Can't keep acros, what am I doing wrong?

mstockmaster · Nov 1, 2017

For the past 6 months or so I've been trying to keep acros in my tank. It's a 40 breeder display with 20l sump, esv two part dosing, reefbreeders photon v2, skimmer etc etc. Plenty of light and I feel plenty of flow. Any acro or Monti I add looks fantastic at first then just slowly fades away. It then either dies or just hangs on to life with little to no growth. All other corals added to the tank do well including other sps (stylos, pavona, psammocora, pocillopora). Not crazy growth but at least some.

Typically my water chemistry has been as follows :
Alk: 9.3
Ca: 450
Mag: 1450-1500
Po4: undetectable with salifert
No3: little to none
Ph: 7.7-7.9

I tried dosing nitrate this week due to my thinking that my tank was mainly nutrient starved. So I dosed to about 4ppm. This only seemed to accelerate the tissue die off in one of the acros that's hanging on. Any other changes I've made with lighting or anything else only seems to exacerbate any problem that I have. I do try to feed the tank fairly heavily and dose aminos via acropower. I ordered an icp test this week as well to see if I could identify any other issues.

Anyone have any other ideas on why this is happening?

Crabs McJones · Nov 1, 2017

Any ideas what your par levels are? what do you have your photon set to?

mstockmaster · Nov 1, 2017

This is a par map I did a few months back, but it's not accurate currently as I've messed with the light a bunch of times.

Crabs McJones · Nov 1, 2017

What do you have for flow in your tank?

mstockmaster · Nov 1, 2017

Jebao pp4, jebao pp8, 500 GPH through return pump

mstockmaster · Nov 1, 2017

Total flow should be about 2200 GPH conservatively

jda · Nov 1, 2017

Can you isolate this to a particular store or vendor?

People will tell you that your N and P are too low, but if you don't use organic carbon (vinegar, vodka, sugaretc.), GFO or LC, then they are fine. If you do, then you need to stop. Even if they were too low, the corals would be lighter colors and not dying so quickly.

The light seems fine.

A few of the locals swear that their PP pumps came with some white powdery stuff on them that ended up being some sort of aluminum. Did you happen to notice any of this? If you rinsed them before you used them, then this would not be a problem. Something tells me that if this was a big problem, it would be more well known, so this is probably a longshot.

The tank looks pretty sterile without much coralline. Is it new? If so, then you might just need to wait. Young tanks are hard on acros, but the monti part still does not make sense.

mstockmaster · Nov 1, 2017

No, all frags were obtained from multiple sources. All jebao pumps seem to be fine, the pp4 came out of an old tank that had no issues growing whatever. The tank was wet in March and first inhabitants in May. All dry rock in the display but old live rock in sump. I do have coraline but it is light, I know that typically coraline and sps go hand in hand but I'm not really sure why the coraline isn't growing much either, I had to regularly scrape it from the glass on my old tank.

jda · Nov 1, 2017

You could try some polyfilter just to see if it turns any color. It is cheap and does not hurt anything.

mstockmaster · Nov 1, 2017

Also the Monti in the back of the first picture is supposed to be a German blue Monti. It's alive but has shown zero growth in the 4 months its been in the tank.

jda · Nov 1, 2017

Also, there is another thread on the front page which talks about dry rock tanks needing up to 24 months to handle acropora well... some, not all. Again, the monti thing is a mystery and makes no sense.

jsker · Nov 1, 2017

Feed, Feed, Feed. Po4 should be around .02. to .03 and nitrates between 3 to 5 ppm I feed frozen twice a day and I would try adding reef nutrition's Oyster Feast to the frozen mix. The fish will create the waist that you need to raise the No3's and the food will feed the corals.

Richards_reef · Nov 1, 2017

I never had luck when my mag was over 1400 (coralline or acros). I also have never had luck with any of the leds I've used(coralline or acros). Not saying they don't work, leds and high mag work for a ton of people, just not me.

g5flier · Nov 1, 2017

mstockmaster said:
No, all frags were obtained from multiple sources. All jebao pumps seem to be fine, the pp4 came out of an old tank that had no issues growing whatever. The tank was wet in March and first inhabitants in May. All dry rock in the display but old live rock in sump. I do have coraline but it is light, I know that typically coraline and sps go hand in hand but I'm not really sure why the coraline isn't growing much either, I had to regularly scrape it from the glass on my old tank.

Your system is still pretty new, how much live rock is in your sump? I had a very similar situation on my system, added more live rock (started with 100 pounds of dry rock, then added 45 pounds of live rock in 139 gallon system after 7 months). Then dosed Brightwell Microbactor7 for 2 weeks to add additional bacteria. My coralline and Montipora took off as a result. Read Mike Paletta's article on ReefBuilders about his 18 month old Elos 160 and adding live rock.
https://reefbuilders.com/2017/07/08/revisiting-my-elos-tank-after-18-months/

mstockmaster · Nov 1, 2017

I started with about 80lbs dry rock and about 15 lbs of old live rock. I also added a bottle of brightwells at the beginning. I have plenty of pods, lots of life on my rocks, a few micro brittle stars, lots of pineapple sponges and some others.