Stats first:
My tank has been running since June 2019. This is my second time reefing, and I have been diligent with a religious water change schedule and controlled livestock feeding. Despite my wife's wishes, I took my time in cycling the tank and waiting before adding in the first fish and corals. My first round of reefing was like many; I had a ton of soft corals and a plague of xenia. I had decided this time I was going to have more selective interests in what I want; which is a healthy mixed reef tank.
I can't keep zoa's alive. I'm not sure what happens to them, but they just disappear. I've bought several frags of different kinds, and moved them all over the tank to no avail. They usually stay closed up and then disappear. My LPS seem to be doing great though, my elegance, torch, acans, scoly, etc. all show good extension and feeding tentacles at night. My derasa clam looks great and shows lots of visible "new growth" on it's shell. HOWEVER, my sps frags are giving me fits. When I buy them they all seem great in color and tissue coverage. But within a few months in my tank their colors have washed away to either white or now brown. A staghorn went from a bright neon green and purple to white. A brilliant acro went from slimer neon green to pale brown despite still having great polyp extension. My Hollywood Stunner went from a deep rich purple and green to a pale pink and green but is still growing and eating well.
I've tried increasing my water change volume/sessions, doing no water changes, feeding more and feeding less. Some sort of red and/or green cyano seems to take effect when I slack up on husbandry. I usually have to clean the glass every two or three days as the buildup makes the tank hazy but there's no real accumulation.
I thought my problem was my water levels so I got the DOS to maintain more consistent levels, which it has done great at, but I can't see the impact on livestock. I thought that my original lighting (just the two AI Primes) wasn't enough for my livestock, so I added in the t5 hybrid and the sps' seemed to start losing color faster (not sure if that's actually related or not, but worth mentioning). I do notice with these lights that everything just looks more bland and washed out, yet bright in terms of volume, compared to when I just had the Primes which yielded better color, just not maybe enough PAR? I thought I was trying to keep the tank "too clean" so I started skimming way dry and ignoring water changes for about a month which caused some sort of algae outbreak.
One thing that I DO know, is that this isn't an "easy" hobby. I also am a beekeeper and generally if the hive has a queen, some comb, some nectar stores, you're going to be fine. But this isn't that sort of "autopilot" hobby. BUT, am I just doing something wrong? Am I running the wrong equipment? Is this just how corals go??
Pictures are worth 1000 words...
Tank today:
- 65 gallon display (36"w x 18"d x 24"h), 20 gallon sump. ~65g water volume after rock, sand, etc.
- ~40# dry rock, ~40# Caribsea live sand
- Salt: Reef Crystals, 20 gallons changed once every two weeks
- Water: BRS 4 Stage RODI unit made with my well water
- Filtration: Reef Octopus Classic 110 skimmer cup cleaned every few days, BRS felt filter socks swapped about every 3 days, BRS carbon in a bag with every water change
- Flow: Ecotech MP40 on reef crest mode
- Lighting: 36" AquaticLife Hybrid (two ATI Blue+, two ATI Actinic) running 10 hours a day, and two AI Prime HD's running the BRS AB+ programming for 12 hours a day
- Water Parameters:
Sal: 1.026
Temp: 78*f
pH: 8.11 average, 8.02 min/8.26 max per Apex
Alk: 9.6 (Salifert)
Cal: 480 (Salifert)
Mag: 1395 (Salifert)
Nitrate: Undetectable (Salifert)
Phosphate: Undetectable (Salifert) - Dosing: Apex Dos, set to 24 hour schedule for Alk and Cal. I use BRS 2-Part and was dosing about 9ml/day of both to maintain levels.
- Livestock: fed twice a day via Eheim feeder with API Marine Flake food. LRS Reef Frenzy about twice a week.
3x Clownfish
1x Banggai
1x Yellow Tang
1x Firefish
2x Cleaner shrimp
Various turbo, nassarius, margarita and astrea snails
My tank has been running since June 2019. This is my second time reefing, and I have been diligent with a religious water change schedule and controlled livestock feeding. Despite my wife's wishes, I took my time in cycling the tank and waiting before adding in the first fish and corals. My first round of reefing was like many; I had a ton of soft corals and a plague of xenia. I had decided this time I was going to have more selective interests in what I want; which is a healthy mixed reef tank.
I can't keep zoa's alive. I'm not sure what happens to them, but they just disappear. I've bought several frags of different kinds, and moved them all over the tank to no avail. They usually stay closed up and then disappear. My LPS seem to be doing great though, my elegance, torch, acans, scoly, etc. all show good extension and feeding tentacles at night. My derasa clam looks great and shows lots of visible "new growth" on it's shell. HOWEVER, my sps frags are giving me fits. When I buy them they all seem great in color and tissue coverage. But within a few months in my tank their colors have washed away to either white or now brown. A staghorn went from a bright neon green and purple to white. A brilliant acro went from slimer neon green to pale brown despite still having great polyp extension. My Hollywood Stunner went from a deep rich purple and green to a pale pink and green but is still growing and eating well.
I've tried increasing my water change volume/sessions, doing no water changes, feeding more and feeding less. Some sort of red and/or green cyano seems to take effect when I slack up on husbandry. I usually have to clean the glass every two or three days as the buildup makes the tank hazy but there's no real accumulation.
I thought my problem was my water levels so I got the DOS to maintain more consistent levels, which it has done great at, but I can't see the impact on livestock. I thought that my original lighting (just the two AI Primes) wasn't enough for my livestock, so I added in the t5 hybrid and the sps' seemed to start losing color faster (not sure if that's actually related or not, but worth mentioning). I do notice with these lights that everything just looks more bland and washed out, yet bright in terms of volume, compared to when I just had the Primes which yielded better color, just not maybe enough PAR? I thought I was trying to keep the tank "too clean" so I started skimming way dry and ignoring water changes for about a month which caused some sort of algae outbreak.
One thing that I DO know, is that this isn't an "easy" hobby. I also am a beekeeper and generally if the hive has a queen, some comb, some nectar stores, you're going to be fine. But this isn't that sort of "autopilot" hobby. BUT, am I just doing something wrong? Am I running the wrong equipment? Is this just how corals go??
Pictures are worth 1000 words...
Tank today: