Giving up with sps...

[darksun92]

On 7/20/2020 at 4:12 PM, darksun92 said:

I’m going to buy Phyto the next week, Betty difficult to find that kind of products in the city 😅

 

I’m on it 😄 

 

I will test tomorrow and see how it changes, The last time I dosed the same product 1ml only rise to 0.05 per day so let’s see what happens, thanks a lot for your responses. 

 

On 7/20/2020 at 6:57 PM, Tamberav said:

 

There is a equation on the back I have found to be very accurate to target certain PO4 levels. 

Ok so I’ve been doing accordingly to instructions to get 0.05 of Po4, but the everything is getting worse, even the temperature have been more stable in this last week 28.2/28 and now the war coral is bleaching too, and other corals start to look pale, and brown algae started to grow on sand, any ideas? 
 

[A.m.P]

In the meantime it might be a good idea to reduce the intensity of your lighting, otherwise it may take some time for things to recover.
Unfortunately the signs of stress for many corals are subtle and hard to see, when they start dramatically changing like this it's often because they're already out of ability to cope and may not have been doing well for some time. Just my experience and understanding.

[Tamberav]

I would agree that corals react to things that may have happened weeks earlier. 

 

I can't tell what the brown is from the pics. Dino would be the alarming one though.

 

If I feed too much reef roids or similar my sand turns brown though but more like diatoms or such.

 

[mcarroll]

On 7/17/2020 at 2:05 AM, darksun92 said:

almost giving up with sps corals

Don't do that.  🙂 

 

On 7/17/2020 at 2:05 AM, darksun92 said:

Temp. Goes from 28 to 29

Fine for tropical corals....worry if it gets to 32C+.

 

On 7/17/2020 at 2:05 AM, darksun92 said:

No3: 20

Po4: 0

Imagine that NO3 is gasoline being fed to an engine.

 

Imagine also that PO4 is the oil in the engine.

 

This is what causes engines to blow up...and corals to bleach and RTN.  (Their photosynthetic engines literally burn up without po4.)

 

On 7/17/2020 at 2:05 AM, darksun92 said:

water changes weekly with reef crystals by 15% without affecting my parameters

Seems like it's got your phosphate levels down in the dirt though.  Gotta ease up.

 

On 7/17/2020 at 2:05 AM, darksun92 said:

reef roids and reef chilli

These seem to mostly go to waste in the average system.  I would ease up on this.

 

On 7/17/2020 at 2:05 AM, darksun92 said:

Aquaforest Amino, vitality, build and energy

Amino's are also kinda of wasteful....they end up providing a nitrogen and carbon source that will tend to drive phosphates toward zero.

 

You have wasteful going in triplicate there.

 

I would stop dosing this.  (Also in triplicate.)

 

On 7/17/2020 at 12:34 PM, darksun92 said:

Prime HD with about 30% of power

For best results, all the "color" channels (RGV) and White should be OFF or minimized....blue should be the majority color.  Something like 20,000K should be your target rendition.

 

On 7/17/2020 at 2:49 PM, darksun92 said:

Counting that I have acros and my nitrates are around 20-15 with the skimmer 

A skimmer will do almost nothing for nitrates anyway.....nor phosphates for that matter.

 

Your nitrates are "building up" mostly thanks to the lack of phosphates and its effect in retarding growth of the multitudes of microbial life trying to take off in your tank to stabilize it and make it healthy.   👍

 

On 7/20/2020 at 3:39 PM, darksun92 said:

anyways I ordered the seachem phosphorus and I’m going to start with 1ml daily and see what happens. 

Actually, go ahead and follow the dosing directions on the bottle, at minimum.  (They have dosing calculators online as well as apps, FYI.)

 

Personally, I would suggest targeting 0.20 ppm with your first dose.  Then test in an hour to see how much is left in the tank – if the level has fallen significantly (very possible, not that likely), re-dose to the target level.  After that it's doubtful to fall so fast again....and you can begin targeting 0.10 ppm from then out....but don't let it fall much from that target, and DO NOT let it fall back to zero.  Your goal is to see some hair algae...some cyano is OK too....and eventually some coralline.  Starting with dead rock really slows this whole process down.

 

4 hours ago, darksun92 said:

Ok so I’ve been doing accordingly to instructions to get 0.05 of Po4, but the everything is getting worse, even the temperature have been more stable in this last week 28.2/28 and now the war coral is bleaching too

0.03 ppm is the minimum required for them to sustain photosynthesis, so you have probably only been at/above that level for a short while.  Before that, they were getting burnt up.  The damage also takes some time to show up, depending on the severity.

 

Hitting 0.20 ppm PO4 should be a priority.

 

4 hours ago, darksun92 said:

brown algae started to grow on sand

Ordinarily I'd suggest looking under a microscope or running a test.....but under the circumstances, that would almost certainly be the beginnings of a dino bloom.

 

Again 0.20 ppm....ASAP.  👍

 

Some suggested reading:

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

 

and

 

Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates

 

The second article (on my blog) is referring to the dino's that our corals host....worth nothing they share the same P-requirement as "pest" dino's....and have a similarly negative reaction to P-starvation as the pest-dino's referred to in the first link (my thread on reef2reef).  Both will make a good read! (try to at least get the first post of that thread)

[darksun92]

On 7/25/2020 at 8:58 PM, Amphrites said:

In the meantime it might be a good idea to reduce the intensity of your lighting, otherwise it may take some time for things to recover.
Unfortunately the signs of stress for many corals are subtle and hard to see, when they start dramatically changing like this it's often because they're already out of ability to cope and may not have been doing well for some time. Just my experience and understanding.

But the change in light could cause more stress on corals? 
 

On 7/26/2020 at 1:20 AM, Tamberav said:

I would agree that corals react to things that may have happened weeks earlier. 

 

I can't tell what the brown is from the pics. Dino would be the alarming one though.

 

If I feed too much reef roids or similar my sand turns brown though but more like diatoms or such.

 

are dynos able to grow with a lot of nitrates?
 

 

[darksun92]

On 7/26/2020 at 1:33 AM, mcarroll said:

Don't do that.  🙂 

 

Fine for tropical corals....worry if it gets to 32C+.

 

Imagine that NO3 is gasoline being fed to an engine.

 

Imagine also that PO4 is the oil in the engine.

 

This is what causes engines to blow up...and corals to bleach and RTN.  (Their photosynthetic engines literally burn up without po4.)

 

Seems like it's got your phosphate levels down in the dirt though.  Gotta ease up.

 

These seem to mostly go to waste in the average system.  I would ease up on this.

 

Amino's are also kinda of wasteful....they end up providing a nitrogen and carbon source that will tend to drive phosphates toward zero.

 

You have wasteful going in triplicate there.

 

I would stop dosing this.  (Also in triplicate.)

 

For best results, all the "color" channels (RGV) and White should be OFF or minimized....blue should be the majority color.  Something like 20,000K should be your target rendition.

 

A skimmer will do almost nothing for nitrates anyway.....nor phosphates for that matter.

 

Your nitrates are "building up" mostly thanks to the lack of phosphates and its effect in retarding growth of the multitudes of microbial life trying to take off in your tank to stabilize it and make it healthy.   👍

 

Actually, go ahead and follow the dosing directions on the bottle, at minimum.  (They have dosing calculators online as well as apps, FYI.)

 

Personally, I would suggest targeting 0.20 ppm with your first dose.  Then test in an hour to see how much is left in the tank – if the level has fallen significantly (very possible, not that likely), re-dose to the target level.  After that it's doubtful to fall so fast again....and you can begin targeting 0.10 ppm from then out....but don't let it fall much from that target, and DO NOT let it fall back to zero.  Your goal is to see some hair algae...some cyano is OK too....and eventually some coralline.  Starting with dead rock really slows this whole process down.

 

0.03 ppm is the minimum required for them to sustain photosynthesis, so you have probably only been at/above that level for a short while.  Before that, they were getting burnt up.  The damage also takes some time to show up, depending on the severity.

 

Hitting 0.20 ppm PO4 should be a priority.

 

Ordinarily I'd suggest looking under a microscope or running a test.....but under the circumstances, that would almost certainly be the beginnings of a dino bloom.

 

Again 0.20 ppm....ASAP.  👍

 

Some suggested reading:

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

 

and

 

Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates

 

The second article (on my blog) is referring to the dino's that our corals host....worth nothing they share the same P-requirement as "pest" dino's....and have a similarly negative reaction to P-starvation as the pest-dino's referred to in the first link (my thread on reef2reef).  Both will make a good read! (try to at least get the first post of that thread)

Wow, very long and awesome response, so basically my corals are starving for the lack of phosphate in a long period, right? I couldn’t maintained yet because I have been out of home home this last days so it’s 0 again, do you think phytoplankton can help the corals to recover? Or what you can think must be my first approach ? 

[Tamberav]

1 hour ago, darksun92 said:

But the change in light could cause more stress on corals? 
 

are dynos able to grow with a lot of nitrates?
 

 

 

Yes. They like to show up when stuff is out of balance. Nitrate does not keep them from growing or anything.

[mcarroll]

4 hours ago, darksun92 said:

Wow, very long and awesome response, so basically my corals are starving for the lack of phosphate in a long period, right? I couldn’t maintained yet because I have been out of home home this last days so it’s 0 again, do you think phytoplankton can help the corals to recover? Or what you can think must be my first approach ? 

Right.  Dosing phyto is sort of indirect and imprecise, but can help if that's what you have available.  I just can't say how much you should dose or how long it would take to show up in a test or to be available to the tank generally.  A phosphate-specific additive would be more ideal, if possible.  Seachem Flourish Phosphate is one option.

[Thrassian Atoll]

I am a huge fan of neonitro and neophos to keep my nutrients in balance.  Stuff works great.  

[darksun92]

22 hours ago, Tamberav said:

 

Yes. They like to show up when stuff is out of balance. Nitrate does not keep them from growing or anything.

I’ll wait some weeks if things don’t recover I’ll buy a microscope to be sure that’s not dynos.

 

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Right.  Dosing phyto is sort of indirect and imprecise, but can help if that's what you have available.  I just can't say how much you should dose or how long it would take to show up in a test or to be available to the tank generally.  A phosphate-specific additive would be more ideal, if possible.  Seachem Flourish Phosphate is one option.

I already have mine I’ll be dosing .5ml daily to maintain 0.05 Po4 or you think I need more? 

 

15 hours ago, Thrassian Atoll said:

I am a huge fan of neonitro and neophos to keep my nutrients in balance.  Stuff works great.  

How they works in this cases? 

[mcarroll]

Just now, darksun92 said:

I already have mine I’ll be dosing .5ml daily to maintain 0.05 Po4 or you think I need more? 

That might be fine....just consider this:  There doesn't appear to be such a thing as "too much" phosphate...only "too little".  The object of dosing up is to prevent running to zero.  So if 0.05 gets you enough "breathing room" so that when you re-test there's still close to 0.05 ppm left...then that's fine.  But if you test and find that levels are dipping closer to 0.03 ppm or lower...then you'll want to keep a higher dosing target just to prevent that.  (There's no intrinsic benefit to "more" either....just the prevention of running out.)

[darksun92]

UPDATE 

So after 3 weeks of my last post everything Is getting worse and worse... 
Most of my SPS already died and others in the tank just waiting for their moment... 

I tested my parameters 30 minutes ago and are these 

No3: 25

Po4: 0 (I’m dosing 3 Ml daily and still can’t rise it up) 

Kh: 8.3

Ca: 400

Mg: 1380 

 the water started to look white-ish 3 days ago, most of soft corals doesn’t open, LPS look pretty thin and other died already, I don’t know what to do I’m a bit tired of the tank, maybe I’ll Give up pretty soon. 

 

[mcarroll]

Just now, darksun92 said:

Po4: 0 (I’m dosing 3 Ml daily and still can’t rise it up) 

You have to dose more....you need to calculate the proper dose to hit at least 0.10 ppm.  Not only that but you have to dose enough to KEEP PO4 AT THAT LEVEL.  Don't limit yourself on the quantity you dose.  👍

 

The corals are getting hammered by their unhappy dinoflagellate symbionts as they starve for phosphates and turn hostile.

 

Having continued elevated nitrate levels (25ppm) in the face of this phosphate deficit makes it even worse because it causes the dino's to divide more quickly and increase in numbers.  Exactly the opposite of what you want to happen in this circumstance.

 

It's possible that some corals are too far gone, but it's also possible that you might still save some – so get to that dosing!! 😃

 

Let us know what you're dosing if you want help calculating the dose you'll need.  If it's Seachem, know that they have dose calculators on their website AND they have calculator apps. Look in the plants section tho! 

 

[darksun92]

31 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

You have to dose more....you need to calculate the proper dose to hit at least 0.10 ppm.  Not only that but you have to dose enough to KEEP PO4 AT THAT LEVEL.  Don't limit yourself on the quantity you dose.  👍

 

The corals are getting hammered by their unhappy dinoflagellate symbionts as they starve for phosphates and turn hostile.

 

Having continued elevated nitrate levels (25ppm) in the face of this phosphate deficit makes it even worse because it causes the dino's to divide more quickly and increase in numbers.  Exactly the opposite of what you want to happen in this circumstance.

 

It's possible that some corals are too far gone, but it's also possible that you might still save some – so get to that dosing!! 😃

 

Let us know what you're dosing if you want help calculating the dose you'll need.  If it's Seachem, know that they have dose calculators on their website AND they have calculator apps. Look in the plants section tho! 

 

I checked the seachem calculator and it says .5ml to reach 10ppm but it’s too much less than I already dose I’ll start to dose 5ml and test 1 hour after that, what do you think can be the reason to the water turn a bit cloudy? Thanks a lot for your help as always.

[mcarroll]

26 minutes ago, darksun92 said:

I checked the seachem calculator and it says .5ml to reach 10ppm but it’s too much less than I already dose I’ll start to dose 5ml and test 1 hour after that, what do you think can be the reason to the water turn a bit cloudy? Thanks a lot for your help as always.

I don't remember what size tank you have, but 10 gallons should get about 0.8 mL to reach 0.10 ppm.

 

Re-test anywhere from 20-60 minutes after you dose and see what is left.  If phosphates are being consumed quickly you need to dose more.  It's that simple!  🙂 

 

Think of this like you think about maintaining alkalinity...you dose as much as you need to dose in order to maintain the concentration you intend on maintaining.

 

The calculator is useful for starting doses and corrective doses, but you will have to work out the daily consumption rate for your tank specifically.  Run a search on the forum for "daily consumption" and you should find plenty of guides if you're not sure how to proceed.

 

*double check your test results once too.  re-test the same sample at least twice.

[Tamberav]

Do you have a cuc to eat that algae? It's probably what is eating up your phosphates.

 

Also be sure to keep your sandbed clean. I always found the tank to start to suffer if my sandbed got nasty/cloudy. 

[darksun92]

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

I don't remember what size tank you have, but 10 gallons should get about 0.8 mL to reach 0.10 ppm.

 

Re-test anywhere from 20-60 minutes after you dose and see what is left.  If phosphates are being consumed quickly you need to dose more.  It's that simple!  🙂 

 

Think of this like you think about maintaining alkalinity...you dose as much as you need to dose in order to maintain the concentration you intend on maintaining.

 

The calculator is useful for starting doses and corrective doses, but you will have to work out the daily consumption rate for your tank specifically.  Run a search on the forum for "daily consumption" and you should find plenty of guides if you're not sure how to proceed.

 

*double check your test results once too.  re-test the same sample at least twice.

Is 21 liters exactly, I started to dose 4ml Yesterday and later I’ll test it again. 
 

16 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Do you have a cuc to eat that algae? It's probably what is eating up your phosphates.

 

Also be sure to keep your sandbed clean. I always found the tank to start to suffer if my sandbed got nasty/cloudy. 

I put 8 hermit crabs and 3 snails and I only see 2 Hermit crabs already, always happen the same 🤦🏻‍♂️

[Tired]

How did the larger amount of dosed phosphates go? 

 

Dinos will kill your snails. Hermit crabs will also kill your snails, if they need shells, and possibly each other. 

[Reefer-begginer]

reading ahead, I've noticed phophates come up alot.

And I do agree with that as from what I can tell ( from my tank ) having phophates at .50/1 is a good startup as for my tank I have mostly lps/sps with softies mixed in ( i have acans, staghorns, hammers, frogspawn, mushrooms, xenia, Kenya, anthelia, couple of random corals I can't ID cuz of how small they are ). But the point stands, I see you definitely needing more phosphates, and maybe even a higher flow for sps ( as most sps love high flow/high lighting ) 

Temp seems just find as that's what my tank sits at ( of course its a 36g bowfront so less heat transference ), but temp works for me and it could work for you.

 

Notice I said could and not should.

As each tank is different and should be kept with a specific temp. Not all tanks do good at 84, some do good with no heater, while some don't even use skimmers ( i do use a skimmer because my last anemone died from high phosphates ). 

[darksun92]

I appreciated the help for everyone who commented and try to help me but today I decided to stop fighting against something that likely doesn’t want to correct, after losing all my sps, some lps and some softies looking bad I decided to turn off the tank and give my left corals to a friend, I’ll try it again soon... 

 

before and after 

[Tired]

You know, that's fair. This problem is very likely fixable, but it's up to you to decide if the effort is worth it. 

 

You could always run fish-only. Fish don't care about phosphates.  

[Reefer-begginer]

Unfortunately with corals its a pricey trial and error type of thing.

I know my tank isn't good for duncans because I have my lighting "high" but its way to high for them even at bottom tank level.

( my par at the top of my tank is around 700. While at the bottom its 550 )

1 minute ago, Tired said:

You know, that's fair. This problem is very likely fixable, but it's up to you to decide if the effort is worth it. 

 

You could always run fish-only. Fish don't care about phosphates.  

I dont think phosphates are deadly to fish, i could be wrong about that tho

[Tired]

As far as I know, no level of phosphates you can reasonably hit in a reef tank is deadly to anything. When people have high phosphates, it just causes algae. 

 

Which makes me think that if OP still has the tank intact, it may be worth just pouring a big dose of phosphates in, like way too big of a dose. Maybe everything just needs to have a phosphates debt overcome. 

[Reefer-begginer]

Or just 

 

 

MORE FISH 

[jservedio]

Guys, dumping loads of phosphate in all at once isn't the answer. Stability is what matters more than anything if you want to keep your corals alive while dealing with problems - you can't expect SPS to survive when you are spiking between almost zero and god only knows how high every day. You can't expect a good outcome with that.

 

In addition, OP may never have success without also fixing the temperature. 84.2f being the high end of the coolest possible leaves zero headroom at all and just isn't sustainable. If your tank is that hot, you need a chiller.