So feeding your fish feeds the corals in two ways. 1) The uneaten particles of fish food suspended in the water can be eaten heterotrophically along with some detritus that gets stirred up when you stir your sand and spray your rocks. 2) The fish secrete NH3/NH4+ from their gills as they take in oxygen and their feces decays it lets off PO4, both of which can be absorbed from the water column.

 

The other part is the trace elements. The bottom line is corals need these. Usually these are maintained by water changes as good salt mixes contain these elements in a balance close to what is found in the oceans. Also, many two part additives contain trace elements and calcium reactors will add the trace elements found in the aragonite they dissolve. The catch is that it's strongly believed that over skimming with a wet skimmate and over use of activated carbon can strip these elements out of the water, especially in a nano tank with a small water volume. With regards to this last part, I've never seen any scientific evidence to support the claim, only anecdotal experience. I will, however, say that my own experience seems to support it.

 

I run a 29 gallon biocube. I had been running matrix and phosguard as well as a Tunze 9001 protein skimmer for nutrient export. Eventually I saw slow tissue recession and started to loose corals slowly. In the end I discovered, through lots of testing using the most sensitive tests I could get (I highly recommend the Hanna ULR Phosphorous checker), that I had completely stripped the water column of nutrients and trace elements. After removing the skimmer, matrix, and phosguard, and overfeeding for three weeks I finally detected phosphates. Everything was so nutrient deprived it just soaked up everything I put in.

 

Today I run my tank with filter floss only, change my water once every two weeks, add 4 Tbsp of Matrix once a week and run it for only 24 hrs, and feed heavily. I feed flakes and pellets daily, add half a cube of mysis every other day, and 1/8 tsp of Reefroids on the other days. With all of this feeding and no nutrient export my NO3 remains undetectable and my PO4 is steady around 0.01-0.02ppm.

 

I very carefully dose strontium and iodine in addition to my 2-part and Mg. As these are toxic at fairly low levels I test them very very carefully. With all of my changes to nutrients and elements things have come back strong and the tank is looking really really good.

 

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any questions.

Thank you sir. I am running a CAD Lights 50 PLS. It skimms wet. I may turn it off for a while a see.

[TheKleinReef]

It's been said, but a good start might be to just up the feeding to daily. That will help out a lot.

[BayStYat]

It's been said, but a good start might be to just up the feeding to daily. That will help out a lot.

ok thank you

[jimbonds]

Have you measured your NO3 and PO4 yet? And if so, with which kits?

[BayStYat]

Have you measured your NO3 and PO4 yet? And if so, with which kits?

No sir. I only have KH, Amonia, PH, Nitrite and Nitrate test kits. I have had the LFS test it and they said its ok. They use API

 

My soft corals are the ones doing bad

[jimbonds]

How are things going?

 

Honestly, if I were you I'd get some quality test kits and do the tests myself so I know what's going on. API kits are decent enough to tell you if you are high on some parameter, but their resolution isn't good enough to tell you if you've stripped your water, and you need to know this so you know how to respond.

 

PO4 should be targeted at <0.03ppm. Between 0 and 0.03ppm is extremely hard to measure. Even down at 0.1ppm is hard to measure accurately. So I recommend you pick up the Hanna ULR Phosphorous test which measures Phosphorous in ppb and then a simple conversion tells you your PO4 concentration. Nitrates are recommended at <0.2ppm, which again, is hard to measure accurately. For example, the NYOS Nitrate Pro kit is only accurate down to 1ppm but this is better than the RedSea kit which is only good down to 2ppm. The LaMotte Nitrate kit is the only one I know of with low resolution for NO3 as it gets down to 0-0.1ppm (this makes sense as it's a lab grate kit).

 

When the LFS measured using API they probably saw undetectable values and told you that everything was good because usually undetectable (by most kits) means you're beneath the kit's sensitivity but not a true zero. The reason I suggest you test is because your issue could be zero nutrients, zero trace elements, or low lighting. If you choose the experimental route you may lose some corals while you drill down on the problem.

 

If you do choose the experimental route, remember that it takes two weeks for any changes to be noticeable. So pick one thing to change and stick with it for two weeks. This way, you know to which change to attribute any increase/decrease in coral health.