0.9ppm of phosphate is really surprising given your stocking! Fascinated to know how long it takes to bring down at a sensible rate and how the corals adapt👍🏻
Nice, straightforward and easy to follow advice. Especially liked the part about attacking it from loads of different angles straight away, potentially causing more harm. 👍
Legend mate. I’ve let my tank go over the last few weeks as I’ve got a broken shoulder. Haven’t been doing water changes, dosing is out of whack etc… phosphates through the roof. I’ve got a 525ltr system. As soon as I’m better, I’ll do 20% per week water changes while testing again every week. I’ll also try some GFO. Tank is covered in green algae, but hoping to get it sorted👍
I appreciate the guidance and I have the Fluval 13.5. My only worry is that the primary encouragement should be stay on top of your tanks rather than let things slip and whether you let this one slip intentionally or not. After all we are keeping living creatures right!? Thanks
Right now I'm having the opposite issue in my 20 gallon macroalgae tank; there seem to be hardly any phosphate and nitrate in my tank, causing both an outbreak of diatoms and killing off some of my macroalgae from lack of nutrients and being covered with diatoms. So far it's started to improve with daily phos and nitrate dosing and scrubbing the algae fronds clean, but I really need to add some fish as well as find some good film-eating snails soon to keep the tank healthy.
Once again, a most excellent presentation Alex. My curiosity lies with the salinity tester you use. Is it readily available in the US? Thanks again, truthfully, you are the wonderful teacher that has helped me stay in this hobby.
Nice video, but Hanna SG readings can be "bettered" by switching to PPT. Getting around 35 ppt e.g. 34.9, 35.0 or 35.1 sensitivity is better than around 1.026 e.g. 25, 26 or 27? Any of the numbers would be OK, but accuracy of other Hanna readings will be directly proportional to salinity. With a 10% water change you have the option to mix new water slightly higher/lower to achieve stability and testing after a water change allows other readings to show up trends more easily.
Love this, got to love the satisfaction of fixing something also! Where do you get your aquarium covers from? Looking for a PVC/netting one for my RSR170 but all i can find is the netting one they sell that feels naff
Very informative walk through to help people starting out with a neglected tank! Is that an R&R custom scape by any chance? If so, I had similar scary high phosphate (1 to 2mg/l!!!) in the early months of the tank and I think it's highly likely from the scape. I think they're amazing scapes and would definitely recommend them but phosphate is something I'd suggest people watch out for and actively manage with them! Not sure if you've ever ran an ICP on that tank but I also found aluminium up at around 200ug/l in the early phases which I suspect came from the scape too although not convinced it ever actually caused a problem.
Hey I have the exact same tank and light setup with the AI prime. Please please please what is your light settings and schedule I can't seem to find a good one. Also this was extremely helpful because I was also neglecting my tank and lately have been trying to fix things so glad I got some good information to go forward with!
So wait, After the episode that you added 1st fish, I can't find any episode that what other coral and clean up crew you add in after. Did i miss anything?
Hey Alex that looks like a Nero 3. That’s not enough flow for a 13.5 gallon? You think a Nero 5 would be more appropriate for that size tank, or are you just going to add an additional one?
In my experience my phosphates go up when I dose aminos. Try cutting back on those a bit and see how it affects your phosphate. It’s way more noticeable in a nano tank. You are reeefing in large puddle, treat it like one. I have an SPS nano, and dose five drops of aminos in 60L. It’s full of coral… I wouldn’t be putting amino acids in that tank at all.
Hi Alex im currently dealing with dino's again and my question is because i have low nitrate almost zero and low phosphate should i turn off my skimmer during this time to help raise my nitrate because i have been dosing phosphate slowly NeoPhos into my tank but i don't have bottled nitrate to dose. thanks in advance
Had a tank doing the same thing...Fortunately a water transfer from a more mature more in line system killed the dino outbreak as it was starting up....just add some nitrate and remove the po4 ....the dinos thrive below 5 ppm no4 and above 1.0 po4....you can also consider adding more fish to produce more nitrate naturally while chasing po4 down....chemi pure elite works wonders for a nano tank ....
In every one single of my reef tanks, Nitrate is always down to below 1 ppm and Phosphate is always sky-high. GFO is my friend until I could find a better solution elsewhere.
In the video, you mentioned that if you have snail deaths, then adding more snails would lead to more snail deaths. Why is this? I feel like this has been happening to me. I just can’t seem to keep snails anymore for some reason.
