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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.
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..
Just thought it might be worth bringing up.
Where are you locatedHello 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
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.
Where are you located
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:
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.
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.
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).