About to just give up

OP
OP
V

velandracorey

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 11, 2020
Messages
23
Reaction score
14
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I wonder if there’s any chemical warfare going on in there with the leather(s) you have. Have you ever tried running some activated carbon to see if it has any effect?

I'd say probably about 70/80% of the time I have Carbon in my sump. I haven't noticed a difference whether I have it in there or not.
 
OP
OP
V

velandracorey

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 11, 2020
Messages
23
Reaction score
14
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Just to add a bit to the other posts, which are all great. Keeping corals is mostly about water quality. Your ICP test will shed light on what's going on. I've had similar issues, and using the Triton ICP has been a blessing.. last go around, corals were pale and via Triton ICP I learned that I had no iodine among other things (dosed the recommended dose and colors came back). Another test before that found silicates in my RODI water which caused a chrysophyte outbreak (brown slimy nasty stuff). So it's all a process to achieve the best water quality you can - the rest is easy to fix, such as lighting etc.. so hang in there, and we'll await your ICP results. You are much closer to having the tank you want my friend..


Thanks for the reply!

It's crazy how there are so many smaller things that can affect them negatively.

I had another smaller tank when I was younger, and I practically did next to nothing with the tank, and everything was great and I never had any problems. But with this one, I've tried so hard to make everything happy, and it's effectively a coral death trap.

Which is just so disheartening because not only do I feel bad for having these animals unfortunately pass, but I've tried super hard to change things around while I've been successful in the past and I just cannot for the life of me figure it out.
 

92Miata

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 26, 2020
Messages
1,523
Reaction score
2,485
Location
Richmond, VA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
As many others have said - ease up on the water changes. Your parameters look fine - so unless the ICP comes back with something, you're just irritating things. I've seen people have similar issues where their tap has a lot of CO2, or very little, so pH of water change water is a bit screwy and big water changes just upset things - and it never shows up in tank tests because it equalizes quickly.

I've basically gone to just siphoning out detritus once or twice a week. End up with like a gallon of crud-water


Do you scrape the back glass? I'm curious because I'd expect much more coraline in a 2 year old tank - and lack of coraline makes me think low pH/low Alkalinity (or low flow). I just bought a Hanna Alk checker - and its .6 dkH higher than my Red Sea test - which makes me wonder about your alk readings.
 

vetteguy53081

Well known Member and monster tank lover
View Badges
Joined
Aug 11, 2013
Messages
90,859
Reaction score
200,132
Location
Wisconsin -
Rating - 100%
13   0   0
JUST TO CLARIFY . . . . . .
WHEN YOU'RE PART OF R2R, YOU DONT GIVE UP - WE HELP YOU OUT !!!
 

scsmith

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 1, 2014
Messages
24
Reaction score
16
Location
Harpers ferry WV
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Hello there,

I'm hoping to get some help to turn around my tank, which at this point, I'm about ready to give up on.
The tank was setup February of 2018, so we're coming up on almost 2 years now, and I have not been able to keep practically any corals in the tank to save my life. The ones that I have been able to "keep", have practically no growth to them at all. I didn't even have any noticeable coraline growth until a couple of months ago.

The only type of coral I can keep alive are soft coral currently, and even then, I can't keep some of these without having issues. Twice I've tried to keep ricordea, at the LFS each one I've purchased was super big and very colorful, and both times once added to my tank, they veryyyyyy slowly shrunk to the size of maybe a pencil eraser, lost its color (turning white) then eventually detached from the rock never to be seen again. As far as I know, typically the bleaching would be from too much light, but each time I've tried them, they were under an overhang, at the corner of the tank, so they were not under direct light. On the other hand, a Rhodactis that I have has been doing fairly well.

The only other corals I currently have in the tank are two different zoanthids and a toadstool. The zoanthids go through phases of being open and looking good, then they will be closed for several days at a time. One of them has grown decently, probably adding 5-6 new polyps in the past 6 months since I've had it, while the other has had two polyps since I added it to the tank around the same time. The toadstool was one of the first corals that I had added, and I would say that it's no bigger than when it was added originally.

All of the LPS I've tried so far haven't fared any better. With probably half of them dying within a week of adding them, to lasting several months and then slowly declining. The Acans and Blastos I have tried always looked good at first, even adding additional polyps over the course of a couple months, then they slowly start to recede from the skeletons and then the remaining polyps bail-out. The euphilia I have tried haven't lasted longer than 2 weeks, lose color (becoming translucent) and then start to recede from the skeleton and bail-out any surviving polyps.
I always start them on the sand once they're added, then slowly move them over to the rock, but most don't even make it off the sand due to the tissue loss.

I've had a few bouts with different types of algae as well (dinos, hair, turf algae) which I've mostly been able to keep in check, but I haven't been able to get rid of much of it completely. As far as from what I've seen a lot of these can be cause by low nutrients but I haven't really been able to raise them too much either. So I'm just at a standstill with everything and have no idea what is causing so many issues... I had attempted to set up a fuge to help with the algae issues, but the chaeto met the same fate as the corals (turned white, kinda broke apart and melted) and I haven't tried to set one up afterwards

I do about 20% waterchange once a week -- up until recently, I was obtaining my saltwater and RO pre-made from an LFS, but thought maybe I was having issues so I purchased a 6 stage BRS RO/DI unit. Which reads at 0 TDS coming from the unit and I have been using the RedSea blue bucket to mix to 1.026 since.

Testing as of right now are below -- I have a triton test that I haven't filled/sent quite yet but plan on doing so in the next day or two.

Salinity - 1.026
ALK - 9 (Hanna checker)
CA - 400
PO4 - .10 (Hanna checker)
NO3 - 2-5??? Hard to tell with my kit

I have a 6 bulb ATI T5 over the tank, probably about 9 inches from the surface, with two bulbs on from 10 AM - 12 PM, all 6 bulbs on from 12 PM - 6 PM and then again just the two bulbs from 6 PM - 9 PM.

I've tried to include as much information that I can think to.
PLEASE HELP :(

thumbnail.jpg thumbnail.jpg thumbnail.jpg thumbnail.jpg
Where are you located
 
OP
OP
V

velandracorey

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 11, 2020
Messages
23
Reaction score
14
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
As many others have said - ease up on the water changes. Your parameters look fine - so unless the ICP comes back with something, you're just irritating things. I've seen people have similar issues where their tap has a lot of CO2, or very little, so pH of water change water is a bit screwy and big water changes just upset things - and it never shows up in tank tests because it equalizes quickly.

I've basically gone to just siphoning out detritus once or twice a week. End up with like a gallon of crud-water


Do you scrape the back glass? I'm curious because I'd expect much more coraline in a 2 year old tank - and lack of coraline makes me think low pH/low Alkalinity (or low flow). I just bought a Hanna Alk checker - and its .6 dkH higher than my Red Sea test - which makes me wonder about your alk readings.
As many others have said - ease up on the water changes. Your parameters look fine - so unless the ICP comes back with something, you're just irritating things. I've seen people have similar issues where their tap has a lot of CO2, or very little, so pH of water change water is a bit screwy and big water changes just upset things - and it never shows up in tank tests because it equalizes quickly.

I've basically gone to just siphoning out detritus once or twice a week. End up with like a gallon of crud-water


Do you scrape the back glass? I'm curious because I'd expect much more coraline in a 2 year old tank - and lack of coraline makes me think low pH/low Alkalinity (or low flow). I just bought a Hanna Alk checker - and its .6 dkH higher than my Red Sea test - which makes me wonder about your alk readings.

Interesting, do you just siphon into a filter sock and then back into the tank when you do that?
I scrape it fairly regularly I would say, but I've gone at least 2 months before without scraping the back glass. Leaving it for a couple days it just gets absolutely covered in algae. The coralline thing has been really weird for me, my powerheads and return loc-line are like 90% covered my overflow, completely covered. I've never noticed any coraline on my back glass, and up until maybe a month ago I had 0 coraline on any of the other glass either. I have barely any on my rocks and most things are just covered in algae growth as opposed to coralline.

For alk, I've always used a hanna checker to test. I'm on my 3rd since setting up the tank (my first I dropped in some water and it was donezo lol) the second I just recently replaced because I was getting a reading of 6dkh from some saltwater I had mixed when my refractometer was showing 1.026 so I figured something was off with it and the most recent one is only about a month old and I haven't had any weird readings on it *shrugs*....
 

DMG Reef

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
May 24, 2018
Messages
1,327
Reaction score
9,500
Location
Moore, Oklahoma
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I doubt that lighting is your issue. I had the same setup as you on my previous tank. It was a 75 gallon, 25 gallon sump, 6-bulb ATI Sunpower with Reefbrite XHO LEDs. I ran my lights for 12 hrs., all 6 bulbs, hung 7" above the waterline. It was a mixed reef with leathers, euphyllia, SPS, mushrooms - never any coral warfare.

The only difference between yours and my tanks is the amount of nitrates. Did you start your tank with dry rock? I have old, old live rock that had lots of nitrate bound up in it but I could grow anything. I still have some of the corals in my new tank that came from the old tank.

Here's a pic of it before I tore it down to upgrade:

93932000-F144-4DBD-8727-93C8DBD6B6AD.jpeg


You don't need to shorten your photoperiod imo, you need to do less water changes and feed your fish more often. I think your water is too clean.
 
OP
OP
V

velandracorey

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 11, 2020
Messages
23
Reaction score
14
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I doubt that lighting is your issue. I had the same setup as you on my previous tank. It was a 75 gallon, 25 gallon sump, 6-bulb ATI Sunpower with Reefbrite XHO LEDs. I ran my lights for 12 hrs., all 6 bulbs, hung 7" above the waterline. It was a mixed reef with leathers, euphyllia, SPS, mushrooms - never any coral warfare.

The only difference between yours and my tanks is the amount of nitrates. Did you start your tank with dry rock? I have old, old live rock that had lots of nitrate bound up in it but I could grow anything. I still have some of the corals in my new tank that came from the old tank.

Here's a pic of it before I tore it down to upgrade:

93932000-F144-4DBD-8727-93C8DBD6B6AD.jpeg


You don't need to shorten your photoperiod imo, you need to do less water changes and feed your fish more often. I think your water is too clean.


Thanks for the input!
That anenome is crazyyyy -- super nice tank.

The rock I have in there was liverock that I had gotten from my LFS.

Any suggestions on raising nutrients?
I've been working from home since March, I moved to feeding twice a day since then.
Typically I feed a good pinch of flake food earlier on in the day and about half a cube of frozen food (typically I switch between mysis, cyclops, and rod's food) later on. Do you think I should be feeding more than this?

The nitrate test I have is Tropic Marin -- which I'm not too sure how accurate they are, but with that I'm usually testing between 2-5 I would say, it's quite difficult to differentiate. I'll pick up a Salifert Nitrate kit when I'm out next and see what I'm getting from that.
 

DMG Reef

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
May 24, 2018
Messages
1,327
Reaction score
9,500
Location
Moore, Oklahoma
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Thanks for the input!
That anenome is crazyyyy -- super nice tank.

The rock I have in there was liverock that I had gotten from my LFS.

Any suggestions on raising nutrients?
I've been working from home since March, I moved to feeding twice a day since then.
Typically I feed a good pinch of flake food earlier on in the day and about half a cube of frozen food (typically I switch between mysis, cyclops, and rod's food) later on. Do you think I should be feeding more than this?

The nitrate test I have is Tropic Marin -- which I'm not too sure how accurate they are, but with that I'm usually testing between 2-5 I would say, it's quite difficult to differentiate. I'll pick up a Salifert Nitrate kit when I'm out next and see what I'm getting from that.

The easiest nitrate test to read is the NYOS. I used Salifert before I got the NYOS. The Salifert is not easy to read the results because it's shades of light pink.

It's hard to say whether you're feeding enough since you have small fish. I fed a lot more but I have big fish.
 
OP
OP
V

velandracorey

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 11, 2020
Messages
23
Reaction score
14
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
The easiest nitrate test to read is the NYOS. I used Salifert before I got the NYOS. The Salifert is not easy to read the results because it's shades of light pink.

It's hard to say whether you're feeding enough since you have small fish. I fed a lot more but I have big fish.


Awesome, I'll definitely look for the NYOS then -- that's the same problem with the Tropic Marin, really light shades of pink until you get to like 50+ Nitrate it's so hard to tell what it is lol.

My fish are definitely pretty plump lol -- so I'm not sure how much more I can feed unless I add some more fish
 
OP
OP
V

velandracorey

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 11, 2020
Messages
23
Reaction score
14
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0

CindyKz

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 3, 2017
Messages
1,872
Reaction score
2,040
Location
Greenfield, WI
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
A lot of good help in this thread. Definitely don't give up. Nothing really new to add, but....

I don't think lighting is a problem. I ran the same type fixture, same 75 gal tank with great results. I think my photoperiod was actually longer than yours. As already mentioned, make sure you change your bulbs on a schedule. BRS did a great report on this, I think their recommendation was annually. If you do change them, don't do it all at once. The sudden change in spectrum can be detrimental. I do two bulbs at time, 2 weeks apart.

As others have said, I think your low nitrates are part of the problem especially for the type of corals you're trying to keep. The fact that you can't keep cheato would support that also. Easing up on the water changes and cutting back on your skimming, which you already have done, will help with that. You don't have a lot of large, waste producing fish in there so it will take a little bit. If you wanted to add another fish or two you've got room.

Did you start with dry rock? In my experience, it takes a really long time for coralline to grow on dry rock, even when the coralline is growing in other areas of the system. I have a couple of pieces of dry rock that have been in a system for a couple of years, right next to rocks covered in coralline, and it just isn't taking on the dry. You mentioned having coralline on the overflow so your system CAN grow it. It might never grow on your rock, no biggie, eventually you'll have coral on the rocks anyhow. If you did start with a so called "sterile" system maybe consider adding some live rock or sand from a thriving system if you can get your hands on it. Put it in the sump if you don't want to look at it in the DT. I know "biodiversity" and the need for it is a debatable topic but in my experience mixing in live rock has always been helpful.

Hang in there.

ETA: I just read that you said the rock was "live rock" from your LFS. I've heard of some LFSs putting dry rock in their tanks then selling it as live. Which it is in the sense that it will have developed a biofilter. I meant old live rock, or some that became live in the ocean (ie Tampa Bay saltwater rock or similar).
 
Last edited:
OP
OP
V

velandracorey

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 11, 2020
Messages
23
Reaction score
14
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
A lot of good help in this thread. Definitely don't give up. Nothing really new to add, but....

I don't think lighting is a problem. I ran the same type fixture, same 75 gal tank with great results. I think my photoperiod was actually longer than yours. As already mentioned, make sure you change your bulbs on a schedule. BRS did a great report on this, I think their recommendation was annually. If you do change them, don't do it all at once. The sudden change in spectrum can be detrimental. I do two bulbs at time, 2 weeks apart.

As others have said, I think your low nitrates are part of the problem especially for the type of corals you're trying to keep. The fact that you can't keep cheato would support that also. Easing up on the water changes and cutting back on your skimming, which you already have done, will help with that. You don't have a lot of large, waste producing fish in there so it will take a little bit. If you wanted to add another fish or two you've got room.

Did you start with dry rock? In my experience, it takes a really long time for coralline to grow on dry rock, even when the coralline is growing in other areas of the system. I have a couple of pieces of dry rock that have been in a system for a couple of years, right next to rocks covered in coralline, and it just isn't taking on the dry. You mentioned having coralline on the overflow so your system CAN grow it. It might never grow on your rock, no biggie, eventually you'll have coral on the rocks anyhow. If you did start with a so called "sterile" system maybe consider adding some live rock or sand from a thriving system if you can get your hands on it. Put it in the sump if you don't want to look at it in the DT. I know "biodiversity" and the need for it is a debatable topic but in my experience mixing in live rock has always been helpful.

Hang in there.

ETA: I just read that you said the rock was "live rock" from your LFS. I've heard of some LFSs putting dry rock in their tanks then selling it as live. Which it is in the sense that it will have developed a biofilter. I meant old live rock, or some that became live in the ocean (ie Tampa Bay saltwater rock or similar).

I do definitely need to replace my bulbs I have now -- but, the issue has always been there, even with the brand new bulbs. So I'm thinking it's more the nutrient problem... I mean, I don't know what else it could be lol.

At this point I think it almost has to be the Nitrate / Phosphate issue. I've always tested pretty low nitrate, and I've had PO4 bottom before at least once.

Testing yesterday I got .02 p04 and I think 5 nitrate (hard to tell from my test kit but I ordered a nyos nitrate kit that should be here in the next couple of days so I'll be able to test with the more reliable kit). I've got a bit of dinos starting from the low phosphate, so I'm raising that and hopefully I'll get rid of that issue in a week or two.

Any recommendations on some larger fish? I was thinking maybe a bristle tooth tang if I can find one since they stay on the smaller side for tangs and maybe a pair of bangaii cardinals.

My lfs doesn't sell any rock from the ocean anymore, they did years and years ago but not anymore. It's "live" in the sense that they were as far as I'm aware from previous systems. So, there were different critters that hitchhiked, sponges, etc. I have noticed some smaller spots of coralline growing on some of the rocks, it's just weird because after almost 2 years I only have some spots where my powerheads are covered, my overflow is covered, and I get no growth on my glass or my rocks.

Thanks for the input!
 

CindyKz

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 3, 2017
Messages
1,872
Reaction score
2,040
Location
Greenfield, WI
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I have a really hard time differentiating nitrate levels with Salifert so I am interested in hearing how you like the Nyos test kit after you have a chance to use it.

If your nitrates test low on the new kit I would look at ways to raise it. See how cutting back in the skimming works for you. If your nitrates don't increase after a couple of weeks you could look at dosing or adding fish. I would go with adding fish personally, because its a great excuse for another fish lol.

I had a Tomini tang in my 75 and it did ok for a while, then developed an issue with staying upright - like a swim bladder thing even though he had been in my tank for quite a while, 8 months to a year ish I can't remember. But long enough that I don't think tank size was the issue. If you go with a bristletooth make sure to feed nori or an algae based flake, or something like Herbivore Frenzy if you don't have algae in your tank for him to eat.

I dont have experience with Bangai cardinals but I don't know a reason why not. Someone with more experience will chime in on that hopefully. I have an ochre striped cardinal that did fine in my 75 he is still in my 180 gal.

I don't remember if you said you have a sand bed but the heliocheres wrasses are beautiful and help with pests. They may eat CUC occasionally. I can't keep feather dusters with mine.

Whichever route you take go slow but keep us posted!
 
Back
Top