Im struggling and i might quit.

[Notsolostfish]

I know you guy seen my multiple posts regarding my tank here, and i do apologize for my mutiple threads. I thought i wont be struggling as bad with this hobby but im badly.

So moral of the story i started this marine x60.2 37 gallons & 18 gallons sump 3 months ago. I cycled the tank with fritz ammonia, and bacteria. I monitored my cycle everyday till it ended, and i added 2 darwin clownfish.

Now 2 months after that i added corals. I went a little overboard with corals. And i added a bunch at once. I have duncan, zoas, hammer, leather, mushroom, and gsp.

Now the issues im facing with my corals are the hammer is not exntending anymore, and the duncan is not opening anymore. Im going to be posting pictures below for before and after.

I use RODI water 6 stage by brs. And i have a tds pen to confirm and built in tds meter.

For the lighting im using xr15 g5 radion. Running at 65% intensity. And i oreviously rented a par meter to check on my corals.

Right now this is my water parameters.

Alk is 7.2 ( tropic marin salt)
Calcium is 450 (salifret)
Magnesium 1600+ (salifret)
Alk is 7.1 (hanna checker)
Salinity 1.026 (milwaukee digital calibrated by RODI)
Temp: 77F
Phosphate was 0, and nitrate 0. But i started to dose those again, and now im at 0.01 phosphate and 4 nitrate.

Could that be the reason my hammer not extending anymore? Because the nitrate and phosphate were 0? And now it should be good again after dosing? Im dosing by brightwell for nitrate, and phosphate should i keep doing it?

 

[mdb_talon]

Very low nutrients can definitely cause corals to decline and eventually die. .01 and 4 is still quite low but at least better. Whether they recover is hard to say. Once a coral starts going downhill it sometimes does not recover but if it was due to starvation it may turn around. Especially with the duncan some direct feeding of pellets/mysis/etc can make a world of difference in recovery.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

I’ve been in the hobby 20 years and still make mistakes, have tank issues and learn. I had issues a while back with my nutrients too high. Everything suffered. I slowly brought them down and saw improvement, but almost no growth. I finally realized my tank liked PO4 around 0.08-0.12 and nitrate 15-40. This is the food your corals need so survive. Zero is not good. Either test again with a different tester or try and get your levels up. Here are two pics of my tank. First is with high phosphate and 2nd was after I got it under control and stable in the above range. This is the same coral 8 months apart after I almost killed it. Don’t give up. Stick with it, get through the hurdle and come out the other side a better reefer!

 

[HudsonReefer2.0]

Try bumping the nutrients. Mg is high and chk the salt mix. Issues w tropic Marin. Search old Threads. I didn’t see par #. I run 2 xr15 g 5 pros on my reefer xl300 and have sps. Should b ok w 1 @ 60% for softies and lps. Also make sure the clowns aren’t bothering the hammer aka hosting.

 

[Dburr1014]

I know you guy seen my multiple posts regarding my tank here, and i do apologize for my mutiple threads. I thought i wont be struggling as bad with this hobby but im badly.

So moral of the story i started this marine x60.2 37 gallons & 18 gallons sump 3 months ago. I cycled the tank with fritz ammonia, and bacteria. I monitored my cycle everyday till it ended, and i added 2 darwin clownfish.

Now 2 months after that i added corals. I went a little overboard with corals. And i added a bunch at once. I have duncan, zoas, hammer, leather, mushroom, and gsp.

Now the issues im facing with my corals are the hammer is not exntending anymore, and the duncan is not opening anymore. Im going to be posting pictures below for before and after.

I use RODI water 6 stage by brs. And i have a tds pen to confirm and built in tds meter.

For the lighting im using xr15 g5 radion. Running at 65% intensity. And i oreviously rented a par meter to check on my corals.

Right now this is my water parameters.

Alk is 7.2 ( tropic marin salt)
Calcium is 450 (salifret)
Magnesium 1600+ (salifret)
Alk is 7.1 (hanna checker)
Salinity 1.026 (milwaukee digital calibrated by RODI)
Temp: 77F
Phosphate was 0, and nitrate 0. But i started to dose those again, and now im at 0.01 phosphate and 4 nitrate.

Could that be the reason my hammer not extending anymore? Because the nitrate and phosphate were 0? And now it should be good again after dosing? Im dosing by brightwell for nitrate, and phosphate should i keep doing it?

Sorry to here.
I know you have struggled and I've tried to help you out.
Besides what was mentioned about nutrients being low, I see you calibrated the Milwaukee with RODI. this just may be the problem. Have your water verified by another source.
I calibrate my refractometer with fluid that is close to my sg of my tank. This way, if the curve is off, it won't be off much.
Give it a couple more weeks and see if we can help you out.

 

[TheReefDiary]

raise your nitrates and phopahtes. my phopahtes are between .08-.1 and nitrates are at 10. also I ensure my pH is high and that I have steady all above 8.0.

my similarly aged tank has similar corals which are thriving.

 

[Gtinnel]

I see you calibrated the Milwaukee with RODI. this just may be the problem

Milwaukee is the exception to the rule to calibrate with 35ppt solution. The Milwaukee digital refractometer has to be calibrated with distilled (rodi works too) water. If you calibrate it with a normal calibration solution your reading would be way off.

 

[AFHokie]

Having read many of your other threads, and the repeats of those threads, my first piece of advice is to take a deep breath and slow down. With your old posts that you would repeat many times it just seemed like you wanted instant answers. As I’m sure you’ve read, nothing in this hobby is fast.

Your tank is still young and it will go through many stages of maturing. Just a week or so ago you posted about how you were surprised that you had no algae. Like one responder said, just wait. As our tanks grow and mature they do all kinds of crazy things, on THEIR timeline.

For this post specifically, as others have said, my first guess is nutrients. Now…that being said, you already seem to be chasing numbers and constantly dosing something to get the “right” values. Again, a young tank like this will go through maturing stages and what you think you should be dosing could change.

For example, when my tank was still young I was dosing all for reef each day. One day after months of using it I started noticing the corals were not looking awesome. Turns out my alkalinity was spiking. Weird…I never changed my AFR dose. Now, with my tank coming up on 9 months old I haven’t dosed AFR for well over a month. Alkalinity actually rises on its own but my coral are all growing. Have never figured out why it’s doing it but I know it does and just monitor my Alk more closely, every other day or so to make sure it’s doing what I think it is. I stopped trying to chase it and let the tank tell me if it’s happy.

I this hobby you MUST be prepared for setbacks. It happens. We are trying to maintain complex little ecosystems with all kinds of macro and micro life forms. If you are ready to quit because a Duncan and hammer are closed up some you need to adjust your expectations. Do we HAVE to lose fish or coral or get dino outbreaks? Absolutely not. Many people never have any of these problems, but I’d wager that MANY more do have them. Yes, we should all strive to help everything thrive but sometimes things go wrong. When they do it’s important to try and learn why (sometimes we never do) and help prevent it again. Even through some very disappointing times with my reef I’ve stuck with it and right now I love my tank.

Patience is the hardest thing to learn about this hobby.

 

[52728299]

Yea sometimes it's best to just simplify things a bit and give the tank time to settle in. There's a lot of variables, we don't know if lights or flow have recently been adjusted or how frequently your water changes are or how large. We also don't know how much you feed..

with nutrients I would just feed a bit more imo everyday. Maybe feed the corals directly once a week. My lps loves gonipower.

Pick a day every week to do a small water change and just let the tank settle.

How has your alk been acting? It's a tad on the lower side but should be pretty well replenished with your water changes.. does it fluctuate up and down a lot?

Very possible these corals will be just fine just keep an eye on them, make sure they are eating and continue to let the tank mature. Tanks only 3 months old? And corals been in there 2? Still a very young tank but the corals you have want to live they are pretty hardy. I have a goni and a toadstool that both were not extending for like a month plus. The toadstool looked all black and shriveled. My roommate was sure it was dead. Then one day it she'd it's coating and it's like a brand new shiny coral. And my goni is finally extending again after just following my routine and feeding it once a week.

I know how tempting to tinker is and your hearts in the right spot, you don't want to lose your animals. But life needs a stable footing before it can thrive