Another thread about dying sps

[Phillyd1990]

So I've been avoiding posting about this over the past 6 months but at this point I could use and help/constructive criticism I can get. My tank has been up for a year now and my goal with it was to have an sps dominant system. Over the past year every piece of sps I put in does great for two weeks then burns at the tips and slowly withers away. In the beginning I figured the tank just wasnt mature enough also I was manually dosing so I decided to get a doser to automate it and steadily throughout the day to avoid swings. I kept my nutrients pretty low (no3 at 1-2 and po4 at .03) Also the few lps I had were either hanging on or dying. I then began to research higher nutrients so at about 6 months I raised them quite a bit over a period of time. (No3 15ppm po4 .05) my all at this time was always between 7.8-8 on my hannah and my cal was always around 460. I test alk every day at 4:30pm. Around 8 months I had two across and a grape monti start to grow. The across only encrusted a little but the grape monti doubled in size. Shortly after same thing acros stned and the cap started growing algae. It's now 12 months and I just had two more acros stn..oddly the grape monti is growing a little in two spots.

I forgot to mention my lps since the increased nutrients look much better but will not grow. The only thing growing at the moment are zoom. I also forgot to mention I sent out icp tests twice one at 6 months and 1 at 11 months..everything was green except iodine I believe which was low.

A little about how I currently run my system. I like to keep it simple. No gfo. I took carbon offline about 3 months ago. I run a large skimmer and have a small fuge which chaeto that grows ok. Marine pure brick (the big one) been in for 6 months.

For flow I run two gyre 230 one on %80 random and the other on %50 constant. The switch flow pattern every 4 hours from constant to random. Also have a cor 20 for the return

I have aquatic life hybrid with 3 blue+ and 1 purple+. Two hydra 26 hd.

This is all on a 100g cad lights with 40g sump

I use DOS dousing Randy's 2 part for all and esv for cal.

Current paramus
Alk 8.0
Cal 460
Mag1380
No3 15
Po4 .06
Ph 8.15
Temp 79
1.025

 

[Phillyd1990]

I know I missed a ton so please feel free to ask questions..I'm on lunch so I'm trying to speed through typing this. Here is a recent fts

its really blue I know I'll try to get a better one when I'm home

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

Hmm this is very odd, I honestly have no idea but hopefully someone will help you find the issue, wish you the best of luck!

 

[Phillyd1990]

Me too! Usually I just read and do what I can to figure out problems but I've just about tried everything and am at a complete loss.

 

[DQM5]

have you check your par reading? lol I'm using the hydra 52hd with aquatic life t5 hybrid, I already fried 2-3 of my acro, but sometime the acro will stn out of nowhere.

 

[daelie]

Can you post the triton tests you got as well?

 

[Neoalchemist]

What is your light schedule and intensity and are you running filtersocks? Are you feeding the corals?. And how deep is your sand bed? Did you use established live rock or dry cycled?

 

[Phillyd1990]

have you check your par reading? lol I'm using the hydra 52hd with aquatic life t5 hybrid, I already fried 2-3 of my acro, but sometime the acro will stn out of nowhere.

I use Seneye for par. Right now I only have it about 290 on top rocks thinking maybe I was burning things. I've had it that way for 5 months

Can you post the triton tests you got as well?

Yes I will post them as soon as I get a chance

What is your light schedule and intensity and are you running filtersocks? Are you feeding the corals?. And how deep is your sand bed? Did you use established live rock or dry cycled?

Hydras come on at 9 and ramp up to peak at 12.
T5 on at 12
At 5 white red and green ramp down for an hour leaving just the blues and t5
T5 go off at 7
Led off at 9

I run 1 4" sock
Sand bed is about 1-2" throughout
I started with dry pukani. Muriatic acid bath before use.
I don't feed coral food as I figured the high nutrients were enough. I have 14 fish in at the moment

 

[Mattrg02]

Seeing as water parameters look fine, I’d suspect either lighting, flow, or a contamination. I’d your corals are getting 290 par, I’d move to flow and then on to an ICP test.

My 3 years of dying sps corals was due to low par. Thought I was in the 200 range, par meter showed 80. Now they are in the 200-300 par range and all is well.

 

[Phillyd1990]

Seeing as water parameters look fine, I’d suspect either lighting, flow, or a contamination. I’d your corals are getting 290 par, I’d move to flow and then on to an ICP test.

My 3 years of dying sps corals was due to low par. Thought I was in the 200 range, par meter showed 80. Now they are in the 200-300 par range and all is well.

Recently I've been thinking my par was to low even with the par meter but I'm afraid to turn it up too much with the LEDs. I've been waiting to switch to all t5. I actually just got results from ATI icp about 2 weeks ago which I will be posting when I get home but everything was fine on there

 

[Neoalchemist]

I use Seneye for par. Right now I only have it about 290 on top rocks thinking maybe I was burning things. I've had it that way for 5 months

Yes I will post them as soon as I get a chance

Hydras come on at 9 and ramp up to peak at 12.
T5 on at 12
At 5 white red and green ramp down for an hour leaving just the blues and t5
T5 go off at 7
Led off at 9

I run 1 4" sock
Sand bed is about 1-2" throughout
I started with dry pukani. Muriatic acid bath before use.
I don't feed coral food as I figured the high nutrients were enough. I have 14 fish in at the moment

The only thing I personally would change, ( and we all have our own formulas and they all seem to work) would be to seed a lot of pods and maybe a few pieces of established live rock with a lot of diversity. I believe that there is a 4 part scheme to keeping sps fed, 1) light, 2) nutrients, 3) trace elements, and 4) larval microfauna/particulate matter. And I believe that the lack of larval microfauna is one of the primary reasons for "New tank syndrome" my rule is to stay away from any small polyps until I see a pod explosion and by this I mean SCARY numbers. Then I start to add rock browsing fish and anything with small polyps. I also like to see my water column feeding fish eating out of the water column at night long after feeding time. It's a sure sign that clean up crew and pods are spawning in the tank. A lot of tanks started with sterile live rock take years to produce those kinds of populations. I also like to feed at least some pellet food if for no other reason than to feed the pod populations.
Your system is almost a mirror image of the one I started in April except that I pulled most of my rock from another system that had been running for 5 years. There seems to be something broadcast spawning in there every other night. And at this point I feel pretty comfortable putting high end sps frags in it. (Just need more money[emoji14] ).
Oh! And I only run my filter socks 3 or 4 four days out of the week. I also don't have any fish that are crushing my pod populations yet.

 

[Neoalchemist]

Your peak for blues might be a little long at anything over 4 hours. There's currently a bit of a movement in Europe to stagger the peak blues 80% 100% 80% 100% 80% 100% for example which is based on the theory that sps can suffer a sort of metabolic exhaustion if at peak for too long or some thing along that line. Maybe someone that knows a bit more about it will chime in.

 

[Mattrg02]

I’ve got a hydra26hd over my Red Sea reefer 170. I have my blues maxed out, completely, and have my whites down around 25%. Id not worry about the blues on the hydra26hd, I’d worry about the whites. My LFS uses hydra52hd as well as hydra26hd and agrees. His tanks are the type to covet.

 

[jda]

Are you changing water? If this tank is a year old (is this right?), then it might just not be getting to where it is super stable - do you have coralline spots popping up everywhere on the glass? If you started your tank with dry/dead rock, then it might just need to mature more.

People have had issues with Marine Pure blocks that can be cleared up by taking them out. There is not real proof of anything, but just slow decline in stuff perhaps by some contaminant in the material - do not expect any ICP test to find anything since they rarely ever do. I am not an expert on this since I never used one, but search around for this and you will some threads.

I would run the T5s for the whole photo period and keep the LEDs low for a while. People do not agree with me, but I have a theory based on nothing but a bunch of observation and discussions, that SPS only do well with LEDs when everything else is perfect... when it is not perfect, then T5 or MH should be pulling the wagon.

 

[Mattrg02]

Are you changing water? If this tank is a year old (is this right?), then it might just not be getting to where it is super stable - do you have coralline spots popping up everywhere on the glass? If you started your tank with dry/dead rock, then it might just need to mature more.

People have had issues with Marine Pure blocks that can be cleared up by taking them out. There is not real proof of anything, but just slow decline in stuff perhaps by some contaminant in the material - do not expect any ICP test to find anything since they rarely ever do. I am not an expert on this since I never used one, but search around for this and you will some threads.

I would run the T5s for the whole photo period and keep the LEDs low for a while. People do not agree with me, but I have a theory based on nothing but a bunch of observation and discussions, that SPS only do well with LEDs when everything else is perfect... when it is not perfect, then T5 or MH should be pulling the wagon.

I assure you that my tank is far from perfect, nor is my husbandry. Jacking up THESE leds was the key for me. Unless there are some JF home wreckers , and the like, in that tank, I’d jack up the blues. Whats he got to lose? His corals are goners unless he finds the problem, and fast.

I lost $1500 in frags before I found out my lights were too low. Now, my replacement frags are all polyps our, bright colors, and encrusting their bases. All I have is a single hydra26hd.

Edit: I’d also quite all additives meant to lower nutrients. I’m high in nutrients and don’t test anything besides alkalinity, magnesium, calcium, and salinity. I run my skimmer 24/7 and it stinks to high heaven. I also do weekly water changes to keep trace elements. My waste water comes out clear.

 

[jda]

It is a different animal when 4x T5 bulbs can sustain any SPS without any other help... maybe not make them thrive, but also not death. Far too many people have found increased success by first adding T5s, then depending on their LEDs less and less, adding more T5s or even moving to MH... and most of these folks thought that they were doing awesome with just LED alone. Some people just have success out of blind luck with whatever they are using when more times passes and the tank matures more.

 

[dwest]

So I've been avoiding posting about this over the past 6 months but at this point I could use and help/constructive criticism I can get. My tank has been up for a year now and my goal with it was to have an sps dominant system. Over the past year every piece of sps I put in does great for two weeks then burns at the tips and slowly withers away. In the beginning I figured the tank just wasnt mature enough also I was manually dosing so I decided to get a doser to automate it and steadily throughout the day to avoid swings. I kept my nutrients pretty low (no3 at 1-2 and po4 at .03) Also the few lps I had were either hanging on or dying. I then began to research higher nutrients so at about 6 months I raised them quite a bit over a period of time. (No3 15ppm po4 .05) my all at this time was always between 7.8-8 on my hannah and my cal was always around 460. I test alk every day at 4:30pm. Around 8 months I had two across and a grape monti start to grow. The across only encrusted a little but the grape monti doubled in size. Shortly after same thing acros stned and the cap started growing algae. It's now 12 months and I just had two more acros stn..oddly the grape monti is growing a little in two spots.

I forgot to mention my lps since the increased nutrients look much better but will not grow. The only thing growing at the moment are zoom. I also forgot to mention I sent out icp tests twice one at 6 months and 1 at 11 months..everything was green except iodine I believe which was low.

A little about how I currently run my system. I like to keep it simple. No gfo. I took carbon offline about 3 months ago. I run a large skimmer and have a small fuge which chaeto that grows ok. Marine pure brick (the big one) been in for 6 months.

For flow I run two gyre 230 one on %80 random and the other on %50 constant. The switch flow pattern every 4 hours from constant to random. Also have a cor 20 for the return

I have aquatic life hybrid with 3 blue+ and 1 purple+. Two hydra 26 hd.

This is all on a 100g cad lights with 40g sump

I use DOS dousing Randy's 2 part for all and esv for cal.

Current paramus
Alk 8.0
Cal 460
Mag1380
No3 15
Po4 .06
Ph 8.15
Temp 79
1.025

I agree, this is a tough one. The numbers look great...If it were my tank, I’d remove the block, do weekly 10% after changes and try a frag every couple of months.

 

[TessGlo]

Wish I had the magic answer for you. I am curious about your water changes though. I've noticed multiple times that my corals are just happier with regular weekly water changes even if all parameters are in check. I've tried skipping them when things are in check but I start to notice my corals not looking as good.

Perhaps try seeing what happens if you place the same coral in high light/top of tank and low light/bottom, and do same thing with flow. Then observe each day what happens to each, may give you some answers about if it's a light issue. If I was nearby id give you some frags to try it out bc at this stage you just need more info. I don't have a par meter, but a few sacrificial birds-nest frags and I can learn a lot about my lighting.

Now we shal pray to the SPS gods on your behalf

 

[Phillyd1990]

The only thing I personally would change, ( and we all have our own formulas and they all seem to work) would be to seed a lot of pods and maybe a few pieces of established live rock with a lot of diversity. I believe that there is a 4 part scheme to keeping sps fed, 1) light, 2) nutrients, 3) trace elements, and 4) larval microfauna/particulate matter. And I believe that the lack of larval microfauna is one of the primary reasons for "New tank syndrome" my rule is to stay away from any small polyps until I see a pod explosion and by this I mean SCARY numbers. Then I start to add rock browsing fish and anything with small polyps. I also like to see my water column feeding fish eating out of the water column at night long after feeding time. It's a sure sign that clean up crew and pods are spawning in the tank. A lot of tanks started with sterile live rock take years to produce those kinds of populations. I also like to feed at least some pellet food if for no other reason than to feed the pod populations.
Your system is almost a mirror image of the one I started in April except that I pulled most of my rock from another system that had been running for 5 years. There seems to be something broadcast spawning in there every other night. And at this point I feel pretty comfortable putting high end sps frags in it. (Just need more money[emoji14] ).
Oh! And I only run my filter socks 3 or 4 four days out of the week. I also don't have any fish that are crushing my pod populations yet.

I definitely agree even at a year my tank is far from mature. I will definitely add some pods plus I'm sure my pipefish would appreciate it. Also I've always stayed away from pellets from the fear of adding to many nutrients to the water column. I use strictly frozen foods which I thaw and strain besides the lrs. If pellets will help I'll give it a shot.

Your peak for blues might be a little long at anything over 4 hours. There's currently a bit of a movement in Europe to stagger the peak blues 80% 100% 80% 100% 80% 100% for example which is based on the theory that sps can suffer a sort of metabolic exhaustion if at peak for too long or some thing along that line. Maybe someone that knows a bit more about it will chime in.

I'll have to look into that..mine peak from 12 to 8 so much longer. I've seen people stagger their lighting and have always wondered the reason

I’ve got a hydra26hd over my Red Sea reefer 170. I have my blues maxed out, completely, and have my whites down around 25%. Id not worry about the blues on the hydra26hd, I’d worry about the whites. My LFS uses hydra52hd as well as hydra26hd and agrees. His tanks are the type to covet.

I have my blues right now at %50..whites I keep at %15. I've been wanting to go full t5 as I find it much easier than messing with leds. I know some people that are great at figuring them out and have amazing results. Guess I'm just not one of them lol

Are you changing water? If this tank is a year old (is this right?), then it might just not be getting to where it is super stable - do you have coralline spots popping up everywhere on the glass? If you started your tank with dry/dead rock, then it might just need to mature more.

People have had issues with Marine Pure blocks that can be cleared up by taking them out. There is not real proof of anything, but just slow decline in stuff perhaps by some contaminant in the material - do not expect any ICP test to find anything since they rarely ever do. I am not an expert on this since I never used one, but search around for this and you will some threads.

I would run the T5s for the whole photo period and keep the LEDs low for a while. People do not agree with me, but I have a theory based on nothing but a bunch of observation and discussions, that SPS only do well with LEDs when everything else is perfect... when it is not perfect, then T5 or MH should be pulling the wagon.

Yes my tank just hit 1 year. I do %10 WC every Saturday. A while ago my whole overflow was covered with coralline but slowly died off..as for my rocks it's always popping up everywhere and is plating in a few areas. The marine pure was originally put in for nitrates. Not sure how well it helped. The whole top of it is covered in coralline..would it hurt anything to suddenly remove it? At this point I'm willing to try anything but do not want to cause and abrupt changes. Also should the t5 be on from the time my leds stop ramping in the morning and start in the evening or the whole photo period?

 

[Phillyd1990]

Wish I had the magic answer for you. I am curious about your water changes though. I've noticed multiple times that my corals are just happier with regular weekly water changes even if all parameters are in check. I've tried skipping them when things are in check but I start to notice my corals not looking as good.

Perhaps try seeing what happens if you place the same coral in high light/top of tank and low light/bottom, and do same thing with flow. Then observe each day what happens to each, may give you some answers about if it's a light issue. If I was nearby id give you some frags to try it out bc at this stage you just need more info. I don't have a par meter, but a few sacrificial birds-nest frags and I can learn a lot about my lighting.

Now we shal pray to the SPS gods on your behalf

I've been doing %10 weekly since I started the tank. At time not so much for export but for trace elements. I do agree with moving things around. I usually start any frags at the bottom on a frag rock and move up after a week. Recently my lfs gave me a 2 frags. The acro stned and the pink birds nest is still alive. Seems to be alright..its white at the base but still has polyps