Adventures in keeping a SPS reef

[mcarroll]

47 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

I did my regular weekly water testing last night. alk, cal and mag have all been steady at 8, 475 and 1480 the last month. But I have noticed something a bit odd with my nutrients, every 4th week I see a big drop. My nitrate generally drops .6-1ppm a week and phosphate has generally been pretty consistent week over week.

Every 4th week I see a large drop in both. Last time nitrate went from 7.2ppm the previous week to 0 and phosphate went from 0.12 to 0.05

I have noticed that things related to nutrients (perhaps other things too) tend to be on a cycle like that.  

 

The initial tank cycle takes around that time...  It's why I have a tendency to tell folks to wait at least a few weeks after making a change before making the next move...  Etc.    

 

I wonder, but suspect it's related to the oceanic forcing of coral reefs created by the moon cycle?  No real idea though.  

 

I will say you may the first person to have data showing it so clearly.

 

47 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

This time nitrate went from 7.6 to 0 and phosphate went from 0.16 to 0.003ppm.

Dang – back to zero again.

 

47 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

I'm bringing both back up again, but it seems odd that it goes in this cycle. I have been feeding the same, do the same size water change on Sunday afternoon.

I think you're just seeing your microbial/critter populations recover from the starvation mode they were in.

 

The recovery is good enough to get them into a growth cycle.

 

But the growth cycle uses up all the available nutrients.

 

So "growth" becomes a victim of its own success.

 

This cycle will tame down (probably A LOT) once your standing algae population shrinks in size.  

 

This is one reason that it's so important to make headway on your mature algae cover – it (more than new algae growth) promotes low nutrient levels in more ways than just its own consumption.  Mature stands of algae (similarly to coral) give off carbonaceous substances (sugars) that promote bacterial growth.  Dead algae cells also decay and promote additional bacterial growth.*

 

It's actually the bacterial growth that is taking nutrient levels down so low.  Uptake by larger organisms such as plants and corals generally stops before levels get astronomically low....they just aren't capable of uptake at those levels.  Boundary layer issues, et al. 

 

Eliminating the mature algae stands is the way to eliminate the wild nutrient swings though.  👍

 

(*This is also known as eutrophication.)

[Llorgon]

21 hours ago, mcarroll said:

I have noticed that things related to nutrients (perhaps other things too) tend to be on a cycle like that.  

 

The initial tank cycle takes around that time...  It's why I have a tendency to tell folks to wait at least a few weeks after making a change before making the next move...  Etc.    

 

I wonder, but suspect it's related to the oceanic forcing of coral reefs created by the moon cycle?  No real idea though. 

Interesting. I guess it could be related to the moon cycle? Would that apply to a tank without moonlight though? I haven't seen any sort of similar cycle around alk, cal or mag. I have some slight changes in cal and mag, but I assume that's just differences in testing.

21 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

I will say you may the first person to have data showing it so clearly.

 

Dang – back to zero again.

Phosphate isn't at zero so that's something.... right. It's very weird how nitrate will just drop like a rock.

21 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

I think you're just seeing your microbial/critter populations recover from the starvation mode they were in.

 

The recovery is good enough to get them into a growth cycle.

 

But the growth cycle uses up all the available nutrients.

 

So "growth" becomes a victim of its own success.

 

This cycle will tame down (probably A LOT) once your standing algae population shrinks in size.  

This is a vicious circle. I should probably always add a bit of nitrate and phosphate into the ATO or just set it on a doser...

21 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

This is one reason that it's so important to make headway on your mature algae cover – it (more than new algae growth) promotes low nutrient levels in more ways than just its own consumption.  Mature stands of algae (similarly to coral) give off carbonaceous substances (sugars) that promote bacterial growth.  Dead algae cells also decay and promote additional bacterial growth.*

I have been working on the growth on the one side of the glass and the back wall. Maybe I need a quick growing coral to put on the back to take up all the space from the algae...

21 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

It's actually the bacterial growth that is taking nutrient levels down so low.  Uptake by larger organisms such as plants and corals generally stops before levels get astronomically low....they just aren't capable of uptake at those levels.  Boundary layer issues, et al. 

 

Eliminating the mature algae stands is the way to eliminate the wild nutrient swings though.  👍

 

(*This is also known as eutrophication.)

The mature algae is slowly going away. There is lots of coraline on the glass beneath the algae... still not a ton on the rocks though. I don't know why it doesn't grow there...

[Llorgon]

Some photos of how the algae is doing... And like one healthy coral.

[mcarroll]

9 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

Interesting. I guess it could be related to the moon cycle? Would that apply to a tank without moonlight though?

It's only a theory. 😉 

 

I doubt it wound be cause-effect with moonlight.  I think it's more indirect....like oceanic forcing.  (Read that link.)  The moon influences the tides.  Water flow, aka the tides, control ("force"), a lot of the cycles that corals live by.

 

9 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

I haven't seen any sort of similar cycle around alk, cal or mag. I have some slight changes in cal and mag, but I assume that's just differences in testing.

Once the rate of coral growth in your tank brings their Alk usage up to the sensitivity level of your tests, you may see similar trends.  Alk usage is pegged to water flow.  (As are most things a coral needs....other than light.)

 

9 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

Phosphate isn't at zero so that's something.... right. It's very weird how nitrate will just drop like a rock.

Not THAT weird when you consider what these nutrients are used for.  

 

It takes very little P, relative to the amount of N, to build new cells, for example.  

 

(This gets talked about in general terms as the so-called Redfield Ratio.  In general, N gets used on a ratio of 16 to 1 with P.  Other elements are specified in "The Ratio" too.  The journal Nature has a really good Redfield section you could poke around in.  Maybe start here.)

 

9 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

This is a vicious circle. I should probably always add a bit of nitrate and phosphate into the ATO or just set it on a doser...

That's a good plan!  If your ATO reservoir lasts about a week, then plan out what a week's worth of N and P would be and add the whole quantity.

 

9 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

I have been working on the growth on the one side of the glass and the back wall. Maybe I need a quick growing coral to put on the back to take up all the space from the algae...

Depends if that's what you want.  Corals aren't always removable, so make sure that's what you really want...vs just having a cleanup crew and having to razor the glass down baby hand every once in a while.

 

9 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

The mature algae is slowly going away. There is lots of coraline on the glass beneath the algae... still not a ton on the rocks though. I don't know why it doesn't grow there...

It's very tender compared to corals or green algae IMO.  

 

For one thing it seems to favor shade, or reflected light, vs direct bright light.  It may not generate its "skeleton" the way corals do, so perhaps it's also sensitive to phosphates in different ways than corals.....aragonite (coral skeleton) is naturally chemically attractive to phosphates almost the same as GFO.  

 

So Coralline algae may not be able to spread to the rock until there's a good, healthy layer of other microbial critters there first to block or use up the phosphate layer.  (This is what your tank is trying to grow right now.....but keeps running out of basic nutrients.)

[Llorgon]

After a week of having my in laws staying with us the tank was looking pretty rough. Lots of long algae everywhere. They went back home yesterday and I was finally able to get to the tank. 

 

I pulled out 4 full cups of algae yesterday. I must say, the long algae made things easier to pick off. I also removed a few more dead skeletons. I'm going to try and remove the big euphyllia skeleton tonight since I can see there are a bunch of little snails and bristle worms living under it.

 

I also scraped the back and side wall of algae and did a 10g water change.

After a week of no algae removal

[Llorgon]

And after yesterday's water change and cleaning

[rimga123]

Looks miles better after the clean! Cant see any ciano, havo you got rid of it? And were you able to identify the type of hair algae you are having right now?

[Llorgon]

3 minutes ago, rimga123 said:

Looks miles better after the clean! Cant see any ciano, havo you got rid of it? And were you able to identify the type of hair algae you are having right now?

Thanks. Definitely a big improvement after the clean. Still a long ways to go.

 

Cyano seems to be mostly gone. I upped both the powerheads and return pumps and it seems to have helped.

 

All I could get on the hair algae was it's not lyngbya and it looks like regular old gha. So... Not really

[Llorgon]

I got my n-doc test kit today. I should be able to send that out sometime this week. 

 

I also noticed that even the aiptasia I have in the tank are pretty unhappy looking. They are all kind of shriveled up.

[Llorgon]

N-doc test has been sent out. Hopefully it won't be too long before I get results.

[rimga123]

Hopefully this will give you some answers!

Shameless plug to my own journal, just cleaned all the glass pannels and the tank looks 1000x better

Never really had mad coraline algae growth.

How big are your water changes? Im having some problems wirh my torches, half tempted to send an icp but im also thinking that my tank is too small, with couple bigger water changes all values should be back to normal, values that im not testing for

[Llorgon]

16 minutes ago, rimga123 said:

Hopefully this will give you some answers!

Shameless plug to my own journal, just cleaned all the glass pannels and the tank looks 1000x better

Never really had mad coraline algae growth.

How big are your water changes? Im having some problems wirh my torches, half tempted to send an icp but im also thinking that my tank is too small, with couple bigger water changes all values should be back to normal, values that im not testing for

Oh I will have to checkout your journal!

 

I usually do 10-15g water change every week. From the ICP test I have sent out there was nothing that anyone could pick out that would have caused the issues. Maybe this n-doc test will tell me something.

I added a couple corals from my 25g to see how they will do in this tank. I'm going to be restarting the now sad 25g and I eventually want to move the few remaining coral to this tank.

[rimga123]

Didint know thay you had a spare tank runing! I was meant to suggest to setup maybe a smaller temp tank for euphilias who could maybe recover there

But thats a lot of money-effort for one coral

Ive reserted my nano 15 gallon a couple times now with 100% eater changes when i had a weird issue going on while the parameters seemed ok

[Llorgon]

1 hour ago, rimga123 said:

Didint know thay you had a spare tank runing! I was meant to suggest to setup maybe a smaller temp tank for euphilias who could maybe recover there

But thats a lot of money-effort for one coral

Ive reserted my nano 15 gallon a couple times now with 100% eater changes when i had a weird issue going on while the parameters seemed ok

I have 2 tanks, the IM25 and the 75g. Slight story time, I moved long distance in Dec 2019 and the 25g was setup as a temp tank. But during the move, my stand broke and it took almost a year through COVID to build a new one. So this temp tank has been running for about 3 years now.

 

Before the summer it was my most successful tank. Everything I put in there grew. Then this summer, whatever affected the big tank also hit the small one. I lost all SPS and anything encrusting, a few euphyllia, acans and favia. It's now in a sad state with aiptasia and bubble algae taking over. 

 

I would just shut it down, but I don't want to re-home my clownfish so I'm going to turn it into a low maintenance softy tank.

[rimga123]

Woah! Would love to see it at its prime! Any photos?

Of both tanks got affected, could it be a problem with water?

[Llorgon]

3 hours ago, rimga123 said:

Woah! Would love to see it at its prime! Any photos?

Of both tanks got affected, could it be a problem with water?

Here ya go. 

 

It could have been the water, I really have no idea. I changed all the RODI filters multiple times, added more carbon ECT. The only other thing it could have been was the 10+year old python hose.

[rimga123]

That looked great! Those acans are to die for!

Can never rule out anything. When are you expecting to get the resuts back from triton?

[Llorgon]

Ya, I'm pretty bummed about losing some of the acans. 

 

The ICP test will probably be a month or so. That's what it was last time. Definitely not a quick turn around.

[Llorgon]

I did a bit more algae removal and water testing tonight. Big 3 are holding steady which is good. I'm still trying to nail down the dosing for nitrate and phosphate.

 

Alk: 8.0

Cal: 480

Mag: 1455

Nitrate: 9.2

Phosphate: 0.08

 

Alk, cal and mag have been steady for about 2 months now. Before that, I was getting some variations in mag and cal of about 5-10ppm.

 

The two corals I put in the tank this weekend are still looking good and my montipora has regained it's green colour. Unfortunately with the good there is the bad another one of the euphyllia frags had all three heads bail out yesterday.

[mcarroll]

That still seems like a LOT of algae for the amount of days gone by.  I can't see where you're making progress on that back wall.  

 

Do you have a scraper that you can use to make short work of at least the growth on the walls?  Don't worry if it's a little messier than the method you're using on the rocks....do it with all the flow OFF and when you're done siphon out as much of the algae you scrape off as possible.  Place a snail or two back there after you do it.

 

Likewise, see if you can siphon out all the sand that has algae growing on it.  Make short work of that too.  Don't worry about losing the sand – just be sure NOT to put the sand down any of your drains.  Pour off the water and throw the sand in the garbage/elsewhere.  (Sand will block a drain fast.)

 

Then I think you might have to double down on the time you're spending manually pulling algae off the rocks!

 

I'm getting worn out just thinking about you doing all that!!!   😰

 

😉😉 

 

Keep up the work!!! 🙂 👍

[Llorgon]

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

That still seems like a LOT of algae for the amount of days gone by.  I can't see where you're making progress on that back wall.  

It's actually quite a bit better. Especially the sides of the tank, but it does grow back quick!

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

Do you have a scraper that you can use to make short work of at least the growth on the walls?  Don't worry if it's a little messier than the method you're using on the rocks....do it with all the flow OFF and when you're done siphon out as much of the algae you scrape off as possible.  Place a snail or two back there after you do it.

Every Saturday I scrape the back/side glass and then suck out the algae. Same thing with the sand. It looks good for a day or two and then starts coming back.

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

Likewise, see if you can siphon out all the sand that has algae growing on it.  Make short work of that too.  Don't worry about losing the sand – just be sure NOT to put the sand down any of your drains.  Pour off the water and throw the sand in the garbage/elsewhere.  (Sand will block a drain fast.)

I use a fine strainer to run the crap I suck up through. If I suck up all the algae firs the sand gets stuck in the algae. Works great! Then I pick through the algae/sand stuff and put back any of those tiny snails I have and throw the rest in the garbage.

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

Then I think you might have to double down on the time you're spending manually pulling algae off the rocks!

I've been pulling stuff out every night for a few months now. Minus last week that is. I'm not sure how much more time I can put into removing algae.

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

I'm getting worn out just thinking about you doing all that!!!   😰

 

😉😉 

 

Keep up the work!!! 🙂 👍

I have noticed I am losing snails recently. I think I am down to 2 trochus and 2 astrea. I still have a bunch of cerith and little stomatella like ones. I think the place I get my snails starts shipping again next week.

 

I also had another incident of the skimmer going crazy. I caught it before it overflowed out of the sump. I left it on and removed the cup as there was no re tuning it last night. I really wish I could figure out what was triggering that...

[Llorgon]

Another day and two more euphyllia heads bailed... The test frogspawn I added to the tank is also looking unhappy...

 

The acan I added from my small tank still seems to be doing alright.

[mcarroll]

23 hours ago, Llorgon said:

Another day and two more euphyllia heads bailed... The test frogspawn I added to the tank is also looking unhappy...

 

The acan I added from my small tank still seems to be doing alright.

You should really wait until you have the algae under control before adding anything else.   At the very least you should clean out the patch where you're gonna place a coral!  

 

I know it can be hard to resist!!  🙂 

[Llorgon]

On 1/6/2023 at 4:00 PM, mcarroll said:

You should really wait until you have the algae under control before adding anything else.   At the very least you should clean out the patch where you're gonna place a coral!  

 

I know it can be hard to resist!!  🙂 

I feel shame. The two corals I added were from my 25g and were testers to see when I can start the rebuild process of it. It seems like acans will be ok to move, but not the few euphyllia I have left. I'm not buying anything new until algae is at least starting to look better.

 

Not much to update. I did my weekly water change, scraped the glass, pull a few more cups of algae out... general tediousness of trying to right the ship.

 

Today is water testing day, so I will test nutrients and see how they are going. I'm getting to the point I can tell when nutrients are getting low since I have less algae growth... of course that doesn't help the corals. So I shall continue my nightly algae removal and weekly big clean.

 

My normal place to order CUC is back to shipping again. Of course they are sold out of tuxedo urchins, trochus and mexican turbos. I could order a small army of cerith and astrea though.

[mcarroll]

6 hours ago, Llorgon said:

I could order a small army of cerith and astrea though.

Those are two of my favorites.  Astreas are HARD WORKERS!!! and a nice size.