Coral Not Growing/ Dying Off

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

IMO, a 60watt light is not sufficient for a 40 gallon tank, low lighting is the main issue IMO.

As a comparison, AI Prime is 55 watts, I use AI Prime on my 15 gallon at 70%.

You should have 150-ish watts light on your tank. So if you get another 60watt fixture and put them side by side for 120 watt total, you will have much better success IMO.

 

[Slidecf]

Can you post any more pictures of your tank? Back wall, sand, closeups of rock work?

Sure... There you go

 

[Slidecf]

IMO, a 60watt light is not sufficient for a 40 gallon tank, low lighting is the main issue IMO.

As a comparison, AI Prime is 55 watts, I use AI Prime on my 15 gallon at 70%.

You should have 150-ish watts light on your tank. So if you get another 60watt fixture and put them side by side for 120 watt total, you will have much better success IMO.

Yeah... To be honest, when I was planning the tank, I was originally going to buy two Aquaknight V3 60W lights. But then I decided to get just one first and see how it performed.

When it arrived, it seemed really powerful—at 100%, everything looked super bright (as you can see in the picture below). I thought one would be enough, but over the last couple of days, I’ve started to wonder if that might actually be the problem.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Sure... There you go

I see some other stringy/snotty bits. Do those like to come and go with the lights?

And I would say you need a new light fixture, unfortunately.

 

[Slidecf]

I see some other stringy/snotty bits. Do those like to come and go with the lights?

And I would say you need a new light fixture, unfortunately.

I don’t see much difference with the lights... They just tend to accumulate during the week.

Yeah... I already bought a new light fixture—it should arrive in the next few days. I got a 120W light, so let’s see how it goes. Maybe I’ll use it together with my 60W Aquaknight, or I might just sell it.
Also i will dose PO4 to see if i get better results.

 

[BryanM]

That looks like dinos that I just got done dealing with. But if it is, they should go away at night withh the lights out.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

That looks like dinos that I just got done dealing with. But if it is, they should go away at night withh the lights out.

Agreed. I have been trying to convey that the tank has a bigger issue than just keeping coral alive, unfortunately.

 

[Slidecf]

That looks like dinos that I just got done dealing with. But if it is, they should go away at night withh the lights out.

Agreed. I have been trying to convey that the tank has a bigger issue than just keeping coral alive, unfortunately.

Thanks for the help! I understand that dinos are a big problem, and I’ve been researching them… I’ll do my best to fight them as well! I’ll try to follow the tips in this post to see if I can fix the issue. I’ll deal with the dinos before introducing any new corals to the tank.

Here is a video of the dinos

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Thanks for the help! I understand that dinos are a big problem, and I’ve been researching them… I’ll do my best to fight them as well! I’ll try to follow the tips in this post to see if I can fix the issue. I’ll deal with the dinos before introducing any new corals to the tank.

Here is a video of the dinos

Il

Thanks for the help! I understand that dinos are a big problem, and I’ve been researching them… I’ll do my best to fight them as well! I’ll try to follow the tips in this post to see if I can fix the issue. I’ll deal with the dinos before introducing any new corals to the tank.

Here is a video of the dinos

Don’t quote me, but I think you lucked out and got the easier kind. Is it just on your glass? Or are you noticing it spread? How long has the stuff been around?

I appear to be winning the fight in my tank. I’ve got my nutrients up, and dosed 10ml of Microbacter clean this past thursday. The clean seemed to have really worked. I’m waiting for the dinos to come back but so far there are no signs, and my worst patches are still “in retreat”.

 

[CopperPotReefs]

I don’t see much difference with the lights... They just tend to accumulate during the week.

Yeah... I already bought a new light fixture—it should arrive in the next few days. I got a 120W light, so let’s see how it goes. Maybe I’ll use it together with my 60W Aquaknight, or I might just sell it.
Also i will dose PO4 to see if i get better results.

Another easy test is to take your hammer/torch/octos and put it higher up on your scape closer to the light. If it does better in about 10 days then you can be more confident thats your issue. Don't put it up at the top at once but slowly move them closer to the light over the course of a few days and they should open up more.

 

[Slidecf]

Don’t quote me, but I think you lucked out and got the easier kind. Is it just on your glass? Or are you noticing it spread? How long has the stuff been around?

I appear to be winning the fight in my tank. I’ve got my nutrients up, and dosed 10ml of Microbacter clean this past thursday. The clean seemed to have really worked. I’m waiting for the dinos to come back but so far there are no signs, and my worst patches are still “in retreat”.

I really hope they’re the easier kind . Yeah, they’re pretty much only on the glass (with just a little on the sand as well).

So here’s how I ended up in this situation: I had a huge outbreak of hair algae—probably that ugly phase every new tank goes through. They were everywhere, and the strands got super long. After a while, I was pretty disappointed with how it looked, so I started scrubbing them off the rocks almost every day and siphoning them out during water changes. Eventually, they completely disappeared, and everything was fine for a while.

Then, in December, I went on vacation and didn’t do much maintenance or cleaning for about 15 days. When I came back, I had cyano (some kind of purple mat) and this stringy stuff—which I now know are dinos. They started to build up on the zoas and GSP bothering them. I completely got rid of the cyano by consistently scraping it off the rocks and siphoning it out during water changes. But I still haven’t fully solved the dino problem. They’re much less than they were a few weeks ago, the situation is kinda stable but I just can’t seem to get rid of them completely. I clean the glass, and within five minutes, they’re already back. If I don’t clean the glass every day, they start to build up throughout the week.

My plan for now is:

1. Raise PO4 by dosing it daily and add beneficial bacteria like Microbacter —hopefully, this will be enough to fix the problem and make the dinos disappear.
2. If raising PO4 doesn’t solve the issue, I’ll do a 3-day blackout and see if that’s enough to get rid of them.

I hope you also win this battle—rooting for you!

 

[Slidecf]

Another easy test is to take your hammer/torch/octos and put it higher up on your scape closer to the light. If it does better in about 10 days then you can be more confident thats your issue. Don't put it up at the top at once but slowly move them closer to the light over the course of a few days and they should open up more.

The issue is that the top part of the tank has the strongest flow, and the corals seem really disturbed by the wavemaker’s intensity . I tried adjusting the flow direction, but that just ended up blowing the sand around, creating holes in some spots.
I think I’ll eventually get weaker wavemakers—maybe that way, I can use two of them for better overall flow.
Also, I’d really appreciate any tips on how to improve the flow in the tank! My tank has 40 gallons (150 liters) and i'm using a 3.000l/h wavemaker.

Anyway, I still think lighting plays a role in why the corals aren’t growing. My zoas are stretching their polyps—even though they were already a bit stretched when I bought them. Here are some pics of them right now.
I hope that with a better light fixture and by raising PO4, the corals will start looking better and finally begin to grow.

 

[keepingfishwithnoidea]

Good luck, you may want to start a tank thread as that would help alot

 

[Dburr1014]

Hey guys, I need some help.


I'm having trouble with my corals—they're either dying (especially euphyllias) or not growing since I set up the tank. For a while, I tried dosing Aquavitro’s Fuel twice a week, but to be honest, I didn’t see any difference. I also tried feeding the corals, but there were no results either. This past month, I’ve been dealing with some algae (or cyano? Not sure).


The light turns on at 10:50 AM, ramps up to 100% at 11:00 AM, stays like that until 7:00 PM, then ramps down to 0% at 11:00 PM.

What I'm seeing here is 8 hours peak, 10 minutes ramp up, 4 hours ramp down.

The great thing about ramping lights is to simulate day and night. 8 hours of peak with 4 hours of ramp down seems a lot of photo period. But, maybe not. It really depends on par. For instance, I have 3 hours ramp up, 6 hours peak, 3 hours ramp down. Very similar, but different. I have 2 24" reef breeders with 400 par. Coral can reach a photo- inhibition, they reach a point when they had enough light and shut down.
I may be reaching but I suggest to change the light schedule slightly and see if it helps.
More time on ramp up, less time on peak, and less time on ramp down.

Here’s all the info you might need and some pictures.

Water Parameters:

Numbers mostly look good. Po4 is at the bare minimum and I suggest bump it up to at least 0.05 or higher to 0.1
This mostly because of alk at ~9, if alk was lower, 8ish, I would say po4 may be okay but probably still want to see po4 higher.

Corals Overview:

• GSP – The first coral I added to the tank (it's been there for about 8 months). It's the only one that has actually shown some growth, but reeeeally slow, considering some people say it's like a plague.
• Zoas – Stable. Most of them haven’t grown since they were added about 4 months ago (only one died – King Midas). They’ve been closed up for the last couple of weeks.
• Torch – Died. The first euphyllia I added to the tank (8 months ago). At first, I had some trouble with euphyllia-eating flatworms but got rid of them completely. Eventually, it shrank to death.
• Hammer – Added 3 months ago. One head died, and the other is shrinking.
• Frog – Added 3 months ago. Currently shrinking.
• Goniopora – Added 8 months ago. Stable—no significant growth. It bleached for a while, but now it looks okay.
• Mushrooms – Pretty much stable. One of them appears to be growing a new head.

My Setup:

• Tank Size: 40 Gallons
• Salt: Aquaforest ReefSalt
• Light: AquaKnight V3 60W

It would be nice to know the par#

• Skimmer: RedStarfish SQ90-Plus
• Fish: 2 Ocellaris / 1 Royal Gramma /
• 1 Coral Banded Shrimp / Some hermit crabs and turbos

 

[Dburr1014]

10pm for No3 is fine, but 0.03 for Po4 is too low. Try and get that up to 1.0ppm.

Yikes, I think you mean 0.1 for po4, 1.0 is way too high.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

I really hope they’re the easier kind . Yeah, they’re pretty much only on the glass (with just a little on the sand as well).

So here’s how I ended up in this situation: I had a huge outbreak of hair algae—probably that ugly phase every new tank goes through. They were everywhere, and the strands got super long. After a while, I was pretty disappointed with how it looked, so I started scrubbing them off the rocks almost every day and siphoning them out during water changes. Eventually, they completely disappeared, and everything was fine for a while.

Then, in December, I went on vacation and didn’t do much maintenance or cleaning for about 15 days. When I came back, I had cyano (some kind of purple mat) and this stringy stuff—which I now know are dinos. They started to build up on the zoas and GSP bothering them. I completely got rid of the cyano by consistently scraping it off the rocks and siphoning it out during water changes. But I still haven’t fully solved the dino problem. They’re much less than they were a few weeks ago, the situation is kinda stable but I just can’t seem to get rid of them completely. I clean the glass, and within five minutes, they’re already back. If I don’t clean the glass every day, they start to build up throughout the week.

My plan for now is:

1. Raise PO4 by dosing it daily and add beneficial bacteria like Microbacter —hopefully, this will be enough to fix the problem and make the dinos disappear.
2. If raising PO4 doesn’t solve the issue, I’ll do a 3-day blackout and see if that’s enough to get rid of them.

I hope you also win this battle—rooting for you!

Sounds like you’ve got a good plan. One thing I might add during your blackout, or a few days before, is to add some pods. They’ve been shown to help as well. If you do, I would also suggest feeding live-phyto. This seems counterproductive because that strategy can lower your nutrients, but just make sure No3 and Po4 are stable and high enough before the blackout. I would test both No3 and Po4 daily for 3 days and see how much both drop. You’ll want to keep siphoning the dinos out as well before the blackout. Make sure you’re not replacing the siphoned out water with fresh salt water, as that will lower your nutrients as well. You want to either siphon the dinos out with a filter sock, and into a bucket, or siphon with a filter sock and directly back into the tank. Again, the goal is to keep your nutrients up!

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Yikes, I think you mean 0.1 for po4, 1.0 is way too high.

Maybe I am a zero off, lol. Thanks for checking me!

Yes, 0.10ppm

 

[Slidecf]

What I'm seeing here is 8 hours peak, 10 minutes ramp up, 4 hours ramp down.

The great thing about ramping lights is to simulate day and night. 8 hours of peak with 4 hours of ramp down seems a lot of photo period. But, maybe not. It really depends on par. For instance, I have 3 hours ramp up, 6 hours peak, 3 hours ramp down. Very similar, but different. I have 2 24" reef breeders with 400 par. Coral can reach a photo- inhibition, they reach a point when they had enough light and shut down.
I may be reaching but I suggest to change the light schedule slightly and see if it helps.
More time on ramp up, less time on peak, and less time on ramp down.

Numbers mostly look good. Po4 is at the bare minimum and I suggest bump it up to at least 0.05 or higher to 0.1
This mostly because of alk at ~9, if alk was lower, 8ish, I would say po4 may be okay but probably still want to see po4 higher.

It would be nice to know the par#

Over the past eight months, while the tank has been running, I’ve experimented with different lighting setups. For most of the time, it was set up like this:

• Turn on at 11:00 AM – Blue/UV/White at 30%
• Ramp up until 2:00 PM – Blue/UV at 90%, White at 70%
• Ramp down until 11:00 PM – Blue/UV/White at 0%

The Aquaknight V3 only allows customization for the turn-on time, peak time, and turn-off time.
In the last couple of weeks, I started thinking that the issue might be low lighting, so I cranked it all the way up and extended the photoperiod. That’s why i'm having 8 hours peak and its the setup I’m currently using. Didn’t notice much difference in coral growth, though.

Like I mentioned in other replies, unfortunately, I don’t know the PAR numbers since PAR meters are either hard to find or really expensive in my country.

 

[Slidecf]

Sounds like you’ve got a good plan. One thing I might add during your blackout, or a few days before, is to add some pods. They’ve been shown to help as well. If you do, I would also suggest feeding live-phyto. This seems counterproductive because that strategy can lower your nutrients, but just make sure No3 and Po4 are stable and high enough before the blackout. I would test both No3 and Po4 daily for 3 days and see how much both drop. You’ll want to keep siphoning the dinos out as well before the blackout. Make sure you’re not replacing the siphoned out water with fresh salt water, as that will lower your nutrients as well. You want to either siphon the dinos out with a filter sock, and into a bucket, or siphon with a filter sock and directly back into the tank. Again, the goal is to keep your nutrients up!

Nice! Thanks for the tip about the pods!
NeoPhos arrived today, and I’ve started dosing it. Let’s see how things go over the next few days. I’ll keep updating on this issue. I really hope that raising PO4 will be enough to make the dinos disappear.

After beating the dinos, I’ll focus on coral growth.
My new light fixture arrives next week... I have high expectations that with the higher PO4 and a stronger light, the corals will finally start developing in my tank. I’m kinda upset with this situation, though. I really want to have a nice-looking reef tank .

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Nice! Thanks for the tip about the pods!
NeoPhos arrived today, and I’ve started dosing it. Let’s see how things go over the next few days. I’ll keep updating on this issue. I really hope that raising PO4 will be enough to make the dinos disappear.

After beating the dinos, I’ll focus on coral growth.
My new light fixture arrives next week... I have high expectations that with the higher PO4 and a stronger light, the corals will finally start developing in my tank. I’m kinda upset with this situation, though. I really want to have a nice-looking reef tank .

It all takes time… I want a beautiful tank as well, but am OK with playing the long game, which I’m being forced to play now that my system has dinos.

Just be careful with the Neo-Phos. The stuff is super strong. You want to follow the dosing instructions exactly.

Give us an update in a few days please!