Help your stony corals fight off some pests: FYI

[Sk8r]

If you hit really good parameters for stony coral, they will be much more resistent to pests such as aiptasia, and more likely to survive some other incidents. To establish these, first set your magnesium at 1300. This may take several days of dosing and testing. Then set your alk to 8.3---again, dose, wait 12 hours, test, repeat until results match desired level. Last, set calcium at 420, and keep it there. If your nitrate is above 2, start reducing that as well, by such means as water changes---you can start taking a certain amount from your sump every day and replacing it with good, and never even have to shut down your pump. DO SHUT DOWN YOUR ATO when doing it, or it will get your salinity wonky. But that daily small dose will work wonders in a hurry.

Other ways to hammer down nitrate include not overfeeding, making sure you have enough live rock, getting all filtration sponges, pads, bioballs out of the system, and, in extreme cases, carbon dosing as with vinegar (takes a chart to do this: consult.) Also, when removing filtration media, do it at the rate of, say, 1/10th every 2 days, so as not to make matters worse.

IN short, corals have natural ways to hold off many pests. Before you worry excessively about removing the pest, be sure your corals are in the best water you can give them, and they will fare much better while you then take measures to remove the irritant.

EG, I had a nasty nitrate rise and aiptasia bloom because of an 8 day power out that did in some fishes. My corals all came through fine, and now that I've gotten the water back in shape, they're holding their own and the aiptasia are somewhat losing ground---literally backing up from their expansion. Once the corals expand and get their own natural stinging ability into play, they have a much brighter future, while I work on getting rid of the pests.

 

[A1t2o]

If your nitrate is above .2, start reducing that as well, by such means as water changes---you can start taking a certain amount from your sump every day and replacing it with good, and never even have to shut down your pump. DO SHUT DOWN YOUR ATO when doing it, or it will get your salinity wonky. But that daily small dose will work wonders in a hurry.

Just did the math on this and if you do a 1 gallon water change on a 40 gallon system every day for 2 weeks, then that is equivalent to one 30% water change which is 12 gallons. So for the cost of 2 gallons of water, you are doing simple and easy water changes while not stressing your tank like you can with water changes over 20%.

I hadn't thought about it like this before, thanks.

 

[Reef Frog]

Good post and I certainly agree with the idea presented.

One quibble however: I don't think removing filter pads/socks is right for everyone. For me, running them 80% of the time keeps detritus from accumulating that would otherwise break down and feed pest algae and aptasia. I clean mine every 2-3 days and it helps with my overall tank balance.

If you can keep your pads & socks clean, they won't contribute to a nutrient problem IMO & IME. If it's more work than you're willing to do, I agree - ditch them.

 

[CStrickland]

Just did the math on this and if you do a 1 gallon water change on a 40 gallon system every day for 2 weeks, then that is equivalent to one 30% water change which is 12 gallons.

That maths off because it ignores that you are removing yesterday's clean water in today's daily change. Imagine a 100g tank and 50% daily change. The first one leaves 50g dirty water, so the second 50% change is leaving 25g of dirty water, the third leaves12.5g and so on.
By your math the third change would have been 150%, but in fact it is only 87.5%
Just something to keep in mind, I'm sure any waterchange is helping.

 

[Sk8r]

I think the main thing is---this way the wc's aren't a huge deal, and don't require a lot of fuss, so if you're NOT going wc's, and actually do them faithfully this way, it will help. WE've been on an emergency basis in this house since the power-out mid house-remodel, so we're in a 'doing what we can' mode, and this technique does tide you over, esp when combined with other modes.

I use a filter sock, too, when cleaning up, and especially when something kicks up sand, but I also try to change out, collect a few and wash them, to keep it going much of the time, but not always.

 

[hkgar]

Sk8r
I use both ATO and AWC. Sounds like, from what you wrote, that I should have my ATO shut off when the AWC come on? They are programmed wit APEX.

I am thing of an off statment in both program so if one is in operation, the other would not come on.

For the ATO
If Outlet Awc = ON then OFF

For the AWC
If Outlet ATO = ON then OFF

 

[heathlindner25]

My stoney's would loose a lot of color if my nitrates .2
I keep mine at 2ppm

 

[1MP3R1AL]

Same here. If my nitrates go below 4ppm I start to see loss of color and overall downgrading of health. .2 and I think they would die.

 

[Sk8r]

correcting. 2.

 

[A1t2o]

That maths off because it ignores that you are removing yesterday's clean water in today's daily change. Imagine a 100g tank and 50% daily change. The first one leaves 50g dirty water, so the second 50% change is leaving 25g of dirty water, the third leaves12.5g and so on.
By your math the third change would have been 150%, but in fact it is only 87.5%
Just something to keep in mind, I'm sure any waterchange is helping.

No, my math was right. I minored in math in college so let me show how it works.

My math was based on replacing 1 out of 40 gallons of water which is a .025 multiplier, so you take the remainder, .975, as the multiplier to find the total remaining water compared to the starting point. Starting from 100% you multiply by .975 as many times as you want to account for water changes. So 14 water changes would be 100*.975*.975*.975... 14 times (or 100*.975^14), which comes out to about 70. That means 70% of the original water is remaining after 14 water changes. This is equivalent to a 30% water change in the same time frame, or 12 gallons on the 40 gallon system. That is a difference of 2 gallons from the actual amount changed, which we would have to decide on our own if it is worth it based on the effect that large water changes have on our systems when it comes to the shock vs gradual change.

What this does not account for is how quickly the water becomes dirty. This is always the case since we tend to do 10-20% water changes on a regular basis, but with my example the water you changed 13 days ago has had time to become dirty and it becomes more of a problem of finding the balancing point rather than how much water has been changed. In that case your nitrates (N) will, if we hypothetically start from 0, rise until they reach the balancing point where they are added to the system as fast as they are removed. Lets say X is the net amount added after including fish, feedings, algae removal, skimmer, and any other factors in the system in the time frame. Y is the amount of water changed (in %).

So when balanced N= X-(Y%N) OR when X=Y%N Therefore N=X/Y%

This is useful because if we do daily water changes and find the stable amount of nitrates then we can find out what amount of nitrates are being added to our system daily. So in the example I listed above, Nitrates generated daily is equal to the measured N times .025. So 1/40th of the measured amount is added daily. (If you do 20% weekly changes, then your nitrates generated weekly is equal to 1/5th of your consistently measured amount of nitrates.) Then any changes you make to the system have a quantitative value that you can compare to in order to see the effects of your changes.

This ended up being way longer than I had anticipated but it also brought me to the concept of identifying the exact value of the changes we make based on measureable results. So, off topic but potentially useful.

 

[CStrickland]

Gotcha. With the multiplier so close to 1 I missed that you accounted for it at all
That's a good point about the balance point