Declining corals.

josepy1 · Feb 4, 2011

So the ammonia is gone 0 phosphates, nitrates, nitrites. Zoas softies will not completely open. lps are fine. sps are sill receding. New sps is starting to recede. new zoa colony which was fine for three days is now doing the same thing as the others. water quality is spot on and has been stable for about 2 weeks.

quality is as follows
calc 450
mag 1400
alk 3.5 meq
salinity 1.024-.025 for evaporation
temp is a stable 77.5

The only thing i can think is that the algae issue is effecting things green slime on the glass i have to clean every day sometimes twice. Millions of micro bubbles produced from the algae all over the place. Is dynos toxic at this stage? The only reason i say this is about halfway threw the light cycle everything gets really angry and closes up. Or am i just being impatient? thanks joe

m and m · Feb 4, 2011

What is yoru alk in DKH im sorry i dont know meq off the top of my head, also hwo stable are thos param?

dougers31 · Feb 4, 2011

Params look good to me, I think I'd do a decent water change and suck out as much cyno as you can.

m and m · Feb 4, 2011

dougers31 said:
Params look good to me, I think I'd do a decent water change and suck out as much cyno as you can.

They could be fine now but if there was just a big swing that could be what hit the acros and caused the receding

davelink · Feb 4, 2011

i would check for AEFW too, those can creep up like no otha motha

josepy1 · Feb 4, 2011

dougers31 said:
Params look good to me, I think I'd do a decent water change and suck out as much cyno as you can.

Thats whhat i just did lol

m and m said:
What is yoru alk in DKH im sorry i dont know meq off the top of my head, also hwo stable are thos param?

3.5meq is 9.8 dkh and everytin has been stable since i have been dosin calc and alk everyoter day and kalkswasser everyoter night for ph which is a stable 8.2. so i sould be just patient and keep doin wat im doin lol.

aalvarado87 · Feb 4, 2011

How old is this tank? did you just start adding stuff or has it just been on a downhill slide after doing pretty well? How new are those test kits. I would maybe run a water sample down to the lfs and let them test and see what results they come up with. i once had a bad phosphate test kit and didnt know it. It wasn't even out of date.

josepy1 · Feb 4, 2011

aalvarado87 said:
How old is this tank? did you just start adding stuff or has it just been on a downhill slide after doing pretty well? How new are those test kits. I would maybe run a water sample down to the lfs and let them test and see what results they come up with. i once had a bad phosphate test kit and didnt know it. It wasn't even out of date.

Tank is 5 years old 2.5 years mixed reef. In november my tank was mainly lps and was absolutely amazing. I got a crazy wit sps and literally put 15 new pieces into my tank and for about a month everytin looked amazing. wasnt checkin alk then i noticed my zoas and palys not openin fully, so i checked alk and it was in the toilet, slowly brought it up. sps started to melt, then zoas, then lps started to decline. checked ammonia and it was .5 prolly from the death. then the dyno . i brin water to LFS for that reason, human error or bad test kits. Thinggs are better but not back to normal, its just frustrating.

BlazinNano · Feb 4, 2011

Just give it time. If you go to fast you could mad it worse. You will probably loose stuff but hopefully not everything. That is the only crappy thing about this hobby one mistake and you have to play catchup for a while to fix it.

aalvarado87 · Feb 5, 2011

i could imagine how annoying that must be well if everything looks good all i can recommend is keep testing and keep up your water changes. maybe this bad laps will go away don't give up i am sure you will find a way to get through this rough spell.

LeCorals81 · Feb 5, 2011

Wow, sounds rough. Were you the one doing the crazy fox growout? Good luck.

skinz78 · Feb 5, 2011

How much flow do you have in there? Do you have a phosphate test kit? I am assuming you are using RO/DI correct? How long has it been since you have changed your filters? How old are your bulbs?

josepy1 · Feb 5, 2011

aalvarado87 said:
i could imagine how annoying that must be well if everything looks good all i can recommend is keep testing and keep up your water changes. maybe this bad laps will go away don't give up i am sure you will find a way to get through this rough spell.

skinz78 said:
How much flow do you have in there? Do you have a phosphate test kit? I am assuming you are using RO/DI correct? How long has it been since you have changed your filters? How old are your bulbs?

i have two maxi 1200s one maxi 900, one koralia 4, and a fluval 405. 0 phosphates lfs confirmed my test kit, RO comes from LFs and i checked that lol. i never change my filters they have beneficial bacteria in it that breaks down the bad stuff. I retrofitted my t5 in october and new pheonix 14ks in december. algae came from bad lighting i think.

josepy1 · Feb 5, 2011

LeCorals81 said:
Wow, sounds rough. Were you the one doing the crazy fox growout? Good luck.

Yes and the funny thing is i just cut about 2k worth of chalices the other day and they are all fine.i am getting pics of my first cutting tonight i think. I cant wait till i get the sexycorals package in my tank its gonna be awesome.

sprinklerdudes · Feb 5, 2011

have you checked you magnisium levels? I had some of my chalics start recedding after a year or so, couldn't figure it out, started having algea issues agian, added a rufugium with macro algea, and offset my light cycles, that helped but i was still stumped, found out my mag was way low, started slowly doesing when I added my 2 part soulution, after about two weeks, the coral started showing growth agian, and the algea dissappeared, also had noticed before I checked mag. that coraline algea growth had stopped growing on the glass, since my mag levels are up, I have had to start scrapping the coraline back off the glass at least once a week now, not sure if that could be your problem, but it might be worth checking.