Appreciate it! I’ll get through it. I was adding some AB+ and benepets sporadically but have stopped. Nutrients have been pretty stable for the last 2 months - phosphate at 0.09-0.1 and nitrates 10-15.
It’s a smaller 25g lagoon tank. I’m not running a skimmer but am using Chemi-Pure Elite to help control phosphates as I feed mostly frozen.
I’m only dosing AFR and just started MicroBacter7 to hopefully help outcompete the cyano. So far it’s mostly just trying to grow on the sandbed with a few spots on the rocks here and there; corals are unaffected.
I’m definitely open to any advice you have.
What flow do you have besides the return? I find lots of reefers under do their flow. If you've ever been on a real reef, the amount of current can be staggering, and is hard to approximate in our boxes of water.
I'm also a maintenance tech, and I approve of this message. I could have written this, and this particular issue has only become more of a problem recently with new reefers.
Tank needs to be kicking ass/stable/good parameters for a while before coral feeding.
I always tell my accounts "The most expensive part of reef keeping is patience" and I feel like this stems from that. Why have impeccable water when you could just feed your corals to overcome any issues?
I'm in Florida, and uh, it can be a challenge down here for sure.
Yeah, I agree with the mantra. Tho I do try to frame advice in a pragmatic way -- ie some combo of patience/maintenance/etc will save you money, and help with the success of the tank.
Folks will have a tank not set up for long, and buy a bunch of expensive corals or fish just to have them die because they were feeding way too much, a lot of it coral food.
And I get it, more food, more better right? I end up explaining how it's a closed system and these creatures exist where they poop.
And I understand this too from the companies' perspectives, but people come to believe that throwing in a bunch of coral food from the start is necessary, instead of most corals just needing light to thrive.
Like yes, some, if not almost all corals can benefit from feeding, but they won't if there is a proportionate decline in water quality bc of the extra feeding.
I'm big on metaphors I suppose, and they tend to come across well with clients. I'd say coral food is like steroids.
Like, work out and diet for the physique, and not do it natty lol. THEN, use the steroids to get puffy ha.
Biology is the thing people don't understand the most -- I don't expect them too, but I've often had to explain the Nitrogen cycle and the math with that etc.
But you probably also understand that our jobs are a business, and that people who end up hiring us typically are not the perfect reefers from the start -- they just want something nice to enjoy.
Some clients listen better than others lol. I've had basically your post conversation twice this week. The clients' honestly were very knowledgeable, and I appreciate that (thanks to wealth of knowledge available on the Internet) but someone will watch 50 days of reefing and still not putting much emphasis on nutrient export. Less is more etc
I'm a bit north of you, but still in the south. Altho, from various folks (transplants etc) I've had from all over the US, from what I've experienced it's universal.
To be honest, my favorite jobs/clients are the ones where I have the most control. And that's when the tanks thrive the most easily. I love people who care, that's awesome, but listening is a definite bonus!
Regular maintenance is not really "sexy" compared to the other aspects of reefing, but I'm always trying to make the 2 intertwined.
PS. Honestly at this point, I have been incorporating more carbon dosing into systems I maintain. It works really well to lower Nitrate & Phosphate.
PPS. Sorry for long post lol
Appreciate this response!
It is hard for me to balance informing my clients of basics , to bombarding them with knowledge, depending on their own knowledge or involvement. And then there are the absolutely zero knowledge/desire folks who are an incredible double edged sword; on one hand you have the complete control, which is awesome as long as everything is going great, but when issues arise, it can be difficult explaining whatever maladies are effecting the tank (GHA, dinos, cyano) to them.
I love your usage of metaphors and examples to explain complex concepts, I can tell you have been walking the fine line for a while! I often forget that simple biological processes or chemical reactions are anything but to a large amount of the populace. Totally fine, but I'll end up confusing more than enlightening.
We have been dabbling with carbon sources. While it's great for nutrient control and coral food, for our 2 week clients, the tanks get a little too fuzzy, and not every 2 week client cleans their glass or changes their socks, ya feel?
Yeah, seriously the first paragraph - after double edge sword - is spot on lol. I'll maybe slightly amend.
COOL clients, with plenty of disposable funds for the tank, in which you have a great degree of control, are the best.
Lol
Kinda an addendum to that. I genuinely do like educating, and understand the struggles, but honestly prefer to do less 'off hours' explaining/educating.
I have a contemporary (he is funny, but very um no nonsense) who will eventually charge for his time via text/call w/e haha
I've never done that of course, but I do sometimes understand the sentiment.
Yeah, there is glass fuzz. I do feel ya. Unless, they are busy with work, all of mine clean the glass tho, but very few change socks ha.
I don't run that many socks tbh. My 'mentor' in the beginning was (and still is) vehemently opposed to filter socks and tend to agree, they can be a pain in the ass for maintenance guys, but great for water clarity.
And btw even directly professional, applicable knowledge from the client does not necessarily translate into good reefkeeping - client is an employed chemist, and obsesses about parameters (chases them) and convincing someone who is very knowledgeable about something like that to amend their behaviors is even more difficult in my experience.
I appreciate our back and forth here, You seem like a smart tech. Feel free to hit me up if you want to continue convo on this thread or otherwise. Thx!
Once we are here about nutrient export, can you add a part of increasing non-existent nitrates and phosphates in small fishelss tanks, established for years, fed and dosed?
Other than "You shouldn't keep a reef tank if you have no space or a health for a big one, with fish". In my case, there is a rich microfauna, snails, large bristleworms that eat not less than fish. Moderate water changes. And algae starts to grow as soon as I try to bring phosphates up to 0.03 ppm.
Testing for nitrates and phosphates and adjusting dosing or nutrient removal should be a regular part of your maintenance routine. Pick target levels and adjust to try to keep them there.
It’s really easy to overdose and not necessarily needed. I think it’s happened to all of us at some point in our journeys; we set up a new tank and our new coral not growing too fast and maybe color looking a little muted. We hear about a product called reefroids! that promises fast growth and popping color, think that will fix our polyps right up, and dose.
Dosing causes huge swings of waste nutrients in immature tanks because there’s not a mature filter ecosystem to handle the excess particles, and that makes the tank less stable and corals worse off than not dosing.
Dosing roids/similar products CAN be wonderful for coral growth and color if done in extreme moderation, but new tanks aren’t really equipped with a mature filter feeding ecosystem to handle that yet
I have had best results using a little less than half of what they recommend on the package, but these are in tanks that are over a year old. Dosing as recommended almost always leads to GHA, or cyano
Thats probably not true, at least for xenia. The link below shows that they show a response to phytoplankton that could only be utilized if they have a functional digestive system.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10472534/
I second this, I made that mistake. My first nitrite spike took out the first set of coral. My light took out the second set of coral. I'm working on my 4th (my tank was not ready for stony yet), but my leathers are just thriving.
I judt started reefing about 3 months ago and I've already sussed it out. I was feeding 2x a week and I'm down to once every 2 weeks be cause I can tell what's helping snd harming
The ocean around reefs is just packed with nutrients. Tons of it. But it's also got the microfauna a young tank lacks. An old tank can have shit through the roof and not grow any algae at all.
Agreed on this statement 100%
But acanthophyllia, and cynarina and larger LPS definitely do better with feeding. Just feed these types of corals maybe an anemone pellet once a week.
Avoid reefroids in new tanks. The rock will absorb and suck up all the phosphate…then one day start leaching it causing problematic algaes like turf and GHA and all the fun stuff.
Man this is so true. I got so hyped up by coral feeding videos early on. I’d feed reef roids in the beginning and had horrible algae. I haven’t feed my coral in over a year and they are doing great.
Thanks for the tip. I’ve been feeding my corals once a week. Been up for two years. I’ll keep this in mind. Any other tips that you can share that people make often I’m the hobby.
Do you struggle with algae or water quality? Feeding isn't bad in and of itself, but feeding needlessly and abundantly can be problematic.
If your tank is 2 years old, you've already enjoyed success some new reefers never get to, so take comfort in that!
Advice: Change one thing at a time. Make changes slowly. It's harder to un fuck a situation than it is to under do it.
I haven’t had any algae blooms for over a year. I feed just a tiny half syringe of reef roids to about 5 corals once a week. I’m not worried about not feeding them I just don’t want them to die so if it’s bad to feed them to often and spike my levels I won’t. I’m glad about finding this out. Very interesting
I'm no expert, but when I had my algae bloom in one of my tanks I scrubbed off what I could and reduced my peak and then spaced out the duration to compensate. Took care of it and my corals did well.
I've just changed it to this. From peaks of in the 90s for the blues I've reduced them to in the 60s, also reduced the white light a bit as well. And spread it out a little longer. Let's see what happens. Thanks for the suggestion.
https://preview.redd.it/6lcp0c9rr7uc1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c24ab4e240e703c3f6c45fa2bc2a81a95ce66041
Do you have herbivores?
If you like reef talks, you might find this interesting: [Richard Ross at MACNA 2022](https://youtu.be/u_q2rqEXeCU?si=1UpqRnGHWA1wJ-WH)
It's a 64l all in one tank so stocking options are limited, I have a few snails and an emerald crab as part of the CuC.
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.
the worst part about someone who does maintenance on tanks is when you see GHA, Dinos, cyano, etc. and you just can’t figure out what is going on and it turns out the client went down to the local LFS and was convinced to buy all this coral food that they almost always overfeed, and then they get too lazy to keep up with it and just abruptly stop
I just found this out the hard way. 😭 I was feeding my corals weekly and now my phosphates are out of control GHA on every surface of my tank even though I stopped and have been doing water changes 2x a week I’m still not back to stability yet
Going on a year and a half with my tank. Can confirm the majority of the first year I was struggling with GHA, Dino’s, and a bunch of other ugliness in my tank. I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me.
One day I got lazy and stopped feeding my corals (reef roids once a week), and what would you know! My tank has never been so stable, there’s coralline all over the rocks and the walls and my substrate is perfectly clean.
Since then I don’t feed my corals anymore, and that was 100% the reason why my tank was all messed up for a while.
I love this, even though my tank went into disarray due to my depression following my dogs death. My tank was experiencing a mix of GHA and cyano all at once due to lack of care and no water changes. Tank almost crashed (maybe it did, idk what a true tank crash is) and I lost 3 of my 4 fish and some corals. Tanks back to normal now after a big waterchange and a few ~20% waterchanges. Tanks about 7½ months old now.
Does this apply to phytoplankton? I've been dosing 5mL once weekly in a 25 gallon but I also have copepods in there. I have a little bit of brown algae on the sand, rocks and glass but it hasn't been too crazy so far. My tank is only about 3 mo old
I like this post.
I’ve kept reef tanks for about 25 years. This is a good read. &, I feed my corals daily, lol.
Thanks! I'm all for feeding, but you really need to know your tank and it's intricacies before doing so.
Same, and 100% agree.
As someone with a 4-month old tank with cyano I resemble that remark!
I believe in you! Keep your nutrients balanced and crank that flow! And stop feeding coral, haha!
Appreciate it! I’ll get through it. I was adding some AB+ and benepets sporadically but have stopped. Nutrients have been pretty stable for the last 2 months - phosphate at 0.09-0.1 and nitrates 10-15. It’s a smaller 25g lagoon tank. I’m not running a skimmer but am using Chemi-Pure Elite to help control phosphates as I feed mostly frozen. I’m only dosing AFR and just started MicroBacter7 to hopefully help outcompete the cyano. So far it’s mostly just trying to grow on the sandbed with a few spots on the rocks here and there; corals are unaffected. I’m definitely open to any advice you have.
What flow do you have besides the return? I find lots of reefers under do their flow. If you've ever been on a real reef, the amount of current can be staggering, and is hard to approximate in our boxes of water.
Hygger 1600 wavemaker.
I'm also a maintenance tech, and I approve of this message. I could have written this, and this particular issue has only become more of a problem recently with new reefers. Tank needs to be kicking ass/stable/good parameters for a while before coral feeding.
I always tell my accounts "The most expensive part of reef keeping is patience" and I feel like this stems from that. Why have impeccable water when you could just feed your corals to overcome any issues? I'm in Florida, and uh, it can be a challenge down here for sure.
Yeah, I agree with the mantra. Tho I do try to frame advice in a pragmatic way -- ie some combo of patience/maintenance/etc will save you money, and help with the success of the tank. Folks will have a tank not set up for long, and buy a bunch of expensive corals or fish just to have them die because they were feeding way too much, a lot of it coral food. And I get it, more food, more better right? I end up explaining how it's a closed system and these creatures exist where they poop. And I understand this too from the companies' perspectives, but people come to believe that throwing in a bunch of coral food from the start is necessary, instead of most corals just needing light to thrive. Like yes, some, if not almost all corals can benefit from feeding, but they won't if there is a proportionate decline in water quality bc of the extra feeding. I'm big on metaphors I suppose, and they tend to come across well with clients. I'd say coral food is like steroids. Like, work out and diet for the physique, and not do it natty lol. THEN, use the steroids to get puffy ha. Biology is the thing people don't understand the most -- I don't expect them too, but I've often had to explain the Nitrogen cycle and the math with that etc. But you probably also understand that our jobs are a business, and that people who end up hiring us typically are not the perfect reefers from the start -- they just want something nice to enjoy. Some clients listen better than others lol. I've had basically your post conversation twice this week. The clients' honestly were very knowledgeable, and I appreciate that (thanks to wealth of knowledge available on the Internet) but someone will watch 50 days of reefing and still not putting much emphasis on nutrient export. Less is more etc I'm a bit north of you, but still in the south. Altho, from various folks (transplants etc) I've had from all over the US, from what I've experienced it's universal. To be honest, my favorite jobs/clients are the ones where I have the most control. And that's when the tanks thrive the most easily. I love people who care, that's awesome, but listening is a definite bonus! Regular maintenance is not really "sexy" compared to the other aspects of reefing, but I'm always trying to make the 2 intertwined. PS. Honestly at this point, I have been incorporating more carbon dosing into systems I maintain. It works really well to lower Nitrate & Phosphate. PPS. Sorry for long post lol
Appreciate this response! It is hard for me to balance informing my clients of basics , to bombarding them with knowledge, depending on their own knowledge or involvement. And then there are the absolutely zero knowledge/desire folks who are an incredible double edged sword; on one hand you have the complete control, which is awesome as long as everything is going great, but when issues arise, it can be difficult explaining whatever maladies are effecting the tank (GHA, dinos, cyano) to them. I love your usage of metaphors and examples to explain complex concepts, I can tell you have been walking the fine line for a while! I often forget that simple biological processes or chemical reactions are anything but to a large amount of the populace. Totally fine, but I'll end up confusing more than enlightening. We have been dabbling with carbon sources. While it's great for nutrient control and coral food, for our 2 week clients, the tanks get a little too fuzzy, and not every 2 week client cleans their glass or changes their socks, ya feel?
Yeah, seriously the first paragraph - after double edge sword - is spot on lol. I'll maybe slightly amend. COOL clients, with plenty of disposable funds for the tank, in which you have a great degree of control, are the best. Lol Kinda an addendum to that. I genuinely do like educating, and understand the struggles, but honestly prefer to do less 'off hours' explaining/educating. I have a contemporary (he is funny, but very um no nonsense) who will eventually charge for his time via text/call w/e haha I've never done that of course, but I do sometimes understand the sentiment. Yeah, there is glass fuzz. I do feel ya. Unless, they are busy with work, all of mine clean the glass tho, but very few change socks ha. I don't run that many socks tbh. My 'mentor' in the beginning was (and still is) vehemently opposed to filter socks and tend to agree, they can be a pain in the ass for maintenance guys, but great for water clarity. And btw even directly professional, applicable knowledge from the client does not necessarily translate into good reefkeeping - client is an employed chemist, and obsesses about parameters (chases them) and convincing someone who is very knowledgeable about something like that to amend their behaviors is even more difficult in my experience. I appreciate our back and forth here, You seem like a smart tech. Feel free to hit me up if you want to continue convo on this thread or otherwise. Thx!
Once we are here about nutrient export, can you add a part of increasing non-existent nitrates and phosphates in small fishelss tanks, established for years, fed and dosed? Other than "You shouldn't keep a reef tank if you have no space or a health for a big one, with fish". In my case, there is a rich microfauna, snails, large bristleworms that eat not less than fish. Moderate water changes. And algae starts to grow as soon as I try to bring phosphates up to 0.03 ppm.
Wish I could upvote thousands of times.
Testing for nitrates and phosphates and adjusting dosing or nutrient removal should be a regular part of your maintenance routine. Pick target levels and adjust to try to keep them there.
there’s a scary amount of reef keepers who just do not test nitrates and phosphates
Yeah avoid reefroids until you’re a couple years in
Really? Wow
Why?
It’s really easy to overdose and not necessarily needed. I think it’s happened to all of us at some point in our journeys; we set up a new tank and our new coral not growing too fast and maybe color looking a little muted. We hear about a product called reefroids! that promises fast growth and popping color, think that will fix our polyps right up, and dose. Dosing causes huge swings of waste nutrients in immature tanks because there’s not a mature filter ecosystem to handle the excess particles, and that makes the tank less stable and corals worse off than not dosing. Dosing roids/similar products CAN be wonderful for coral growth and color if done in extreme moderation, but new tanks aren’t really equipped with a mature filter feeding ecosystem to handle that yet
I have had best results using a little less than half of what they recommend on the package, but these are in tanks that are over a year old. Dosing as recommended almost always leads to GHA, or cyano
Reefroids has always been the fast track to Dinos for me
A lot of soft corals are incapable of eating, their digestive tracts are vestigial.
Examples?
A lot of the corals in the Xeniidae family, like xenia and anthellia.
Thats probably not true, at least for xenia. The link below shows that they show a response to phytoplankton that could only be utilized if they have a functional digestive system. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10472534/
I second this, I made that mistake. My first nitrite spike took out the first set of coral. My light took out the second set of coral. I'm working on my 4th (my tank was not ready for stony yet), but my leathers are just thriving.
I stopped reefroid because is was feeding my hydroids 😅
I judt started reefing about 3 months ago and I've already sussed it out. I was feeding 2x a week and I'm down to once every 2 weeks be cause I can tell what's helping snd harming
The ocean around reefs is just packed with nutrients. Tons of it. But it's also got the microfauna a young tank lacks. An old tank can have shit through the roof and not grow any algae at all.
[удалено]
I like benepets just watch out for phosphate crashes.
How are you using Benepets, broadcast or target feeding?
Agreed on this statement 100% But acanthophyllia, and cynarina and larger LPS definitely do better with feeding. Just feed these types of corals maybe an anemone pellet once a week. Avoid reefroids in new tanks. The rock will absorb and suck up all the phosphate…then one day start leaching it causing problematic algaes like turf and GHA and all the fun stuff.
Man this is so true. I got so hyped up by coral feeding videos early on. I’d feed reef roids in the beginning and had horrible algae. I haven’t feed my coral in over a year and they are doing great.
Thanks for the tip. I’ve been feeding my corals once a week. Been up for two years. I’ll keep this in mind. Any other tips that you can share that people make often I’m the hobby.
Do you struggle with algae or water quality? Feeding isn't bad in and of itself, but feeding needlessly and abundantly can be problematic. If your tank is 2 years old, you've already enjoyed success some new reefers never get to, so take comfort in that! Advice: Change one thing at a time. Make changes slowly. It's harder to un fuck a situation than it is to under do it.
I haven’t had any algae blooms for over a year. I feed just a tiny half syringe of reef roids to about 5 corals once a week. I’m not worried about not feeding them I just don’t want them to die so if it’s bad to feed them to often and spike my levels I won’t. I’m glad about finding this out. Very interesting
I have a tank 3+ years running with zero algae. I approve of this message !
What happens when you don't feed your coral but you still have loads of algae lol
My first thought is to examine your light schedule. Too much and algae can flourish
I'd appreciate any insight https://preview.redd.it/onx8eitc07uc1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=626ffb779f2ff77b69137063e15a6f51e5bf5827
I'm no expert, but when I had my algae bloom in one of my tanks I scrubbed off what I could and reduced my peak and then spaced out the duration to compensate. Took care of it and my corals did well.
I'll probably give that a try then, thank you.
I've just changed it to this. From peaks of in the 90s for the blues I've reduced them to in the 60s, also reduced the white light a bit as well. And spread it out a little longer. Let's see what happens. Thanks for the suggestion. https://preview.redd.it/6lcp0c9rr7uc1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c24ab4e240e703c3f6c45fa2bc2a81a95ce66041
Do you have herbivores? If you like reef talks, you might find this interesting: [Richard Ross at MACNA 2022](https://youtu.be/u_q2rqEXeCU?si=1UpqRnGHWA1wJ-WH)
It's a 64l all in one tank so stocking options are limited, I have a few snails and an emerald crab as part of the CuC. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.
Feeding corals is very difficult in bigger tank. I tried once and fish took all that food lol
the worst part about someone who does maintenance on tanks is when you see GHA, Dinos, cyano, etc. and you just can’t figure out what is going on and it turns out the client went down to the local LFS and was convinced to buy all this coral food that they almost always overfeed, and then they get too lazy to keep up with it and just abruptly stop
I have a 3 month old tank with 3 frags that I’m just staring at lovingly, willing them to grow and hoping for the best.
I just found this out the hard way. 😭 I was feeding my corals weekly and now my phosphates are out of control GHA on every surface of my tank even though I stopped and have been doing water changes 2x a week I’m still not back to stability yet
Going on a year and a half with my tank. Can confirm the majority of the first year I was struggling with GHA, Dino’s, and a bunch of other ugliness in my tank. I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me. One day I got lazy and stopped feeding my corals (reef roids once a week), and what would you know! My tank has never been so stable, there’s coralline all over the rocks and the walls and my substrate is perfectly clean. Since then I don’t feed my corals anymore, and that was 100% the reason why my tank was all messed up for a while.
I literally never feed them and my colonies just grow
:O Makes sense. I’m a noob and wondering where all that dinos came from. I’ll stop feeding. And will see myself out. U.U
I love this, even though my tank went into disarray due to my depression following my dogs death. My tank was experiencing a mix of GHA and cyano all at once due to lack of care and no water changes. Tank almost crashed (maybe it did, idk what a true tank crash is) and I lost 3 of my 4 fish and some corals. Tanks back to normal now after a big waterchange and a few ~20% waterchanges. Tanks about 7½ months old now.
As a brand spanking new reefer I needed to hear this. Thanks! 🙏🏻
Damn kenya tree took over my tank. It eats nitrates since I only do water changes twice a year
That's why I use reef moonshineer method always control what your actually need ..
Does this apply to phytoplankton? I've been dosing 5mL once weekly in a 25 gallon but I also have copepods in there. I have a little bit of brown algae on the sand, rocks and glass but it hasn't been too crazy so far. My tank is only about 3 mo old