started redsea no3po4x last night on 125g.

[mos90]

ok.. here is the plan.

im going to cut no3po4x dosing down to 6 ml per day and going to double reef energy dosing to 16ml of each and see how things work out.

 

[reefrad]

i am in the same boat. i am getting 0 readings on both the red sea testing kit and hannah phosphate reader. i already cut down my nopox dose to 4ml on my lightly stocked 180G. i have no green algae. i am feeding 15ml of the reef energy a and b. i think i will decrease the nopox to 3ml today and see what happens.

i think that unless you have a completely algae/cyano free tank you cant trust the readings because the nutrients could be taken up as soon as they hit the water column...

 

[mos90]

right now i have no signs of and algae/cyano in the tank so i think my testing is fairly accurate.

i think a may reduce no3p04x to 4ml also.

im still slowly removing gfo. ive removed about 1/2 so far. 1 more week all pull it all out.

 

[bertoni]

now i could be at .01 phos and .25 no3. that puts my in ulns territory. i think thats what bertoni means by be careful.

That's one definite possibility. The phosphate level could be as high as 0.04 ppm, at least, on the other hand.

 

[mos90]

update.
backed off no3p04x to 4ml per day. raised reef energy to 12ml of each per day.

i think the gfo is ready to come out but im going to wait 1 more week.

slowly raising alk. up from 155ppm to 162 ppm over 1 week. shooting for 170. i wont go higher then 10dkh (even though redsea says 12.6) .

no3- .75
phos- .02

every thing seem to be responding well. colors seem more vivid on corals. macro algae still looks healthy.

i stoped dosing all suppliments except 1/2 dose weekly of iron.

hard to tell if the stn has slowed, but im watching carefully.

bertoni.. as long as phos stays under .08 and i dont have algae problems im comfortable.
corals will be slightly brown but if i get some good growth its ok for now.

 

[bertoni]

Okay, that sounds great, then.

 

[tmz]

that picture is a few months old. it is definately stning. im hoping to slow it down. for a birdsnest it doesnt like a ton of light.

your are definately right tmz.. it is a seriatopora caliendrum...

I have a dozen pieces of the caliendrum, all grown from a 1.5 inch frag over 3yrs; I've traded 6 or 7 as well. They tolerate lower light but like it pretty high and turn a bit more pinkish purple in the higher light. This one is 2 inches under the surface near a 250w 14k halide bulb:

 

[mos90]

thats is a lot of light. when i had the same mh's on my tank my birdsnest was about 8" below the surface. i used eggcrate to defuse the lighting. when i removed the eggcrate it started to bleach in a few days.. wonder why.

 

[mos90]

would lack of light cause stn from the base up?


im also leaning towards using to much gfo at 1 time.

 

[tmz]

It might as the coral shades itself out. or reduces flow to polyps perhaps resulting in some localized hypoxia at night. Very hard to figure stn. I've not had a problem with this coral even in less light though. May be a rapid PO4 reduction. I run mine around .04ppm /.05ppm( per hanah) with NO3 in the 0.2 to 0.5 range(pr salifert).

 

[mos90]

it has to be rapid po4 reduction. in this tank parameters are rock solid. nothing ever moves much.

 

[mos90]

update.. stil dosing 4ml no3p04x per day. 12ml reef energy.

2 days ago i removed the rest of the gfo i had running. i saved it just in case i still need it.

no3 was still .75. but i saw a rise in phos according to hanna meter. i have been reading 0. it is much more difficult to tell this difference using the redsea test. this morning i got a reading of 10pbb(.03ppm). im happy with this as long as i can keep in this area.

im going to keep dosages the same and monitor p04 to see if it rises. if it does the first thing i will do is back off on the reef energy dosing and go from there.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Sounds good.

Good luck.

 

[mos90]

update.

dosage still the same.

no3-.75
phos-6ppb.

all gfo removed and running 1/3 cup rox carbon.

im still fighting stn on that 1 coral. might have slowed down but not stopped yet.

slowly raising alk up more. im up to 165ppm from 155ppm. id like to shoot for 178(10dkh). i dont think this increase will stress corals over a 2 week period. im hoping the rise will help increase growth.

i added another powerhead for additional flow. and set mp40's and mp10 at about 75% in tidal swell mode. with all my powerheads im right around 6000gph so i dont think im lacking flow.

 

[mos90]

my ph is up to 8.41 right now. is that ok?

 

[jimrawr]

8.41 is totally fine

 

[mos90]

I've noticed as alk slowly rises stn is progressively worsening. I've also noticed 1 other coral with slight stn also. I'm a little worried. Im wondering if I'm going the wrong way and should be lowering to nsw levels.

 

[jimrawr]

I dont think 10DKH is too high, but you may not want to make changes while your sps are not in a healthy state. Wait till things stabilize before making changes in something as critical as ALK imo.

 

[bertoni]

If you're seeing more RTN with the higher alkalinity level, then slowly lowering the dKH to 7 or so might be a useful experiment to try.

 

[mos90]

If you're seeing more RTN with the higher alkalinity level, then slowly lowering the dKH to 7 or so might be a useful experiment to try.

i was thinking the same thing. i will try it. how slowly should i go, a few weeks? its at 9.5 right now.

in your experience can changing flow cause stn? all i did was add some more flow(not direct) and change from short pulse mode to tidal swell.

i know this is a tough question but can lack of light cause stn? i have my 4-ai's at 60% . im thinking it should be enough light.