Hey! I am needing help/advice in raising nutrients in my tank.
I got an established 65g tank & 15g sump off marketplace a few weeks ago. It came with clowns and some different mushroom corals. When I set it up, only took about 5 days to cycle again. My corals are growing, I actually have a lot of new growth from them despite having low nutrients. I also have new coralline algea growth. I've only done one 15% water change in hopes to raise calcium and magnesium levels. Added eco pods and feed them phytoplankton every day to help with the ugly stage. Ugly brown detrius went away but now I'm left with green hair algea, the algea isn't spreading but what is there has been growing. Any advice?? I feed my clowns 2-3× a day
Thank you! ❤️
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@billy
1y
There are also products called NeoNitro and NeoPhos where you can add nitrate and phosphate. I used those when my tank started and was bottoming out. But only use if you are going to test nitrate/phosphate to make sure it’s not going too high. 5ppm nitrate it a good starting target IMO. Though my tank is matured and I run it at 20ppm.
@Sarah177
1y
Thank you for letting me know! I turned off my protien skimmer for the day to hopefully help raise them a little bit. Do you happen to know of a good magnesium and calcium supplement?
@billy
1y
I’m kinda surprised you mag/calc is so low if you are using reef crystals salt? Have you been dosing ALK? I use All-For-Reef(AFR) it’s all in one Calc/Alk/Mag but that wouldn’t be a great solution at the moment for you since alk is so high. Maybe a few more water changes to normalize your params.
@Sarah177
1y
I replied, just forgot to tag you lol. Not sure if you got the notification or not so I'm commenting here for you to find my reply!
@Sarah177
1y
I am as well, when I first set up the tank i did buy saltwater from my lfs. I'm thinking now that they must have just used instant ocean when mixing the salt. I do know for sure they made this batch of saltwater fresh for my tank. I've done two 10% water changes so far only after getting 0ppm ammonia/nitrites & 10ppm nitrates (once per week-water changing days being sunday). I do have a lot of new mushroom growths popping up but with them still being so small and not having a huge variety of coral going on in my tank yet, I wouldn't think they would be soaking up that much magnesium and calcium just yet. I'm thinking on waiting another week before I do a water change to allow my phosphates and nitrates to climb a little and just dosing mag/cal in the meantime. Does that sound appropriate? Or should I continue weekly water changes although having no nitrates/phosphates?
@billy
1y
Yeah that’s a good plan. After re looking at your tank. I do think nitrates not bottoming out is more important than your alk/calc/mag. Realistically your mushrooms are consuming zero Alk/calc/mag but they do depend on nitrates. Your tank is so fresh that trying to micro manage the parameters will drive you nuts. Just focusing on fixing one thing at a time is best. Your tank will find its groove. They just take time and patience 🙂
@Sarah177
1y
Awesome, thank you!
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Manually remove the green hair algae as it is absorbing the nitrate and phosphate. Dosing calcium and magnesium will help raise them along side water changes.
Thank you!
Also try and feed your corals some coral food, that will help raise nitrate and phosphate. Personally I have found reefroids great at this
I've heard someone else saying reef roids; I need to get some asap! I'm going to work on removing this algea today