Help - SPS issues

[Seascapes]

No matter what I do, I can't seem to keep sps alive. I just installed biopellets to help with nitrates, a dual gfo, carbon reactor as well. I have 2 gyres one each end of the tank and in the back I have a return in the middle so I have 2 mp40s on the back at 100% fast current. I can keep torches, hammers, other LPS for a while then they look weird and die. Since i installed the reactors the corals look much brighter and the water looks clearer. I have a sterlizer. I finally got my dkh stable between 8.5 and 9.0. No dinos, CA runs between 350 and 400. Mag was 1350, salinity 1.025, nitrates are around 40, thus why i started biopellets, phosphates are .25. Chiller keeps temp at 78 degrees. I've been cutting down on feeding the corals, just dosing microbacter 7 and elements. My tank is 150 gallons with a sump, skimmer, filter roller, and the new reactors I stated earlier. I have 3 hydra 32 at 100 percent blues, 25 whites no red or green and 2 t5's blue. I do use RO water. What am I doing wrong? I have 4 tangs, 1 gobie, 1 mandarin, 1 purple fish, can't think of the name, 1 flame hawk, 1 male and female reefsafe angels, 2 chocolate moca clowns, 2 wrasse, serpent star and snails and crabs. I also have a 5 inch clam that I had to dip, it had a pinched mantel. It's now recovering as long as I keep the feeder cage over it so one of my tangs will leave it alone. 3 pin cushion urchins.

 

[Stephen Glover]

How old is the tank? Do you have a lot of coralline growing?

 

[Seascapes]

The tank is about 3 years old, I do see some purple coraline starting to grow across the back of the tank after i seeded it about 2 months ago. The rocks not so much. I started out with marine pure rocks. I have a lot of lippets growing in the back too. I think my snails multiplied. The little flat ones.

 

[Pod_01]

The tank is about 3 years old, I do see some purple coraline starting to grow across the back of the tank after i seeded it about 2 months ago. The rocks not so much. I started out with marine pure rocks. I have a lot of lippets growing in the back too. I think my snails multiplied. The little flat ones.

Just some things that pop out from my point of view Ca should be 400-440. Salinity should be 1.026-1.027 (but I don’t think that is an issue). I also don’t think your phosphate and nitrate are an issue. But I am not fan of GFO or fleece roller, they remove what SPS like to eat. Also I am not fan of excess carbon and prefer 20ml per 100l in a bag ( change once every 4-6 weeks very passive).
In general if corals are struggling 99% the issue is with water, corals don’t lie. My suggestion is to run ICP with reputable company like Fauna Marin (or similar) and see what they recommend.
You might require small correction to get on the right track.

Just for reference my tank is 65 gal and for filtering I only use skimmer and carbon. I also dose TM NP bacto ballance 0.4ml a day to encourage bacteria that feeds the corals. Fish are fed with high quality food and are appropriate sized (not a submarine nor paper thin) and they make coral food but I also add coral food daily. SPS are big eaters, lot of mouth to feed on them so lights alone will not do it.

Some pics for reference that I am not making it up:

Good luck.

 

[redfishreef96]

ICP test and a PAR meter should help narrow down issues.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

When you say SPS die, what exactly happens to them? How fast? All from the same source?

 

[Seascapes]

When you say SPS die, what exactly happens to them? How fast? All from the same source?

They either turn brown or white within a couple of weeks. I just added a frag about 3 weeks ago and it's in the frag rack still and it's holding its color so far. But once I move it or them they start the decline. I've used several sources, saltwateraquarium.com, vivid aquariums, lazy corals, live aquaria, austin aqua farms and a LPS swap from a private individual. The hammer coral I got from the private person did well, then I had a pollop bail out and died. I had the same thing happen to a torch. I think that happened because my doser faulted. I replaced it. CA went to the 500s. Alk dropped and mag dropped. The remaining torches and hammers are doing well since i got things more stable.

 

[Seascapes]

ICP test and a PAR meter should help narrow down issues.

I'll get a icp test done, thanks

 

[Seascapes]

Just some things that pop out from my point of view Ca should be 400-440. Salinity should be 1.026-1.027 (but I don’t think that is an issue). I also don’t think your phosphate and nitrate are an issue. But I am not fan of GFO or fleece roller, they remove what SPS like to eat. Also I am not fan of excess carbon and prefer 20ml per 100l in a bag ( change once every 4-6 weeks very passive).
In general if corals are struggling 99% the issue is with water, corals don’t lie. My suggestion is to run ICP with reputable company like Fauna Marin (or similar) and see what they recommend.
You might require small correction to get on the right track.

Just for reference my tank is 65 gal and for filtering I only use skimmer and carbon. I also dose TM NP bacto ballance 0.4ml a day to encourage bacteria that feeds the corals. Fish are fed with high quality food and are appropriate sized (not a submarine nor paper thin) and they make coral food but I also add coral food daily. SPS are big eaters, lot of mouth to feed on them so lights alone will not do it.

Some pics for reference that I am not making it up:

Good luck.

Your coral are beautiful. I noticed your nitrates are much lower than mine. Going to retest today to see where I am. Thank you

 

[Pod_01]

Your coral are beautiful. I noticed your nitrates are much lower than mine. Going to retest today to see where I am. Thank you

Thank you.
When you retest you might want to check your NO2 level. I had issue while back when I had elevated NO3 reading and this was driven by NO2 (took some time to connect the dots). There is nothing wrong with having NO2 in your reef tank so no need to do anything, but it can impact NO3 reading and correction to your test reading is required. I know Tropic Marin and Fauna Marin sell NO2/NO3 test kits that allow you to do this, others might as well.

 

[Seascapes]

Thank you.
When you retest you might want to check your NO2 level. I had issue while back when I had elevated NO3 reading and this was driven by NO2 (took some time to connect the dots). There is nothing wrong with having NO2 in your reef tank so no need to do anything, but it can impact NO3 reading and correction to your test reading is required. I know Tropic Marin and Fauna Marin sell NO2/NO3 test kits that allow you to do this, others might as well.

Thank you for the info. I tested yesterday and my numbers were nitrate 59.1, phospate .41, alk 8.7, CA 420, MG 1525. (Hanna checkers) I dosed CA and my alk went down. Last night I raised the alk 2mls and left the 1 ml CA in place. Will test to see what happens. I dosed my weekly bio-plankton for the clam and feather duster. I think that's why my nitrates and phospate went up. Another lfs told to me stop dosing everything, including coral food except CA, mg and dkh. I was too chicken to stop since my clam is recovering. I'm getting a stylo, hammer and torch today and transfer the one sps on the rack to a rock. Going to send off an icp test. I hope things go well.

 

[Pod_01]

Thank you for the info. I tested yesterday and my numbers were nitrate 59.1, phospate .41, alk 8.7, CA 420, MG 1525. (Hanna checkers) I dosed CA and my alk went down. Last night I raised the alk 2mls and left the 1 ml CA in place. Will test to see what happens. I dosed my weekly bio-plankton for the clam and feather duster. I think that's why my nitrates and phospate went up. Another lfs told to me stop dosing everything, including coral food except CA, mg and dkh. I was too chicken to stop since my clam is recovering. I'm getting a stylo, hammer and torch today and transfer the one sps on the rack to a rock. Going to send off an icp test. I hope things go well.

Since I feed in the morning I try to test in the evening and I try to test on the same day (Saturday night once a week these days). Idea is to eliminate variables like food contamination.
For ICP I try to get the water in the morning before feeding and also before I get stuff on my hands (I also rinse the vial 3-5 times with the reef tank water). Nothing better than getting results back with titanium contamination that came from your hands.
Last I try to make sure the water level is same between the tests.