3 years of brown....

Subscribing.

I have a thread started about a 8 month sps frag only tank. Very Little growth, most frags lost colors or went brown, some went paper white but alive. I was really underfeeding and had too few fish according to the folks reviewing my pics. Growth in my case became a lesser concern. To be left for later once I got some colors.

I was stable with parameters like you, and had zero N03 and PO4. Got N03 up to 0.2 but no higher after a big boots in feeding. P04 still undetectable with Hanna phosphate meter today.

I started feeding more while waiting for fish to add. Started dosing some additives . I can certainly see corals startng to color up just after 2-3 weeks. I still have a long way to go, but nutrients was my color issue for sure. If I get to a stage where I feel my colors are reasonable, then I plan on more photoperiod to boost growth. I have all the details of my parameters, lighting, circulation, skimming, and additive dosing etc in that thread.

I can't say with 100% certainty say if it was just the extra food, or one or more of the extra additives I started using as a desperate attempt to turn the tank around. But drastic positive change is happening so I am just doing the same thing for a while and see how far it gets me.

Folks helped me a lot and you might find something there that might help you.

Here is the thread http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2500379
 
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v10king said:
Now that I am seeing success, I'm doing everything the same and that means not changing the water until something goes bad. :D
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Which may come as a sudden and extreme crash. That's what water changes prevent.

And you don't actually know that not changing water is helping.
 
3 years of brown....

For what it's worth I sometimes feed / dirty my tank with a little chlorella or spirulina powder that can be bought from health food shops. It naturally contains many vitamins, aminos and minerals, plus if you throw it in your own smoothies it is just as good for humans as for tanks. Much cheaper than reef potions with fancy labels.
 
david.faik said:
For what it's worth I sometimes feed / dirty my tank with a little chlorella or spirulina powder that can be bought from health food shops. It naturally contains many vitamins, aminos and minerals, plus if you throw it in your own smoothies it is just as good for humans as for tanks. Much cheaper than reef potions with fancy labels.
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Nice,
Never thought of it in the tank, I supplement those daily, plus many more :)
 
david.faik said:
For what it's worth I sometimes feed / dirty my tank with a little chlorella or spirulina powder that can be bought from health food shops. It naturally contains many vitamins, aminos and minerals, plus if you throw it in your own smoothies it is just as good for humans as for tanks. Much cheaper than reef potions with fancy labels.
Click to expand...

Great idea! I've always thought about going down the vitamin isle and seeing what I could use
 
Hmmm. I don't think corals are popping Flintstone vitamins in the wild. Nor do fish eat pellets. I'd be careful what you dose in your tank. Just like tap water is relatively safe for human consumption it can be harmful to corals. I think the same logic applies here. Just my opinion.
 
CuzzA said:
Hmmm. I don't think corals are popping Flintstone vitamins in the wild. Nor do fish eat pellets. I'd be careful what you dose in your tank. Just like tap water is relatively safe for human consumption it can be harmful to corals. I think the same logic applies here. Just my opinion.
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You are correct, I don't plan on just a grab n go lol. This would be something involving extensive research. Kind of like diy fish food. Either way I have no plans to add anything to MY tank, just seemed like a good new idea, something to read about anyways :-)
 
Quick update
No color change yet. I don't necessarily expect it so soon, but Im hoping to see something in a week or two
- have dosed acro power 3x in 1.5 weeks
- feeding 2 frozen cubes daily, reef chilli at night every few days
- salinity back on track at 1.026
- lowered lights from 11" awl down to 10"
- as of yesterday, I decided to kill the skimmer. One reason being I have suspicon it's is leaking a little stray voltage, and the second being a 200 gallon rated skimmer, I have reason to belive I am over skimming. I don't plan to go forever without it, but I plan to only run it only during days if It shows improvement in color. I also may resort to using my smaller skimmer if the stray voltage is in fact the skimmer.
-still getting zeros across the board and algae that is present is dwindling away.

Worse ca see e scenario: I pollute the tank and make the corals more brown.
 
I have a Bali Slimmer and it went from Brown back to Green in under 2 weeks, this was purely due to stress though, as it was moved about a little too much. Brown is allegedly an increase in Zoox production to help the coral through a stressful phase.

How's the flow in your tank?

Is it possible you just have a grumpy coral that enjoys being brown?
 
david.faik said:
For what it's worth I sometimes feed / dirty my tank with a little chlorella or spirulina powder that can be bought from health food shops. It naturally contains many vitamins, aminos and minerals, plus if you throw it in your own smoothies it is just as good for humans as for tanks. Much cheaper than reef potions with fancy labels.
Click to expand...

I'm a skeptic.. Why would you dump spirinula powder in a tank when you essentially clean it off the glass?

I dose amino acids and coral food ( Red Sea Coral nutrition ) only. I don't watch numbers, and don't faff about with my system. All is well, everyone is happy. ;)
 
I just took a look at this thread. I was going to mention high salinity looks to be at play, but I see you have already figured that out. When I have high salinity with low nutrients I always get funny strains of algae that make the tank look like it is nutrient high. Usually its some kind of brown fuzz/slime algae that is the dead give away my salinity is too high.
 
Update

Skimmer less was not a good idea. Tank did not react well after a week. Somehow alkalinity started to climb fairly quick. Relationship to skimmer being off who knows.

Still doing the amino every other day at 10 ml/dose.

No change noted to anything.

Considering I never have nitrates or phosphate, I felt as if I needed a way to introduce nutrients other than feeding. The feeding the heavy amounts a I have been has been difficult based on time alone, I don't want to dump everything in at once, and feeding through the day is not always possible.

Out of options, I decided to research potassium nitrate dosing.
I have a mixture equivalent to 1 ml of solution = 2 ppm nitrate per gallon. Also, 100ml = 2 ppm per 100 gallons.

I started very slow with a less intense solution, and was surprised to see the tank consumed a dose of of .2 ppm, .5ppm in less than 12 hours. I upped the solution strength and currently have measurable nitrate around 5. To 1 ppm.

Dosing 2ppm every 24 hrs and I'm getting consistent readings right before dose.

The outcome:
1 week in,

no algae outbreaks.
Alk consumption increase, minor but still demanding more.
nwe growth on some acros
and a s.s.c showing hints of green and pink. Previously brown and white
also, an unknown milli which was always brown from day 1 is showing bolder green at base, and starting to get red.

I do not know how this play out in a few weeks, but so far no negative issues noted.
 
Thanks for the update! I know if I stop GFO and or skimming my po4 climbs dramatically and then Alk spikes as a result of the lower growth rate. I have a healthy SSC that's been mostly brown for over a year now. :(

Are you sure your phosphate testing is accurate? Sorry if this has been covered before.
 
markalot said:
Thanks for the update! I know if I stop GFO and or skimming my po4 climbs dramatically and then Alk spikes as a result of the lower growth rate. I have a healthy SSC that's been mostly brown for over a year now. :(

Are you sure your phosphate testing is accurate? Sorry if this has been covered before.
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I use Hanna low range checker. Always zero. I can get it to read if I use a dirty water source. So I assume it's as accurate as it can be.

Only thing that doesn't make sense about all this is the tough red surface algae on rocks. I have to think it's some low nutrient algae or a high salinity type variant that is still lingering from my high salinity I caught a few weeks back

I'm using my s.s.c and green slider as a guage. Green slider being relative easy and s.s.c being more difficult. My slider has been through hell since I got it so it's been flagged and currently pale with a hint of green
 
redwhiteandblue said:
I use Hanna low range checker. Always zero. I can get it to read if I use a dirty water source. So I assume it's as accurate as it can be.

Only thing that doesn't make sense about all this is the tough red surface algae on rocks. I have to think it's some low nutrient algae or a high salinity type variant that is still lingering from my high salinity I caught a few weeks back

I'm using my s.s.c and green slider as a guage. Green slider being relative easy and s.s.c being more difficult. My slider has been through hell since I got it so it's been flagged and currently pale with a hint of green
Click to expand...

If you test is accurate, ou need to get some measurable phosphates in there. Dosing a nitrogen source can lower PO4, so be careful. If it goes lower you could have an even worse problem on your hands. Phosphorus is an essential for life in your tank.
 
Peter Eichler said:
If you test is accurate, ou need to get some measurable phosphates in there. Dosing a nitrogen source can lower PO4, so be careful. If it goes lower you could have an even worse problem on your hands. Phosphorus is an essential for life in your tank.
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That is my fear as well. I am hoping the feeding is providing enough p04. My thought is that perhaps the algae on rock is consuming the testable p04 out of the water column.

I plan to slowly increase nitrate till 2 ppm. Then see if I can maintain.

I'm at a loss here. Tried everything under the sun except tear down and start over with new rock. It's been a slow process over r the past couple years just to give the changes time to adapt one at a time.

I feel like I'm very close,......
 
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