Please help. About to give up!

Trickdout69 · Apr 24, 2014

Ok I'm fairly new to this. I started with a 56g tank and added a few corals and fish corals being a few hammers a dunkin, Montipora. The fish being a few tangs and clown fish. Well long story short the fish out grew that tank so my great girlfriend surprised me with a new 210g tank. I built it from the bottom up. I have a 55g sump with fudge. It's been up and running for about a year and I can't seem to keep most of the corals alive. The hammers seem to be fine but the dunkin closed up and I lost a few others. Now I have been to a couple of lfs and have been working with a few guys there. I don't have exact numbers but the test my water weekly and it always checks perfect. Iv been battling this for months now. The water parameters never seem to change. Always on point. I do weekly water changes and use the Red Sea coral salt. I dose with the Red Sea reef foundation abc+ and use fuel. I spot feed them often. I don't know what to do. I can't keep loosing everything. The lighting I'm using is the Ajm reef LEDs. The same light I had great luck with on my 56g tank. Any help would be great. Thank you

ritter6788 · Apr 24, 2014

I would start by not dosing anything and test yourself to get your exact parameters.

Salinity, ammonia, nitrites, alkalinty, calcium and magnesium. Very important to test often. If you are blindly dosing supplements your alkalinity could be too high.

Daddio · Apr 24, 2014

I find that by testing yourself (as Ritter said) you get more in tune with your tank. Try not dosing the abc+ and dosing individually such as foundation a, b & c separately. That way you can dose exactly what your tank needs and have more control. That is a huge tank and your water should stay stable.

With that much water and the few corals you have, your ca and alk should not fall drastically and by testing and only dosing what gets used up, i.e, your alk reading probably will fall faster than your calcium and your magnesium probably isn't falling hardly at all. When you dose the abc+ you are adding all 3 even though you may not need to.

If I dose anything other than food, I make sure that I test for it.

Reefing Madness · Apr 25, 2014

I don' trust LFS, they tend to tell you garbage just to sell you stuff. You definitely need to test yourself.
Ammonia-0
Nitrites-0
Nitrates- under 10 SPS in the tank then under 5
Alk- 7-12
Cal- 380-460
Mag- 125-1350
Ph 8.0-8.4
SG 1.025-1.027

Trickdout69 · Apr 25, 2014

I agree with everyone. I switched to the reef foundation from oceans blend. I get the water checked every five days. And every thing always checks perfect. I do need to get my own test kits. But between the two stores I always get the same test results. The other thing I forgot to bring up is I also have no luck with keeping hermit crabs. I have put at least 100 in there and I would be surprised if there are any in there now. The snails all do fine

mcarroll · Apr 25, 2014

Trickdout69 said:
[...]I get the water checked every five days. And every thing always checks perfect. [...]

I don't believe you are dosing so perfectly without having your own test kits. I have kits and a boatload of experience, having grown out a bunch of SPS to a giant size, and my numbers are never "perfect".

Either you, or they, are missing something. Get Ca, alk and Mg kits from Salifert if you must keep stony coral and see what you get. (Not keeping stonies eliminates almost all the need for testing and dosing, btw.)

Do you do water changes?

What have you read so far in terms of trying to understand alk/Ca chemistry?

Also, stop adding crazy numbers of CUC...especially hermits. I recommend no more than 1 per 10 gallons...zero is ok. Don't add more snails either.

-Matt

Dan1789 · Apr 25, 2014

If you do weekly water changes with RSCP, you probably don't need to dose at all. I would start with that. Like everyone else said; get your own kits and test yourself. Hermit crabs might have dies from lack of food or ammonia. How many fish do you have? And how are you acclimating your corals?

Trickdout69 · Apr 25, 2014

Well I went back to the lfs. I did order my own kits but now it's showing my phosphates are high.

mike007 · Apr 25, 2014

I agree with what others have stated. You have to only trust your own test results and dose with only what Is needed to correct your parameters. It Is fine to double check your results If In doubt. I have used the redsea abc before and it is a good product but if you don't test each element you may be lacking one or another element.

Lesley · Apr 29, 2014

I am assuming that the light is the same brand but the larger version. ?? Right ?? Just a stupid thought really. ?

Trickdout69 · Apr 30, 2014

Yes the light is the same just more of them. I understand what everyone's saying about checking everything. That's what I do once a week at the pet store. Until I get my test kits and really understand this stuff.

turbo21 · Apr 30, 2014

Also have you checked the salinity of your tank ? And if so what is it and how are you checking it?

Everyone always tests for the different chemical levels in a tank but forgets the salinity

Don't use a swing arm hydrometer. They are usually off by a couple points either way. You need to use a calibrated refractometer

sirreal · Apr 30, 2014

Were are you getting your water from? does your water supplie have chlorimines in it? Most RODI systems cant remove all of the chlorimines and you could be poisening your system. Call you water utility and ask what the y use to treat the water. One quick way to just make sure is to use a chlorine chlorimine and amonia remover in you RODI water before salt. Where I live they changed what they put in the water and I did not know. Lost a lot of nice corals.
Also most LFS only test for cal, alk PH nitrates. Almost none test for mag. They all seem to use the API kit that does not test for mag. If your getting water from the LFS and adding your own salt then take a TDS meter to the LFS and make sure your getting 0 TDS. I was buying RODI water from a LFS years ago and was fighting red slime. I changed lots of water and untill I took a TDS in and found there RO water was 164 TDS Tap is 210 here.

Lesley · Apr 30, 2014

I use my own test kits for everything but just as a test I went to 3 different local LFS that test water free. They used some test kits that were the same on some parameters and some different on other parameters. Wow I couldnt believe the extreme difference in the results I was getting. Not one of the test came up the same and another. I dont trust LFS to test the water as often they are careless with testing properly and dont really care, if they can sell you something to help you tank they will, even if you don't need it.
Example. Phos was 10 at one. 3 at another and 0 at the last. Nitrate was a similar result but the worst was calcium. I got it ranging from as low as 200 to the highest at 550 ?
Learn to watch your tank and observe your corals and fish behaviors and please do you own testing. The sailfert test kits are inexpensive and very simple and easy to use. I cant see the point in having a marine tank and not being able to spend the money on test kits, the most important thing of all, dont by the next coral or fish buy test kits !

Trickdout69 · May 4, 2014

Went to a few stores today and the only test they had were the api reef master. So I bought it. I figured it would tie me over while I order something better. The only question I have is it doesn't come with a ph test only a kh (carbonate hardness test). Is that the same testm

Lesley · May 4, 2014

Ph is different to KH. KH is carbonated hardness and should between 8-11kh. Ph should be 7.9-8.3. API tests aren't that great but better than nothing. Order sailifert. Easy to use & read and quite inexpensive.

NanaReefer · May 4, 2014

No. PH & KH (ALK) are totally different.
Don't worry about your PH.

alpineroush · May 4, 2014

Try and get Hannah checkers for parameters or red sea test kita

Lesley · May 4, 2014

alpineroush said:
Try and get Hannah checkers for parameters or red sea test kita

obviously money is a little tight for this person. Although yes Red Sea & Hanna are good they are very pricey compared to sailfert. Red sea nitrate in Australia. $57.00 sailfert $10.90 Better have some at home to use than have to save up and not have any. He can upgrade over time. Personally I have Hanna phos cal & alk and I now choose to use sailfert for all tests except phosphates. Cheap easy strong colour change & great for any beginner. But up to him I suppose.