Check your local fish store too for a PAR meter. I know mine rents one out for $25.
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Any brown stuff on your sand? I’m wondering about dinos, but didn’t see any on your rocks.ya im not sure im going to do that as of now , see what a waterchange does . it just sucks
This is a tough one for sure. If it were me I’d go back to the basics. I’d check my rodi water with a hand held tds meter to make sure it’s zero. Then check my refractometer with a calibration solution. Then do a series of water changes daily for about a week and then let it rest for a while. I hope the par meter helps though. Good luck.I'll post a pic tomorrow , no sand its bare bottom no algae of any kind . I'm getting in touch with a friend that has a par meter but I Increased lighting just to see . Appreciate the feedback guys
This is a tough one for sure. If it were me I’d go back to the basics. I’d check my rodi water with a hand held tds meter to make sure it’s zero. Then check my refractometer with a calibration solution. Then do a series of water changes daily for about a week and then let it rest for a while. I hope the par meter helps though. Good luck.
Correct me if I'm wrong...
You have a 160 gallon tank, and you change 20 gallons of water every 5 or 6 weeks??????
Did you start this tank 100% base rock and only cycle with bottled bacteria and no seed live rock/sand?
There were a couple of guys in my local reef club that did that and had this kind of problem, experienced reefers with parameters and light that all looked great but they got basically no growth out of coral for months.
They ended up seeding their tanks with LR from successful systems as a last resort on the thought that they might be missing some kind of biological diversity. Unknown if it will help as it was a recent change.
YOU NEED to check your PAR. Ihad same issue in my nano. Perfect params. I had 2 Kessil 160s. Thought I had PLENTY of light at 75% intensity. Turns out my par was REALLY REALLY low....
SEVERAL FACTORS WILL INFLUENCE SUCH DOWNTURNS WITH CORAL. VERIFY THE FOLLOWING:
Salinity. . . Is it possible youre getting a false reading. Just mentioned to someone 2 days ago who thought he had 1.025 to discover it was 1.014
Have you change salt mix or added Kalk ?
Have you gone to a brighter lighting scheduling too quickly?
Has your water flow changed?
I would suggest a 2nd a opinion from a trusted LFS to compare with your readings ad to verify salinity
I'm going to chime in with my experience, but I am no Reef God Guru.
Stop messing with your lights. Your Corals especially acros will take about 1 month to adjust to your lighting. Set your light up with the schedule you want, then forget it, and dont adjust. But rather adjust and move your corals around in case you see them react poorly.
Get a par meter by either renting one, or buying one. As mentioned before, ask your LFS if they have one for rent, or see if a local reef group has one for rent. This is critical as our eyes can't detect par just by looking at the tank.
Where do you keep your temp at?
What are you using to test your nitrates, and phosphates? Feeding my fish everyday at least 2-3 times a day helped me with my acros. Also are you running a fuge? If so, is your chaeto growing? If its dying off, then you dont have enough nutrients in your tank.
Here are a couple of things I did that helped me stop killing my corals.
Removed filter socks, and I did this for 2 reasons. My chaeto kept dying off on my no matter what. So at my last attempt of growing chaeto, I decided it was time to remove the crap catcher and allow the chaeto to absorb it. I'd say that after 2-3 weeks I noticed that my chaeto was not turning yellowish white and still held its green. About 1 1/2 in 8 knew that it had to be working cause the grapefruit size ball of chaeto had doubled, and now about every 2 weeks I can harvest about 1-2 gallon size bags worth of chaeto. The other reason I stopped using filter socks was cause I hated replacing them every other day.
Purchased a t5 hybrid system as my 3 hydra26 HD on my 4ft tank was causing shadowing. Now I have a blanket of light through out my tank, and the 4 bulb t5 added 200+par to the tank alone.
Bought a second hand par meter (PMK). Helped me dial in my lights, and to truly know how much par I was giving my corals. Its when I figured out that my hydras were giving out 400+ par alone 6-7 inches below water line, and with both hydras and t5 I get 600+.
I also only have a couple of frags glued down to rock work. I keep a couple of frag racks in my tank so that I can monitor how the frags are doing at different levels in my tank. When I think I've found the right place for my frag, I'll use gorilla glue and set it. If I see it doesnt like where it's at, i can pop it off and move it around instead of adjusting my light.
I dont run a BB tank, but i am in the thinking process of removing my sand from my tank cause i like the idea of being able to crank up my flow and not have to deal with patches of bare bottom, and mounds of sand in section of my tank. With that being said, from what I've read in this community is that starting off with a BB tank is a pain in the tush since you have place besides your rocks to build your bacteria. And that you will also have a wide variety of either bacterial blooms, weirdness in alk, calk consumption. And that all seems to settle out after about 1- 1 1/2 years after the tanks has been running. Other that started off with BB can chime in more on this topic. I read you have marine pure blocks or bioballs in your sump, and that you were going to remove them because of the aluminum. If you do remove it, throw in some live rock rubble, or something I saw Mark from Melevs Reef do was put down crushed coral that you would use for a CaRx.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm in the car on a 3 1/2 road trip to drop off my stepson as he is returning back to college after his summer break.