Help needed...corals dying and I don’t know why!

[Han_And]

I would remove rowaphos, do weekly 10% water changes and check PAR level. Gen 4’s are pretty strong.

We do 10% weekly changes anyway. Do you have a recommendation for the intensity on the gen 4’s?

 

[dwest]

We do 10% weekly changes anyway. Do you have a recommendation for the intensity on the gen 4’s?

No. I still use kessils and T5’s and never have used Gen 4’s. But they can put out lots of light. For LPS in general, they don’t need much light. Most of mine are on the bottom and some are shaded getting 50-150 PAR. But some nutrients are desired that’s why I recommended rowaphos removal.

I have been reefing over 25 years. Most of the problems I have had is during the 1 year I tried to run low nutrients.

 

[Han_And]

No. I still use kessils and T5’s and never have used Gen 4’s. But they can put out lots of light. For LPS in general, they don’t need much light. Most of mine are on the bottom and some are shaded getting 50-150 PAR. But some nutrients are desired that’s why I recommended rowaphos removal.

I have been reefing over 25 years. Most of the problems I have had is during the 1 year I tried to run low nutrients.

Okay thank you. I’ll take it out and check the light settings. Thank you

 

[trout]

I would remove rowaphos, do weekly 10% water changes and check PAR level. Gen 4’s are pretty strong.

I concur. I guessed that the OP must be using some form of PO4 adsorber after seeing the PO4 test result. I suspect that NO3 levels are also low given the small fish population.

@Han_And I would stop using GFO. If you have algae bed, then that should take care of PO4 and NO3. Your corals will look healthier if PO4 rises above 0.046 mg/L. If you do not have any algae bed, then a gentle form of organic carbon dosing, such as Tropic Marin NP-Bacto-Balance, should be OK because the product contains phosphates as well as organic form of nitrogen and NO3 in it, thus preventing starvation of corals while reducing them.

 

[Han_And]

I concur. I guessed that the OP must be using some form of PO4 adsorber after seeing the PO4 test result. I suspect that NO3 levels are also low given the small fish population.

@Han_And I would stop using GFO. If you have algae bed, then that should take care of PO4 and NO3. Your corals will look healthier if PO4 rises above 0.046 mg/L.

Okay thank you. We’ll take the RowaPhos out the tank and give that a go. Hopefully we’ll see some improvements before it’s too late

 

[trout]

Okay thank you. We’ll take the RowaPhos out the tank and give that a go. Hopefully we’ll see some improvements before it’s too late

I have edited my post since you quoted it and suggested a slightly different strategy to deal with nutrients.

 

[Han_And]

I have edited my post since you quoted it and suggested a slightly different strategy to deal with nutrients.

Thank you :)

 

[TheDragonsReef]

NO3 2ppm, PO4 01ppm, No changes to lighting.

Had the coral for almost a year now.

I would try raising phosphates til atleast 0.03. My lps seem to do the best around 0.03-0.08

 

[TheDragonsReef]

Some are close to a year others only a month or so.

we changed our lights from the kessil A360’s to the radion xr30 pro’s gen 4. We changed them about 6 months ago or so

nitrates were about 10 so on the lower side

I would check par most lps prefer around 100-200 and radions can easily put out 800+. So checking with a par meter is really important when running high power leds

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Have a similar problem with a hammer - heads just keep dying off and don't know whey. Parameters stable and no changes to system.

I'd like to know why they do it, as mine have started bailing heads.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Is there any more feed back on this thread as to how things are going now? I think I found a possible cause for mine, my salinity might have been a little high at 1.028 as my 35ppt calibration solution was a little off. I think it was a bit old and giving me a false base line.