About to Quit
- Thread starter Apollo7235
- Start date
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ps2cho
Well-Known Member
that tank is absolutely nowhere near established to have a hands off approach to corals. The rocks exhibit no beneficial algae growth. Come back in a year when its more established.
This has nothing to with your parameters. Its solely a lack of established bacteria diversity and stability.
This has nothing to with your parameters. Its solely a lack of established bacteria diversity and stability.
ps2cho
Well-Known Member
Yes...its the risk you take with dry rock. OP then mentioned to add live rock, and expected immediate results.
This hobby takes time. If you're unwilling to wait, this isn't the hobby. Even with live ocean rock, it still takes a few months on a new tank before you should put any corals in.
Some people do it anyway, but most will fail. Its still not fully understood other than time is ALWAYS a positive and correlated with success, period.
OP
OP
Apollo7235
Well-Known Member
This is exactly why, at times, I choose not to reply
OP
OP
Apollo7235
Well-Known Member
I will certainly look into it! The program I am using is the Saxby program on the AI website. I’ll take a look into the BRS recommendation and make some adjustments the next time I try to add corals!
NoahLikesFish
2500 Club Member
Honestly, I’d say if you don’t have the patience to do this hobby (waiting for a tank to get dirty) this hobby isn’t for you. You gotta make sure your tank gets well established with lots of algae before u can add complex life
cryptodendrum
Community Member
I know you're going to hate this (and I am sorry) but I think to save your corals, you should move them back to the QT just until we figure out how to stabilise your DT and make it an environment your corals can thrive in.
I am AMAZED to learn that it seems you have started in the hobby out of the gate with a QT setup. I could almost (but won't) kiss you for that. That is awesome! And I think that also can be your saving grace here; your proverbial parachute that saves your corals.
I suspect either something has gone wrong in your DT or you've made a mistake in your setup of your DT. If you move your corals back to QT and they perk up, we know it's specific to your DT - we just have to determine what.
It could be a faulty pump - a manufacturing defect that is potentially leaking metals in your tank water. Investigate all pumps and hardware for any defects, if you haven't done so already.
You could do an ICP Water test of both your QT and DT water. This sounds extreme maybe, but it'll give us a good idea if there's any differences in the water between the two.
Your sun corals are not photosynthetic, so I don't think it's your lights, but we could do some tests to figure this out. Once your corals are doing better in the QT, swap one of the lights with the DT and see if any negative effects start in QT.
If you rule out the above, I think there's a good possibility you don't have enough sustainable biological activity going on in your tank; and those bacteria in a bottle elixers can only do so much.
What would be ideal, is if you could find someone local in your area through a reefing club, who practices really solid QTing (as you do too, and should stick with it) practices and whom you can trust to buy some live sand and/or live rock / coral skeletons from. I could sell you this tomorrow, if you were in the Netherlands area. But Florida should be full of reefers like this - you just have to find them.
Otherwise, it's gonna take a year to seed that dry rock into live rock. In fact, I'd save that dry rock for later - after it's been replaced by real live rock, and the tank's had at least a year to mature, you could add it back and grow it into live rock.
As for the sand bed, I'd buy about half of what you have now, in real actual live sand and just add that on top of your existing sand. In the close up of yours, where I can see the cross section of the sandbed, I don't see any signs of life in it; something I would expect to see by month three. There should a a biological hotbed of activity down there.
I'll keep brainstorming about possible things to consider & investigate. I sure as heck would hate to see someone who was so forward looking that they started QTing from the beginning, leave this hobby.
I am AMAZED to learn that it seems you have started in the hobby out of the gate with a QT setup. I could almost (but won't) kiss you for that. That is awesome! And I think that also can be your saving grace here; your proverbial parachute that saves your corals.
I suspect either something has gone wrong in your DT or you've made a mistake in your setup of your DT. If you move your corals back to QT and they perk up, we know it's specific to your DT - we just have to determine what.
It could be a faulty pump - a manufacturing defect that is potentially leaking metals in your tank water. Investigate all pumps and hardware for any defects, if you haven't done so already.
You could do an ICP Water test of both your QT and DT water. This sounds extreme maybe, but it'll give us a good idea if there's any differences in the water between the two.
Your sun corals are not photosynthetic, so I don't think it's your lights, but we could do some tests to figure this out. Once your corals are doing better in the QT, swap one of the lights with the DT and see if any negative effects start in QT.
If you rule out the above, I think there's a good possibility you don't have enough sustainable biological activity going on in your tank; and those bacteria in a bottle elixers can only do so much.
What would be ideal, is if you could find someone local in your area through a reefing club, who practices really solid QTing (as you do too, and should stick with it) practices and whom you can trust to buy some live sand and/or live rock / coral skeletons from. I could sell you this tomorrow, if you were in the Netherlands area. But Florida should be full of reefers like this - you just have to find them.
Otherwise, it's gonna take a year to seed that dry rock into live rock. In fact, I'd save that dry rock for later - after it's been replaced by real live rock, and the tank's had at least a year to mature, you could add it back and grow it into live rock.
As for the sand bed, I'd buy about half of what you have now, in real actual live sand and just add that on top of your existing sand. In the close up of yours, where I can see the cross section of the sandbed, I don't see any signs of life in it; something I would expect to see by month three. There should a a biological hotbed of activity down there.
I'll keep brainstorming about possible things to consider & investigate. I sure as heck would hate to see someone who was so forward looking that they started QTing from the beginning, leave this hobby.
OP
OP
Apollo7235
Well-Known Member
I know this thread has gotten really long (and I very much appreciate all of the input!) so I am going to add a TLDR to the original post so we can avoid repeating information.
In case you didn’t know it OP is a new mother and is starting this project also. Counterproductive and sarcastic comments should be left off of the post. That isn’t the spirit of this forum. OP didn’t do anything more than a rookie mistake that many noobs do. She gets it without your (and others) negative comments.
Its time to help her get through it with encouragement and good advice, which she has been getting and following. OP is taking corrective steps and like everything in this hobby, one thing at a time and slowly.
ps2cho
Well-Known Member
Thats fair, much of the hobby is still driven by experience, and I will always choose experience over lab testing thats not accounting for real world struggles.
Fact is the photo on the front page tells the whole story. Those rocks look like they just got put in the tank, same with the sand. Theres no sign of any algae blooms, absolutely ZERO coralline which should be there well before any corals go in. All these things are an absolute requirement to avoid coral growth issues because it reflects an established system with biodiversity. This is a well established truth and part of the BRS/WWC method.
Like I said, for every 5 that do this, 1 will stray drop in hard SPS right after a cycle and have no issues, the other 5 will see tissue loss. I have repeated this on every tank, and not once have I had success with dry rock without waiting a year. After a year, it seems to be repeatable.
Brady4000
I just wanted a Mantis Shrimp.
I agree with this statement. But this is my experience.
I have SPS taking off in my stock light 5 month old Biocube as we speak (which is a feat in itself). What I mean by taking off, is some have already overgrown their plugs. I started this tank with nothing but dry rock, that I bleached myself. My first coral was less than a month in and survived just fine. In fact, just yesterday I had to sell a leather because it was already outgrowing my tank.
Til date I have lost 2 coral, Monti I killed because I ripped it off the plug and broke it in 1/2and a Goni, because I didn’t feed it.
I won’t argue, with bio diversity in starting with establish live rock vs my Dr. Tim. But I am not doing 1/2 bad.
I guess I am just 1 in 5 lucky? I mean I just followed what I saw on BRSTV....
Also going off others experience... using live rock to instant start a tank is done at every coral festival. Unless you think the LFS are also doing it wrong and just lucky...
kaylajoy
Active Member
Cool advice may I see your tank?
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