Hey gang,
My tank is a 3 month old 75g with a large sump with a total system volume of around 95g. Overall the tank has been doing well since setup. I started with Ocean Direct sand, marco rock, and a couple pieces of live rock from my former nano tank. I have set it up to give the Triton method a try so I have a fuge. It has a softball size ball of chaeto that appears healthy and has thickened up nicely but not really grown in volume. I have an Essence S-130 skimmer which pulls a reasonable amount of stuff out. I have my Triton additives setup on dosing pumps and I have been testing Alk almost daily and keep tweaking dosing to keep it right around 8.0. I've setup my skimmer with a recirculating CO2 scrubber and managed to get my pH to settle in on a 8.05 - 8.2 daily cycle. My nutrients have always been very low without help and I've had to dose Neophos daily since the early days to keep the Phosphates from bottoming out. I have dialed that in on a dosing pump and it generally sits around .03-.07 (usually on the lower end). Nitrates are in the 5-7 range. Calcium 440-450 and Magnesium around 1350. I test everything weekly and Alk and PO4 almost daily to keep them in check until things really settle in. I have about a dozen fish now and I feed heavily given my low nutrients. I have the Avast Marine feeder going 5x per day, plus I usually do one feeding of frozen mysis and calanus or flakes or pellets. I also put a bit of nori in every few days for the tang and others. I have been adding some phyto almost daily and every other day or so I mix in some aminos, coral vitalize, and reef chili or reef-roids for either a targeted or broadcast feeding.
All of this is to say that I feel like, to the best of my ability, I've been very on top of things and trying to keep a very stable environment. The coralline exploded and covered nearly everything in the first 2 months, the corals I transplanted all seemed to be doing great and many that weren't really growing much in my nano started to take off. I've probably added ~30-40 frags over the last 3 months. Especially my SPS were doing quite well for the first 2 months - some simpler varieties like birds nest and stylophora were taking off unlike they ever did in my nano.
Along the way I did quite a bit of tweaking as it is a new tank. I added a reef brite XHO actinic strip light to the front to get more even light in addition to the Kessil AP9x (which only runs at 15%-20%). I added a lower power reef brite to the back as well which I have since taken back off as I didn't like the look and the corals didn't seem as happy back there. I have used a par meter to dial in all of the light, most of the LPS are in the 50-150 range, and SPS in the 200-250 range.
The struggle I've encountered is that over the past couple of weeks, a number of my corals have started to go downhill. All of my SPS frags have just taken a nose dive. All are suffering to some level having lost at least some of their polyps / tissue, some others have died altogether. Additionally, I have half a dozen euphyllia, and I've had 2 frogspawn and a hammer that were looking great for a few weeks, then over the course of a week just quickly receded to nothing. I do have a couple of torch and hammer that seem to be thriving though (all similar light and flow, in fact very near each other for the most part) . I don't see any sign of disease. Most of the rest of my corals seem fine - a bunch of acans, zoas, elegance, blastos, gonis. I do have a candy cane coral frag that was extending hugely that has looked pretty shriveled and sad the past couple weeks too.
I've sent off an ICP test and am awaiting results but I'm baffled as my parameters have stayed very consistent. I also run a carbon reactor with BRS carbon and I added a UV sterilizer a few weeks ago as in spite of quarantine, my tang seems to have ich and a few other fish are flashing now and again. It seems to be keeping it at bay as it hasn't taken off.
I'd love any thoughts on troubleshooting as this is quite frustrating and it's episodes like these that give me anxiety about the hobby - how no matter how closely you monitor your params and how attentive you are, it always seems like things can take a random nose dive for no apparent reason!
Thanks,
Zach
My tank is a 3 month old 75g with a large sump with a total system volume of around 95g. Overall the tank has been doing well since setup. I started with Ocean Direct sand, marco rock, and a couple pieces of live rock from my former nano tank. I have set it up to give the Triton method a try so I have a fuge. It has a softball size ball of chaeto that appears healthy and has thickened up nicely but not really grown in volume. I have an Essence S-130 skimmer which pulls a reasonable amount of stuff out. I have my Triton additives setup on dosing pumps and I have been testing Alk almost daily and keep tweaking dosing to keep it right around 8.0. I've setup my skimmer with a recirculating CO2 scrubber and managed to get my pH to settle in on a 8.05 - 8.2 daily cycle. My nutrients have always been very low without help and I've had to dose Neophos daily since the early days to keep the Phosphates from bottoming out. I have dialed that in on a dosing pump and it generally sits around .03-.07 (usually on the lower end). Nitrates are in the 5-7 range. Calcium 440-450 and Magnesium around 1350. I test everything weekly and Alk and PO4 almost daily to keep them in check until things really settle in. I have about a dozen fish now and I feed heavily given my low nutrients. I have the Avast Marine feeder going 5x per day, plus I usually do one feeding of frozen mysis and calanus or flakes or pellets. I also put a bit of nori in every few days for the tang and others. I have been adding some phyto almost daily and every other day or so I mix in some aminos, coral vitalize, and reef chili or reef-roids for either a targeted or broadcast feeding.
All of this is to say that I feel like, to the best of my ability, I've been very on top of things and trying to keep a very stable environment. The coralline exploded and covered nearly everything in the first 2 months, the corals I transplanted all seemed to be doing great and many that weren't really growing much in my nano started to take off. I've probably added ~30-40 frags over the last 3 months. Especially my SPS were doing quite well for the first 2 months - some simpler varieties like birds nest and stylophora were taking off unlike they ever did in my nano.
Along the way I did quite a bit of tweaking as it is a new tank. I added a reef brite XHO actinic strip light to the front to get more even light in addition to the Kessil AP9x (which only runs at 15%-20%). I added a lower power reef brite to the back as well which I have since taken back off as I didn't like the look and the corals didn't seem as happy back there. I have used a par meter to dial in all of the light, most of the LPS are in the 50-150 range, and SPS in the 200-250 range.
The struggle I've encountered is that over the past couple of weeks, a number of my corals have started to go downhill. All of my SPS frags have just taken a nose dive. All are suffering to some level having lost at least some of their polyps / tissue, some others have died altogether. Additionally, I have half a dozen euphyllia, and I've had 2 frogspawn and a hammer that were looking great for a few weeks, then over the course of a week just quickly receded to nothing. I do have a couple of torch and hammer that seem to be thriving though (all similar light and flow, in fact very near each other for the most part) . I don't see any sign of disease. Most of the rest of my corals seem fine - a bunch of acans, zoas, elegance, blastos, gonis. I do have a candy cane coral frag that was extending hugely that has looked pretty shriveled and sad the past couple weeks too.
I've sent off an ICP test and am awaiting results but I'm baffled as my parameters have stayed very consistent. I also run a carbon reactor with BRS carbon and I added a UV sterilizer a few weeks ago as in spite of quarantine, my tang seems to have ich and a few other fish are flashing now and again. It seems to be keeping it at bay as it hasn't taken off.
I'd love any thoughts on troubleshooting as this is quite frustrating and it's episodes like these that give me anxiety about the hobby - how no matter how closely you monitor your params and how attentive you are, it always seems like things can take a random nose dive for no apparent reason!
Thanks,
Zach
