SS's nopox thread

[RedSeaKev]

Ok instead of a pic I asked the wife. It's is green skim color

Hi Shane, this is a sure indication of Nutrient release from your live rock, stick with it,, an explanation of nutrient release whilst dosing No3Po4-X below.

Nutrient release from live rocks during the early stages of dosing No3Po4-X, a little clarification is needed here.
In the marine environment nitrate and phosphate can precipitate together with calcium over any aragonite lattice (this is why phosphate is bad for coral calcification) during our research into No3Po4-X we have found a lot of Calcium Phosphate and Calcium Nitrate in coral skeletons, Live rock is essentially dead coral skeletons that has fallen from the reef during storms etc, this then gets encrusted in all manner of life (Coralline Algae, sponge, higher algae’s etc) .
We have found a micro environment growing on and in the surface lattice of the live rock, this includes many types of bacterial colonies and many algae’s including the likes of coralline.
Whilst dosing No3Po4-X we see some of these bacterial colonies exchange for others which are fed by the No3Po4-X these then become dominant , we also see these algae’s within the surface of the live rock die off and in doing so they can produce acids which can then dissolve the Calcium Nitrate and Calcium Phosphate trapped in the surface lattice.
This is why we see the colour changes in skimate produced during the early weeks of dosing No3Po4-X, starting at a green to brown thick deposit changing to a light tea colour, this can sometimes even turn to a bright green skimate before reverting to a light tea colour, this is usually followed by the collapse in residual Nitrate content (and the reduction of No3Po4-X dosage) this is then followed by the slow development of a PHB cultures(Phosphate Harboring Bacteria) which get to work on controlling the Po4 content which can be released in the same manner as the No3, the Po4 takes longer to come under control due to the slow growth rates of the PHB colonies, another reason why efficient protein skimming is essential as the PHB’s utilize the Po4 prior to dying off and being exported via the skimmer.

 

[Shuttershane]

Thanks Redseakev. Basically it is just a waiting game at this point. I will make sure to have my wife help me check on the color of my skim.

I actually have another question for you. Will the Coral Color program benefit me right now, or should I wait on using these?

 

[RedSeaKev]

Hi Shane, in a nutshell if you are dosing Calcium to to replenish uptake then yes, most definitely, what are you using to replace Calcium, if our Foundation A then simply dose 1ml of Coral Colors for every 10ml of Foundation A added.

 

[Shuttershane]

I am using the BRS 2-part. From what I understand I would need to dose 1ml for every 50ml of there solution

 

[RedSeaKev]

Then I'm sorry it will get tricky to calculate Coral Colors dosage, the issue here being the strontium, we add Strontium to our Foundation A, also single element dosing will be more accurate as contrary to popular belief the Calcium and carbonate uptake of these elements is not always 50-50

 

[Shuttershane]

Ok today's update.

Cleaned the skimmer cup and had the wife look. She stated it is now brown. So good news there.

Today's readings
Nitrates 1.5 (in between 1 and 2)
Phosphates 0.05

Current total dosage of nopox is still 2ml

 

[Shuttershane]

Skim is getting darker. I am also noticing a drop in ph. During the day my ph is not going as high as it usually does, nothing drastic.

Nitrates 1.5
Phosphates 0.06

Still at 2ml nopox dose

 

[RedSeaKev]

Skim is getting darker. I am also noticing a drop in ph. During the day my ph is not going as high as it usually does, nothing drastic.

Nitrates 1.5
Phosphates 0.06

Still at 2ml nopox dose

Hi Shane, How are you measuring your pH and by how much has it dropped? you can see a little dip in pH as you will have a lot of biological action going on at the moment, as No3 is reduced naturally Co2 is a by-product of reducing No3, nothing to be concerned about, ensure your dKH is corrected and kept as stable as possible.

 

[Shuttershane]

I have a apex controller with a lab grade probe. Before the peak was around 8.3 it now peaks at 8.2. I was not really concerned just wanted to point it out.

This actually leads me to a question. What is the best time to dose? I normally dose before I head to work which is 3 hours before the lights go on. I plan to get a dosing pump which will give me better control on dosing time and will allow me to dose multiple times a day

 

[Shuttershane]

One thing I have not updated everyone on is my Cyano issue. I would say Cyano is now about half the amount it was before. I still have it but not as bad as it was 2-3 weeks ago.

 

[Shuttershane]

Here are today's test results.
Nopox dose 2ml
Nitrates 0.5
Phosphates 0.04

I am debating if I should drop my dosage down, or keep it as is and just be somewhere between enhanced coral growth and enhanced color colors. I still have cyano but again it is not as bad as it was.

 

[RedSeaKev]

Here are today's test results.
Nopox dose 2ml
Nitrates 0.5
Phosphates 0.04
I am debating if I should drop my dosage down, or keep it as is and just be somewhere between enhanced coral growth and enhanced color colors. I still have cyano but again it is not as bad as it was.

Hi Shane, the important factor here would be your Foundation Elements, during our research in the the RCP program we found that "in-between land" did not produce good results hence us suggesting either rapid growth or Color given time you will stabilise the No3 & Po4 as the composition of No3Po4-X is designed to do exactly that balance the No3 to Po4 ratio you only have to look at your own results for No3 and Po4 to see this.

Let us know what your Ca, Mg and Alk results are as well, we can then look to balance things up.

 

[Shuttershane]

Calcium - 420
Alk - 9dkh
Mg - 1400

I have been slowly moving up my Calcium and Alk. One fear I have is going above 9dkh, I don't know why but I am paranoid about RTN when going above 9dkh.

I am actually really surprised at how much calcium and Alk are consumed everyday. From what I can calculate it looks like 7-8ppm of calcium is consumed a day. I have 0 large sps colonies. Right now I have 17 SPS frags in the tank. Most of these frags are 1-2 inches.

 

[slfcaptain]

I like to do back of the envelope calculations...

Your tank is 500L and consume roughly 10ppm per day. I am rounding up to make the numbers real easy to work. So that mean your tank is consuming roughly 5g of calcium per day (500L x 10mg/L = 5000mg). Averaged over the 17 corals each coral could be adding about 1/3 gram of calcium to its skeleton per day. This does not take into account of the other creatures and coralline that would be consuming calcium. Looking at it like that it means you should be getting some pretty good growth.

 

[RedSeaKev]

Calcium - 420
Alk - 9dkh
Mg - 1400

I have been slowly moving up my Calcium and Alk. One fear I have is going above 9dkh, I don't know why but I am paranoid about RTN when going above 9dkh.

I am actually really surprised at how much calcium and Alk are consumed everyday. From what I can calculate it looks like 7-8ppm of calcium is consumed a day. I have 0 large sps colonies. Right now I have 17 SPS frags in the tank. Most of these frags are 1-2 inches.

Ok, with all due respect your Foundation Elements are out of sync here,, you have said the magic word SPS so I'm going to assume your Salinity is 35ppt with respect if its not it should be, whilst we are on the subject of Salinity I will suggest that its measurement is critical when we are looking to stabilize Foundation Elements. Check this out http://www.redseafish.com/red-sea-salts/seawater-refractometer-salinity-test/

Before I suggest what to adjust next the decision has to be made what path you wish to go down, Rapid Growth or High Colors ?? to be honest as you have a lot of SPS frags in makes perfect sense to go Rapid Growth, and this is where I first put the BRAKES ON!!!!! Wow, stop !!! first thing is to raise your No3 & Po4 a little, we need to double your current values of 0.5ppm No3 and 0.04Po4 so first lets again reduce your No3 Po4-X by 50% for at least a week and see how things stabilise, WHY ??? I hear you ask, we need to remember that the Corals main source of food is that of the waste of the symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae) living in the tissue of the corals, we turn up the growth rheostat that is the Alkalinity and this is where the problems will start, you NEED the increased zooxanthellae population which you get with higher algae nutrient levels to feed the your corals, without it they starve and this is when the RTN comes in to play, no food present so the Coral consumes its self.

So best plan, raise No3 & Po4, your near to perfect for Magnesium as you want 1390, you need 465 Calcium and 12.6 dKH but please please don't increase the dKH until you have stable No3 & Po4.

I fully understand people thinking "oh my word that Alkalinity is high!" but these numbers come from extensive research by Red Sea Scientists who took 5 years developing the Reef Care Program, I ran this program myself for 2 years and have never seem Coral growth like it, all I can say is have faith we would not recommend it if it didn't work.

Check out the RCP videos that cover algae nutrients and Coral Nutrition here http://www.redseafish.com/videos/ video 3 & 4 but all 5 videos are definitely worth watching if you have not seen them already.

 

[Shuttershane]

Ok so let me respond to what you said Redseakev.

Yes my Salinity is at 35ppt. I use Redsea Coral Pro

My previous test (5 days ago) were:
Nitrates 1.5
Phosphates 0.06

So best plan, raise No3 & Po4, your near to perfect for Magnesium as you want 1390, you need 465 Calcium and 12.6 dKH but please please don't increase the dKH until you have stable No3 & Po4.

So I am a little confused here. Two weeks ago I thought we were safe to start raising Alk...so I started to do this. However I found out very quickly that my Calcium and Alk were depleting faster than normal....so when I started to raise them it was slower than I expected. In fact I measured my Alk at a different time and found it to go down to 7dkh. So from there I spent a week getting it from 7dkh to 9dkh. My calcium at one point was 380, but I am currently at 420. I can be more aggressive with the Calcium change but if I do I believe that will drop my alk even more. This is why things have gone slowly for me. When I dose my 2 part I am trying to add the same amount.

And now I am unstable again with Nitrates and Phosphates. I spent a good amount of time getting my Nitrates up and had them as high as 4ppm. Now I am almost back to where I was before. I will cut the dose down again. That puts me at 1ml total dose.

Also do you have any suggestions on the Cyano? I know it is getting better but it has been in my tank during this whole process.

And just a FYI, I am using the Reef Energy A+B. When I took my readings this morning I took them before I fed the tank Reef Energy. Normally I do my test at night but I woke up early today and decided to test (6:30am)...would it make this much of a difference. I normally feed the tank Reef Energy at 7am (before I leave for work). My hope is that my early readings were why I had such a large drop in Nitrates/Phosphates. If this is the reason why then lesson learned.

 

[RedSeaKev]

Hi Shane, first please don't be confused by these variations, they are to be expected, it also highlights the importance of sampling on a regular basis, your results prove exactly this.

It will take a little while for the No3 to stabilise, small doses or small changes is the way to go when dosing No3Po4-X, you may even find diluting gives you slightly better control, would you say your Cyano has improved since your No3 has risen slightly ?? a rapid reduction in No3 can sometimes cause this, hence the small adjustments in No3Po4-X, this will stop the No3 bouncing as you are experiencing now.

Swings in Alkalinity and Calcium, ok, this is where I suggest dosing separate Calcium, Magnesium and Alkalinity reserve comes into it own, for example, you have good growth as proven by your Calcium uptake, you can adjust the correct level Calcium and them maybe more Bi Carbonate as this can be taken up by many biological processes as well, 50/50 or two part is not going to help as you will skew one element or the other, just showing the advantages of dosing single elements,, it stops the swings and helps maintain a more stable element content.

 

[Shuttershane]

It's hard to say how the cyano reacted to nitrates rising.

I do dose two parts separately I just was trying to match the amount. If it is ok to bump calcium and leave alk the same then I can easily do this.

Dropping my nopox dose down is not a huge deal. The dosing unit I use is very precise so I would just need to reprogram it. I will take it down to 1.5ml tonight.

I also redid my tnitrates test to line up with my normal time and a few others. Apparently I need to readjust my 2 part amounts because calcium and alk are lower than they were 4 days ago.
Calcium 400
Alk 8dkh
Magnesium 1400
Nitrates 0.5

 

[Shuttershane]

Update:

Had a friend come over tonight and he swore up and down that what I have in my tank is dinoflagellates not cyanobacteria. After looking closer and reading up on dinoflaggellates I believe he is correct. I have had a lot of snails die recently and this is common with dinoflaggellates. So I am going to do some more research and come up with a plan on how to get rid of this stuff. I noticed saturday after doing my water change that the dinoflaggellates seem to get worse after the water change. I still do not have any on my rock but it was all over the back wall of the tank. I will update this thread with the actions I plan to take.

 

[RedSeaKev]

Update:

Had a friend come over tonight and he swore up and down that what I have in my tank is dinoflagellates not cyanobacteria. After looking closer and reading up on dinoflaggellates I believe he is correct. I have had a lot of snails die recently and this is common with dinoflaggellates. So I am going to do some more research and come up with a plan on how to get rid of this stuff. I noticed saturday after doing my water change that the dinoflaggellates seem to get worse after the water change. I still do not have any on my rock but it was all over the back wall of the tank. I will update this thread with the actions I plan to take.

I think we need pictures