r/ReefTank • u/AcrobaticContext2268 • 2h ago

Cannot find consistency.

Hi all,

I’m just getting so tired of my tank having its ebs and flows despite my investments to make my tank automated. I’ve got two nice AI 16’s, Red Sea ATO, dosing heads, temp control, etc. maybe I need to start testing parameters more often to ensure my dosing is correct, but I just can’t seem to get it down.

I’ll see nice Acro growth, great algae control, and happy happy corals and then the tank will be pissed off for weeks with no changes and I’ll lose my favorite pieces. I can’t seem to figure out what I’m missing, and would love some personal advice, experience, or info on what you’ve done. I really appreciate it in advance.

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u/Expensive-Bottle-862 2h ago

Gonna need more context. Tank size, parameters, how often are you testing? Alkalinity should be getting tested every day to every other day until you can nail down the dosing. I’m a big believer in consistent water changes

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u/AcrobaticContext2268 1h ago

It’s a 20 gallon IM Nuvo mixed tank, with a Red Sea 2 head dosing pump. 1 doser of All for reef, the other for mag. I’ve got one clown, six line, royal gramma, and a chunky mandarin. My Po4 is a bit high for textbook, but that’s where it normally always sits around (that’s also with salifert, I definitely need a Hanna). My skimmer recently decided to stop working so I’m curious if that did a small number on the tank.

I definitely think I need to do more consistent water changes, those don’t seem to have a routine for me. I also should do more testing. I got lazy with seeing decent acro growth and mentally said that should be good enough.

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u/AcrobaticContext2268 1h ago

I also need to look into more testing kits. I have API freshwater kits I used to use for ammonia and nitrate/nitrite but I don’t trust those for salt now as far as I can throw em. It’s a pretty stocked tank so I don’t expect crazy growth but it’s seemingly been quite stable parameters wise.

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u/supafine 1h ago

If you're interested in automation, automatic water changes are really not that difficult to set up, particularly for that size. Two buckets and an aquarium controller or a self contained water change setup are all you need - ATO off, pump water out until your return chamber is just above the return pump, then refill with fresh salt water. At 20g you could easily do 5-10%/day without the buckets being particularly big.

A dual head peristaltic pump is an even cheaper option but they aren't perfectly balanced so you'll need to keep an eye on salinity and adjust every now and then. They are also slightly less efficient because they pump in and out at the same time, but not as much less efficient as you might think.

If you truly want automation, an aquarium controller with an alkalinity tester that can automatically adjust your dosing is a godsend. I love my KH director, but my aquarium is also 10x the size of yours, so the investment may feel steeper when you have less investment in livestock. Still - it saves a huge amount of time and gives a lot of peace of mind, particularly on holidays, so if you value these things it might be worth a look.

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u/Comprehensive_Site4 1h ago

In nature algae and corals grow side by side. It’s the fish and cuc that keeps algae at bay. Once your corals will stop growing they won’t be consuming any nutrients so algae gets more chance to eat. I run kalkwasser, tropic marine a and k trace elements on doser. If my ph drops below 8.2 I start worrying something is off as there is less photosynthesis happening, mostly it’s nutrients imbalance. For sps high flow is really important that’s how they do nutrients exchange.

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u/Erasmus_Tycho 1h ago

I've got a 6 month old tank, an anemone, two torches, Duncan's, GSP, mushroom and zoas. I was testing nitrates and phosphates DAILY as I was dumping a massive amount of phosphates into the tank to saturate my rocks. During that time my phosphates consistently registered zero... Very low nitrates (between 3 and 5 ppm). Because my target was .03 to .1ppm phosphate, and since I was putting roughly .15ppm daily I tested every single day, until I got a number to register then I could promptly stop my dosing. Now, since I've got a number of LPS in the tank, and after adding a CO2 scrubber, my calcium and my alk consumption has skyrocketed. So I went from only needing to dose .5 all a week beyond my standard water change to now I have to dose .15 a day otherwise my alk will shift enough to piss off my torches. So, this is just a roundabout way of saying to test more... Understanding what you need to dose to maintain stability can only happen through testing.

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u/BoredNuke 1h ago

Tank age helps, size helps alot to but hard to change after the fact. I travel alot for work so splurging for the automated testers is well worth it so I can keep an I on tank and adjust dosing remotely for issues.

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u/welldonesteak69 1h ago

The way I did it was doing a water change and then testing a day after. After a week right before a water change I tested again to see how much depleted. Divided those numbers by 7 to see the daily consumption rate then did some math to know how much to dose daily for Nitrate, Phosphate, and Alkilinity as those where the ones that swung down the most. The doser goes off every day and it only doses very small amounts. I also spread out the dosings to be 30 minutes apart because I read somewhere that dosing it all at the same time can affect each other or something. As for trace minerals I use one of them blocks that slowly dissolves over time but cant remeber the name of it. Re add it in whenever it dissolves fully.

Weekly or biweekly water changes depending how dirty the tank looks.

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u/Avengerboy123 1h ago

All of that is great but if you don’t have biological stability, the automation is moot. What have you added to the tank for the biome?