Phosphate dip

[Leo_ian]

Well my sps havent been opening up and i tested my nitrates and phosphates today. the worst came, even though my nitrates were stable, my phosphates went from 0.25-0.1. i think that is the cause, how can i raise it without dosing? fish? higher feeding? 

i already started on pellets since that was my suspicion, i knew i should have tested earlier. Any help would be appreciated THANK YOU!!!

[Clown79]

How old is the tank?

Whats in the tank?

[Leo_ian]

the tank is 3years old, lubbocki wrasse, spriger damsel and a royal gramma, cuc is very low. coralwise all my sps are on the frag rack, sand(away from softies and acans)(SSC) or on top of the rockscape(tenuis)

 

20 gallon cube 

 

equipment:

refugium (taken out when dosing vibrant but stopped about a month back.)

elos skimmer

hailea chiller

filter sock

bio media pellets

kessil light

[Clown79]

You have a lot of filtration that could be leading to reduced nutrients. The refugium if there is macro, will use up phos

[Leo_ian]

I have had the macros for a long time, filtration has been there forever but yes I will consider That

[jservedio]

As long as your phosphate doesn't continue to drop, 0.1ppm is perfectly fine and in a 3 year old tank as long as you aren't making a bunch of changes, it'll settle where it wants and you can make small changes to adjust a bit. If 0.1ppm is where it's happy, that's perfectly fine.

 

I'd be looking elsewhere if your SPS is mad.

[Leo_ian]

welp my green seriatopora, green acans and badly coloured SSC are bleached. SSC bleached halfway in less than 8 hours, green acans just gone overnight and seriatopora is slowly bleaching. 

 

my red acans seem to be next, should i pass the corals to my LFS to help me take care while i figure out what happened? 

 

[Leo_ian]

On 12/14/2020 at 10:43 AM, jservedio said:

As long as your phosphate doesn't continue to drop, 0.1ppm is perfectly fine and in a 3 year old tank as long as you aren't making a bunch of changes, it'll settle where it wants and you can make small changes to adjust a bit. If 0.1ppm is where it's happy, that's perfectly fine.

 

I'd be looking elsewhere if your SPS is mad.

it is usually 0.25ppm

 

should i check alk? 

[jservedio]

4 hours ago, Leo_ian said:

it is usually 0.25ppm

 

should i check alk? 

If you have SPS, you need to know what your alk is. A swing in alk is far, far more consequential for SPS than your phosphates. You should probably be checking your alkalinity 2-3x a week until you know how much alkalinity you are using on a daily basis for a few weeks.

[Leo_ian]

Ok thank you for your advice

[Leo_ian]

My alk is 15.7, I know it’s high but I has always been that way

[KMitch]

That is insanely high. Do you add ph buffers to the tank? What are you dosing? How old is that test kit. Something isn’t right with that #. 

[Leo_ian]

Test kit expires in 2024

22 hours ago, KMitch said:

That is insanely high. Do you add ph buffers to the tank? What are you dosing? How old is that test kit. Something isn’t right with that #. 

I am dosing all for reef

[mcarroll]

On 12/12/2020 at 2:54 AM, Leo_ian said:

Well my sps havent been opening up and i tested my nitrates and phosphates today. the worst came, even though my nitrates were stable, my phosphates went from 0.25-0.1.[....]

i knew i should have tested earlier.

Do you know what actually caused the change in phosphates?   The level of phosphates before and after your change are each totally fine per se, but the fact that there was a swing is still a clue.

 

On 12/15/2020 at 5:29 AM, Leo_ian said:

should i check alk? 

On 12/15/2020 at 9:05 PM, Leo_ian said:

My alk is 15.7, I know it’s high but I has always been that way

On 12/16/2020 at 8:16 PM, Leo_ian said:

I am dosing all for reef

Unless I'm mistaken, I think I read that All For Reef depends on bacterial action for the alkalinity component to be "activated".  I think that might be alternately interpreted as it's being almost like a carbon dosing regime (ie there is an intention of growing a bacterial population) with specific side-effects toward alkalinity.  Point being that growing a colony of bacteria takes a pretty fair amount of N and P...and you have a "pretty fair amount" of alkalinity in your system.  No coincidence.

 

Is the All For Reef possibly what triggered the apparent shift in phosphate levels?  By that I mean...does the timing of when you started dosing seem to line up to the timing of when you started seeing problems AND when phosphate dipped?

 

Is it also possible that you accidentally over-dosed All For Reef (making that 15 dKH happen) to compensate for that time-delay for alkalinity to show up in a test?

 

They don't really address the mechanism of action on their website, but the generic directions on Tropic Marin's product page say...

Quote

Start with a daily dose of 5 ml of ALL-FOR-REEF per 100 litres (26 US-gal) of aquarium system volume. Increase the daily dosage – by continuous monitoring of alkalinity – weekly by 2.5 ml per 100 litres (26 US-gal) of aquarium system volume, until a constant carbonate hardness of 7 to 9 °dH is reached. 

Do not exceed a maximum daily dose of 25 ml of ALL-FOR-REEF per 100 litres (26 US-gal) of aquarium system volume.

I'm guessing from your other posts that you were not following the guidance on "continuous monitoring" or you would have stopped dosing when you reached their target range of 7-9 dKH.  

 

Did you at least follow their stepped approach by starting at 5mL and increasing by only 2.5mL per week to get where you are now?  

 

What is your current dosage of All For Reef?

 

Going by the dosage calculator on their website, they tune that guidance down for a 20 gallon tank.  You'd have started at 3.79 mL per day, eventually getting up to a maximum dose of 18.93 mL per day.

 

If your dosage seems more or less in-line with their recommendations, then I'd wonder if your salt mix is causing the strange chemistry.  What salt mix are you using and have you made any changes in that area lately?

[farkwar]

On 12/15/2020 at 6:05 PM, Leo_ian said:

My alk is 15.7, I know it’s high but I has always been that way

Chris Marks needs to add a YIKES emoji

[Leo_ian]

15 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Do you know what actually caused the change in phosphates?   The level of phosphates before and after your change are each totally fine per se, but the fact that there was a swing is still a clue.

 

Unless I'm mistaken, I think I read that All For Reef depends on bacterial action for the alkalinity component to be "activated".  I think that might be alternately interpreted as it's being almost like a carbon dosing regime (ie there is an intention of growing a bacterial population) with specific side-effects toward alkalinity.  Point being that growing a colony of bacteria takes a pretty fair amount of N and P...and you have a "pretty fair amount" of alkalinity in your system.  No coincidence.

 

Is the All For Reef possibly what triggered the apparent shift in phosphate levels?  By that I mean...does the timing of when you started dosing seem to line up to the timing of when you started seeing problems AND when phosphate dipped?

 

Is it also possible that you accidentally over-dosed All For Reef (making that 15 dKH happen) to compensate for that time-delay for alkalinity to show up in a test?

 

They don't really address the mechanism of action on their website, but the generic directions on Tropic Marin's product page say...

I'm guessing from your other posts that you were not following the guidance on "continuous monitoring" or you would have stopped dosing when you reached their target range of 7-9 dKH.  

 

Did you at least follow their stepped approach by starting at 5mL and increasing by only 2.5mL per week to get where you are now?  

 

What is your current dosage of All For Reef?

 

Going by the dosage calculator on their website, they tune that guidance down for a 20 gallon tank.  You'd have started at 3.79 mL per day, eventually getting up to a maximum dose of 18.93 mL per day.

 

If your dosage seems more or less in-line with their recommendations, then I'd wonder if your salt mix is causing the strange chemistry.  What salt mix are you using and have you made any changes in that area lately?

I dose 15ml a day, yes I did start of slow. Yes I did make a mistake In forgoing the testing. 
I get my saltwater from my lfs

I also lost my green acans and am about to lose my red acans soon

[mcarroll]

3 minutes ago, Leo_ian said:

I dose 15ml a day

Sounds like you're within their dosing range, but perhaps still have exceeded the tank's actual demand since dKH is so high.

 

Can you test a batch of water from the LFS to see what you get before it goes into the tank?  This was you'll know whether or not the saltwater is figuring into the issue.

 

For now I would scale your All For Reef dose back by 50% and see if your dKH drops down to between 7-9 dKH.  

 

If dKH happens to drop below 7, then you can go through the procedure again for increasing your dose....only this time with testing!  😁

 

I think your corals will start to feel better once you get dKH below 12 or so.  👍

 

 

[Leo_ian]

18 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Sounds like you're within their dosing range, but perhaps still have exceeded the tank's actual demand since dKH is so high.

 

Can you test a batch of water from the LFS to see what you get before it goes into the tank?  This was you'll know whether or not the saltwater is figuring into the issue.

 

For now I would scale your All For Reef dose back by 50% and see if your dKH drops down to between 7-9 dKH.  

 

If dKH happens to drop below 7, then you can go through the procedure again for increasing your dose....only this time with testing!  😁

 

I think your corals will start to feel better once you get dKH below 12 or so.  👍

 

 

Thank you!!!!

[Leo_ian]

how do i save all the sps from bleaching? the only ones that are pulling through are my mint pavona, forest fire(no pe), red monti cap and blue tip tenuis(losing corallites).

[Leo_ian]

i also have gha which grows on my other sps

[mcarroll]

On 12/20/2020 at 2:19 AM, Leo_ian said:

how do i save all the sps from bleaching?

It may not be possible since the damage could already be done.

 

But as I mentioned already, you need to put your finger on the reason for your high alkalinity.  I've tried to give you some ideas on that.

 

If it's all from the dosing, then cutting back your dose by 50% may help.  Doing some water changes will quickly correct the current chemistry levels.

 

However, If the problem is coming from your saltwater mix, then you will need a different approach.  (Maybe a new saltwater mix.)

[Leo_ian]

ok thank you!

 

[KMitch]

@mcarroll is right to tell you to test the LFS water alkalinity. Some salt mixes to 11dkh out of the box, in which case your dosing of all for reef could have kicked you to the 15 level quickly. 
 

if you haven’t done so already, do some water changes to lower the alkalinity to below 11. Optimally you should aim to be closer to 9 dkh. 

[farkwar]

Why are you dosing anything at all at those levels?

 

You essentially poisoned your corals

 

I don't have anything else to add that won't get me banned from this board

 

[The emoji that goes here is a combo of scratching head, shaking head, face palm, rolling eyes, shrugging shoulders]

[Leo_ian]

14 hours ago, KMitch said:

@mcarroll is right to tell you to test the LFS water alkalinity. Some salt mixes to 11dkh out of the box, in which case your dosing of all for reef could have kicked you to the 15 level quickly. 
 

if you haven’t done so already, do some water changes to lower the alkalinity to below 11. Optimally you should aim to be closer to 9 dkh. 

I am trying to do as many water changes as possible. Should I use another lfs’s water?

4 hours ago, farkwar said:

Why are you dosing anything at all at those levels?

 

You essentially poisoned your corals

 

I don't have anything else to add that won't get me banned from this board

 

[The emoji that goes here is a combo of scratching head, shaking head, face palm, rolling eyes, shrugging shoulders]

🥺😒