A month and counting...

[jacksonpt]

My tank has been running for probably 4ish years now. I've always kept an extremely light bioload with minimal nutrients (very infrequent feedings, ran cabon/GFO, frequent water changes) as it was the only way I could keep algae under control.

About a month ago I changed my approach. I wanted a bit more life in the tank, and I wanted to try get my animals to thrive rather than just survive. This is especially true of my corals.

So I added a lawnmower blenny, a midas blenny, and a damselfish (I forget the exact species) to my existing maroon clown and pudding wrasse. I removed the carbon/gfo reactor and went back to running a skimmer. I went from feeding once every 7-10 days to feeding at least once a day, sometimes as often as 3x day. I'm still doing 1-2 small water changes per week. I still dose ca and alk. I still don't test my water params aside from temp and salinity.

Here is what i've noticed in that time -

• PE, especially on the few SPS fags I have, seems to be much better.
• Color, especially on the few SPS frags I have, seems to be much better.
• No noticeable change with LPS - they've always been happy and continue to look happy.
• I'm struggling to keep my sand bed clean.
• Cheato is growing so well/fast I can almost see it grow.
• Fish are full of attitude, but no real fighting or bullying. The damselfish was probably a bad addition. The midas blenny is the star of the tank, but I can't keep him fed/fat, despite feeding him specifically each time I feed the tank. I wish I had his metabolism.

 

[mcgyvr]

yep... Most have found that starving a tank is not a good idea and once you start to increase the food everything does much better...

I always say feed as much as you can provided you don't let your nutrients get out of control..
And yes having an established tank helps with that as there is typically a very happy/robust bacterial population that isn't there with a "new" tank..

 

[jacksonpt]

So... if I had told you what I was planning to do, you would have said to expect similar results to what I'm seeing so far?

 

[mcgyvr]

So... if I had told you what I was planning to do, you would have said to expect similar results to what I'm seeing so far?

Depending on how the information was presented I certainly may have :thumbsup:
Everything loves food...

 

[jacksonpt]

Tank continues to thrive. Algae reached "concerning" status for a couple of weeks, but things settled in, adjusted, and balanced out to the point it was never a problem. Corals seem happier (better color and PE), I have coralline growing for the first time ever, and fish are borderline glutinous.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[pbradley0]

You've had the tank running for 4 years and now are just getting coralline? Have your Ca, Alk, and Mg been stable?

 

[jacksonpt]

You've had the tank running for 4 years and now are just getting coralline? Have your Ca, Alk, and Mg been stable?

Yep... at least for the last year and a little (since I got my controller).

 

[homer1475]

I found the same exact thing!

I too was running GFO, carbon dosing, etc to have 0 nutrients. Coming from a biocube that always had high nitrates and phosphates where everything thrived, to my current 80G I thought I was running right. 0 nutrients that I could test for, but extreme amounts of GHA I just could not get under control in over a year. I lost 90% of my coral due to the GHA strangling it out, and the lack of nutrients, in essence starving the corals(I also wasn't feeding the corals because I was trying to limit the nutrients I put in the tank because of the massive amounts of GHA).

I removed my rock hard sand bed, removed the PO4 laden dry pukani. Replaced the sandbed with new sand, and replaced the dry pukani with rock I bought from a fellow reefer that had been tearing his tank down. I now run about .04 PO4 and about 2.0ppm of nitrates and everything is not only living, but actually thriving now.

 

[mcgyvr]

nitrates/phosphates are nutrients..

If you think about your lawn/grass..
To have a green lush yard you need to provide it with fertilizer..
Too much and you burn out the grass..
Too little and you just have a lawn of weak/brown grass,etc... as it doesn't have the "food/energy" needed to grow healthy

Now for what I believe to be the kicker in this story... Guess what the main components in fertilizer are..
N-P-K... (nitrogen (N)/phosphorous(P)/potassium(K))
hmmm.. nitrogen/nitrates.... phosphorous/phosphates...
Coincidence... I think not..

 

[FoxFace Fish]

nitrates/phosphates are nutrients..

If you think about your lawn/grass..
To have a green lush yard you need to provide it with fertilizer..
Too much and you burn out the grass..
Too little and you just have a lawn of weak/brown grass,etc... as it doesn't have the "food/energy" needed to grow healthy

Now for what I believe to be the kicker in this story... Guess what the main components in fertilizer are..
N-P-K... (nitrogen (N)/phosphorous(P)/potassium(K))
hmmm.. nitrogen/nitrates.... phosphorous/phosphates...
Coincidence... I think not..

:hmm5::hmm5: XD XD XD:crazy1: