@Pandoras_Box

> @BackbayReef wrote: > Bummer - sorry to hear. I would feed heavy and Reef Roids to bring PO4 up. > > Alk: you’re not auto dosing to keep Alk stable? If not, slow, incremental BRS Soda Ash (Sodium Bicarbonate) would raise it back up. > > That’s the reason I don’t do a fuge: kinda messy and you gotta harvest frequently to remove nutrients from the system. It’s like socks & filter floss — the crap is still there in the water column until you physically remove it! lol It is a Biocube so the closed system doesn't have an opening to add an auto dosing unit. I have been dosing with sodium bicarbonate to slowly bring the alkalinity back up. It is a fishless tank with mostly photosynthetic corals so I don't do that much feeding except for the recently departed torches, duncans and candy canes. This hot weather has not helped because the water parameters keep fluctuating due to increased evaporation. The tank does not have a refugium. I added a small clump of macro in the tank because I liked the way it looks without realizing it would take off so quickly and have such a big effect on the phosphate levels.

The macroalgae decided to have a growth spurt while I was away. Alkalinity dropped below 7 and phosphate zeroed out, resulting in very unhappy corals. I pulled out a lot of the macroalgae but could not save some corals, including 3 torches. 😭

> @BackbayReef wrote: > Can you elaborate? > > There is a lot of myths and legends in this hobby, examples: Redfield ratio, lowest nutrients (remember we used to strip N&P to zero?), highest achievable PAR for growth, vendors selling snake oils in bottles, and much more! Let’s not forget all the YT and IG influencers telling people what to do. For me, each tank is different and corals & fish can adapt to their environment. Time & stability for the win! Sure, here are a couple of things that I learned after starting the tank: - Tank size: As a newbie to reefing, I thought a smaller tank would be lower maintenance, only to learn that it is more difficult to keep water parameters stable in nano tanks. - Water changes: I had read that 10% of the tank volume would keep the tank clean and maintain stability. Now I see some recommendations for higher volume, e.g., 25-30%, for nano tanks because of the higher fluctuations in water parameters. Not being sure whether it is better to perform smaller volume changes more often or larger volume changes less often, I flip flop between the two approaches, which may not be the best thing to do. Like you said above, each tank is different. However, the problem is trying to figure out what works best without killing all the tank inhabitants during the learning curve.