Is my tank too clean?

[Nathan4Wvu]

I'm becoming increasing frustrated with my 120. It has been up and running for about 11 months now and I cannot get my SPS or even LPS to look good. This is my first tank over 100 gallons and I have been keeping sps and lps in smaller tanks for about 10 years.

Setup.
120G AGA
SG: 1.026
Calcium: 440
Alkalinity: 9-10 dKh
Magnesium: 1,200-1400 ppm
Nitrate: 1-2 ppm
Phosphate: 0 - 0.02 ppm

My bio load is small by most standards
2 small clowns
1 3" fox face
1 1" 6line
1 coral banded shrimp
1 3 inch watchman goby


My skimmer is close to being undersized it's a reef octopus 150.
I have ran a bio pellet reactor since day one with gfo and carbon reactors changed monthly. The tank has a refugium with a large ball of chaetomorpha.

I religiously change 40 gallons of water each month and my Ca and alk are kept in check with a Kalk reactor and A/B part hand dosing when required.

Two weeks ago due to the fact my wife and I are expecting I down sized the system by 145 gallons. I removed the frag tank, large fuge and Rubbermaid sump. Here are the before and after pics.

Before

After

Also, a lot my LPS have lost significant color. They still look similar to when they came in on the ausi shipments but you can see their white skeleton through the tissue.

Everything is growing well and has great polyp extension. On one side of the tank I run a 250DE bulb. The other side has 130watts of LED. I can tell no difference in the two sides as far as coloration and the lighting has been setup this way for about 9 month. Normal 8 hour light cycle.

So signs of red bugs.


Jan 2013

6-27-12

tri-color

Cali tort

A different tri-color. This one is the only one of mine that has showed really good color. It is sitting right under the surface on the LED side

Tubs alien eye

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

I have a couple of ideas.

I want to avoid adding more fish. So I’m thinking about starting either zeovit or just an amino supplement of some kind.

Also, I just today have heard of people using HONEY as a amino supplement. Does anyone have any experience with this actually working?


I feed 1 cube of brine shrimp a day followed by 2-3 scoops BRS reef chili every 3-4 days. All LPS are covered and hand fed once a week with brine shrimp or frozen scallops. My two rose BTAs get 1 quarter sized piece of sea scallop once a week.

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

 

[mos90]

According to your parameters it dosent look like your water is too clean. Could it possibly be too much light for the lps?

 

[mos90]

To add. If your cheato is growing your water is not too clean. From my experience.

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

It hasn't grown much at all. That ball has been the same size for months.

It wouldn't be to much light. Those corals are sitting on the sand in a 24 inch tank.

 

[keithhays]

In all likelyhood, you are now running too much GFO now given the down size in the system, I would cut the GFO proportionately.

 

[mos90]

Yes. Could be too much gfo. Take it offline for a few weeks. See what happens.

 

[Chrissypoo]

How long was the system off while you were downsizing? If the water dropped a few degrees in an hour or so, thats your reason.

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

I have cut it down however, this has been a 8-9 month ongoing issue.


The system was off for about 6 hours but the apex kept the display and water holding for the sump at temp. This isn't something that has just came up in the 2weeks since I downsized. Every coral I have added since I started he tank has faded and browned out.

 

[brad65ford]

I'd remove the bio pellet reactor and gfo, see how much algae starts growing. You should be able to fine tune light and your nutrients. Have you tried lowing or bring down you Alk to 8?

 

[acroholicreefer]

Congrats on the new addition to the family!

Yes, your nutrients do look a little bit low based on your pictures. My guess is that your tricolor is holding its color because it is so close to the LED lights, receiving most of the food via photosynthesis vs eating off of the water column. I bet your problem is with the biopellets and/or gfo.

My suggestion is to remove the biopellet reactor first and give it a month or so. Then remove the GFO if things do not improve. Removing these one at a time will allow you to make a better assessment on what the issue is.

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

Congrats on the new addition to the family!

Yes, your nutrients do look a little bit low based on your pictures. My guess is that your tricolor is holding its color because it is so close to the LED lights, receiving most of the food via photosynthesis vs eating off of the water column. I bet your problem is with the biopellets and/or gfo.

My suggestion is to remove the biopellet reactor first and give it a month or so. Then remove the GFO if things do not improve. Removing these one at a time will allow you to make a better assessment on what the issue is.

I agree I shut off the biopellet reactor tonight. It has been running since day one. Also to note I clean my sand every water change by sucking it up.

 

[REEF SMAC]

From your photos it looks like you've had some decent growth.

I am going to guess that with the Bio Pellets off, or a least reducing the amount of pellets, will let your NO3 rise a little, giving you better results.

If you are not feeding very much anyway, due to not having many fish, the Pellets are probably overkill.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

Try dropping your Alkalinity down to around 7.5dKh and holding it there for a few weeks. My corals were bleaching and didn't look too good either. After chasing my tail around for a few months, I decided to drop the Alkalinity to what you find in NSW and viola' all the color came back.

I was also being told my tank was "too clean", but I wasn't buying it. Ocean nutrient levels are far lower than anything we can hope to achieve so I couldn't understand how that would be the issue. The thing I did notice was that people tend to recommend running the Alkalinity significantly higher in a reef tank than you'll find naturally.

I brought mine down very slowly over the course of about 2 weeks from it's starting point of ~10dKh.

It might not be your issue, but it worked for me.

 

[caspar]

I agree 100% with Spyder... I was told my tank was too clean also. I too had the color (bleached look) and I was keeping my Alk around 9-10 and slowly lowered it to around 7-8 and walla.. colors came back.....I believe keeping it as close to NSW is best option. Ca 420 and Alk 7ish.

 

[Daimyo68]

I'll chime in on this.

I went from a 50g tank full of color, to a 75g, lost most of the color. My next attempt at solving the color issue is lighting. I did go from T5 back to 14k halides. I even added Blue LED's to supplement with no results.

I have been told the same as you think, that my water may be "too clean". Corals grow like mad, but lose their color and or brown out. I've adjust lighting periods, height, etc.

--At one time, I had 9 fish in the tank. There was enough bio for the corals.
--My parameters are rock solid using dosers.
--I run GFO 24/7 and carbon (when needed, which is rarely). I have cut back on the GFO with no results.
--My chaeto used to grow like mad when I had all the fish in the system, but lost 4 to an Ooudinium outbreak, and then another 2 3 months later when they took the leap of faith. I currently have 5 fish (2" Scopas, 4" Midas Blenny, 4" FAT Yellow Coris Wrasse, 3" Leopard Wrasse, 2" Lubbock's Fairy Wrasse). The chaeto still grows, but not like it used too. I used to trim it monthly, now it's every couple of months.
--I feed Daily, feed corals with Coral Smoothie & Clam Max every third day alternating.

I am changin my lights out here in a couple week to LED's. If that does not help with the color issue, it's going to be more fish again in an attempt to "dirty" the waters

 

[Veosk]

Gotta chime in in this one. I had the same problem coral color and growth horrible. Sps would bleach and die. I got so many opinions I lost all direction, I was adding supplements, lighting, adding different light spectrum all sorts of stuff. I eventually gave up and was discouraged. Beefy from beefs reef stopped by and gave me great advice. I was a bare bottom 40 breeder. I say was because he suggested running a sand bed with two different size sand a layer of course then fine. Added 30 pounds of live rock. I only had a clown and damsel at the time which my water was too clean and had no nutrients. Add some fish started feeding more. Took the other bulbs off line and went with 1 250w 20k radium. In a matter of a couple weeks the color in my corals started coming back and 3 months later the tank gas exploded with growth and colors look amazing. I kept it simple and just added a bag if gfo and carbon to the sump.

I think the water changes, over kill on equipment can do more harm then good. The extra fish and feeding was the thing that I think turned my tank around.

Hope this helps

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

Thanks for all the great advice!

The one thing I can say is in the time this tank has been running I have never lost a coral. I'm going to lower my alk down to around 8-8.5. I just tested and it's around 10.5. My bio pellet reactor has been offline for a few days now and I haven't noticed any change in skimmer output. While cleaning th reactors did notice that it had a heavy bio film inside it.

My tank has 5nfish and 30+ pieces of coral. I really hope I can correct this problem and get color back in the tank. I originally blamed all this on the LED'S!!!! However, after months of running the halides and LEDs side by side I can say they were not the problem!

 

[acroholicreefer]

I hope you figure it out. Maybe lowering the alk is your problem but several hobbyist have ran alkalinity at that level. From my experience, alkalinity stability is more important that chasing a number. You might find this to be different though.

Just keep in mind that zooplankton is different than phytoplankton. Although natural sea water is low in phytoplankton, it is rich in zooplankton. When people refer to systems as being too low in nutrients, it usually means that it lacks zooplankton. After you have stripped phytoplankton, next comes zooplankton. Having a tank with very little phyto but enough zoo to grow acros is the fine line some try to walk.