Need advice - algae and cyno; nitrate 0, phosphate 0.3

[Kathryn Lawson]

I've been struggling with algae and cyanobacteria in my 30 gallon tank, which has been up and running for almost exactly a year now (had a smaller tank for 6 months previous to that, and started with live rock).

 

Right now, my nitrate concentration is 0 ppm (too low), and phosphate is 0.3 ppm which I understand is higher than "ideal". My nitrate to phosphate ratio being messed up is probably why I have some cyano on top of the turf and hair algae, since cyano can fix atmospheric nitrogen and thus grow in nitrate-limited environments. The turf algae has been a long-term but seemingly-reasonably-paced fight, but the cyano and hair algae are relatively new (last 2-3ish months) and seem to really be throwing my system out of whack.

 

I know from a coral growth perspective that nitrates at 0 isn't great, and also gets me into the danger zone for dinos. This leads me to think that I might be better off starting to dose nitrogen rather than trying to reduce phosphate with GFO or other removal method. The only thing is, that will likely further fuel my algae outbreak. I'm already spending multiple hours a week siphoning out hair algae to keep my corals from being overgrown/outcompeted, which is pretty much my limit in terms of time/effort I can dedicate to algae removal. Snails don't seem to be helping much at all (the ones I have don't seem to be eating much, and I've had surprisingly low survival rates when trying to add more). I do have three urchins which are clearing  up small patches of algae at a time (and seem to be the only critters who will eat the tough turf algae), but these alone are nowhere near enough to keep up with the current growth rate of the hair algae).

 

I technically do have chaeto in my sump, but most of it melted at the same time as the beginning of the hair algae outbreak and what remains has since been pretty much overtaken by the hair algae. I have some red macroalgae holding its own in the sump and display, but it doesn't seem to be enough to combat the algae situation. I also have some clean chaeto and grape caulerpa that I've been quarantining and are ready to add, but I don't want to add them  without doing anything else in case they just get overgrown by hair algae again.

 

One of my options is to dose nitrogen to enable my corals and macroalgae to use up the excess phosphate, and add cleanup crew to hopefully handle the existing algae as well as any increased algae growth (with the plan to rehome or supplement feed when/if the algae is mostly gone).

 

Another option (though I understand this has additional risks) is to use an algaecide like fluconazole or "Vibrant" (I have API Algaefix which is apparently the same thing) to provide an opportunity to reset the algae situation, and then I could add the clean chaeto and caulerpa I have ready (and the existing red macroalgae, which I would pull out of the tank during treatment) to hopefully handle the nutrients released by the dying algae.

 

Any thoughts on what I should try first? Any good options I haven't considered? Thanks in advance!!

Edited January 20 by Kathryn Lawson

[Kathryn Lawson]

Some (really poor) photos for reference:

Edited January 20 by Kathryn Lawson

[howaboutme]

One option is to dose/add live phyto to your tank. I have found that it's been one of the keys, if not the key, to keeping the algae at bay for me. The phyto benefits the tank and you can't really overdose it. It's a safe first try. But you'll also need to work on raising the NO3. I started to turn off the skimmer and skip water changes as one method because I didn't want the hassle of dosing it.

[ReefdUp]

Hi Kathryn! It was great chatting with you about this the other day, and I'm glad you were able to test your parameters.

 

First, I would steer clear of Vibrant. It has its place in the hobby, but it's not for this scenario.  You know what the problem is (high phosphate), and killing off the algae chemically won't fix the phosphate issue (it may just make it worse due to die-off). I've used it to treat the super-serious algae that do not respond to anything else, but, even years later, I can't grow any macro algae.

 

Recommend solving the root cause... high phosphate. Bringing your nitrates up to about 4 and maintaining them there will likely not fuel algae growth. The bacteria and corals will process the nitrate too fast for the algae to take off. But, the bacteria will also then be able to process the phosphate. You'll lower your phosphate naturally, which won't shock your corals (possible with GFO). And, when the hair algae is handled, your macros will appreciate it.

 

If you start dosing nitrate and don't see changes, you could be bacteria limited. Dosing bacteria will kickstart everything a bit better. If you get really desperate (and this is more risky), you can consider dosing  vodka/ sugar/ vinegar in addition to the above efforts. That's bacteria food, which will kickstart them even more to start processing your phosphate and nitrate. I don't recommend that unless you're really comfortable with balancing out phosphate and nitrate.

 

It shouldn't take long to notice a difference with nitrate dosing. Within probably 24hr, you'll notice something different but maybe can't place it. Within 3 days, the cyano should start to die off. Within a week, there should be some reduction of hair algae and cyano. Within two weeks, it should be looking pretty good.

 

Oh... and stop using flake! There are only a couple brands that are decent. You'll probably find that you can feed your fish less with a quality pellet, thus reducing waste in the tank.

 

[Gatortailale]

Are there any powerheads in the tank? A bit more flow may help with cyano and limiting low flow or dead spots of water movement.

What light are you running over the marco algae in the sump? And are you running it on alternate cycle from display? Or 24/7.  It helps to have a quality light source in sump Refugium to get beneficial algae to grow.

Are you feeding pellets or flake foods? I’ve read and have far better success controlling phosphate by feeding rinsed frozen foods.

What filtration are you using for making your saltwater and when was last time you replaced filter media? 
Cleanup crew - you need to have a lot of mouths to attack it and a diverse spread of snails, hermits, and urchins (I like tuxedos). If your local store doesn’t have what you like over 20 years I’ve had good success getting cleanup crews from Reeftopia.com.

Finally, you can try slowly over time to raise ALK up to 9 as nuisance algae doesn’t do well in my experience when ALK 9-10. Using small amounts of kalk powder dripped in or a quality 2 part may benefit tank as well. I have read lots of people have good results with all for reef; but I prefer esv bionic.

[Kathryn Lawson]

Thank you all!! It really does sound like dosing nitrate should be my next step (and Vibrant is definitely tabled for the current scenario - I hadn't read about any long-term effects on macroalgae, so thanks for the heads up!). I'm really glad to hear that my corals and bacteria should take up the nitrogen before the algae - that was my main concern with dosing N to balance out P. I looked into some options and then realized I actually already have Seachem Flourish Nitrogen (acquired from a freshwater hobbyist when adopting some fish in need of homes), which is a mix of potassium nitrate and urea (providing ammonium). Any suggestions on how slow/fast I should try to raise nitrate levels? I'll need to be pretty careful with the Seachem product, as I can only expect an immediate nitrate test to show half of the nitrogen I'm dosing (since the other half will be ammonium). Seachem says the product is 15,000 mg N/L, for reference.

I actually have been culturing phyto and copepods, but should probably dose far more regularly! I've been curious about trying a semi-continuous culture/dosing setup next to my sump. Maybe I'll try to set that up this weekend.

RE flakes, I'm using Ocean Nutrition's Prime Reef Flakes, which I thought was one of the better options - thoughts? I'd tried pellets but they seemed to sink way too fast for my fish to eat the majority of them. I do feed frozen sometimes, but my fish oddly seem to prefer the flakes (and I have to say, I do too, though I'm not opposed to feeding frozen). I use a feeding ring so they don't go down my overflow.

My sump light is a well-rated but budget Amazon light. It was my main light for my 10 gallon tank for 6 months, and corals seemed to do really well with it. I have it on a reverse cycle compared to the display tank light.

RE alkalinity, I'd seen some discussion of higher alk inhibiting cyano also. And my alk is still kinda low despite starting to slowly dose kalk a few weeks ago (kalk stirrer on a timer), so I'm going to continue to slowly increase my dosage and monitor.

I forgot to mention, I do have a powerhead, running along one side of the rockwork peninsula. The sump return goes along the other side of the rockwork in the same direction. I already adjusted my sump return nozzle to direct more flow at the area that keeps getting cyano, but haven't noticed a difference.

Oh, and I'm using RO/DI water I make myself. Last I checked the TDS was either 0 or very close, but I'll check again to make sure it's still looking good

Edited January 21 by Kathryn Lawson

[nburg]

fwiw, when I started dosing nitrates, my phosphate settled to around 0.1 where I like it and dose to keep nitrates at 10ish.

 

 Your best bet for algae control is probably some big Mexican turbo snails. They’re not super easy to keep long term. I think the longest I had one was about 2 Years, but typically anything over a year is about what you can hope for. Or maybe some emerald crabs too. I have found as corals grow, they can out compete algae too

[Kathryn Lawson]

Hey folks, just wanted to provide an update, though the news isn't great. I've been dosing nitrogen and had gotten to around 5 ppm, then a slightly increased dose and the deaths of two new snails brought me to 9.5 ppm as measured tonight. Phosphate are essentially the same at 0.31. Alk is 10.5, which is high for me, and I've temporarily stopped dosing kalk.

 

The hair algae has slowed down in terms of growth, which is interesting since I've been increasing nitrates and expected the opposite. The cyano is unfortunately worse than when I first posted, in both thickness and spread, and there's two types now. I'd seen this second type before but it had seemed to go away for a bit. This type of cyano seems to appear randomly on previously healthy coral tissue, and seems to be actively harming them, particularly SPS - even if I siphon it off the same day I first see it on a spot, the coral underneath is bleached and the tissue receded in that spot.

 

More concerningly, I have several corals including two poccillipora that have been dying back from the base, and at this point only a bit of flesh send to be left on the branch tips. One of these had struggled in the past but stabilized and I thought was beginning to recover, before taking a dramatic downtown in health this past week along with a third pocci that is bleaching spottily all over. I was siphoning out algae tonight and noticed much of the remaining tissue of the first two is very loosely attached.

 

Adding to my alarm, two of my three gorgonians have completely bleached over the last few days and the skin just crumbled off leaving just the skeleton behind tonight when I tried to lightly siphon off some hair algae that had been caught on the branches (these same gorgs had held up really well to being siphon-cleaned previously, usually looking far better the next day). These two apparently dead gorgonians were pretty thin and were of the same type, as opposed to my remaining gorg which is a different type with thicker branches and seems to be ok for now (but not looking quite normal, polyps were in).

 

I tried to add 3 trochus snails and two turbo snails from a local shop this week. I specifically selected ones that were actively moving around their tanks and climbing the rocks/glass. Two of them are now dead (one trochus, one turbo) and I've noticed that the remaining ones don't seem to be able to stick onto any surface. It's odd, they are actively coming out of their shells and seem to be trying to move around but just don't grip on to anything (I've tried placing them on a few different locations and surface types now). I had this issue with the turbo I tried to add a few months ago, also. On top of all this, one of my urchins hasn't been moving around much and today I realized it was completely upside down on the sand next to a rock, but moving slightly. I righted it and set it on a flat rock, and will keep an eye on it. My fish all seem completely normal, thankfully.

With the recent dramatic downturns in coral and CUC health, I'm wondering if I should try to do a fairly large water change there's some contaminant in the water that I'm not measuring. This would certainly help dilute the phosphates, but will also drop the nitrates that I've been working to raise. Any thoughts on whether this might be a good idea? Anything else I should do/measure?

[ReefdUp]

Since your nitrates are now registering but your phosphates haven't budged, it sounds like you're bacterial-limited. Have you tried dosing bacterial yet? I use Macrobacter7, but I've used Prodibio in the past successfully too.

 

Invert deaths are certainly sad, but I rarely consider them as a concern by themselves. You just never know their age, what issues they might have, or what else may be going on.

 

But yes, it does sound like there's something concerning overall. The phosphate alone could be the culprit (it's pretty high). I wouldn't argue againt a water change - just measure and dose nitrate afterward, along with bacteria.

[Kathryn Lawson]

Hi all, more updates but unfortunately things are still not great. After my last post, I did do a ~50% water change. However, with additional deaths around the same time (the last of the 5 snails I added died, along with the urchin and I think my pompom crab - I don't think what I pulled out was just a molt), by the time I measured my nutrients again a day or so after the water change, I was back to the same nutrient levels as I'd started. No livestock health seemed to improve with the major water change so I'm probably not dealing with heavy metals, etc., though I'm still considering an ICP test to confirm. I've continued losing corals, mostly SPS but my LPS and softies are clearly also unhappy (and the gorgs that the skin fell off are pretty definitively dead). I've pretty much lost all branching SPS entirely at this point, except the poccillipora that I've had the longest, and that one has gone dramatically downhill over the last week or so with tissue peeling off, so I'm not expecting it to live much longer either.

 

I've been dosing Microbacter7 (as directed on the bottle, 2 caps per day) and vinegar for over a week now (started with one cap per day and now up to two - I've been lazy about measuring it more exactly, but can figure out the dose in mL if relevant), along with the nitrogen as needed to maintain nitrate levels. Phosphates have dropped to 0.2, with nitrates at 3.4. Despite having turned my kalk reactor pump off weeks ago, alk has oddly continued to rise - at 11.5 now, which I'm getting concerned about. I just physically unplugged the kalk pump just in case the timer controlling it malfunctioned somehow.

 

Cyano is still running rampant, worse than ever before, and I'm wondering if it's harming more than just corals at this point. My bubble tip nem has been shrunken and looking unhappy for multiple days now, and yesterday I noticed that it actually moved out of its chosen little crevice and went underneath a rock - it hasn't moved at all since it found that spot when I put it in a year ago, so I'm taking this as a sign that something in the tank is still very wrong (my 2 rock flower nems are looking fine for now, thankfully). I added some activated carbon a few days ago to hopefully absorb any toxins from the cyano, but haven't noticed any improvement yet.

 

I added some grape caulerpa 2-ish weeks ago, and while it has grown some, most of the pieces have at least some cyano covering them. I picked up some chaeto at the meeting last week (thanks to whoever brought it for free!) but haven't yet added it, since I think it's just going to get coated with cyano and/or hair algae (and I figured I should quarantine/observe it for a bit before adding to my system).

 

Any thoughts as to what I should do, other than keep (endlessly, it seems) siphoning out cyano? I'm tempted to try a 3-day blackout to try to knock back the cyano, but also am afraid that it might really hurt the corals that are already struggling. I do have chemiclean, but want to avoid using it casually (likely only as a last resort).

Edited February 18 by Kathryn Lawson

[Kathryn Lawson]

[DaJMasta]

I do think the cyano will go away as the tank rights itself, but the maintenance is tedious and it does have the potential to smother coral that isn't doing well, so personally, I'd probably use the chemiclean.  My preference for using it is to get as much of the cyano clumps out right before treatment, then dosing around the normal dose (a little lower seems to usually have a good effect), and leaving the skimmer on during, but not collecting the skimmate and just turning the level way down - I had an issue with a treatment a while ago where having an AIO and not having the skimmer on meant the oxygen levels sort of tanked on the first day, and the extra agitation of a not-collecting skimmer would have fixed it.

While it is sort of a band aid, it does really work and relatively quickly, so it will help give you a leg up on the maintenance side for some weeks to come, at least, and as the water changes continue, it will get out and let things settle once again in time.

[ranger]

In my experience a couple of money cowries will take care of hair algae they are really the only thing i have found that work.....cyano is chemclean or doses of ozone if you have a skimmer.......10min of ozone a day on your size tank will do wonders i think most people dont realize how effective it is for dinos or cyano. 

[Kathryn Lawson]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm leaning more and more towards using chemiclean for the cyano, but I'm not sure that's the only problem I'm dealing with. (I had one money cowrie but it died right around the same time as the snails and urchin died).

 

I just finished a three day blackout (meant to eradicate the cyano) after extensive siphoning of cyano and algae. Unfortunately I still see cyano, and while I expected nitrates and phosphates to rise some due to the blackout, I'm now at 16.7ppm nirate and 0.48ppm phosphate. (I've continued dosing Microbacter7 and vinegar).

 

Oddly, my alkalinity is even higher than before - 12.2! I'm really getting concerned about this now, both in terms of why it's rising, as well as how to reduce it... Any thoughts/advice?

 

Also, during the blackout, my piece of Hollywood Stunner chalice went from being pretty stable to seemingly having completely died off - the skin seems to have disintegrated almost. I'll post a pic below. It seems unlikely that this would be just due to the blackout, but maybe the combination with high alk?

 

[ranger]

Chemclean with a air stone then carbon then 2 money cowries pretty easy to do.Are you sure you got money cowries they are hard to find.Slime issues will drive people out from reefing its very frustrating i always dose a little ozone on every tank no matter the size it seems to work well.You add it for 15min to a hour leave the house for 2 hours its all gone.

[ReefdUp]

Have you switched your food yet? Personally, I like Spectrum pellets, but I feed a wide variety of foods. There are some neutrally and positive bouyancy pellets, so you'll just need to select what is right for your fish type. You're using RODI, right? 

 

Something isn't adding up in this math equation. 

 

When you mentioned the rising alk, I didn't see your calcium and magnesium levels. Those three are intertwined. If one is super high, the others will likely be way off as well. My guess is that your mag or calcium (or both) are way low. 

 

Invert deaths are unfortunately one of those things I rarely consider as indicative of a larger problem. They're often very sensitive to nutrient changes or high nutrients. Additionally, some have quite short lifecycles, and there's no way to tell their age. I don't react to any invert death unless there is a mass die-off, which indicates a systemic problem. 

 

Personally, I would stick to the math. Nutrients in... nutrients out. Somewhere that math equation is not making sense, so look at all sources for your nutrients-in. You may also want to try a different bottle of bacteria from a different source. Something is suspicious here, as your levels should be dropping (unless the nutrient input is just really high.)

 

I've never used Flourish - are you sure it's reef-safe? With the dosed urea, have you been testing your ammonia and nitrite? If either of those are detected, there's your problem. 

[cpeguero]

It may be worth taking a step back for a moment. Like Nikki said, something doesn’t add up. I’d recommend doing a summary post here with everything you’re dosing (including food and frequency of feeding), and your current test results ( do ALL the tests). That may help highlight the issue. 
 

If that summary doesn’t show something, it may be worth stopping all the dosing and focusing on only dosing to address the current issues. Also, make sure you are testing every parameter that is directly (or indirectly) impacted by what you are dosing (I’ve learned this the hard way). 
 

Id also recommend testing your RO water for all these issues (phosphate, nitrate, chloramine, anything else). I’ve had a couple instances where I was sure something else was off, and it turned out my RO water was the culprit (filters needed to be changed). 
 

Just my 2 cents. 

[ReefdUp]

1 hour ago, cpeguero said:

It may be worth taking a step back for a moment. Like Nikki said, something doesn’t add up. I’d recommend doing a summary post here with everything you’re dosing (including food and frequency of feeding), and your current test results ( do ALL the tests). That may help highlight the issue. 
 

If that summary doesn’t show something, it may be worth stopping all the dosing and focusing on only dosing to address the current issues. Also, make sure you are testing every parameter that is directly (or indirectly) impacted by what you are dosing (I’ve learned this the hard way). 
 

Id also recommend testing your RO water for all these issues (phosphate, nitrate, chloramine, anything else). I’ve had a couple instances where I was sure something else was off, and it turned out my RO water was the culprit (filters needed to be changed). 
 

Just my 2 cents. 

 

Concur

[ranger]

Any slime issues can be the mother of all battles they usually need to be nuked once they over run........chemclean always works.Check out the brs guy and his run in with dinos and ozone usage.. been useing ozone in some form since the 80"s it works

[Kathryn Lawson]

So I just ran some more tests and it looks like @ReefdUp is on to something with questions about my mag and calcium levels. I'll look into products for dosing these without further raising alk - any recommendations? It also looks like a bit of phosphate might be sneaking past my RODI @cpeguero, so I should probably swap out the filters (though I would imagine the amount of phosphate in the flakes I'm feeding would outweigh this relatively small amount).

Reef Tank Water

Ammonia 0

Salinity 1.026 (checked/calibrated with RODI)
Calcium 387 ppm 

Mag 940 ppm  

Nitrate 16.7

Phosphate 0.48

Alkalinity 12.2 

Temp controlled by Inkbird, 76-78F

 

RODI

Nitrate 0

Phosphate 0.03

Alk 0.7

Chloramine, free ammonia (test step) 0 

 

@ranger I know ozone used in large-scale wastewater treatment and some bigger tanks, but I thought it was generally a pretty big investment and required careful monitoring due to the associated health risks. I have parrots which have extremely sensitive respiratory systems, so I don't think ozone would be a good choice for me. As I understand it, the main benefits of ozone are disinfection and oxidation, which can also be done with H2O2 dosing or UV. I could see this being especially useful to kill cyano cells in the water column and limit its spread. I've seen reports of folks fighting cyano with these methods - now I'm wondering what might be least harmful to the rest of my reef.

 

In other news, I'd forgotten to mention that when I'd siphoned out the cyano before the blackout, I discovered one of my leathers was extremely unhappy about cyano on it - part of the flesh underneath was disintegrating. So I added about a double handful of carbon in a filter bag in my sump before the blackout, to help with any chemicals it might be producing. Post blackout, it still looks pretty unhappy but also seems to have shed, so that might be partially why it's so shrunken now. I don't usually run carbon though.

 

Right now I'm still feeding Prime Reef flakes daily, though less than before. A few of my fish don't seem to recognize frozen food or pellets as being food, but I really should work on that... I'm dosing ~15mL (2 caps) of Microbacter7 per day, and 15mL (2 caps of vinegar) per day, though in the last few days I've started adding some extra vinegar (3 caps total). The kalk reactor is entirely unplugged, and so is my skimmer. I don't usually have mechanical filtration in place, except when I'm siphoning algae (and I seem to have misplaced that filter sock... gonna have to get another one!)

[ReefdUp]

Holy moly.

 

You have too many things going on - your boat is sinking. Instead of bandaid-ing all the holes, you need a new hull. Dosing a million different products is just creating too many variables. Let's go back to basics.

 

At this point, here's what I would do:

- One 20% water change with a good *reef* salt

- Daily 5-10% water changes for several weeks with a good *reef* salt. It's a pain, but it'll slowly move your tank back to the balanced numbers.

- Fix your RODI. What's your TDS? You should know when to change it by that.

- Fix your filter sock.

- Start weaning your fish off flake food. Start adding in a good quality pellet, and feed minimally.

- You really need to skim while trying to reduce phosphates! As the bacteria is consuming the nitrate (and phosphate), the bacteria are multiplying. They have to be removed! Otherwise, when they die, the nutrients just end up right back in your tank. There must be an export.

- Dose bacteria according to manufacturer's instructions, but stop dosing vinegar and nitrate. 

- Test new saltwater makeup to make sure it's balancing out your tank's parameters. (Funny story... I kid you not, but I had a close friend who had miserable reef problems. Found out her cat was peeing into the new saltwater.)

- Test your tank daily and start graphing the parameters. You should see a good trend.

- Once things stabilize, then consider reintroducing dosing various products one by one. Wait two weeks between each change so you can see the difference.  With the coral load you have, you shouldn't need to dose much, if anything (other than regular water changes). 

 

[Kathryn Lawson]

Going back to basics makes sense. The salt I've been using is Crystal Sea Marinemix, Bioassay formula -  a friend's workplace uses it in bulk and I can buy a bag from them pretty cheaply. They don't have corals but do have an oyster reef, and in doing some Internet research I found that it has been used in the past for corals, invert spawning projects, etc. Would you consider this a good *reef* salt?

 

TDS is 0, but I'll order new filters today. I've changed out the DI resin since I got it (when it changed color), but not the other filters, which in hindsight I probably should have done then to be safe, but at the time money was pretty tight. I'll also get another filter sock, or maybe two...

 

Daily water changes will be a huge pain, and I'm not certain I'll be able to keep up with it and testing everything daily, but I'll give it a shot, prioritizing the water changes over daily testing if necessary. I'll also try to get my fish over to pellets and/or frozen food.

 

Oh, and yeah, it completely makes sense that I need to have my skimmer on to remove bacteria! I'd had it off to try to get nitrates above 0 to fight cyano, but I'm definitely there for now (and the cyano is still here anyway). I'll turn it back on, maybe starting with a few hours a day?

Edited February 24 by Kathryn Lawson

[cpeguero]

For the salt you’re using, I’d recommend mixing up a batch, letting it mix for 24 hours, and running a set of tests on it. A quick google search turned up be or two folks claiming this salt might part of their issue with parameters. Not enough for me to point the finger, but worth running a batch of tests in it. 
 

Id also recommend that, once you start doing your testing, and hopefully seeing the trend go in The right direction, you can test a little less often. If you’re able to automate water changes in any way, try that, or at least figure out a system that makes it as easy as possible. I know I’m terrible at doing regular water changes, hence me automating it. 
 

Id say just turn the skimmer on and leave it on. Once you start seeing your parameters trend in one direction, you can perhaps turn that knob, if needed. 

[ReefdUp]

17 minutes ago, cpeguero said:

For the salt you’re using, I’d recommend mixing up a batch, letting it mix for 24 hours, and running a set of tests on it. A quick google search turned up be or two folks claiming this salt might part of their issue with parameters. Not enough for me to point the finger, but worth running a batch of tests in it. 
 

Id also recommend that, once you start doing your testing, and hopefully seeing the trend go in The right direction, you can test a little less often. If you’re able to automate water changes in any way, try that, or at least figure out a system that makes it as easy as possible. I know I’m terrible at doing regular water changes, hence me automating it. 
 

Id say just turn the skimmer on and leave it on. Once you start seeing your parameters trend in one direction, you can perhaps turn that knob, if needed. 

 

Agreed on all points.

 

What you're looking for in the new batch of saltwater is either balanced alk/ ca/ mag at natural seawater levels or slightly higher (so as to replenish what you've lost.) Some salt mixes (especially back in the day) just made sure the water mixed to the proper salinity. A good reef salt will balance the other parameters as well.

 

There are good budget reef salts, but test what you have first so that you have good data before you make a decision. I started in the hobby on a starving college-student budget, where my fish ate better than I did. It's possible.

 

Getting a good quality salt can be more economical than supplementing a small tank with all the various chemicals. On larger tanks, sometimes the inverse becomes true. Going back to basics may decrease your costs (and maybe even any frustration).

 

It may be more physical work, but it's a simple plan that should move you in the right direction. That alone is likely more work than researching ideas, wading through opinions, and stressing about 'what-ifs.'

 

If you don't have enough time for a 10% daily water change, do whatever you can manage. Once, I was in a situation like this, and I literally did a gallon jug water change daily. I filled it up with tank water, poured it out, and poured in the new saltwater from a bigger batch that I made on the weekend. It took five minutes. It doesn't have to be complicated. But when you do find more time, try to do a higher percent and clear some of the detritus in the sand out, too.

[Kathryn Lawson]

Thank you all for the input! I did an initial 20% water change on Saturday and have been doing daily 10% water changes since then. Skimmer is on constantly and skimming wet, and I added a filter sock to the flow coming into my sump. I stopped dosing nitrate/vinegar/Microbacter7. Carbon is still in though, since the disintegrating spot on the one leather is still there, though the rest of the leather is finally showing a bit of polyp extension again. The other surviving corals have been looking a bit better also, though cyano has been coming back in full force.

 

I've been working on convincing my fish to eat pellets. My smallest fish have struggled to fit New Life Spectrum Thera+A pellets into their mouths, and the pellets sink pretty immediately so most end up falling to the bottom (far more uneaten mass than with flakes, so I wonder if at least for now, switching to pellets may result in higher water nutrient levels). I tried some much smaller pellets also, Reef Nutrition's TDO ChromaBoost. These granules seem to stay floating longer in the feeding ring and fall more slowly so the fish have more time to realize they're there, though I'm not sure that these tiny pellets are really much different from pieces of flakes. Hopefully over time my fish will learn to eat the pellets faster, or figure out that they can eat fallen food from the rocks/sand! I might try some pellets in an auger-based autofeeder (supposedly more precise than rotating ones), maybe using super tiny amounts more frequently, since right now my firefish hide as soon as I move the tank lid to put pellets in, and by the time they come back out most of the food is gone/fallen.

 

My water parameters are as follows:

 

2/28 reef tank

Nitrate 12.4

Phosphate 0.37

Alk 11.2

Calcium 388

Mag 980 (slightly higher than fresh salt water, maybe due to slight test/water variability?) 

 

Fresh salt water

Nitrate 0

Phosphate 0.02

Alk 10.0

Calcium 388

Mag 940

 

It looks like my fresh salt water is a bit high in alk and low in calcium and magnesium compared to what is desirable. I guess either I could make dosing calc/mag a standard practice or change salt brands, but am leaning towards a brand change for simplicity. I'm thinking I'll work on using up my current salt with these daily water changes, then once those are done, switch (more slowly) to a different salt - perhaps regular Instant Ocean (not reef crystals). Does this sound good, or should I consider an alternative salt or doing the switch during the daily changes?

 

I'm guessing I should keep up the water changes and testing. Not sure if I should consider Chemiclean or H2O2 for the cyano, or hold off for now - thoughts?

Edited February 29 by Kathryn Lawson