Jedi's Science Reef

[jedimaster1138]

No doodles here. All golden, all the time. Woof.

 

Tonight's statistics:

 

pH - 8.40

dKH - 6.8 (Red Sea and Hanna)

calcium - 400 ppm (Red Sea)

magnesium - 1400 ppm (Red Sea)

PO4 - 0.28 ppm (Hanna)

Nitrate - 1-2 ppm (Red Sea) ... probably closer to 1.

[jedimasterben]

No doodles here. All golden, all the time. Woof.

LOL

[metrokat]

Hmmm

[mdodso00]

Ok. I've got a labradoodle. Going to get a Goldendoodle next.

[jedimaster1138]

In a small piece of good news, the clownfish in my nano spawned tonight. Now to talk the wife into the 2 tanks I need to raise the fry...

[jedimaster1138]

They ate the eggs, they must have been able to tell they weren't viable. I guess we'll see again in a few weeks. Still don't think I'm going to raise the fry ever, but stranger things have happened.

[mdodso00]

That would be cool.

[metrokat]

They ate the eggs, they must have been able to tell they weren't viable. I guess we'll see again in a few weeks. Still don't think I'm going to raise the fry ever, but stranger things have happened.

If that's the first spawn then yes they will eat the eggs, they don't know yet not to. 11 days till the next spawn. muhahahahah. Free fish food.

[jedimaster1138]

Alkalinity spiked up. It was 7 dKH last week, over 9 just now. Tonight I noticed some browning on the tip of a red millie and my spidey sense went tingly. The only change I've made is to start dosing NoPox to counter the absurdly high PO4 levels, 0.36 last i checked. I'm 3 days into daily NOPOX.

 

Nitrate is around 10-20 - ish.

 

Calcium is, and has been, only around 350 ppm. Increased calcium chloride dosing somewhat.

 

Magnesium is 1400 ish. I don't dose it, haven't in a long time. Changes alone seem to take care of it.

 

Turned alkalinity doser off for the night. Will continue with kalkwasser only...

 

I haz a confuzzled.

[jedimaster1138]

Guess my big reef isn't a complete disaster...tonight the clownfish decided to follow in the footsteps fin flaps of the nano tank clownfish and make little clownfish.

 

 

 

[vlangel]

See you may get your chance to raise fry yet. It's hard for about 3 weeks and then it get easier. I raised tomato clowns once, (about 6 years ago) and the hardest part for me was keeping the rotifer culture going. (I crashed 2 of those). I sold Momma and Papa clownfish when I downsized but I still have one of the babies.

[markalot]

Nice video. Let's see more of the tank please!

[jedimasterben]

How is the big tank? Change any for the better in the past couple weeks?

[uwdanno]

Great videos. Enjoyed reading the last couple pages here. Good luck with the Clowns hopefully banging again.

[jedimaster1138]

See you may get your chance to raise fry yet. It's hard for about 3 weeks and then it get easier. I raised tomato clowns once, (about 6 years ago) and the hardest part for me was keeping the rotifer culture going. (I crashed 2 of those). I sold Momma and Papa clownfish when I downsized but I still have one of the babies.

 

Yeah I'd like to raise one of the clutches and at least see what kind of morph I get from these 2 (regular ocellaris x snowflake) or the nano pair (ORA b/w x ORA Domino) The problem isn't so much the work behind it as is the space. A one bedroom apartment isn't conducive to, what, 2 more small tanks plus the live phyto plankton cultures to hatch the rotifers... I'd prefer to not be murdered by my wife with my bone cutters...

 

Nice video. Let's see more of the tank please!

 

Soon my friend, soon...

 

How is the big tank? Change any for the better in the past couple weeks?

 

Long story. But yes. Better. I'll try to summarize. I don't know if you saw my long post on R2R, but here is the slightly shorter version, with more thought as well and a little science.

 

The 300+ gallons worth of ESV salt that I used for 9 months was chock full of phosphate (and heaven knows what else) My weekly water changes, which were meant to help reduce nutrients, were actually increasing them. After 9 months, I discovered this and switched to hw-MarineMix, (0 PO4) however, as expected, the rocks and sand continue to leech phosphate and I continue to see levels anywhere from 0.20 to 0.50 ppm via the Hanna Checker and the Red Sea kit.

 

*Aside - moral for everyone - measure ALL levels of a new box/bucket of salt. Do this each time you open a new box/bucket, even if it's a brand you've been using for 17 years. You never know when you're going to get a bad batch.*

 

Throughout the ESV salt use and continuing since Thanksgiving, (when I switched to hw-Marine salt) I've been running GFO in a reactor to help with the phosphate levels and changing the media frequently because the levels were so high. This was basically the worst thing I could do. Here's why.

 

Phosphate inhibits, and, at some point, stops stony coral calcification. The exact level of phosphate is up for debate ( http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-09/rhf/#5) Now this is a bit of a simplification as we all know there's multiple KINDS of phosphate and our test kits are limited. But the proof is in the dead coral pudding. I'd add a new SPS - acropora, seriatopora, montipora, stylophora, etc - and it would die either within a few days or in around 6 weeks.

 

GFO media binds the phosphate ions and we see a reduction in phosphate in the water with our test kits. In my case this reduction would be from the aforementioned high levels to say, well some level where calcification would restart, probably around 0.2x. I know this because I would see SOME growth in SOME species which also leads me to conclude that "phosphate based calcification pauses" have to be at least somewhat genus and species related. For example, my maricultured Green Bali Slimer acropora just grows and doesn't care, its polyps waving in the current. The Pink Lemonade acropora on the other hand barely puts on a millimeter every 3 months and has horrible color and little to no polyp extension. Then there's the Strawberry Shortcake. Or the host of other corals that drop dead a few weeks in my tank. There's lots of examples, but the bottom line is this - the exact point of the pause and the subsequent effects, depends heavily on the individual coral.

 

So in my tank - after a few weeks/days the GFO media would exhaust and phosphate levels would begin to rise again. Food addition doesn't help with this, of course as it's a constant addition of phosphate into the water and we're starting with a high level already thanks to the salt. Calcification stops now, when phosphate hits some level that seems to be specific to each species of coral. Doesn't sound like the end of the world right? OK so corals aren't going to grow too fast, if at all. But it's not just about growth, or a lack there of. It's about coral death.

 

The symptom all along has been browning/burnt/dead tips on SPS. Every time anyone has even seen a picture of my SPS they say "dude that's burnt tips, reduce your alkalinity" . My reply is always the same - "dude, dKH is 6, 6 1/2 if I'm lucky, SPS don't show burnt tips at that level." And I was right, sorta. dKH was 6. Or 5. Or just in general low in comparison to accepted SPS tank levels or NSW.

 

Except when the GFO expired and calicification stopped...

 

BOOM. At that point, GFO is spent, corals stop taking in calcium and carbonate - dKH rockets up. SPS show burnt tips and eventually die. And it makes complete sense. I'm dumping 2-part and kalkwasser into the tank trying to keep up with need. I don't test every hour, how would I know that calcification has stopped and the levels are high enough without additional dosing? I caught it once recently though. I had seen 5.7 dKH give or take. A couple days later I saw 9.5 - ish. Who knows how high it rose in between? Perhaps even higher though only for a couple hours? It's hard to say, I don't measure alkalinity in real time. But I do measure pH with a probe and a graph...more on that below. The bottom line is the same though - alkalinity is on the low end most of the time because things are taking it in, some of the SPS, (depending on the exact PO4 level and the exact species of SPS) and especially the clams. But when high phosphate levels stop calcium and carbonate consumption, the water column sees an abundance of both, probably, though I contend that it's the carbonate that's the problem.

 

We were away in January and my Apex binged my phone, complaining that pH was north of 8.50. Huh? How is that possible, especially with all the windows sealed up. Simple. All that kalkwasser and alkalinity 2-part wasn't getting used up by the corals. It drove pH up. This was a sign. I get home from vacation...a bunch of newly dead SPS with fried tips. Not one bit surprising.

 

Aside about the clams - they don't seem to care at all about phosphate because they grow constantly and in normal operations I have to pour in buckets of soda ash and calcium chloride to maintain dKH 6 and 380 ppm of calcium. The derasa is > 9" plus there's two 4-6" maximas and a few more smaller maximas. They probably soak up more calcium and carbonate than everything else combined.

 

The GFO correlation is he truly interesting part of this though. The last time this happened, things looked fine one day, then the next, lots of burnt tips. The only change to the system is that I had changed the GFO the night before. If you'll forgive me...eureka. That's the key second inflection point to this system.

 

Changing the GFO drops the phosphate levels, likely dramatically in the case of a big batch of new GFO in an upflow reactor. Granted that drop in phosphate is likely brief, but it is likely still a big spike down. Now corals start pulling in calcium and carbonate again. Because they haven't been absorbing them in a while, there are high levels of both in the water. So the corals well ...I don't know what happens now. This is where science is getting a little more theoretical. The mechanism for how corals intake carbonate is up for debate (McConnahey and Whelan's theory is interesting) and I've seen next to nothing scientific written about how high levels of alkalinity adversely affect coral growth tips beyond the anecdotal, albeit a completely universally consistent anecdote. Is there some kind of overdose on the carbonate ions happening in the extracytoplasmic calcifying fluid? Is there some correlation to sugar generation by zooxanthellae and the other photosynthetic and metabolic processes which are continuing (because the sun is still out) and possibly in opposition to the intake of calcium and carbonate? Is it a zooxanthellae density increase as cited here? http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2015/5/aafeature Does it have to do with the regulation of the pH in the ECF?

 

Is it just the entire system has been thrown out of balance? That's the easy answer, but also the least scientific, so I don't like it as I am a scientist

 

If someone out there has seen something, feel free to send it my way. Also if anyone out there has access to a college library there's at least one journal paper I'd like to read that's beyond a pay wall and I blow all my money on corals, so I don't want to pay. PM me.

 

Anyway, after all that you're probably all asking, so what is up with your reef dude.

 

A few months back I started dosing Prodibio BioOptim (bacteria) and BioDigest (food for bacteria). At first I was doing this every 14 days, as per instructions, on Sundays after my weekly water change. I've since increased that to weekly. I also dose NOPOX, thanks to Markalot's success with it and Metrokat's urging, daily. As of the other day Nitrate had dropped from 10 or so ppm to around 1 ppm. Phosphate, that much has dropped some - it's around 0.20 ppm the last I checked, possibly as low as 0.16. I'm due to test that today. I will report more then. It should be noted though that I've removed GFO completely. I haven't run any in something like 10 days and phosphate has dropped. This is what I would expect with the bacteria and carbon dosing. Yes I said phosphate is dropping without the use of any GFO. That's a big deal.

 

Also, a while back, when this entire hypothesis first started germinating in my brain, I made the decision to shut down or otherwise dramatically reduce dosing of both 2-part and kalkwasser. My argument was simply that I'd rather retard the growth of both corals and clams by maintaining low levels of alkalinity, rather than murder those corals by dosing "what they need to grow" and have that dose turn into "deathly high dose" when phosphate paused calcification. So far, I think this has been the right course. But we'll see. If, and when phosphate drops all the way down to say, under 0.07 ppm, then I'll consider bringing dKH up to something closer to 7. As of the other night, it was 5.9. Here's another fun bit though - I have brought it up a little lately, the amount I dose that is. What's interesting, and exactly what I'd expect, is that the overall pH in my reef has dropped and doesn't swing as high daily as it used to.

 

Anyway, time to go home and see what's still alive in my reef

[vlangel]

Ha ha, sounds like a round of the board game Clue...jedimaster was murdered by the wife in the fish room with the bone cutters! Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.

Yes space and time are resources that must be carefully considered. We have the space but time is just in too short supply for me to do it again.

[jedimasterben]

I knew it would be a long story.

 

 

 

I'm not 100% on the phosphate completely inhibiting your corals, it would not have just immediately stopped cold, there would have been a buildup over time and you'd have seen calcification drop as a result (not only in your corals but in your clams, as well, as far as I know they use the same 'method' for calcification). Here is a good presentation by Rich Ross on phosphate. It's long, but it's damned good.

 

How much cal/alk were you dosing? It would take nearly 300mL of sodium carbonate solution to get from 5.7dKH to 9.5, and nearly 550mL if you're using a sodium bicarbonate solution. I know you said you were dosing buckets to keep up with demand, but the numbers do help to make sense of it all

 

I'm coming off of a low alkalinity parade, myself, I'd assume nearly two years worth of it - all thanks to a Hanna checker that consistently reads ~8.5dKH no matter what alkalinity actually was. With Elos and Red Sea test kits I got 4.5dKH. If my alkalinity has been low, consistently, for so long, it explains why I've have zero stony corals survive in my tank for more than a month (acropora, montipora, stylophora, acanthastrea, lobophyllia, euphyllia, favia, etc) and why I have not only zero coralline growth but slow recession. Until this low-growing species of turf algae took over the rocks, they were always white as if I'd just used an algaecide. With corrected alkalinity, I'm curious to see if coralline growth starts.

 

 

What is with the Prodibio? IMHO it's an unnecessary step. The bacteria in it more than likely aren't going to take hold in your system, and if they do, they may not be efficient in your setup. Without knowing what bacteria strains you have, what strains are in the additive, and whether or not they're compatible with your tank's environment, you're pretty much just dosing blind and hoping for the best. I used to do the same, I spent hundreds of dollars on stuff like Dr. Tim's and Microbacter7, but no changes were seen after stopping their addition.

 

The bacteria stuff is more for tibbsy07, though, he is the bacteria doctor

[tibbsy07]

Why are you using prodibio products for your tank? Also - the BioDigest is the bacteria. The Bioptim is the food. If you've been dosing them in terms of the other way around, that might be causing problems.

[brandon429]

Reading this makes me thankful for small tanks and complete water change export. One can't possibly be more spoiled than to have never owned any param test kit other than a swingarm and a thermometer on the end of some bendable wire. If I had a bunch of money i think I'd still own just a bunch of small tanks. It stinks not getting to see clownfish breed though I wonder whats the smallest well cared for tank that could be done in

[jedimaster1138]

Why are you using prodibio products for your tank? Also - the BioDigest is the bacteria. The Bioptim is the food. If you've been dosing them in terms of the other way around, that might be causing problems.

 

Yeah I always confuse their naming conventions. I dose 1 amp of both, so ... yeah, I guess it doesn't matter. It's too bad I wear different contact lens prescriptions in each eye, would make life easier. lol

[tibbsy07]

 

Yeah I always confuse their naming conventions. I dose 1 amp of both, so ... yeah, I guess it doesn't matter. It's too bad I wear different contact lens prescriptions in each eye, would make life easier. lol

lol

 

 

A few points on Prodibio's stuff – maybe this does work. I can’t say it does or doesn’t. There isn’t enough information for me to do this. However… Based on what they say their products are and what they do, I suspect that they aren’t very good products…

 

Here is why –

 

Probiotics rely entirely on the idea that one is missing a certain bacterial strain or type in their ecosystem. Probiotics have been shown in people to help out, if there are actually lapses in your microbiome – i.e. chemotherapy, certain antibiotics, things that kill bacteria indiscriminately and therefore there are no bacteria to compete, so the probiotic has a place to settle and grow. However, if you are otherwise healthy, probiotics don’t do anything because there isn’t any room or nutritional space for the probiotics to take, so most of them are useless. That’s what the data show, at least.

 

Their data sheet for BioDigest says that the vials contain both autotrophic and heterotrophic bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite, nitrite to nitrate, and nitrate to nitrogen. This last part is likely an outright lie and I’ll get to that in a minute.

 

They list Nitrobacter winogradskyi and Nitrosomonas europaea as 2 of their strains, and those convert nitrite to nitrate. Fine. They say “such as” in terms of establishing biofiltration, so I assume they also have ammonia to nitrite converting bacteria in the vials. However, why I think this is suspect is because you already HAVE an entire biological filtration set up. These guys won’t do any harm, but unless you are severely depleted in your biological filtration, I don’t see them doing any good. The Biotim food source doesn’t have anything that they use anyways – they are chemolithoautotrophs, meaning they don’t use light or any carbon-containing compound for food. They make their own “food” using inorganic molecules – notably ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. One could argue that the breakdown of the food in the Biotim allows them to then have what they need, and that’s a fair point. But again your tank already has enough of these bacteria. There really isn’t a point with these, except the idea that autotrophs help make food for the heterotrophs, which is the type of bacteria they claim will remove your organic waste. So maybe those bacteria are only there to serve the heterotrophs? Maybe, but that would only apply IN the vial because as soon as you enter it into your tank, the bacteria all disperse and there are plenty of nitrifying bacteria all over your tank.

 

Ok. Here is where I think their product falls apart. They list two different bacteria that are heterotrophs, meaning they consume organic material to live, which are also critical to convert nitrate back to nitrogen – Paracoccus denitrificans and Pseudomonas stutzeri. Their goal here is that you get enough of these growing, they’ll use all the organic waste in your tank, and your nitrates will drop because they will convert it to nitrogen gas! Paracoccus denitrificans and Pseudomonas stutzeri are both soil bacteria, but at least Paracoccus can live in very extreme areas like water, ocean, etc. Paracoccus is used in wastewater treatment to remove organic wastes. All sounds good so far. Now here is the hang up – converting nitrate to nitrogen requires an enzyme called nitrogenase, which is destroyed by the presence of oxygen. Denitrification and subsequent nitrogen fixation are primarily undergone in anoxic conditions (there are a few nitrogenases that are not inhibited by oxygen, but these bacteria don’t have them). In the oceans, this happens DEEP in the sediments, where there is no oxygen. Our tanks are almost entirely oxygenated, unless you have a 6” bed or deeper, really. So there really isn’t any way for the nitrate to be converted to nitrogen, even with the bacteria they provide. That’s why we do water changes – to remove wastes like nitrate that can’t be removed in another way. But, you say, maybe we don’t care about conversion of nitrate to nitrogen, as long as the bacteria there are using our organic waste! Also – side note, while extremely rare, Psuedomonas stutzeri has caused infections in people (Noble and Overman. Diagnostic Microbiological Infectious Disease. 1994).

 

The biggest problem I have comes in the form of Bioptim. You want to get your bacteria to eat the organic crap in your tank – to remove it all. Let me pose this, though… If you were getting ready to start cooking dinner, a nice big meal, and someone came to you and offered you a meal that was just as nice (maybe nicer) and already prepared and ready to eat, would you still do all the work to cook, eat and clean? Or would you take the exceptional, optimized, perfect meal and eat that instead, saving time and effort? Most would take the latter. Bacteria sure as hell will. So you want them to eat all the organic crud in your tank, and yet you are supposed to also use Bioptim to FEED them? I know that the idea is to give them a boost, to get them set up to then use the organic waste, but if the product was doing its job, you shouldn’t need to dose every 15 days… The bacteria die and need to be replaced because A.) the ammonia to nitrate ones have no place to go because they already exist in your tank so the new ones just starve; and B.) the heterotrophs eat the food you give them and then starve.

 

Again, without having ALL of the information, I can’t say 100% that is DOES work or it DOES NOT work, but I can tell you what I hypothesize based on the available information. Save your money.

[markalot]

I like BioDigest because it 's smelly bacteria goo trapped in a glass vial where I can't smell it. I never had any luck dosing prodibio all by itself, I use it as a bacteria supplement to make sure I have a well balanced supply. Maybe that works, maybe it doesn't, but I don't credit it with removing nitrates. BioPtim appears to be just a carbon source that they claim will last two weeks. Not a big fan.

 

NOPOX (carbon dosing) works very well, too well. My nitrates crashed all the way down to one and I backed off too far and now they are up to 10. Katropora looks fantastic since it loves high nitrates, other acros remain mostly brown but healthy, a tenuis almost died and I'm still not sure why.

 

I don't have the burnt tips issue but I test Alk every other day, sometimes every day, and lately on the weekend twice a day. I also have a PO4 problem, and it looks like my 1.5 cups of GFO has exhausted itself in 4 or 5 days. I will test again tonight to make sure. I have not noticed any large KH swings, though it does swing a little more daily than I would like (8.1 in the morning, 7.7 by evening).

 

My working unscientific theory for my tank is

 

1. I can kill acros if my nitrates are low and PO4 rises too high

2. Most acros stay healthy if both nitrate and PO4 is high, but they are brown

3. I won't be able to enjoy red or pink acros unless I can get both NO3 and PO4 low and keep them consistently low.

 

This doesn't appear to hold up for other tanks besides mine, so I'm missing something. I hope it's not rock so laden with PO4 that I will be forced to restart.

[vlangel]

I like the name change of your thread...its more positive than 'crashing disaster' for sure! I admit that the science is over my head but I am reading it and hopefully learning more about coral biology and chemistry.

[markalot]

Jedi,

 

in that other thread you mention Kalk and it appears you are dumping a lot in at once. Have you ever tested to see before and after KH when adding Kalk? When I used Kalk it was on a timer and doing small amounts with topoff every 15 minutes.

[jedimaster1138]

I will attempt to reply to each of these replies today, or tonight. I'm a little behind on a lot of thing and have to get to my mom's house tonight to deal with a clogged basement drain. BARF. Thanks for all the replies though. Good stuff.