Need Advice: Nothing is Growing!

[Deleted member 20245]

I think it is your Apex-). Are you relying on those test and are they accurate. Sometime 10 minutes of salerf test kits can tell a lot. Have you sent in an Icp test lately?

lol - oh yeah, I’ve learned my lesson. I watch for trend lines and compare against Hanna.

Still scratching my head on root cause though. My other 3 tanks are ok - just this one is very stubborn to take off the ground.

 

[Jimbo327]

Drop your nitrates to 10ppm and your phosphates to 0.1ppm. Keep it steady at these levels. To me, that is the sweet spot.

If nitrates rises up to 15-20 and phosphates 0.15-0.2, I would consider that high already...and work to bring it down.

And you need to adjust your dosing based on ICP if you don't want to do water change. Personally, I would do a large water change, and let the tank settle for a day or 2, then send in an ICP as 1st baseline. Keep everything the same (like everything from trace dosing to equipment parameters and run time), and send in 2nd ICP about 1 month later. This will tell you the tank consumption of trace element. Then adjust your dosing...and send in 3rd ICP after another month to confirm dosage is correct. Then you can space out the ICP testing for longer periods.

Or just do routine water changes, and you don't have to do ICP.

Just remember that carbon dosing, UV, Ozone, carbon, skimming...they all affect certain trace elements, so it is best to lock those parameters in place before starting this series of ICP test.

 

[mescobar]

When was the last time you did a water change?

You took your protein skimmer offline, and stopped using activated carbon. Are you sure you're not getting build up of DOC (dissolved organics)?

Have you done a white bucket test to see if/how yellow your water is? Compared it against freshly mixed salt water or RODI? Might give you a good idea on just how much organics (yellow) is in your tank.

 

[Jimbo327]

Yes, you will see other people reference full reefs with higher nitrates and phosphates. But those are not the norm, and they probably have very established tanks with corals that have adapted to those higher nutrient levels over years.

IMHO, newer tanks need to stay in the sweet spot. The corals you get from fellow reefers and stores are mostly in the sweet spot. It will make your reefing life easier.

 

[Deleted member 20245]

I can easily reduce N&P from my phone and get back to that level. I was there before but nothing seemed to change; hence I’m purposely bringing things back up to feed the tank more.

Guess I’ll give moonshiners a chance since I’ll manually dosing missing elements? I hate doing WCs and don’t want to mix 200gal+ to do it.

 

[mchain275]

Do you dose 2 part? If so, check your salinity. If you're not doing water changes (an opportunity to correct salinity creep up with 2 part), then your salinity may have swelled significantly over time.

 

[Deleted member 20245]

When was the last time you did a water change?

You took your protein skimmer offline, and stopped using activated carbon. Are you sure you're not getting build up of DOC (dissolved organics)?

Have you done a white bucket test to see if/how yellow your water is? Compared it against freshly mixed salt water or RODI? Might give you a good idea on just how much organics (yellow) is in your tank.

Zero WC. Guess I did a few 30gal ones to clean out the sump but haven’t done one. My 150gal hasn’t seen a WC 5 years ago and things are growing fine!

I used to run ozone — my water is crystal clear so can’t really tell. lol

 

[Deleted member 20245]

Do you dose 2 part? If so, check your salinity. If you're not doing water changes (an opportunity to correct salinity creep up with 2 part), then your salinity may have swelled significantly over time.

Big carx (RO 5000D) - keeps my alk/ca pretty stable. SG is 1.025 - I check that regularly.

 

[Tangerine Speedo]

You probably do not have enough biome in your tank. I know when you say live rock, you do not mean ocean live rock. You need to create a better ecosystem with diversity. That and you should go to Scripps and do a big NSW water change. Which ICP did you get OES or MS?

 

[Deleted member 20245]

You probably do not have enough biome in your tank. I know when you say live rock, you do not mean ocean live rock. You need to create a better ecosystem with diversity. That and you should go to Scripps and do a big NSW water change. Which ICP did you get OES or MS?

That’s what I’m leaning toward — something that I cannot test for at home. I’ve sent in for ATI last week so should be ready end of this week, early next week (I hope)?

I used 50% LR from my other established tanks though. I’ll call you re: NSW WC — if that will kickstart this tank. Definitely wait for ICP before doing anything though.

 

[Deleted member 20245]

Following everyone’s advice, I’ll try to lower nutrients again to see if this makes any difference. For reference, I was at ~15ppm NO3 and sub 0.10ppm PO4 before.

Dosing params
5mL of vodka (just top off a bottle)
20mL of Phosphat-E

That was my maintenance dose so might have to double-dose (or incrementally more) tomorrow to bring down.

 

[Deleted member 20245]

FYI - every reef tank should have a reef mat. I’m loving the Deltec VF800. This thing is awesome, keeping my sump cleaner vs before. No longer dealing with socks/poly filter. Perhaps it stripped all the nutrients? Nah — I had issues before installing this device last month.

Also, just started up the skimmer. So everything is back online except Ozone & UV.

 

[k.tran]

I think you're drinking the vodka and not dosing it. That's all I have to add to this conversation

 

[thresher]

I think you're drinking the vodka and not dosing it. That's all I have to add to this conversation

Nothing wrong with that but gotta share with the fishes.

 

[Deleted member 20245]

I think you're drinking the vodka and not dosing it. That's all I have to add to this conversation

lol - no man, I don’t like vodka. I’m a single malt guy… ha

 

[Jimbo327]

5ml of vodka? LOL. I think you need like 15ml at least.

 

[Deleted member 20245]

5ml of vodka? LOL. I think you need like 15ml at least.

I was doing 20mL of DIY NoPox before but with straight vodka, I’ll start with 5mL and ramp up. You’re right — likely need 15-20mL to keep up with 30 filth fish! lol

 

[Deleted member 20245]

@Jimbo327 @Tangerine Speedo, et. al.

How about I move a biobrick from my matured frag tank to this tank’s sump? That brick has been full of life for more than 2 years.

Thoughts?

 

[Deleted member 20245]

The stupid Trident is behaving erratically again - Trident NP is actually good.

Since I changed to ABC Reagent, things are grossly off compared to Hanna. Currently, I’m at 9dKH (per Hanna, tested multiple times & compared to other tanks) but Alk is showing over 14dKH!

I’m tempted to go back to those 6mos reagents when I’m done with this ABC batch. Currently, I’m taking whatever dKH value is reported and subtract by 4-5! lol

Anyone has the same problem?

 

[Deleted member 20245]

This was from last Wed - I went to 9.7dKH but had settled to 9.1dKH. Will test again later tonight.