To clean of a tank?

[Gietz]

Im not saying i have to clean of tank but i have around 1ppm of nitrates and im noticing my Xenia not doing so well. im wondering if this can affect my other corals (hammer and mushrooms and aussie duncans) i do 5 gallons water change a week.  should i possibly be doing it bi-weekly? and what is a good nitrate reading for LPS? ive always went under 10 ppm for LPS and under 5 for SPS.  so basicly is 1 ppm to lower lol 

 

[Zakk]

What's causing the nitrates?

I had thriving xenia when my nitrates peaked at something like 40ppm (I'm not bragging mind you, that was a dark time).  1ppm shouldn't bother them at all, is there any cyano?  stringy algae can bother them and keep them from extending. 

How are your levels of calcium, alk and magnesium?

Perhaps something in the water changes is bugging them....is it good salt with RO/DI water?

 

[Blob-79]

I had to re-read this post a couple of times, before I understood it lol....Geitz, when you use "to" it makes you look like a windsorite   Hes asking if he has too clean of a tank.  Its very possible with xenia, many people running lns have problems keeping xenia. I dont think its the nitrates as much as it is phosphates maybe? Do you have a phosphate test?  Xenia does like higher nutrient systems.

 

[crazybizzle]

thanks blob i guess us windsorites do it to ourselves lol...gietz go ask joe ge seems to know everything. lol ..like blob said list ur parms then ppl can figure it out for u. mysrlf im  running ulns and have zenia and softys mixed with alot of sps and im not having problems with anything besides a stylo but works for me dosnt work for someonw else.

 

[Blob-79]

Ya its been my experience some tanks can grow xenia like a weed, others it just withers and dies

 

[Gietz]

Geez windsorites thx blob!!!! I'm assuming it must be my phosphate lvls as I do have alittle bit for brown Algee but nothing serious.  As for calcium I only have 2 corals that would use up calcium.  I'm using reef cyrstal,  I only test nitrates as I'm only 5 months in, should I be testing everything?? 

To all you non-windsorites to = too

 

[Zakk]

It's never too early to get good habits where it comes to testing.  If I had started testing 15 years ago, I would have saved myself a fortune in time, money and livestock.  Proper testing is the only way to know what parameters are right or wrong, and usually that's why people ask "what are your parameters" when you ask about a problem, because usually it's pretty easy to spot what's out.

I test or monitor:
PH
ORP
ALK
CALCIUM
MAGNESIUM
PHOSPHATES (I test this a lot more than anything else)
NITRATES
NITRITES
AMMONIA
SALINITY.

I only ever bought one bucket of reef crystals, and got a huge outbreak of dinos, so I dumped the rest of the bucket.  Not sure there was a link, but I don't think I'll try them again (my bucket also had a weird ammonia smell to it). 

 

[Gietz]

I don't use buckets, I prefer the indvidual bags.  As for the test i know;
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 1 - 2 ppm
Salanity -around 1.025

 

[Zakk]

nitrite and ammonia are almost never wonky except in tanks that are cycling.  Salinity is good, nitrates honestly should be .00

You need to stock up on some good test kits.  Salifert or hanna (I use both and both give very similar results from each).

phosphates are most important as they lead to nuisance algae

alk/calc/mag are important for coral skeletons

ph and orp, well they seem to be inked, but if your calk and alk are good, your ph should stay pretty constant at 8.1-8.4 and ORP in the ~320-350 range

5% per water volume weekly water change should be good unless you have large bioload or a ton of coral.  I think skimmers use up trace elements too.

I don't dose anything but the BRS 2-part, and do big water changes.  I find running rox charcoal in a phosban reactor keeps the clarity of the water like diamonds, and running GFO in another keeps the phosphates in check.  I run a pellet reactor as well, but some do well dosing vokda, to me it just seems weird to do that. 

 

[pulpfiction1]

before i started keeping any corals,i started with Xenia,for a couple of years i was unable to keep it without eventually melting away,all my parameters were in textbook shape,i skimm real heavy,after some extenuating research,i discovered that this type of coral actually thrives in a more nutrient rich and higher nitrate's in the water column,this i learned more from pepole first hand including some from here with their experiences,Xenia is the only coral i find that fails with over skimming,once i put a heavy load in my tank it took off like wildfire,this was around the time i started vodka dosing,so i don't get to upset with 10ppm nitrate in my system any more and everything else seems to adjust very well with it

 

[Blob-79]

before i started keeping any corals,i started with Xenia,for a couple of years i was unable to keep it without eventually melting away,all my parameters were in textbook shape,i skimm real heavy,after some extenuating research,i discovered that this type of coral actually thrives in a more nutrient rich and higher nitrate's in the water column,this i learned more from pepole first hand including some from here with their experiences,Xenia is the only coral i find that fails with over skimming,once i put a heavy load in my tank it took off like wildfire,this was around the time i started vodka dosing,so i don't get to upset with 10ppm nitrate in my system any more and everything else seems to adjust very well with it

agree 100%

 

[Gietz]

So since everything is thriving (all of my 7 fish, bunch of mushrooms, hammer and Aussie Duncan) I'll take it into consideration that it is because my tank isn't dirty that they ate doing bad.  I will invest in some test kit (thx zakk) tho I'm afraid of the dosing requirements lol. I'll just keep but my 5gal water changes per week.  I'm not to worried about them as its just Xenia. If my other corals were acting put then I would know that I have a problem.  I'm also attempting to jack my corals up my feeding them every other day (hammer and Duncan) is hope they grow big fast

 

[Gietz]

Another thing to note..... I heard have 0 nitrates are bad zakk soo?  And I don't run any reactor,  I prob should get a GFO but as of now my joke tank eats of any Algee I get lol

 

[Zakk]

I dunno, when my nitrates are anything other than 0 (salifert test kit), I notice problems in the tank.  So I definitely don't agree that 0 nitrates are bad. 

Now one thing I should mention, I do spot feed the xenia reef roids every so often.  They seem to hate it, but who knows, I have a crazy thriving colony (just sold off a huge chunk), and my sps is doing very well in the same tank.... which I was never able to do before (it was always sps OR softies).

One thought...if you're feeding the duncans and hammer pretty heavy, it definitely can spike your nitrates and phosphates.  I dunno, I like nitrates at 0 and phosphates at .05 or less (I can never get it to .00 unless I run both hi-capacity GFO in one reactor and ROWAphos in the other.  So I figure .05 and under is okay if my corals are all growing.  My duncans went from 3 head to about 20 in 3 months by spot feeding mysis to them when I feed my sun coral.  They are greedy little fellas  ;D

 

[Zakk]

I should mention... when my tank was almost dead, my parameters were:
NO3:  50PPM
PO4:  .78 PPM

All I had was cyano at that point.  I honestly wish I had clued in a lot earlier about 0 TDS makeup water and phosphate reactors.  I always thought 'old tank syndrom' was inevitable (and it definitely is not).  It would be like 'old ocean syndrome'. 

 

[Gietz]

That's another thing my TDS meter never gives me a constant reading always inbetween 0 - 3.  Could this be because I'm measuring my water in the same 10 gal that I mix my salt in? (im not measuring saltwater TDS) but my the resedue left behind cause it or my meter is messed??

So phosphates can hurt coral? Can it reduce growth? And what about coralline Algee will it affect the spead of that (I'm 5 months in and still only have purple pink spots)

Zakk you said your REef Crytsals gave you brown Dino has anyone else heard of this problem because I do have brown Dino on Alot of my rock!!

In all your opinions should I run a GFO reactor? Because of my Dino

 

[Zakk]

If I don't rinse out my buckets, I can get tds readings that are off a bit sometimes.

Brown stuff on rocks are usually the result of a tank cycle of some sort.  Believe me if you had dinoflagellates, you would not be a happy camper:
http://www.thefragtank.ca/forum/index.php?topic=1318.msg8972#msg8972

Now, coral hates phosphates and heavy metals.  Phosphates from tank buildup and heavy metals from judas priest tapwater. That's why 0 TDS water is so important, and why some sort of phosphate remover and good water changes are so important (I even found that the container I was using for my makeup water was FILLING the water with phosphates!) http://www.thefragtank.ca/forum/index.php?topic=1228.msg7904#msg7904  Without the hanna checker for phosphates I never would have checked all my water sources.

Without proper alk/calc and magnesium levels, you're never going to get good coral and coralline growth.  Light is the other factor.  Trace elements are the icing on that cake. 

In my very humble opinion, everyone should run at least one GFO reactor. 

 

[Gietz]

Thank you Zakk for the helpful advice along with everyone else I'm getting a GFO and I'll grab test kits and post up my readings

 

[Zakk]

I've found ROWA phos to be really good, and hi-capacity bulk GFO from bulk reef supply (it's all pricey though).  Some places sell those white pellets that supposedly get rid of phosphates (can't remember the name), but if you leave them in the tank to long they leech the phosphates and silicates back into the water, simply creating another problem, so I'd steer clear. 

 

[phi delt reefer]

ur talking about purigen (white balls).

rowaphos is just gfo. pricey gfo. the high capacity gfo from BRS is ok but its a b1tch to use cause of the fine granules.