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Something strange is going on....

J

Jon

NJRC Member
Looking for some advice. My tank is 9 months old and I have approximately 80 gallons of water. It’s a 65 gallon tank with a 29 gallon sump. In my sump I have 10lbs of miracle mud, some rubble rock and chaeto. I run carbon in my filter sock and rowa phos in between the baffles in my sump. I change my carbon and rowa phos once a month. I also do 10 gallon water changes once a week. I have been using brightwell salt for the last six months.

For the last two months my tank has been doing extremely well. Honestly, once i added the miracle mud in my sump everything got better. Anyway, the last few weeks I have noticed some of the purple algae has been bleaching out. Not too much... Maybe 5% ish. Enough to notice though... Than my acans stopped plumping up, my anemone rock flower stopped expanding and now some of my zoas are sucking their heads in.

Today I did 20 gallon water change hoping this will correct things. If this does not work what else can I do? I don’t have any test kits to test my water and don’t have the money to purchase any right now either.

Any ideas or suggestions are greatly appericiated.

Thanks
 
iTzJu

iTzJu

Officer Emeritus
NJRC Member
I would really advise getting your water tested since it is the only way to really now what's going on.

If I had to guess what is happening is that you 0 our your no3 and po4. Corals need nitrates and po4 to carry out their metabolic functions and grow. If you are 0 on both then they will be pissed, starving and will eventually die.

I'd say take out the rowphos and carbon for a few weeks and see what happens. If you can afford it, get some test kits to test your water or get an ICP test.
 
J

Jon

NJRC Member
I noticed my acans and zoas not doing well the last two weeks. I’m located in southern NJ Pitman 08071.
 
diana a

diana a

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
You're two hours from me. My son just graduated from Rowan U. I would pick him up every friday and bring him back on Sundays for 4 years
 
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Reactions: Jon
Salted

Salted

NJRC Member
Salifert test kits are very reasonable on Amazon. Most are a couple dollars either side of $15.
 
J

Jon

NJRC Member
So I just took my carbon and rowaphos out of my sump. I’m also going to order the Hanna phosphate and nitrate test kits. I hate charging these items but I think it’s worth the investment. I don’t like the test kits that are color coded. From what I hear the Hanna test kits are the most accurate and easy to use. I probably should spend this $100 on these but I will deal with it later.

What’s the best way to raise your phosphates and nitrates? Feed a little extra heavy for a week or two? How about an extra feeding of my reef roids this week?

Let me know what you think.
 
iTzJu

iTzJu

Officer Emeritus
NJRC Member
Jon said:
So I just took my carbon and rowaphos out of my sump. I’m also going to order the Hanna phosphate and nitrate test kits. I hate charging these items but I think it’s worth the investment. I don’t like the test kits that are color coded. From what I hear the Hanna test kits are the most accurate and easy to use. I probably should spend this $100 on these but I will deal with it later.

What’s the best way to raise your phosphates and nitrates? Feed a little extra heavy for a week or two? How about an extra feeding of my reef roids this week?

Let me know what you think.
Click to expand...

reefroids will definitely raise your po4 and will feed the corals so its a win win. feed a little more than usual and if you want, take the cup off your skimmer if you have one and adjust it so that its not overflowing in the sump. will help with raising nutrients
 
Foxchase

Foxchase

I would do nothing until you test your tank. Right now, low nutrients is just a speculation but it could be something else. I would definitely test before doing anything. If anything, I'd take water to an LFS and have them test your water.

If you weren't so far from me id do it for you.
My favorite and general consensus is the Hanna alk and phosphate checkers are the best. Nitrates is new and it's split 50/50 on people who like it and hate it. Calc is eh. Not all that accurate from one test to the other because of the amount of steps and human error.
 
E

ericrodriguez

NJRC Member
I would go test the water right now if have not done it.

A few weeks ago I lost a colony of mushrooms just in a few days because of GFO my phosphates got down to 0.02 and everything started getting really upset .

I took GFO out and started feeding more plus reef roids 2 times a week and added fuel 2 times a week as well.. hope this help
 
J

Jon

NJRC Member
I went out and bought two Hanna test kits today and my phosphates are .77 and my nitrates are 4.44. Does that seem too low? Is this what my problem could be?
 
J

Jon

NJRC Member
That’s exactly what I thought. But my nitrates are fairly low. Could the low nitrates be the reason for this?
 
iTzJu

iTzJu

Officer Emeritus
NJRC Member
which phosphate checker are you using? you mentioned hanna but they have 2 that are mostly used by hobbyist

Phosphorus ULR or Phosphate?

if its Phosphorus ULR, thats in ppb so need to convert to ppm which converts to .24ppm (still high but notas bad as .77)

If its the regular Phosphate checker, then .77 is definitely high. I would put your rowaphos back in and carbon and do a 20% water change weekly till you get it down. I would also test your source water for an phosphate. i would stop using Reefroids for a while too until you get the po4 under control.

your nitrates are fine, however, you may need to dose nitrates when you are trying to lower your po4, since lowering po4 will also lower your nitrates. if the balance is out of wack and your nitrates zero out, your po4 will not decrease. you need to keep an constant source of nitrates while you lower your po4.
 
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