Getting tired of ruining things...Hammer problem

[mdbronco]

Hi,

I feel like I've been posting a lot lately. From strange algae to water chemistry to noisy equipment. I'm not exactly struggling but not exactly having that much fun either and am starting to question this whole thing, and having a wife that constantly complains about noise/smell/lack of attention doesn't help :). I'm not good with losing stock as I feel incredible guilty. Thus far one fish loss at the very start and this was due to me spilling something directly into the sump in a clutzy move, but since start-up (8 months), I haven't lost any other fish, and I QT everything. But coral...

I've added the attached two hammers within the past month - acquired from two different LFS - and both look terrible. I've tried relocating, reducing/increasing flow, spot feeding 2x a week...nothing seems to help and I'm really worried I am killing these things. Corals are hit and miss with me. Softies except one mushroom do well (apparently I'm the only one my LFS ever heard about killing a mushroom), most zoas do well but one just melted after months of growth, my few SPS are showing growth and my mini BTA (size of a quarter) is growing and seems to enjoy life.

Triton test last week seemed inline with my basic home testing, and I've thought I've kept things quite stable. But my poor hammers are clearly suffering. Any tips or should I give up adding corals until my tank turns around (it's been up for about 8 months):

https://www.triton-lab.de/aquariumverwaltung/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/57587/

I conduct weekly water changes of 10% religiously, and passively run carbon in a sock within my sump. AI hydra lights (Saxby settings), skimmer, heater + chiller with built in heater and temp is maintained at 80,5 deg. Tunze 6055s on opposite sides and in pulse mode, I have started dosing within the past three weeks Red Sea A & B, and these hammers were partly due to starting this because they looked so bad and I wanted to try and see if it would help. It doesn't seem to help them but everything else looks better.

Any thoughts because I am at a loss.

Thanks.

 

[Bayareareefer18]

How often are you moving them around and changing things?

Sometimes they just need time to settle

 

[mdbronco]

I've give them about a week, week and a half per spot, so about I've moved them about 3x each. I will move one to one area and one to another and see if either does better, with the plan then to move them to the better one. Haven't gotten to that point yet however.

 

[b4tn]

I couldnt open the link. What are your levels and are they stable? My Euphilias like medium light and low flow. I usually find a spot where they just gently sway, to much flow and they would not open. I also had issues with peppermint shrimp constantly picking at them especially at night. If you have any shrimp keep an eye on them.

 

[Hemmdog]

I had similar issues with my first tank. My problem was me randomly dosing all these different products trying out pretty much most things in this industry. The tank suffered, I didn’t know any better at the time... but time and a few 50% water changes got it back to being a little coral growing machine! Not sure if you have tried a bunch of different products to, but that was my problem :)

 

[mdbronco]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I wouldn't say I do a lot of dosing or tinkering, but I do add Red Sea A/B and NoPox. I used to dose iodine but my Triton test had it in the yellow as a bit too high so I no longer will. In terms of overall tests, the majors are:

Calc : 421
Mag: 1329
Alk: 8 dkh
Ammonia: 0
PH: 8,4
Nitrate: 10
Nitrite: 0,1
Pho4: 0,09
Salinity: 1,026
Temp: 80,5

Triton had most things in the green, except for SN (tin) at 3 and some other "minor" elements that were in the yellow (barium, Molybdenum, and Iodine) as being a bit too high.

I don't really/can't find a slow enough flow spot in my tank. It's only a 55 gallon and I keep flow up for the SPS. I try and hide them in dead spots and they don't seem to move that much, but maybe still it's too much. Who knows. I do have two cleaner shrimp that I have never seen bug corals at all during the day, but maybe they do so at night when I'm not looking?

 

[Bayareareefer18]

They do like some flow just don't blast them directly

 

[mdbronco]

yeah I def don't blast them and they sit low on the sand, so I don't think it's an overexposure issue

 

[b4tn]

I have that problem also. It’s tough setting up pumps so you have high flow for SPS but low flow for softies and LPS.

I would be mildly concerned that you have detectable levels of nitrite. I wonder if you recently had an ammonia spike/mini cycle? I have done that in the past cleaning my sand to aggressively. But I would shoot to lower your phosphate. .09 is pretty high and most will agree that .02-.03 is optimal. If a couple water changes doesn’t bring it down you could try running some GFO.

 

[mdbronco]

I don't disagree re PO4, but the issue I have is that it shows up as 0 with my Salifert kit and it was only when Triton came back did I realize it was even high. So tracking will be tougher since I don't plan on sending in weekly Triton tests...

 

[Hemmdog]

80.5 is pretty hot, if they came from colder tanks that could be part of it. Total speculation

 

[mdbronco]

both came from tanks that run at 78 so I'm not sure about that. In terms of 80,5, I've gone down that rabbit hole a while ago and thought that it was actually a good range to fit into, versus the commonly stated 75-78. Or?