Hammer growth or signs of trouble?

[Ralph Ritoch]

What light do you have?

This is the light, I keep it around 75-80% durring the day. Evening I turn off the white, and over night I lower the blue to about 10%. Some nights I turn it off but if there was anything stressful that day I leave it on so they can still have some energy. These coral are all fairly active at night.

https://www.lazada.com.ph/products/165w-dimmable-full-spectrum-led-aquarium-light-fish-tank-reef-coral-marine-lamp-intl-i163900898-s202045728.html?spm=a2o4l.searchlist.list.5.1552601cDNbu6u&search=1

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

Also I dont do anything to the collected sea water I just store it in bottles ready to use, I store it for months in the dark in a shed. Using a uv will kill the free food that is in the saltwater which your corals could use as food. A note on what you said is that you increase your salinity, what is the salinity of it when it as at tank temp, as salinity changes with the water temp. So when collected it will read lower than when at 78-80 degrees, don't adjust it when the water is cold, or the salinity will be too high.

Temperature wise I'm running hot, 84-88. I have plans to get a chiller but for now I'm using a PC fan on hot days, and flat out adding ice to the filter on really hot days. I do carry synthetic salt to counter the ice.

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

Hammer update. The color is coming back. The one head I did a 4th target feeding on and this time left the pump and wavemaker off for about 10 minutes. It isn't recovering as well as the other heads but it is getting color finally. At this rate I believe it should only take a few days of daily feeding, which should also increase the nutrients in the water to get it back to health. Its pumping more than I've ever seen it pump before so I take that as a good sign. One of the flower pots is a little stressed, but not so bad. Hopefully customs will be quick with my order of reef roids!

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

I have 3 fish. I have 2 clowns and a yellow watchman goby with a pistol shrimp. 84- 88 is very high. When u say you add ice, do you add it directly or a bottle of frozen rodi water just resting in the tank. As adding fresh water every day is going to mess with your salinity alot. Just use it as an ice pack to cool it. I'm not familiar with that light you're using I'm using a viparspectra 165w, 9 inches off the water running 55 blue and 1 white.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

This is the light, I keep it around 75-80% durring the day. Evening I turn off the white, and over night I lower the blue to about 10%. Some nights I turn it off but if there was anything stressful that day I leave it on so they can still have some energy. These coral are all fairly active at night.

https://www.lazada.com.ph/products/165w-dimmable-full-spectrum-led-aquarium-light-fish-tank-reef-coral-marine-lamp-intl-i163900898-s202045728.html?spm=a2o4l.searchlist.list.5.1552601cDNbu6u&search=1

Corals need to rest at night which is why they start to close up towards the end of the day so I would turn the light off over night and let them all rest as even 10% is high.

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

Corals need to rest at night which is why they start to close up towards the end of the day so I would turn the light off over night and let them all rest as even 10% is high.

My thinking on this was that since some reefers leave light on overnight and there is a such thing as moonlight it would be OK, but if I'm not looking at the wrong numbers it looks like 10% blue is about 200 lumins and the moon is only about 0.3 lumins. I'll need to do more research on that but once this tank is stable I do plan on keeping it off at night.

As for the ice, yes I add it directly in the filter. On hot days the salinity will spike due to evaporation. I think this PC fan is about 15W, I used it for cryptocurrency mineing, it isn't a typical PC fan, and I use it for cooling but it also increases evaporation.

 

[motortrendz]

I'm confused on y your LFS would say you.dont need calcium. You definitly shouldn't dose it or anything else unless your testing it... second how bright is that 165w led panel you have? Meaning how intense are your levels. Those lights put out a ton of intense lighting. Especially on the white channel. And when you say the parameters should be the same as the ocean bc your using NSW, that worries me. Your little eco system will use up more nutrients and hold more detritus than youd find in the ocean.

I'd really recommend you start testing even if it's a simple API test kit. You can get the reef kit for like 50$ and it tests all calcium ph nitrates. Magnesium Is also a very important test.
What do you test salinitly with? A refractometer or a hydrometer? If using a hydrometer its extremely important to rinse the unit with clean fresh water every time you use it as the dried salt will affect you next reading.
How often re you topping your system with fresh water(hopefully ro/di) as swings in salinitly can definitly cause LPS bailout.
Hope these questions help steer you In the right direction.

P.s. your LFS kinda scares me if they said your coral doesnt need calcium. What else are they telling you?

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

I'm confused on y your LFS would say you.dont need calcium. You definitly shouldn't dose it or anything else unless your testing it... second how bright is that 165w led panel you have? Meaning how intense are your levels. Those lights put out a ton of intense lighting. Especially on the white channel. And when you say the parameters should be the same as the ocean bc your using NSW, that worries me. Your little eco system will use up more nutrients and hold more detritus than youd find in the ocean.

I'd really recommend you start testing even if it's a simple API test kit. You can get the reef kit for like 50$ and it tests all calcium ph nitrates. Magnesium Is also a very important test.
What do you test salinitly with? A refractometer or a hydrometer? If using a hydrometer its extremely important to rinse the unit with clean fresh water every time you use it as the dried salt will affect you next reading.
How often re you topping your system with fresh water(hopefully ro/di) as swings in salinitly can definitly cause LPS bailout.
Hope these questions help steer you In the right direction.

P.s. your LFS kinda scares me if they said your coral doesnt need calcium. What else are they telling you?

I never top off with RO water (no DI), and if I do I add salt first. I have a ready supply of salt water. As for the test kits, they aren't available from any of the places I buy from normally. The place I ordered the reef roids from also sell the test kits so assuming I get my reef roids in good order than I'll order the testing kits from them also. Either way, it'll be about a month before I receive the test kits.

I use a hydrometer and I didn't know about the dried salt, thanks for the tip! I use it almost every day so I don't know that it ever dries but anything I can do to make it more accurate I'm good with.

As for my LFS, they are the only one that I know of on this island and they don't really offer much for reefs. So far I've bought a dying torch coral, a green star covered in red algae, and a bleached hammer from them. The zoanthids and flowerpot coral seem ok so far. The fish on the other hand are very healthy, they really have a good fish business but they special order corals for me and their supplier apparently isn't very good. On the plus side they were under $15 each.

 

[motortrendz]

Where are you located? Amazon sells the api test kit. And I'm pretty sure they deliver anywhere... as for not using RO water in top off what do you top off your evaporation with? Hopefully not salt water..

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

Where are you located? Amazon sells the api test kit. And I'm pretty sure they deliver anywhere... as for not using RO water in top off what do you top off your evaporation with? Hopefully not salt water..

Yes salt water. I do a 10% change every week and the evaporation is how I keep the salinity at 1.024. The source water is only 1.018. I'm in the Philippine Islands, most Amazon stores don't ship here.

 

[motortrendz]

Oh well that makes a big difference in things. Do you actually get the water from the ocean? I didn't know the salinitly was that low there. Interesting. So when you do a water change it lowers your salinitly and then you let it evaporate to get it to 1.24-1.025? The swings in salinitly could definitly be your issue.

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

Oh well that makes a big difference in things. Do you actually get the water from the ocean? I didn't know the salinitly was that low there. Interesting. So when you do a water change it lowers your salinitly and then you let it evaporate to get it to 1.24-1.025? The swings in salinitly could definitly be your issue.

The salinity is low because of a river as far as I can tell, and its rainy season. I store the water for about a week (with some liverock, filter media, and bubbler) in a reservoir (plastic garbage can) but I only ever use about 50% of it, so I always have extra if I need it. The water is already at least 1.022 when I add it to the tank and the tank is now at 1.024. About once a month I've had to add some of the RO water to lower the salinity, but usually only a gallon or two.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

The salinity is low because of a river as far as I can tell, and its rainy season. I store the water for about a week (with some liverock, filter media, and bubbler) in a reservoir (plastic garbage can) but I only ever use about 50% of it, so I always have extra if I need it. The water is already at least 1.022 when I add it to the tank and the tank is now at 1.024. About once a month I've had to add some of the RO water to lower the salinity, but usually only a gallon or two.

This is what I was saying about the water you collect if collected it tests at 1.018 what does it test at when up to temperature? And you only add fresh water for top off never salt water as the salt is left in the system when evaporation occurs. You have to keep chasing your salinity which is one thing you could do with being stable before you even start with corals or dosing anything else. You need to blow a fan across the surface of your tank/sump and that will help evaporation then you top off with fresh rodi water preferably through an auto top off. If not then a bottle of frozen rodi water placed in the tank/sump (actually in the bottle) dont pour the contents in as that will just knacker your salinity up again. Just take things slow and adjust slowly or you will annoy the corals even more.

 

[motortrendz]

Only other question I would have is since you said there's a river that feed the water where you collect your salt water from, I'm sure the local runoff from rain drains into this river... what kind of pollutants have made it into the collected water and what has made it into your system? That would be my main concern.

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

This is what I was saying about the water you collect if collected it tests at 1.018 what does it test at when up to temperature? And you only add fresh water for top off never salt water as the salt is left in the system when evaporation occurs. You have to keep chasing your salinity which is one thing you could do with being stable before you even start with corals or dosing anything else. You need to blow a fan across the surface of your tank/sump and that will help evaporation then you top off with fresh rodi water preferably through an auto top off. If not then a bottle of frozen rodi water placed in the tank/sump (actually in the bottle) dont pour the contents in as that will just knacker your salinity up again. Just take things slow and adjust slowly or you will annoy the corals even more.

The water is already at about 88 degrees when its collected so there's no temperature change. With my weekly water changes I haven't really thought much about topping off the tank. I just let the level go down and test regularly, usually before and after the water change. I had one salinity jump in the past month which I thought was mostly due to the weather change (cooling) but it could have been the evaporation. Every other time salinity was high I used it as an excuse to add ice. I already have a 15W PC fan blowing across the tank on hot days. If it isn't hot I don't turn it on.

 

[motortrendz]

88° that's about 10° too hot for anything in a tank...

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

Only other question I would have is since you said there's a river that feed the water where you collect your salt water from, I'm sure the local runoff from rain drains into this river... what kind of pollutants have made it into the collected water and what has made it into your system? That would be my main concern.

This is a fishing village, there's really no risk of pollutants.

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

88° that's about 10° too hot for anything in a tank...

It is the temperature of the ocean where these corals are collected, the corals don't even seem to care if its a hot day.

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

As of now the Hammer seems to be on the road to recovery. I realize my specs are not standard but I am slowly growing and adjusting the system as I learn more and have the resources. Second crisis in action right now as my Zoa is apparently filled with hitchhikers. Something with tentacles, and a crab, I only noticed them because my starfish is disturbing the zoa. It seems that as soon as I turned off the light the SHTF.

The tentacles could be from a colony of small brittle star, I really can't tell. It looks like a mini reticulated brittle star.

 

[Cassian]

I dont know if the ammonia and nitrate could be a problem, but I grow quite a lot of hammer and it sounds like it is definitely reacting to something. what is the flow on it and how old is the tank? also, I do agree with the above that it is bleached. plus the already missing heads are suspicious. I would say it probably needs better lighting as well. I would also try to raise you SG (slowly) to about 1.026. I find my hammers do better with that.

edit: just noticed your temp. I agree that is way to high