I just wanted to give a personal thank you to all the good folks who have taken the time to watch the video and share their thoughts, experience and help me short list ideas to get success with my tank. I am happy to report that after implementing your suggestions the tank is actually doing really well. I am thankful to the reefing community and hope I can give back in the future. Sam has been over to take a new video of the tank as it stands today to share with you all. Thanks!
As others have stated, I would zero in on the mag and po4. I like a mag at or just above 1500, and I would aim to get nitrate and phosphate to a 1 to 100 ratio. It could be as easy as changing the food in the pellet feeder to a lower phosphate food. You discussed using to use GFO. Another way to accomplish this would be to increase the nutrient export and add liquid nitrate as nutrients are removed until you get back down to a balanced ratio. I would definitely look at the phosphate levels of the food that’s being added though. I just went through the same scenario in my tank after I switched to a new pellet food. Once I switched back to my old pellet food, my nutrient levels worked themselves back down to appropriate levels.
Great video. There are a few things I would suggest. First the alk seems a bit low. I believe it was 7.4 which is OK but very close to the low end of where you want to be. I would suggest a .5 increase just so you are not riding the edge. Also magnesium was a bit low but that can be fixed quickly. I agree 100% to use a little gfo. What I also suggest that most people do not do is to manually remove as much algae as possible. This is a form of nutrient export just like harvesting from a refugium. Most people just let the stuff die off which is fine but imo it prolongs the process. Also fish do not seem to eat it once it gets long. If you get it low the fish kick into high gear and mow down the rest. I hope everything works out. Best of luck.
Appreciate the suggestions Arrick, I agree that the alk is at the lower end along with magnesium. I'll be sure to show the tank again in a little while to show the updates!
Sweet tank I’ve been in hobby for over 19 years now low mag I keep mine around 1500-1600. Mag. Raise up trust me also increasing it will drop some of the phosphate out
Lets just start by saying its a beautiful tank and i can see a day not so far away where it will be really rocking. Clearly we all have our own opinion based on our experience. For me I believe the Polyp bailout is caused by the CAL and MAG being out of wack. I would get the CAL down to around 440 and the MAG up to around 1450. Hammers, torch etc seem to love higher MAG. For further fine tuning I would also try to get the pH over 8.0, as you know there are plenty of ways to try and get pH up. Great video and thanks Kris for letting us into your home.
I realize this video is 2 years old however this is my first time seeing it. I agree with the Magnesium level is low. I have had some Euphyllia corals die on me due to low magnesium levels. I was also instructed to raise the magnesium to 1500-1600 PPM. I did this and noticed having the magnesium this high caused my sails to suffer and die off. I have split the difference and lowered my Magnesium to 1400-1500 PPM and everything is much better for it. My Hammer & Torch corals look great and my sails are not dying off. As for the algae bloom nutrient reduction is in order. This can be achieved several ways. Since a refugium is already being utilized, the nutrient export can be tuned by adjusting the photoperiod the refugium light is on. The macro algae does require a break from the light source so a min. of 4 hours off is needed. Feeding is a large contributor of nutrients and modification of the food being fed or amount may be needed. There are beneficial bacterial approaches as well from companies such as Aquaforest pro biotics approach or another good effective method is to use Tropic Marin Elimi NP, Elimi Phos or NP Bacto Balance for regular maintenance. I think a follow up visit would be great to see the progress of his reef aquarium. Would love to see that tank all mature and flourishing.
Happy to report that Kris' tank is actually thriving now. I am due to revist and do an update video on it to show the big success it has become. Stay tuned and thanks for your input!
Great tank I am gonna be harsh because I feel like Kris has gotten some really bad advice, leading him to do things that are making the issue worst. For me the issue is the salinity, alk and pH (especially) are all too low. I have heard polyp bailout with Euphyllia happens from Alk swings when Alk is too low. I run my salinity at a minimum of 35 and I'm happy at 36/37. By carbon dosing Kris is effectively lowering his pH. He should dose Kalk at night and with SPS not being a focus he should STOP his pH dropping at night (which is what I believe is causing the bailout). He should test his Alk with Salifert and take 0.5-1 off for the real number - so if Salifert is reading sub 7.5 its definitely below 7. This is a problem mostly because it then can't reduce pH drops. When someone worries about PO4 and doesn't mention NO3 it concerns me. The number (within reason) doesn't matter - it's the NO3 ratio and it should be 100-200:1 optimally. Below 50 is a problem. If he's dosing NOPOX and doesn't have enough NO3 it could exacerbate the issue. I think there are too many fish too... but the issue I would focus on is the pH. Kalkwasser also precipitates out PO4. To help with the bacteria he can did Euphyllia in Polyp Labs Dip (it's Potassium salts). So I would change 1 thing and 1 thing only. I would dose 5ml of Kalk every 15min from whatever time his pH peaks unitl an hour after the bottom. I would not change the other dosing or anything - except reduce current Calcium dosing if above 420. Then the next day he looks at his pH - if it's still dropping under 8.25 (it should) he should do 10ml then 15 etc. I'm going to guess his KH will eventually go over 10 so at that point, he can start reducing his alk supplement. IF it was my tank I'd go harder. I don't run a skimmer during the day and I've never seen my pH under 8.25 and I run low Alk. But I want to make it simple. If he just does that I'm sure he will see PO4 dropping too. If he's really brave he can follow Chris Mekeles advice (Reefdudes last livestream on Coral Color - I'd tell Kris just to follow that but it may seem extreme to him.
Not an expert on parameters, but I do believe there's way too many fish for a tank that size. That might be the reason why you have all that green algae growing on your rocks. You do have all the tools and equipment to be successful. Good luck! would love to see how this tank is doing in a few months.
Everything if not nearly everything is automated, but does Kris siphon the sand now and again just to get rid of the nasties that can accumulate in there. It’s a beautiful tank, love the tangs, looking forward to the tweaks to the system, and all the best to Kris with his tank. 👍🏴
My recommendations as someone who has been doing this 15 years is this. Number 1 Stop dosing no pox. You should not need to use chemicals to control phosphates. You have others sources adding that nitrates. One problem may be the amount of large fish in a small system or possibly an issue with the rodi water. Second, dosing a beneficial bacteria to help keep nutrients and good bacteria in control to fight off the bad bacteria will help (dr Tim’s eco balance or micro backer 7). I follow the instructions and dos weekly. Third at a glance your ph swing on you apec appeared to be 8.1 to 8.3 which is a pretty large swing for ph which could be upsetting your corals. Obviously this is just my take and I hope something here helps you. Good luck
Thanks for the video Sam! My tank is all LPS and I keep the mag at 1450 it's doing well , the issue a got at the moment is the phosphate is at 0 and nitrates 2 ,I think it's a bit low , what do you think?
My first 6 months were pretty horrid with hair algae dinos and cyano and my nutrients were spot on. 18 months later I run my po4 around 0.4-0.7 and nitrates 50ppm+ (Not by choice...Im just horribly overstocked lol) and not a sight of algae. I think it's literally a waiting game on the bio diversity of different bacteria strains to populate the system and coraline algae covering the rock. Looking at the torches I think the flow is to one directional and possibly on the stronger side. Once the the flesh on the edges recedes and the polyps keeps getting smashed on the sharp coral skeleton edges doesn't take much for a bacterial infection to wipe the head. Also talking to Dave he's mentioned something about cipro stopping the flesh receding so something to look into. Also Dave has a few stripeys and long nose butterflys left...that duo wiped out my aiptasia issue pretty much in 2 weeks.
Low mag for sure, I’ve had similar issues with stunted growth and tissue recession on euphylias with lo mag. I’d say there’s a lot of fish in that tank too versus the population of coral, I’d personally strip the population back to allow him to run less export and get a better overall balance. It’s a young tank and it looks filled with a population of fish that’s probably what it should be as an established system. As a complete curve ball does that air conditioner unit cause any surface temperature fluctuation that could be effecting stability? I really doubt it but you never know.
He has a great nutrient export system going. Its actually very similar to my sumo setup. Clarisea 5000 rollermat, fuge, large skimmer, dc return pump. So what I would tell my client is, turn the fuge up. Run it up to 20 hours a night. Let it naturally get the phosphates down to 0.15-0.05. turn the return pump up, let the rollermat pull as much out of the water as possible, helping the system lower it's nutrients. I would turn the main lights down, xr15's can real push out a lot of light, and manually remove as much of the algae as possible. He does a.w.e. so a good sand siphon would be good idea. To his "no3po4x" recipe, if he's using unpure ingredients it could be leaching things into his tank. The rearranging of the sump was also a great idea!
yeah it is something you need to be careful with. I have it setup on my tank and there are a couple of things to keep in mind when setting up to ensure you don't end in disaster. Will cover it all in the follow up video with Kris soon :)
Sounds very simmilar to somthing i whent through recently. (I do Triton method, 10% daily auto water changes + still do 1 manual water change every 2 Months @30%) What I can see and have implemented on my system is. (I did 3 30% watercanges over 7 days to get my level back to check, but that may be too much a shock for your system. Many people say slow and steady, but with just phosphates it works from my experience) The fix I would recommend: First- What's the go with the air con right on top of the tank? Is that ok with you temp levels? - Stop carbon dosing - Bring the Mag levels up to 1350-1450 slowly (buff you water delivery when you get it) - Add the recommended dose of rowaphos in a reactor (away from the fuge light to prevent any possible alge growth in the reactor. Yes, the light will balt is and grow alge in our reactor) - Add doctor timms waste away get in a low flow area just before your return pump ( this will increase your good bacteria) *** IMPORTANT*** YOU WILL NEED TO LOWER YOUR SKIMMER LEVELS WITH THE WATSE AWAY GELL. It will pull out so much crap you won't know what hit you. Play around with the water level and air input until it stops over flowing and you'll be right. - Put a timer on your skimmer so it's off during your Fuge light cycle. It will give the good bacteria a chance to survive a little longer at night. ( Skimmers are one of the biggest goo bacteria issues in today's modern filtrading systems) - That's it. Everything else looks fine to from the video shown.
You will need to shake off the gel build up off the wasteaway containers nightly for the first week. let it suck up through the return pump. It's good for your system. and- peppermint shrimp = no Aptasia (throw 5-8 in your tank). Your Aptaisa will disappear overnight. AptasiaX will just spread the buggers.
Thank you for taking the time to reply with such detailed suggestions! All sounds great except for the peppermint shrimp, the tusk will eat them instantly :P
Really interesting to hear you guys call it a “lieutenant tang” in the uk we are calling those Vampires Tangs. Or at least that was what mine was marketed as.
Your video couldn’t have come at a better time I think I have a bail out happening now and you’ve given me some things to look at. Thanks Parker, keep up the good vids.
Ha yes! Just edited! Really need to start checking after typing. I was wondering if you had ever thought about connecting all of your tanks to the dream reef sump? I know you have a massive water volume already but it might benefit the two smaller tanks? Might be able to reduce the amount of equipment as well?
@@ParkersReef I had a good laugh over that just a thought about his problems I think it might be related to the issue of the red field ratio im no expert but it’s the only thing that I could come up with . I love the finish on his stand really beautiful oh and the coral beauty as much as I love angels they can just give a little nip here and there just enough that the coral never is able to open up so it finally takes it’s toll just thoughts though
I think it may be worth testing the water he's doing the auto water changes with. Not sure if I missed that? Just get the phosphates down as you said keep it stable! Cool video! Thanks
The flow through the fuge looks low? If this is the case it might help to increase it to lower nutrients better. If the fuge doesn’t work well on the system maybe a quality algae reactor such as a Tunze might be better? Would be interesting to see any icp results when you go back.
Maybe to much of a temp fluctuation I saw on his apex it was 26.3 and it looks like 24hrs ago it was reading 24.6? What suburb does he live in I own a apogee mq510 par meter. Cheers
I would 100% say po4 levels are causing the polyps bailout. That’s what the cause was for me in my second tank that caused my bail out. Once it is down it should be good
awesome looking tank. phosphate too high, would like to stay under 0.1. also mag-cal ratio is way out. also trying to work out where the phosphate is coming from. leaching from rocks or not cleaning sand n so on. keep the vids coming mate. sending thumbs up from wa
Personally I would check that the PH is right and flow and lights are not to high, only considering I got a 10 gallon quarantine with a power filter and my torches and hammers look so good in it I left them in it despite the parameters are far far from right lol. Nitrate got up to 80, phosphate got up to 0.75 lol and the colors were perfect and the corals were fat still.
I would put money on low mag as the cause of polyp bail out on the torch and hammer, if my mag drops below 1450 i can see it in my hammer garden, i run my mag at 1550 ish and have had it as high as 1650 with no ill effects across the board. On several occasions have had low mag and have had hammer and frog spwn bail out.
Ca seems a bit high and low mag. I’d like to kno par as well on the torches. Icp would be good might be low on potassium. Obviously po4 as well should come down.
@@ParkersReef I moved my a/c head unit from above the tank because of the amount of dust that comes out of them. Also, if a coil clean needs to be done, you don't want to be spraying that above your tank. Or if the condensate drain blocks and leaks into your tank.
@@ParkersReef Dust and mould are commonly blown out of a/c vents and in this case there is nothing to stop them dropping straight into Kris's tank. From memory dust is a source of silicates and there are surely toxins in mould. I would recommend either moving the a/c head unit or not using it as I think moving the tank would now be impractical. Kris has a beautiful system. I hope his problems are soon sorted.
A sea hare will clear all those algae , get a small one . Also , remove all magnets cleaner from the tank when not in use , its the main cause of hidden unknown issue .
Calcium is way to high would cause the magnesium to participate out of the water. Magnesium should be 3.2 x the Calcium First thing to do in my opinion. Gfo would be perfect for the phosphate. Nopox in my opinion doesn't work long time either most tanks look like that with the Alge.
Nice tank but I suggest the automation is overdone. I would do a big 60% slow water change, make sure the new water is ready 0 for nasties and matching key parameters. Could be something in tne food you are feeding?
IMO algae is a herbivore problem, not a NO3/PO4 issue. I, and plenty of others have had 75+ nitrates and no algae anywhere. I'd leave it, coral like to eat and you introduce much bigger issue when you go too low vs too high. PO4 is a little high, but nothing there is too out of whack IMO especially if you consider the science backed redfield ratio. A few tux urchins would go a long way. Carbon dosing is a great way to support bad bacteria along with the good, and can have a number of other negative effects. I would try stopping that for a number of reasons, the first of which is I'd argue its not doing a lot to even reduce PO4. pH is a little low, I'd like to see the night time low be above 8.15. Personally I don't drop below 8.35 and have alarms set for if I do, that is how critical pH is for me. From a pure chemistry standpoint, that is by far your most important parameter. I agree with another comment and would suggest dosing kalk at night to stop the pH dropping, this lets the natural photosynthesis of the corals during the day to continue raising it. I'd also bump alk to 8.5 at least, this helps buffer the pH and helps keep it up. Kalkwasser also has other added benefits at a chemical level. I'd do an ICP, I had a few euphyllia in my main tank suffer a bunch of polyp bailout a couple of years ago, even an elegance bailed... After ICP testing I found I had elevated copper, no idea where from but I ended up running "cuprisorb" for a couple of months and cleaned it out, though now that I think about it that tank was also running no-pox and I stopped it after that ICP test as well. So, removed copper and stopped no-pox and my euphyilla stopped bailing. Could be either one or neither, but worth a look at. The fuge is a good size too, Its possible that the fuge is stripping a lot of iron and other important trace elements out of the water which is pissing off the coral. Again, ICP would help find that. Probably low on my list of "check this" things, but rent a par meter? Possible that the lights are just way too bright even on the sandbed, unlikely but a "good to know" Also, 9 hours is super low for a photoperiod. Not helping the pH issue and I feel corals like having a longer one. All my tanks are over 12 hours and I don't see any issues. They tend to almost have their own body clock too so I would bump it up to 11+ hours over the course of a week or two, just give the coral more of the things they need. Light, flow, good water, food. That's about everything I can think of from my few years of reefing... 1: PO4 lowered slowly with GFO. 2: ICP to check for metals or stripped trace elements. 3: Boost that pH, have kalk in the system, and stop carbon dosing. 4: Sanity check the par values, increase photoperiod.
You are completely defeating purpose of Triton method if you are doing auto water change. Also NOPOx is carbon dosing. That is not a good idea with your issues. Doing way too much. Love the setup of tank though
Phosphate in the rock takes a long time to get rid of, rule of thumb, 10x nitrate over phosphate, yours is .3 phosphate, should be 30 nitrate, sounds high but the ratio is what works, I hate aiptasia, good luck with that!!
