Gfo and low nutrient system

[Reefaholic1978]

I have been dosing vinegar for about a year now, sps showing good growth with gfo reactor online. Just received some coral food and started feeding fish heavy because corals started looking a little pale. I like the fact that readings are undetectable no matter how much I feed my fat fishes but I also don't want to take reactor out and phosphate creep back up because of how I feed. Do you think I should leave the setup alone and start sps feeding at night to help with pastel look or remove the gfo?

 

[cugly]

Let's see some pictures

 

[Reefaholic1978]

Let's see some pictures

I will definitely post some tonight when I get home from work in a couple hours.

 

[Reefaholic1978]

View attachment 336613
This is the coral I am concerned about. First pic looks faded and second pic has the purplish look that it used to be. The acro use to look alot more colored when I got it months ago.

 

[Reefaholic1978]

Sorry this would be the second pic I meant to upload [emoji2]

 

[1MP3R1AL]

If your talking about the noticeable purple color, that's coralline growing where your sps piece was. It's dead, and dying, and coralline is growing over the dead skeleton.

 

[Reefaholic1978]

If your talking about the noticeable purple color, that's coralline growing where your sps piece was. It's dead, and dying, and coralline is growing over the dead skeleton.

No, I know that. Looking at the section with green polyps. The coral has grown alot since die off about 4 months ago when it rtn on me. It has been recovering very well but has gotten pale. Trying to figure out....feed more or remove gfo.

 

[1MP3R1AL]

If your nitrate and phosphate are 0, and your not running a system like zeovit, I would say your stripping too much nutrients from your tank and to stop running gfo, carbon etc. and then observe your system closely. 0 is never good.

 

[Reefaholic1978]

So you recommend keep carbon dosing remove gfo and what should be my max level on phosphate and nitrate

 

[1MP3R1AL]

Personally I don't know your system, but I keep my nitrate around 2-4ppm. I would stop carbon dosing as well. Just until your nitrate and phos creeps up a tad.

 

[Reefaholic1978]

Personally I don't know your system, but I keep my nitrate around 2-4ppm. I would stop carbon dosing as well. Just until your nitrate and phos creeps up a tad.

Thought about that but very hesitant because of corals growing so well. I dose a maintenance dose of 40ml vinegar in 100 gallons, do you think cutting to 20 and maintaining would allow the nutrients needed to enter system.

 

[1MP3R1AL]

It's defiantly worth a shot.

 

[Reefaholic1978]

It's defiantly worth a shot.

I appreciate your input and will definitely try to bring up levels from zero. Thanks again.

 

[Denadai]

Reduce the gfo for 1/2 and see what happens....after that if you test and po4 still zero reduce to 1/3 and etc

 

[Reefaholic1978]

Reduce the gfo for 1/2 and see what happens....after that if you test and po4 still zero reduce to 1/3 and etc

I'll definitely try that, thanks

 

[steallife904]

I run GFO 24/7 currently, I started to because of a algae issue in the past...anyway my phosphate is always 0. I worry if I turn reactor off algae will come back.... As far as my corals everything seems to be growing but have noticed on my sps the colors do not seem to pop or they are faded looking (my acans and chalice are doing really well).... I feed rods food daily to the tank so they should be getting food. could it be my phosphate at 0? I wondered if I should try putting the reactor on a timer to come on for say 2hrs a day only???? Any suggestions.

 

[1MP3R1AL]

You sound like your right on the border. I'd say keep the GFO where it is, but feed more. If colors don't improve go back to feeding normally but don't use so much GFO. Cut back maybe 10-20%.