Feeding my fish

[howze01]

So, my PO4 is way too high. One thing I want to do to lower it is to cut back feeding to every other day for at least a little while. Is this going to be an issue for any of my fish? I have a red and a purple firefish, occelaris clown, a mccosker's flasher wrasse and a mandarin. Also I have a black sun coral in there that I have been target feeding. Will every other day feeding be a problem for any of them?

Thanks!! Jonathan

 

[NikkiT]

Would really need more information to answer that question. It partially depends on the amount of live food in your system, and the fat stores the fish have.
However there are a number of other things that could be causing the high PO4 and a coulpe of things that might help. I have a couple of questions. . .
1. What food are you feeding? How much? Do you rince the food?
2. How large is your tank? Are you running chemipure or phosban?
3. How often are you doing water changes? What percentage of total water volume? Are you using ro/di?
4. Are you using activated carbon? Are you skimming?

 

[howze01]

Would really need more information to answer that question. It partially depends on the amount of live food in your system, and the fat stores the fish have.
However there are a number of other things that could be causing the high PO4 and a coulpe of things that might help. I have a couple of questions. . .
1. What food are you feeding? How much? Do you rince the food?
I feed a mix of frozen foods. Mysis, Spirulina Brine, Cyclops, Cyclpeez, Rods. I think that's it. I don't rinse the food. Never even knew that was done. Just use a brine net or something like that and run RO thorough it?

2. How large is your tank? Are you running chemipure or phosban?
30g AIO. With about 50lbs of LR between the DT and the space in the back that I filled with LR. I use Chemipure Elite and something I got at OGII. Its called ROWAphos and they said it would do the job. Haven't seen much of a difference yet but I also haven't tested the PO4 in a couple days. I will have to do that again tomorrow.

3. How often are you doing water changes? What percentage of total water volume? Are you using ro/di?
I do about 5 gallons a week in water changes. I figure there is about 20 or so gallons of water between the LR and sand displacing some. About a 25% change every week. We have a 5 stage RO/DI unit that we changed the media on about a month ago.

4. Are you using activated carbon? Are you skimming?
I was under the impression that with the Chemipure Elite, I didn't need carbon. Did I get the wrong impression?
I am skimming. No idea what kind of skimmer it is but it seems to do the job. I skim pretty dry and empty the cup every week.

I have always been on the heavy side of feeding plus I target feed my corals at least every other day. I would imagine that everyone in there has plenty of fat reserves. Which is a reason that I thought that cutting back on feeding would help. Also, not sure why but I tested PO4 in a new bucket of RO water and got a reading of .10 on the Hannah Checker. Maybe it's just a function of that building up?
The reason I haven't done anything to correct it yet is that everything (fish, LPs, SPS, softies, inverts) looks great. Kinda didn't want to rock the boat but would rather get it down lower. Last time I tested it was 0.52ppm.

 

[NikkiT]

Ok, so you still have several possible sources of this problem. First, all of the foods you mentioned except Rods need to be rinsed. A brine Shrimp net or a fine metal sieve will work. Rinse gently with clean fresh water.
Regarding the TDS meter reading, clean the container, calibrate the TDS meter, and try again wih another batch of water. If you are still getting a high reading, it may be time to change your membranes or there might be a problem with your unit. Some water sources have much more in the way of dissolved particulates than others, making membranes wear out much more quickly.
As far as water changes go, 5 g per week should be enough.
Regarding the live rock, 50 lbs is one heck of a lot for a 30g. It is possible that there is so much live rock that detritus is getting trapped in areas without any flow, and controbuting to the phosphate problem. The back chamber could also be a big part of the problem. When was the last time you removed the rock and syphoned it? You'ld be amazed how much crud can acumulate back there. Also, what kind of flow do you have in the tank?
Regarding the skimmer, you really need to check that. A lot of the "nano" skimmers work pretty poorly. Even if it looks like it is skimming, you might want to skim wet for a week or two and see if that helps you bring your parameters back in line. I like aquacremora hang on back skimmers. So long as i keep the pump and the body of the skimmer clean, they work well for me.
Now to chemipure/ phosban/ carbon. Are they phosphate removing product and the Chemipure in the back chambers? Is the water flowing around them, or through them? When did you last replace them? Did you rince the chemipure lightly before putting it into the tan? Are you using a half unit or full unit? Regarding carbon, you do not have to use chemipure and carbon, but if you are using them passively, it doesn't hurt to use both in my opinion. 4 fish is not such a heavy bioload that you should be having issues in your 30g from overfeeding alone. FYI, I have a wrasse, an angel, a pair of clowns, a jawfish, and a goby in my 30g. I feed live food, rods reef, and reef nutrition (arctipods and pe mysis) and i feed a minimum of 2x per day, sometimes three. IMHO, mandarins in nanos need several feedings per day to thrive, and fire fish do better for me with several feedings per day (I have a helfrichi and a spawning pair of mandarines in my 45g)- mine get fed 2-3 times per day. Before you cut back on feeding, i'd suggest you rinse the food (other than rods), clean the back chamber of the tank, clean your skimmer and pumps, and try to see if there are spots in the tank with insufficient flow. If there are, you will need to either rearrange the rock or remove some to get rid of the dead spots, or add more power heads. Skimming and water changes can only pull out crud that is in the water column. You won't do any harm by doing slightly larger water changes in the near future either, or cleaning and syphoning the sand (especially if it is crushed coral) while you try to get your parameters back in check. You could also consider adding a macroalgae to help with nutrient export. If you don't get those levels under control, sooner or later you are going to have an algae outbreak.

 

[Joejoe]

To answer your question about feeding.
I only feed my tank 2 times a week. I to have a sun coral. I only feed it 1 maybe 2 times a week if I'm in the mood. My fish and coral are all perfectly fine.
Here is a pic of my orang/yellow sun coral. Even with only feeding 1-2 times a week it opens every night

 

[howze01]

OK. 50lbs seems like a lot of LR but probably 20or so is in the back section. I siphoned out the back before I put LR in it and that was no more than 3 weeks ago so it shouldn't be too bad back there. I was planning on pulling out the LR and cleaning it out this weekend with the next water change.

As far as flow I have the return pump and 2 of the 425gph Koralia Nanos going. One of them is on the side blowing behind the rocks too. It keeps the back of the rocks pretty clear of stuff accumulating back there.
I was thinking of looking into a new skimmer and the Remora was the one I was most interested in. How do you know if it is skimming well? Every week I clean black smelly stuff out of it and I thought that meant it was skimming well. I will skim a little wetter and see how that goes.
For the media in the back, I left one of the shelves in that I popped the legs off of. It is just sitting on top of the rock. The media is laying on top of that. I would think that in order for the water to get to the bottom and through the pump it would have to go through them. Maybe it isn't flowing through them enough? I can try and stuff them in between the baffles in the back. Kind of a small space though only about 2 inches in there. I also have a couple of balls of chaeto in the back chamber. I have been looking around for some nice macros that I could put int the DT too. I just can't resist. I loved my FW planted tank so much that I am hoping to get just a few macros to remind me of it.

I will let you know how it goes. Thanks a lot for all your help!

Joejoe, I wish my black sun coral looked as great as your suns look! They are still just 4 little lonely heads for now. They do open up every time the pumps shut off and at night. They'll get there though! Someday.....

 

[NikkiT]

When I was running koralia nanos on my 30g cube, I had.two koralia 2 pumps, a maxi jet for my skimmer and a maxi jet for the fuge. I've since replaced the koralias with an mp10. Koralia nanos are probably a bit small for your 30g.
As far as the back chambers go, I agree that there should not be tons of detritus trapped back there if you just added that live rock 3 weeks ago. The rock was fully cycled, right?
Don't go crazy with moving the phosban or chemipure yet, rinse the food, calibrate your tds meter, and if you get a good reading from the tds meter, mix your salt for a water change. Check your saltwater too- a bad batch of salt is a possibility, although an unlikely one.
As far as skimmate goes, it can range from dark coffee colored to weak tea colored. Smelly means it is working, but with your phosphates high, you migh pull more out if you skim wet for a week or two.
As for the cheat, is it tumbling or toughing the sides? Is theree a light back there?
Greg (whitebird) has a really pretty red macro that he grows, send him a pm.

How long has your tank been up and running?

 

[howze01]

OK, I will do everything you suggested and see how it goes.

The chaeto is tumbling around back there. It gets plenty of spill over light from the DT halide pendant too. I split it up every couple of weeks and throw some out.

Thanks again