no more coraline/something wrong

[greenmachine]

a little history: I have a 45 gallon cube tank lit by 12 cool white cree XPG and 12 royal blue XRE led's all running at full power about a foot above the water with 60 degree optics. I have a basement sump where the only filtration is a 8"x5" ATS lit by two 26 watt CFL and two 17watt led(grow) lamps(new addition). I started using the ATS about 3-4 years ago. Well over the past 2 years I have had some kenya tree coral that took over the entire tank and smothered several corals. A few weeks ago I removed ALL of the kenya. Now that I can see inside my tank again I have noticed that 95% of my coraline is gone! One of my monti caps is bleaching,and I have these strange little nems all over? My ATS algae has been very dark for over a year now. I have never got that thick bright green growth that is see in pics here, but I do think that the ATS is the best thing that ever happened to my system. My water params are this:

ph=8.5
alk=11
ca=380
mag=1400
sg=1.025--6


Tank inhabitants: Corals, GSP,cabage leather,green toadstool leather,paylays,green branching hammer,atlantic nem,monti caps,long tent nem, trumpet coral,and one ausi sps.

fish: yellow tang,coral beauty,3 clowns,2 damsels,one cardinal.

cuc: one hermit,100 tiny snails,2 big nasser snails

Please feel free to question me,yell at me,or whatever it takes to get my reef back to where it should be! My corals and algae are just not growing like they should be ,,and the lack of coraline scares me! this tank is almost ten years old and I feel it should look better than it does........

[SantaMonica]

First guess is that the leftover/dead kenya are rotting and adding P.

[kotlec]

Does coraline was gone fast after you changed something or it was disappearing slowly ?
What is P ?

[greenmachine]

santa: I don't think there is anywhere for the dead kenya to BE as I removed 95% of my live rock and my sump is an empty 20g tank,,however there COULD be a tiny amount in the overflow i guess.

kotlec: The coraline has been going south for about a year now ,,I just did not see how bad it was until I removed the kenya tree and could see more rocks,back glass,pumps,ect.

I have NEVER tested for P,,,I was told way back that the kits are useless,are they? how is that hanna meter? Is it possible to have hi P after using a scrubber for this long? P would explain a lot!! thanks guys:)

p.s. come to think of it,I have never had detectable nitrates,,,,maybe the scrubber cant remove P without nitrate in the system???

[kotlec]

Hanna works well on phos.
I had coraline started growing on new tank. Then at some point it turned backwards like yours did. I noticed only when all it disappeared from back wall completely ! P was under control all that time so puzzle stays unsolved. I believe Garf is close to answer with his experiments. Hope one day we will have answers.

[greenmachine]

here are some pics of the set-up. maybe a clue here??

[greenmachine]

and the scrubber...

[Floyd R Turbo]

Hanna Checker Phosphate is very good, just follow the directions (it's the only checker where you have to press and hold the button on one of the steps) and open & pour out the reagent onto a creased index card with before you calibrate so you can add it quickly as it shuts off in 3 minutes, quite a stupid function seeing as you have to invert the vial for 2 minutes after you add the reagent, which gives you less than a minute to open the packet, add it, and wipe your fingerprints off the vial before inserting it and pressing/holding the button.

But all that said, I don't know what I would do without my Hanna Checker, except guess at which color I was supposed to be comparing to. All other P test kits are a joke.

Oh and the Hanna Alk Checker is killer too. Just got that one.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Another comment, I re-set up my customer's tank in December and it got a ton of coralline growth in a matter of months, covering the back and side walls. Then P started to rise and I noticed it was receding, it was actually rather thick for a few months, I added a powerhead to the tank and I had to chip some off and it was at least 1mm thick after only 6 months. The highest P reading I had was 0.16, most of the time is was 0.08-0.12. Now it's more or less spotty, but just yesterday the P was down to 0.00 so we'll see if it comes back.


I have NEVER tested for P,,,I was told way back that the kits are useless,are they? how is that hanna meter? Is it possible to have hi P after using a scrubber for this long? P would explain a lot!! thanks guys:)

p.s. come to think of it,I have never had detectable nitrates,,,,maybe the scrubber cant remove P without nitrate in the system???

If you camp out on this forum enough, you will see that this is probably the most common long-term issue that is encountered, and there seems to be a fair amount of debate as to why and how to fix it. Zero N means P doesn't get absorbed in some cases. Recent discussion on this suggests that different strains of algae absorb N and P rates in different proportions. Clearly this needs research as one could have a tank that is absent of a particular strain, resulting in less affinity for absorption of either N or P, which could affect overall efficiency of the scrubber.

[SantaMonica]

Are those incandescent or CFL bulbs?

Are those pics before cleaning?


this is probably the most common long-term issue that is encountered, and there seems to be a fair amount of debate as to why and how to fix it. Zero N means P doesn't get absorbed in some cases.

For 3 1/2 years, this was never a problem, and never mentioned. Most tanks went down to 0 and 0.

[Floyd R Turbo]

P has been an problem for me on the dentist's office tank for well over a year, I never had zero P, but never had a problem. Srusso's tank had huge P problems with a great growing scrubber and bryopsis going wild until he killed the P with GFO. Many others have commented on P issues. So maybe most tanks went to zero/zero but not all tanks, and like I said the most common long term problem/issue that I have seen mentioned, repeatedly, has been N=0 and stalled P absorption.

[kerry]

I feed a lot of fresh/frozen shrimp prepared by me that I add to peas and carrots as well and dont see this issue. Perhaps food has something to do with this.

[Floyd R Turbo]

I have also wondered this, I have used 4 different batches of DIY Food (via local club events) over the past couple of years. The first batch is what I was using when I first started the scrubber, and I didn't have the Hanna checker, so no frame of reference. Then 6 month later I had to move the system because of the tank cracking, and somewhere in there I ran out of food and bought a bag of food from someone else that was from a previous DIY food meeting. Growth was similar. Then we had another DIY food meeting and when I switched to that food, the growth changed, rather dramatically, and rather quickly. It went from green and thick/heavy growth to dark, slimy, and smelly, and I started getting the dino outbreaks. I could probably pinpoint this point in time with pictures that I took of the scrubber, unfortunately there was also a blockage to the screen around the same time which cause the screen to mostly die, so that throws this off as well.

But the bottom line is that food probably is a factor, but this is just another unknown for everyone to deal with. So thanks Kerry for making this all more complicated. LOL.

[kerry]

I am just here to help!! LOL

[greenmachine]

santa that is two 26watt cfl floods on one side of the screen and a warm white led and grow LED flood on the other side. You told me to add more light and this is all I had on hand.

[kotlec]

Greenmachine did you solved your puzzle already ?
Coraline grows again ?

[xerophyte_nyc]

I have also wondered this, I have used 4 different batches of DIY Food (via local club events) over the past couple of years. The first batch is what I was using when I first started the scrubber, and I didn't have the Hanna checker, so no frame of reference. Then 6 month later I had to move the system because of the tank cracking, and somewhere in there I ran out of food and bought a bag of food from someone else that was from a previous DIY food meeting. Growth was similar. Then we had another DIY food meeting and when I switched to that food, the growth changed, rather dramatically, and rather quickly. It went from green and thick/heavy growth to dark, slimy, and smelly, and I started getting the dino outbreaks. I could probably pinpoint this point in time with pictures that I took of the scrubber, unfortunately there was also a blockage to the screen around the same time which cause the screen to mostly die, so that throws this off as well.

But the bottom line is that food probably is a factor, but this is just another unknown for everyone to deal with. So thanks Kerry for making this all more complicated. LOL.

FWIW, I just started a new tank with a scrubber about a month ago. I have a very nice, bright green algal growth on the scrubber. I only feed Kent phytoplankton, decapsulated Artemia eggs, and various sizes of Golden Pearls. Maybe that means something Re: scrubber algal composition.

I can't detect phosphates on Salifert, although they are obviously there. Nitrates are consistently in the 10-15ppm range, but that's partially because my deep sand bed is still in its infancy. Green hair and other microalgae started growing during the tank's cycling, but the last 7-10 days as the scrubber has increased growth, it doesn't appear to me that the display tank algae is increasing in size as it was a few weeks ago.

There are a few clumps of hair algae on uncured rock, nothing anywhere else. That tells me there must be some phosphate bound in the rock and is feeding the growth. Eventually it well get used up.