Having some trouble with corals...

[taylear]

Hey R2R,

I am new to the reefing hobby and have had my 40 gallon breeder reef tank up and running for around 2 months now. I began adding corals when my tank first cycled added the majority of my frags ~ 2 weeks ago. I have mainly soft corals (GSP, xenia, zoanthids, leathers, and mushrooms), but also just recently got a frogspawn and some plate coral from a friend. The corals that I have been having trouble with are my xenia, leathers (sinularia and lobophytum), as well as one of my GSP mats, although I wouldnt say any of my corals have looked consistently happy since I've had them other than my frogspawn which I got < 1 week ago.

1. The Xenia:
I got a silver xenia frag when my tank first cycled and it looked great at first, but over time it lost its color and turned white, and began shrinking. I tried placing it in areas with different flow, but I eventually deemed it dead because it didnt open up for over a month and just looked bad. Unfortunately I don't have a good picture of it when it looked bad. I got another xenia frag just over 2 weeks ago and it is starting to go through the same thing my previous xenia frag did... where its losing its color and slowly shrinking. I attached a picture of how it looks today (apologize for the low quality), and unfortunately didnt get a good pic of how it looked after I first added it.

2. The Leathers:
I got 2 leather frags just over 2 weeks ago (1 lobophytum and 1 sinularia) that have not yet been fully opening their polyps for me. I've attached photos of those leathers below as well. They have both been shedding and I've been using my turkey baster every once in a while to blast debris off of them, but I still haven't seen any polyps come out. They are both in high flow areas as recommended by the seller, who seems to think they are fine and just need some more time. I have noticed that the leathers both drastically change in size from time to time. This is especially true of the lobophytum frag, which I noticed had doubled in size as of last night but shrunk back down to the size I normally see it at once the lights came on this morning.

3. The GSP:
So one of my GSP frags I got when the tank first cycled and that frag used to have nice long polyps that extended from it, but after a few days it retracted its polyps and now they seem to open every once in a while, but at a fraction of their original length. The mat has grown some but the polyps have remained small. I have another GSP colony that I got in my batch just over 2 weeks ago, which seems to be doing fine so far.

Because of the various issues I have been having with different types of corals, I thought there might be some systemic issue going on with my water quality or lighting.

My water parameters as of today:
Salinity: 1.025
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 0-5 ppm
Calcium: 420 ppm
Phosphates: 0 ppm
dKH: 9-10*
pH: 8.2
Temp: 77

*All of the parameters have been pretty consistent except for my dKH which seems to drop ~0.7 every 24 hours or so. For this I have been adding Seachem's reef fusion 1/2 combo almost daily.
I have been doing 25% water changes every 2 weeks with Instant Ocean reef crystals salt, and on the last water change ensured that the parameters of the freshly mixed saltwater were within normal ranges.

Lighting:
I am using 2 Viparspectra 165w LED lights to light my 40 breeder tank. I have read that these lights are extremely bright and I've been trying to keep the lights at a low setting as to not bleach my corals, which is what I think I may have done with the xenias due to their pallor. I run the lights from 11:00 AM - 9:00 PM, with the first and last hours being only blue lights (is this too long?). When I first started my tank I had the lights set at 20%- 25% blues and 5-10% whites, but over the past week I have been gradually ramping up the lights, which are now running at 40% blues and 20% whites, which was recommended to me to get the leathers to extend their polyps. All of my corals are in the middle to lower half of my tank. I have a feeling my lighting could be a potential issue as I don't know how reliable my lights are and I also have 2 of them positioned close to one another over my 40B tank, which I'd imagine have a lot of overlap with one another.

Also, my tank is stocked with 2 ocellaris clowns, a landmower blenny, royal gramma, sixline wrasse, various CUC snails, a tuxedo urchin, and a cleaner shrimp. The cleaner shrimp is a bit annoying because it is very active and frequently walks on the corals, especially during feeding. I have been feeding my fish various frozen food mixes (Marine Cuisine, Emerald Entree) and flakes.

I know this is a long post and there's a lot going on, but any tips/ideas/solutions for any of my issues are appreciated! Let me know if you all have any other questions for me!

 

[MaxxuM]

"...dKH which seems to drop ~0.7 every 24 hours or so."

Ouch, that can have a deleterious effect on corals if it happens too often.

Temperature, Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia, Phosphates and pH are the first step to stability. The second, and just as if not more important, are Alkalinity, Calcium and Magnesium. This is what people are talking about when they say you should have "stability" before adding corals. 0.7 shifts aren't normal. Something is happening. Maybe a bad test kit or just bad reading of the results.

Did you check Alk of makeup water? Sea salt's can become stratified so you need to remix the powder in the bags. This can have a dramatic alk shift effect.

IMO your ramp up of the lights was much too fast as well. I'd go up 5-10% per week. How high are the lights off the water? They should probably be at least 12-15" from what I've read. If they are lower the PAR could be very high and your corals are all pretty much medium to low light loving creatures.

Test your makeup water to assure it's no further than 1 dKH away from your tanks for a 10% water change. If you do more than a 15% water change alk should be within 0.5dKH. If you do more than 50% alk should be exactly the same as tank water. And ramp up the light more slowly.

Hope that helps.

 

[taylear]

"...dKH which seems to drop ~0.7 every 24 hours or so."

Ouch, that can have a deleterious effect on corals if it happens too often.

Temperature, Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia, Phosphates and pH are the first step to stability. The second, and just as if not more important, are Alkalinity, Calcium and Magnesium. This is what people are talking about when they say you should have "stability" before adding corals. 0.7 shifts aren't normal. Something is happening. Maybe a bad test kit or just bad reading of the results.

Did you check Alk of makeup water? Sea salt's can become stratified so you need to remix the powder in the bags. This can have a dramatic alk shift effect.

IMO your ramp up of the lights was much too fast as well. I'd go up 5-10% per week. How high are the lights off the water? They should probably be at least 12-15" from what I've read. If they are lower the PAR could be very high and your corals are all pretty much medium to low light loving creatures.

Test your makeup water to assure it's no further than 1 dKH away from your tanks for a 10% water change. If you do more than a 15% water change alk should be within 0.5dKH. If you do more than 50% alk should be exactly the same as tank water. And ramp up the light more slowly.

Hope that helps.

I was worried the API test kit I was using wasn't as reliable so I switched to the Hanna dKH checker and was still seeing consistent drops in dKH as the day went on... I did test my newly mixed water and it was within 0.5 dKH when I did my water change. Still confused as to why my dKH keeps dropping... My lights are 8" above the surface.

 

[Bfragale]

Bring up nitrate to around 10 ppm and po4 to .14 ish. The leathers and Xenia like a little “dirty” water. Not sure what equipment your running but you may be over stripping the water if it’s nutrients.

but could be your tank is so young. May need to stabilize a bit longer.

Good luck my friend.

 

[MaxxuM]

I retract everything I said and agree with @Tahoe61

Except for the lights issue. I think they are too low and the power level set too high.

 

[Tahoe61]

The tank is still very young, at this time I would discontinue dosing entirely and let the alk drift down to 7.5-8 dkh.
With the corals you have and the water changes that should be all you need.
I have 1 Viparspectra 165 watts over a 40 IM @90% blue and 5% white. I very slowly increased by 2% every week. Most of my corals are sps and Zoanthids. You have a ton of light, I would turn down the white.
Your tank just needs more time to stablize, just stick with water changes.

Trust me it will come around.

 

[Tahoe61]

I would also use plain old IO not reef crystals. You do not need a salt that mixes at higher alk at this point.

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Zero nitrates and phosphates are to low they are starving feed the tank more and decrease how much water you change out

 

[taylear]

Bring up nitrate to around 10 ppm and po4 to .14 ish. The leathers and Xenia like a little “dirty” water. Not sure what equipment your running but you may be over stripping the water if it’s nutrients.

but could be your tank is so young. May need to stabilize a bit longer.

Good luck my friend.

I have a carbon bag, phosguard, and a skimmer in my sump that has been pulling a ton of skimmate out of the water. I started using the phosguard because I had a big diatom bloom which has since improved, I'll try to let the water get a little dirtier.

 

[taylear]

Thanks for the responses y'all! I checked my dKH again today and sure enough it dropped by ~0.7 in a day... Any idea why it continues to fall like this?

 

[MaxxuM]

I’m more of a biology person than a chemist, but in the past I would see this happen in new tanks. They’d drop point one or two dKH per day. It may have to do with establishing bacteria. I would just compensate the difference by dosing by hand. Usually, it would equal out after a month or so and I’d stop. Since you have corals already, personally, I would dose in small quantities to raise it over the day and right after lights out. You culd also just see what happens. There will be a point where whatever is taking up alk will slow or stop because there just isn’t enough to easily convert. I like to “feel usefull” though and err on the side of caution and stabalize things while monitoring the levels closely so you don’t over shoot things. The danger is a rubber banding effect where it stabalizes and the alk goes too high, which Tahoe61 is probably thinking may happen and he may be right.