Brand new to this site, dont know who to trust, everyone wants to sell me stuf!! I just need some...

[twinscrewed XBgmrTag]

Good advice so I can be in the hobby for a long time. I wanna have that 10ys old tank that is just as amazing as the persons, whose advise I am seeking, has.

SO, I'm watchen Utube, tryen to figure out what the heck I have done (long term) to my recently 3yr anniversary of the tank install, when low and behold, an equipment failure that went unnoticed by me due to a little lax husbandry.. Good Grief to even say that in a public place where people know their stuff, just makes me wanna vomit... lol but I digress...

Nevertheless, In early January 2019, I nuked the dang thing. Then trying to overcompensate and use a technique I wasn't familiar with, Kalk and dosing it through the auto top off, you wanna care to guess what I did??? that's right, I went ahead and threw the MOAB in there and nuked the dang thing again... CHrist!!!

I have to make fun at it to keep from cryen, so my apologies if I hurt your butt with my bluntness, but dang it hurt... I was completing 40% water changes every 3 to 5 days for about 4 months. Im not kidding. I could not drop the Alkalinity. My guess it was leeching through the substrate.

I didn't lose any fish through the spike. I lost some of them during a freaking power outage when I went out of town for 3 days... Grief! and that happened about a month before the disaster, when my A--X Doser turned belly up...

I have lost a lot of coral, and I'm still tryen to save what's left of the Zoe patches that are still hanging on, as well as some candy cane. Gargonian is looking pretty rough, as well as some other softies. I keep hoping that the lone remaining torch will recover. I see signs of life in it, just not the polyp extension I'd hope for.

Water parameters are now finally in tolerable range.

just one question. If I keep water parameters within parameters, will the coral recover, or will I need to just remove the struggling pieces and just start over again.

I really don't want to do that, start over again, as I want to be a responsible pet owner. Plus this stuff is expensive.. plus, I'm still seeing coral receding even with the parameters being back in line.

the tank is a 175g bow front, 40g sump, 2" sand bed, 200 lbs. live rock.

I'm running close to about 165g water volume. 17 fish, including a snowflake eel, and two Skeletor eels. Super cool are the Skeletor twins, they have been in the tank for about 6 weeks now and are starting to explore the display more.

Anyway, I can talk fishy with the best of them as I really do enjoy the hardest and most expensive pet one could ever have...

I'm looking forward to being a part of this aquarium community. I have learned a lot over the past 3 years as this is not my first go at it. I had a 45g cube for about 3yr, about 15 years ago. So, learning from then, I brought to now, but sometimes, I could just use some really good advice sometimes, from someone who loves the hobby as much as I do, and that is not tryen to sell me some stuff to make it right. I godda buy stuff, I godda buy stuff. it's like learning the value of sugar.. and that the kinda information I can learn from you, oh mighty keeper of a +10yr old tank... lol

SO seriously, will my coral patch, Duncans, and other shrooms and softies fully recover?

 

[LiveWire]

Welcome to the REEF!! Only time will tell of the corals will recover but you giving them stable parameters and lighting will give them what they need to do so.

 

[Ron Reefman]

First allow me to welcome you to Reef2Reef. This is a pretty user friendly place to ask questions and learn.

I'd like to help you out, but your post has an awful lot to try and digest. The bottom line is, if your parameters (water, chemistry, light, flow) are in acceptable ranges, there is a good chance your corals may recover. But there may also be issues like a disease or parasites that could be having an effect on your corals. You've been in the hobby for 3 years, that's good. You haven't given up yet, that's good as well. Now you need to calm down. The first half of your post was kind of... well, let's just say I could feel your pain, but it was kind of scrambled. No slight intended. Second, you need to start taking your time and stop throwing new stuff at the tank.

There are 2 old saying around here:
1) Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank.
2) If you ask a question of 10 reefers, you'll get 15 different answers.

So lets see if we can just get a simple conversation started.

You say you have 17 fish in a 175g tank, right?
Are the 3 eels part of that 17 or are they in addition to the 17?
What are your current water parameters.. and don't be embarrassed about telling us something is out of whack. We've all been there. And what kind of test kits are you using?
Ca
alk
Mg
ammonia
nitrate
phosphate
temp
salinity

 

[Katrina71]

Hi! People are nice here. Don't get overwhelmed. I can tell you from my experience that a ton of corals will come back. Some take longer than others. 6 weeks to a few months. You'll be surprised how good they look when they come back!

 

[twinscrewed XBgmrTag]

Welcome to the REEF!! Only time will tell of the corals will recover but you giving them stable parameters and lighting will give them what they need to do so.

Thanks Katrina71. When people come over and sees the tank, there's a lot of ooooo's and AAAHHHH's. But, I remember what it looked liked and where it is now, rough. I have (4) Radion XR 15 w GR Pro's, and it was when I installed them that I started having problems with PAR. I still don't think I have it right, but I godda get past these parameter swings first. The only thing I did quick was start water changes, once I realized I ha a problem.

 

[W1ngz]

Welcome.
Most people on here who dispense any sort of reliable advice have made their share of mistakes. I wouldn't take advice from anyone who couldn't admit they F'd up whether by accident or ignorance. The trick is to find the way forward, figure out what you did and don't do that anymore!
Like others have said, the best thing you can do for the rest of the summer, is keep it as stable as you can and not break your routine for the next 4-6 weeks. Don't add or change anything that doesn't really really need to be changed. And if you do need to change something, do it slow. Things will bounce back.

I do agree about the selling stuff lately. The first whole page seems to be just ads and vendor forums pushing sales. Gotta have sponsors to keep the lights on, but eeshh. Glad you scrolled down to find the actual people.

If you want to know who to trust, look at their messages to likes ratio. If it's not at least 2:1 likes to messages, I sorta get skeptical.

 

[tripdad]

The best free advice I can give you is this........slow down, most of the time. The changes your making today will not generally show results for weeks/months. When you get fairly close to the sweet spot with the tank the reactions to change can take a while to manifest themselves. So make a change and give it at least a couple weeks before making another. Unless really bad things are happening just exercise patience. Otherwise you can never really know what effect anything is having if you never allow the tank to settle out after a change. And when bad things happen...slow down and consider what effect each "remedy" will have, then institute the change as needed. Good luck and enjoy the hobby!

 

[LesPoissons]

If they glow under your blue lights,they can typically recover in time with stable parameters. They only need a few healthy polyps to come back. I had an acro down to white skeleton except for 1 tiny patch, a birds nest covered in algae that i couldn't see any glow but gave it a chance (free from a friend) and a branching hammer so receded I could barely see any phosphorescences. (My lfs sells these "damaged" coral for $1.) If you have good water quality, good lights and correct flow, they can usually bounce back from a lot.

 

[twinscrewed XBgmrTag]

First allow me to welcome you to Reef2Reef. This is a pretty user friendly place to ask questions and learn.

I'd like to help you out, but your post has an awful lot to try and digest. The bottom line is, if your parameters (water, chemistry, light, flow) are in acceptable ranges, there is a good chance your corals may recover. But there may also be issues like a disease or parasites that could be having an effect on your corals. You've been in the hobby for 3 years, that's good. You haven't given up yet, that's good as well. Now you need to calm down. The first half of your post was kind of... well, let's just say I could feel your pain, but it was kind of scrambled. No slight intended. Second, you need to start taking your time and stop throwing new stuff at the tank.

There are 2 old saying around here:
1) Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank.
2) If you ask a question of 10 reefers, you'll get 15 different answers.

So lets see if we can just get a simple conversation started.

You say you have 17 fish in a 175g tank, right? YES
Are the 3 eels part of that 17 or are they in addition to the 17? THEY ARE A PART OF THE 17
What are your current water parameters.. and don't be embarrassed about telling us something is out of whack. We've all been there. And what kind of test kits are you using?

Ca, Kh, Mg, No4 No5 are all red sea test kits. Po is tested with Hanna, and Ph is tested with a digital probe.

all measurments are 7 day averages:

Ca 360
alk 13.3
Mg 1292
ammonia -0-
nitrate 18.4 ( I haven't dosed sugar in 4 days. No4 typically runs averages of low 4.5
phosphate .127
temp Currently 78.1 @ 9:49
salinity 1.024

Hi Ron, thanks for the questions. At one point I had flat worms, but I was successfully able to eradicate them out of the system. I also had a problem with Bristle worms, but a couple of Wrasses are keeping them in check now. I don't see any parasites, and the fish are active combing over the rock grazing. I haven't put any new corals in the tank in about 18 months. After the crash, I was getting more stable parameters, and I had the opportunity to get a Skeletor eel, and through that famous impatience, I purchased a second one. But because the first Skeletor eel was missing for about 4 weeks. I was put on a waiting list, and I purchased the replacement, and no sooner than the next morning, the first eel made a showing, so now I have the Skeletor Twins

Around the 26th month, I upgraded the lighting to 4 Radion XR 15w G4 Pro LED lights, and 2 60" T5 violet bulbs. Since upgrading the lighting, I have an issue with PAR. I had it measured. I haven't adjusted the strength of the lighting, but I have been messing around with the color spectrum. Since putting in the lights, that's when I first began seeing changes, for the worse, in coral polyp extensions.

I was doing pretty good. Good husbandry, with weekly to biweekly water changes. Then I noticed corals not looking happy. I was trying to address lighting parameters, I failed on the testing, I had an Apex dosing pump failure. and the system crashed.

I was measured in how much Kalk I was adding and putting in the auto top off tank. I was messing around with a chato reactor on the outside of the sump that ended up leaking. I wasn't paying attention to sound, and I dumped nearly 4 gallons of Kalk water into the display. 12 or so water changes later, over about 3 weeks, I had a auto top off failure, and dumped another 5 gallons of Kalk water back into the display again. dang... and when it happened for a third time, about 3 weeks later again, I was done, I removed the Kalk, and once the Apex doser arrived, I was back in the saddle again. But stupid me. Fool me once, twice, well hell three times before I got the hint and pulled out the Kalk.

And now you know the rest of the story.

By this time all corals were showing signs of stress. Fish appeared to be doing okay. no signs of disease or red gills, and a blue cleaner wrasse pretty much keeps parasites at bay.

I'm still dialing the Kh and Ca dose now. Ca is holding at 360 and Kh still on a wave with a high of 14 (off the charts)low of 7