help me grow acros

ctyler85

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been in the hobby awhile, had some great success, had some big failures. 265g tank. about 3 years ago had a big crash, alk spiked to 15dkh(dosing failure) and destroyed all my SPS. LPS were uneffected. then the kid was born and the tank got severely neglected. Im getting back into it again. All the LPS is still thriving(favia, favites, cyphastrea, platy, leptastrea, tachy). I used to grow sps and acros great. But since the crash I havent been able to keep any acros. The RTN after a few hours in the tank. took a break before trying anything new. got back on a water change schedule, cleaned the tank up. thought I would try an "easy" acro. Bought the frag on Saturday, and as of today its starting to RTN but the stylo frag I got the same day seems to be uneffected.
ammonia undetectable with api
nitrates undetectable with api
nitrites undetectable with api
alk 8.5dkh
calicum 550
magnesium 1500
ph 8.0
I know the calcium and magnesium are super high but I can not figure out how to get them down. Doing some reading through the forums it seems like maybe I have a nutrient deficiency? Any thoughts, input advice would be awesome. I need to get the tank dialed in before I go trying another frag. At this point I'm ready to start investing some real money to make this tank successful again
 

CoralB

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Don’t want ever want to zero out nitrates and phosphates. What is your phosphates ? .
 
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javisaman

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nowadays the prevailing idea is that you should have some nitrates (0 > x > 10ppm) and some phosphates (0 > x > 0.1ppm). Your calcium is imbalanced with the alk, try to bring it down to around ~450ppm. Water changes should hopefully bring the calcium down. Feed more and slowly bring up the nutrients.

However, it is still unusual that the SPS RTN'd quickly. What kind of lighting are you using and have you done an ICP test?
 
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ctyler85

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Don’t want to zero out nitrates and phosphates. What is your phosphates ? .
All of my test kits expired, so I bought all new test kits. I didn't get a phosphate test kit but just ordered a refill for my hannah, so I'll be able to check phosphates in a few days
 

dedragon

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550 calcium and 1500 magnesium is very high and may be even higher if test kits dont measure that high. Best thing is always a nice water change to get levels in check, dose phosphates and nitrates if bottomed out
 
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ctyler85

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nowadays the prevailing idea is that you should have some nitrates (0 > x > 10ppm) and some phosphates (0 > x > 0.1ppm). Your calcium is imbalanced with the alk, try to bring it down to around ~450ppm. Water changes should hopefully bring the calcium down. Feed more and slowly bring up the nutrients.

However, it is still unusual that the SPS RTN'd quickly. What kind of lighting are you using and have you done an ICP test?
Honestly every time do a water change the calcium goes up. I did just add some more fish and have been feeding regularly again I need to get back into it. I remember 5 or so years ago the idea was 0 everything lol now I'm reading we want the nutrients.
I'm running kessils but honestly they suck. I'm barely getting 100par at the rock work and almost nothing at the sand bed. I'm getting ready to change the lighting out hopefully this week. I just filled the ICP test and it's going in the mail tomorrow
 

dedragon

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salifert, and red sea make good test kits, nyos is good for nitrates but i havent used any of the other nyos ones
 
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ctyler85

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550 calcium and 1500 magnesium is very high and may be even higher if test kits dont measure that high. Best thing is always a nice water change to get levels in check, dose phosphates and nitrates if bottomed out
Yeah the odd thing is every time I do a water change, calcium and magnesium just go up
 

dedragon

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Honestly every time do a water change the calcium goes up. I did just add some more fish and have been feeding regularly again I need to get back into it. I remember 5 or so years ago the idea was 0 everything lol now I'm reading we want the nutrients.
I'm running kessils but honestly they suck. I'm barely getting 100par at the rock work and almost nothing at the sand bed. I'm getting ready to change the lighting out hopefully this week. I just filled the ICP test and it's going in the mail tomorrow
Weird, what salt are you using? Also cant rule out bad results from old test kits
 

javisaman

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Honestly every time do a water change the calcium goes up. I did just add some more fish and have been feeding regularly again I need to get back into it. I remember 5 or so years ago the idea was 0 everything lol now I'm reading we want the nutrients.
I'm running kessils but honestly they suck. I'm barely getting 100par at the rock work and almost nothing at the sand bed. I'm getting ready to change the lighting out hopefully this week. I just filled the ICP test and it's going in the mail tomorrow
What salt are you using? You might need to mix up the salt before you use it.
 
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ctyler85

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salifert, and red sea make good test kits, nyos is good for nitrates but i havent used any of the other nyos ones
I'm using red sea for all, calcium, magnesium and comparing it against hannah, I need to get a better nitrate test
 

am3gross

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maybe a salinity issue then, do you have more than one way to test salinity?

This was my issue right here, none of the water tests I done or had sent out actually tested for salinity. Go get you a good checker, I now use the Milwaukee digital one, and before I bought it I had the store compare it to there's to make sure it was accurate. Also the "original" refractometer I had was calibrated, but it said the same thing every time, and was still off. So I don't put faith in the calibration solution either.
 

Dennis Cartier

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This is where a good quality floating hydrometer is very useful. No calibration required. You just need a tall cylinder for floating it in to measure and have your water close to 25C/77F when doing the reading.

 

neonreef3d

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I got a high precision hydrometer by tropical marine that is always spot on, I also have a refractometer, and the hanna digital hydrometer.

Out of all of them I don't use the refractometer. I use the TM hydrometer and calibrate the hanna digital with the saltwater once it's .025.


As far as the calcium and magnesium. you may want to test your RO water, if its ok, then test the saltwater after mixing, you may have a bad batch perhaps. and always mix your salt overnight at 77F.

One thing that will help with you with the cycling is live rock, expensive, but that makes the difference in an SPS setup IMO. I started my reef with marco rock, and was not able to keep lps or sps. Once i started to introduce live rock to my tank, a month later, everything was recovering, and is growing new tissue over the skeleton, its was an amazing transformation for my tank, I also started to dose PBNS by algae barn.

I don't do any water changes anymore, unless I need to clean out the sump, but its minimal and its done every 4 months or so. also not feeding the coral as they consume the nutrients from the fish poo and the food I feed the fish.

Don't forget that SPS like the water a bit dirty.... so try not to over filter you water.

Im using salifert test kits which are awesome, I was testing every 3 days when I started the tank, but with the live rock and 24hr dosing, my levels only need adjusting when the growth is prominent, or when adding new corals,, and I test once a week for ALK,CAL. Magnesium test i do every 2 weeks, salinity I check once a month...

Hope this helps.
 

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been in the hobby awhile, had some great success, had some big failures. 265g tank. about 3 years ago had a big crash, alk spiked to 15dkh(dosing failure) and destroyed all my SPS. LPS were uneffected. then the kid was born and the tank got severely neglected. Im getting back into it again. All the LPS is still thriving(favia, favites, cyphastrea, platy, leptastrea, tachy). I used to grow sps and acros great. But since the crash I havent been able to keep any acros. The RTN after a few hours in the tank. took a break before trying anything new. got back on a water change schedule, cleaned the tank up. thought I would try an "easy" acro. Bought the frag on Saturday, and as of today its starting to RTN but the stylo frag I got the same day seems to be uneffected.
ammonia undetectable with api
nitrates undetectable with api
nitrites undetectable with api
alk 8.5dkh
calicum 550
magnesium 1500
ph 8.0
I know the calcium and magnesium are super high but I can not figure out how to get them down. Doing some reading through the forums it seems like maybe I have a nutrient deficiency? Any thoughts, input advice would be awesome. I need to get the tank dialed in before I go trying another frag. At this point I'm ready to start investing some real money to make this tank successful again
My own experience is. Magnesium always is a big factor for the balance of all and calcium.....I dose Kalkwaser ....I can't keep ALK above 7 but I don't chase numbers anymore....all my acroporas are healthy and growing my Magnesium always stays at 1250 .... I notice that since I started with my Kalkwaser stirer I don't have to worry about calcium anymore, but magnesium . 1500 would be to high for my tank
 
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ctyler85

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maybe a salinity issue then, do you have more than one way to test salinity?
I have a salinity probe that I'm sure needs to be replaced but I'm currently using a refractometer that I have calibrated, granted who knows if the calibration solution is any good. I'm going to Reefapalooza tomorrow, I'll see if anyone is selling anything, maybe pick up a Milwaukee
 
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