About to quit

[FOBbit]

I'm at my whits end.

I have a 40g innovative marine tank.
AI prime light.
Innovative ghost skimmer (at least I have no micro bubbles). Yea me! /S ( big s for lots of sarcasm)
Jebao wave maker. On a setting to run like 10 seconds then stop for like 10 seconds

Do 5g water changes weekly. Usually 5 but sometimes 10 if I miss a week.

Salinity 1.025. (fish store water)
Test kits are salifert except phosphate (Hanna)
Ph - 8.0
NO3 - 2.5
NO2 - like 0
Phosphate is 0
Temp 80

Livestock
Clownfish, yellow coris wrasse, firefish
Royal urchin
Some scarlet hermits
nassarius snail

So my issue. I can't get most corals to thrive or even live. I buy frags as I don't want to buy an expensive rock to just kill it.
I've lost 2 hammers and a torch. Look good for couple weeks then just melt.
Zoa's either close up for good or the two I have that open, just don't grow new polyps.
I have a Kenya tree, blue sympodium, cloves, and gorgonian all doing ok. The kenya tree doesnt split so it's not a pain in the ****.
The sympodium and gorg are doing really well. Actually see growth.
The cloves are starting to loose numbers.
I feed reef roids once a week. Do I need more?


Now I've had this tank for 3 yrs. I don't make crazy changes. I've tried to let the tank alone.

I've attached my light schedule. I changed it several months ago to the one you see. It wasn't much changes.

I really would like a zoa garden and a torch. That's it.

I'm really sad.

I know this hobie is not set it and forget it, but I'm doing the things (I think) that I'm told I need to do.

 

[RC Reefer 5184]

I would suggest raises phosphates to .04-.1 range and nitrates to 5-10 range and let tank age in that range for awhile. Most of your stuff would like it a little dirtier so higher nutrients would be good. Get a good test kit get nutrients up and let it ride for a bit. I think you will be happy with results. Just my 2 cents.

 

[PeterC99]

Do you organically control your PO4 & NO3 or treat?

What are you Alk, Calc, & Mg parameters?

 

[Gtinnel]

To repeat what has already been stated you haven't listed 3 of the big parameters for corals (alk/cal/mag). Have you been testing for them?
Also what are you testing phosphate with? If it really is zero that can cause issues with your corals. When I first started in this hobby I thought zero nitrate and phosphate was desirable, and all of my corals slowly faded and died. It wasn't until I raised them up that I started having success with corals.

 

[((FORDTECH))]

I'm at my whits end.

I have a 40g innovative marine tank.
AI prime light.
Innovative ghost skimmer (at least I have no micro bubbles). Yea me! /S ( big s for lots of sarcasm)
Jebao wave maker. On a setting to run like 10 seconds then stop for like 10 seconds

Do 5g water changes weekly. Usually 5 but sometimes 10 if I miss a week.

Salinity 1.025. (fish store water)
Test kits are salifert except phosphate (Hanna)
Ph - 8.0
NO3 - 2.5
NO2 - like 0
Phosphate is 0
Temp 80

Livestock
Clownfish, yellow coris wrasse, firefish
Royal urchin
Some scarlet hermits
nassarius snail

So my issue. I can't get most corals to thrive or even live. I buy frags as I don't want to buy an expensive rock to just kill it.
I've lost 2 hammers and a torch. Look good for couple weeks then just melt.
Zoa's either close up for good or the two I have that open, just don't grow new polyps.
I have a Kenya tree, blue sympodium, cloves, and gorgonian all doing ok. The kenya tree doesnt split so it's not a pain in the ****.
The sympodium and gorg are doing really well. Actually see growth.
The cloves are starting to loose numbers.
I feed reef roids once a week. Do I need more?


Now I've had this tank for 3 yrs. I don't make crazy changes. I've tried to let the tank alone.

I've attached my light schedule. I changed it several months ago to the one you see. It wasn't much changes.

I really would like a zoa garden and a torch. That's it.

I'm really sad.

I know this hobie is not set it and forget it, but I'm doing the things (I think) that I'm told I need to do.

Phosphate and nitrate to low and my guess is your other peramiters are not stable enough because you didn’t even feel they are important enough to list in this post alk,cal,mag

 

[Cory]

Corals need food particles in the water and or food in the water. A little po4 and nitrate can be good sources of food.

Also what are you measuring salinity with? What device?

 

[FOBbit]

I only do water changes and run the skimmer.
I had some hair algea that I battled, but it is under control, and basically gone.

I do nothing to control PO4 & NO3.

How do I raise PO4 & NO3? Just feed more?
OR
should I dose this?

Seachem Flourish Phospours

I turned the skimmer off this am. Maybe it was working too well?

 

[sixty_reefer]

I see many people battling algae with the idea if you lower nutrients you will succeed. Lowering nutrients will only cause problems and for the most it will not remove the algae issue.

 

[FOBbit]

Corals need food particles in the water and or food in the water. A little po4 and nitrate can be good sources of food.

Also what are you measuring salinity with? What device?

I have a refractometer

 

[brahm]

I doubt it’s nutrients. He has fish and feeds them those aren’t demanding corals. Need to know what your alk, mag and Calc are. How frequently are you testing? Do you manually top off or have an ATO? My money is on parameter swings/instability. If I was in your shoes, I would start testing the same time every day, log it, see what’s changing, and double check things like temp. What’s the range your moving between and how do you know it’s accurate?

a snapshot of parameters doesn’t really show the whole picture

 

[reefiniteasy]

What is your Alk, Ca, and Mg?

Maybe start mixing your own saltwater and stop using the store’s water.

 

[ZoWhat]

Most ppl who pose your question about corals not doing well.... I think... comes down to the lineage of live rock they use.

If 90% of the LR was dry rock at one point and the other 10% was LR but came from like Petco.... you really haven't established great live bacteria in your tank.

I mean, you have nutrifying bacteria thst can be bought in a bottle. But I'm talking about dozens of strains of beneficial bacteria that can only come directly from the Ocean, not a bottle.

I think.... the most important and MOST OVERLOOKED step in setting up a Reef Tank is starting with LR from a LFS that can tell you they bought the LR from a Vendor who harvests LR out in the Gulf of Mexico or from Caribbean waters

LR that has lineage back to a direct source from the ocean is sooooooo important. I think its critical.

If all your LR came from a tank where none of it actually came DIRECTLY from an Ocean source, you have your answer why your tank is blaaaaah.

 

[FOBbit]

What is your Alk, Ca, and Mg?

Maybe start mixing your own saltwater and stop using the store’s water.

Im thinking about it. Money has gotten tighter.

what brand is good?

 

[Cell]

An AI Prime on a 40G IM is underlit.

 

[reefiniteasy]

An AI Prime on a 40G IM is underlit.

I agree. I use a 100 watt Maxspect Razor X on my Nuvo 40.

 

[HeyLookItsCaps]

Im thinking about it. Money has gotten tighter.

what brand is good?

Any RO/DI will work, BRS has deals on their setups for Black Friday. Any reef salt is good and that can end up in a ford/chevy/dodge debate. I use tropic Marin reef pro but have used the more inexpressive fritz or instant ocean as well.

 

[muzikalmatt]

As others have mentioned, you need to test for alkalinity at a minimum, but preferably alkalinity, calcium and magnesium as they all interact with and affect each other. Zero phosphates is also not good for coral growth, so I'd recommend trying to get that to between 0.05 and 0.10 ppm with the corals you are trying to keep.

Others have posed good questions about how are you regulating temperature and salinity. Just because they are good when you test doesn't mean they aren't fluctuating/swinging heavily throughout the day/week. In the early days of my tank, I wasn't using a temperature controller and the temperature swings were stifling my coral growth. Adding an Inkbird controller helped stabilize the temperature and the corals were much happier. Having a reliable ATO will help keep your salinity stable, so I'd recommend that as well.

The potential for underlighting is also a good point. I have an IM Nuvo Fusion 40 and for the first 2.5 years was running a Kessil A360WE at almost max intensity and recently added more lighting (Reefbrite XHO's) to supplement the Kessil.

One other item to look at, although it's probably not the biggest issue, is flow. I have two Jebao OW-10's and a Nero 3 in my tank. I had the two Jebaos for most of the life of the tank and recently added the Nero and the additional flow has really helped the tank thrive even more. Flow is something that seems like a minor aspect for the tank, but can really make a different if you can get it right. I'd argue it's better to have more smaller pumps than one large pump as the different points of flow in the tank help create the random/turbulent flow that corals love.

When you're troubleshooting any of these things though, only change one thing at a time and wait to see the effects before trying something else. Changing too many things at once will only cause more issues.

Don't get discouraged though! It sounds like you're close to getting things where they need to be, you just need to sort through some of these items and find what is holding your corals back (water parameters, temperature, lighting, flow). Best of luck to you!

 

[HeyLookItsCaps]

I agree. I use a 100 watt Maxspect Razor X on my Nuvo 40.

Also a good point. See if you can find a second hand prime online to keep cost down, you should be able to get away with having 2 primes for softies LPS

 

[FOBbit]

I thought one light should be fine based on this BRS vid.

I dont have a breeder.



I have my lights set to like 90 for the V, UV and blues. (sorry I posted the one pic not on the settings when running)
Should I increase?

I also was under the impression that weekly water changes should be enough unless you have a high amount of corals. I have litterly 5 small frags.

I was told zoas are not overly difficult. I know they like the water a bit dirty.

I use salifert test kits. as I was told those were very good test kits. Some are very difficult to read as its only 1ml of water to read against the white background of the card.

I upgraded the pump in the tank as I was told the default was underpowered. I cant think of the brand off the top of my head. I also have the jebeo wave maker on the side in the front half of the tank.

I have to manually top off in the morning, and night.

Ill see if I can drop the temp.

 

[elysics]

Yeah low light isn't the issue at hand. 0 po4 is a coral killer, unchecked alkalinity isn't good either but probably not the immediate problem either if you do water changes and have no living stonies

Feed more, feed the corals and if that doesn't help dose liquid po4 solution

What kind of rock? Some rocks absorb po4 for months until you have dumped in enough and it is saturated