I need some help please...

[Jblank44]

Okay, so I am a little sad because I love the crap out of my salt water tank. My maintenance is excellent (Maybe too much, maybe not enough?) I do partial water changes once a week. I check parameters probably twice a week and feed corals once a week every Wednesday and fish every other day-ish. Here is what I have.

Biocube 14g set up for over a year
lights: 70w MH sunpod
1st chamber: Heater and temp probe
2nd Chamber:Media basket with poly filter, to chaeto with submersible light, to chemipure elite and purigen.
3rd chamber: Return pump and ato float

Fish:
Six line wrasse

Corals:
2 heads of Trumpet
red mushrooms
green mushrooms
hairy mushroom
two colonies of zoathids
Favia
encrusting gorgonia
A baby plate
palythoas

Params as of 9/18

temp: 79.2 (changes .2 from night to day)
Sal: 1.025 (doesn't fluctuate at all)
pH: 8 (I hate the salifert test so i don't even know if it's 8, it seems like its more but i don't know, cant really tell)
Alk/dKH: 8.5 dKH
Nitrates: >5 ppm
Nitites: 0
Ammonia: 0
Mag: 1350 ppm
Cal: 420 ppm
Phos:>0.03

Here is my problem that is making me sad.... None of them grow at all.... my trumpet that I've had for probably 6 months hasn't grow a single head. The brain i know grow slow and its grow a little, one colony of zoos have grown one head in the 6 months I've had it. Nothing spreads of grows. What do I do? Do I need to start supplementing. I have the Kent marine nano reef 2 part buffer that i haven't tried yet. Should I take out chaeto? should I add other filtration media? The only things I don't know and haven't tested are strontium, iron, potassium and iodine. Could those not be allowing them to grow? I know I need to be patient but it seems a little not right.

Please, anything helps!
Thanks,
Jacob

 

[AkaSlyGuy]

I would not worry about the elements you have not tested. Those are being replenished in your weekly water changes. If your Ca and Alk are stable and being maintained with your water changes I would not be adding anything for it. Now keep in mind I have never kept a nano tank, but in my opinion with weekly water changes you could get away with feeding more. I would also take out the poly filter, chemipure and purigen. Go back to basics....and keep it simple for a while. You typed that your Nitrates are > (greater than) .05 and that Phos is >(greater than) .03, but I have a feeling you were meaning less than. Just a guess though. Try feeding the fish a little each day with some quality flake or pellets and twice a week with something quality frozen at night directly to the corals with a turkey baster or something. Most of your corals will grow faster with direct feedings of good mysis shrimp or something like it. Feeding the fish creates food for the corals. You just do not have much of a bio-load or probably nutrients in your tank because of all the filter items you are stripping them out with. I am not familiar with your light so I can't comment on that, just make sure you are keeping the duration to a reasonable amount of time, not 14 hours or anything like that. Hope something helps.

Joe

 

[Jblank44]

I would not worry about the elements you have not tested. Those are being replenished in your weekly water changes. If your Ca and Alk are stable and being maintained with your water changes I would not be adding anything for it. Now keep in mind I have never kept a nano tank, but in my opinion with weekly water changes you could get away with feeding more. I would also take out the poly filter, chemipure and purigen. Go back to basics....and keep it simple for a while. You typed that your Nitrates are > (greater than) .05 and that Phos is >(greater than) .03, but I have a feeling you were meaning less than. Just a guess though. Try feeding the fish a little each day with some quality flake or pellets and twice a week with something quality frozen at night directly to the corals with a turkey baster or something. Most of your corals will grow faster with direct feedings of good mysis shrimp or something like it. Feeding the fish creates food for the corals. You just do not have much of a bio-load or probably nutrients in your tank because of all the filter items you are stripping them out with. I am not familiar with your light so I can't comment on that, just make sure you are keeping the duration to a reasonable amount of time, not 14 hours or anything like that. Hope something helps.

Joe

Thank you for your help! I just added a fish on Friday, maybe that will help! I will start to feed the corals twice a week now and feed the fish as you said to see what happens. My chaeto grows really well and keeps the nitrates and p04 in check. Also, this may be a contributor, I am still acclimating that light. It is a 6 of it 8 hours. In two weeks it will be at its photo schedule. I was feeding the corals Ron's original blend. I will try some mysis or something like that. I think one thing that I lack is trace elements though. So I think I may try the nano marine 2 part to see what happens. If it doesn't change much I will stop, why not give it a try, Ill just test it daily and see what it does. And yes, I did mean less than for both of those.

 

[AkaSlyGuy]

No problem. Corals could be adjusting to your light. I would not change the feeding schedule too much at one time. In a tank that size, I would not go straight to feeding everyday. The addition of your new fish and feeding every day is begging for an algae bloom if the bacteria are used to very few nutrients. Maybe every day if really small amounts, coral specific food once a week for a while. Then twice a week when your natural filter catches up. I am assuming you have live rock? You may not avoid a small algae bloom anyway, but I have learned to err on the side of feeding more and have a little algae than to not feed enough and starve corals and fish. Rod's original blend is really good food, and a little goes a long way, but I don't think it is a great food to feed with the lights off just for corals because of all the different particles unless you have a really good clean up crew. I personally just seem to "miss" the coral with a lot of it if I direct feed with it. Mysis shrimp are easy to see exactly where it goes. I love feeding Rod's just before lights out so the fish take care of the big stuff and the corals get to filter the smaller stuff after the lights are out though. Get rid of all the filter items you use for a while and see how it goes. Your water changes with any quality salt are taking care of your trace elements, with weekly water changes, I would be willing to bet. I would not start adding blindly. Remember, nothing GOOD ever happens FAST in this hobby.

Joe

 

[Jblank44]

No problem. Corals could be adjusting to your light. I would not change the feeding schedule too much at one time. In a tank that size, I would not go straight to feeding everyday. The addition of your new fish and feeding every day is begging for an algae bloom if the bacteria are used to very few nutrients. Maybe every day if really small amounts, coral specific food once a week for a while. Then twice a week when your natural filter catches up. I am assuming you have live rock? You may not avoid a small algae bloom anyway, but I have learned to err on the side of feeding more and have a little algae than to not feed enough and starve corals and fish. Rod's original blend is really good food, and a little goes a long way, but I don't think it is a great food to feed with the lights off just for corals because of all the different particles unless you have a really good clean up crew. I personally just seem to "miss" the coral with a lot of it if I direct feed with it. Mysis shrimp are easy to see exactly where it goes. I love feeding Rod's just before lights out so the fish take care of the big stuff and the corals get to filter the smaller stuff after the lights are out though. Get rid of all the filter items you use for a while and see how it goes. Your water changes with any quality salt are taking care of your trace elements, with weekly water changes, I would be willing to bet. I would not start adding blindly. Remember, nothing GOOD ever happens FAST in this hobby.

Joe

Okay awesome, I guess I really need to see what happens when the light is at it's photo schedule. That may change a lot. Who knows. I'm thinking I may take out the purigen and leave the others because otherwise I'll have zero filtration at all. I mean, aren't purigen and chemipure elite almost the same thing? Which is better to take out or leave.

 

[Lmart]

Try to target feed your LPS. It takes somwe work but I have had good luck with coral growth tbis way.

 

[Jblank44]

Try to target feed your LPS. It takes somwe work but I have had good luck with coral growth tbis way.

I do target feed. Recently, they haven't wanted it at all. However, my food got freezer burnt the other week, could that potentially take away nutrients and scent for them to want it? I'm sure it causes something