Little to no growth and dying corals

[Reef_puck]

Hello,

Looking for some ideas for little to no growth in corals. Mushrooms fade away or never grow, Zoas grow very slow, some don’t open. Frogspawns hammers don’t grow and eventually die after months. Have a toad stool leather that barely opens. Ricordeas start off strong then all shrink. Coralline however is all over the place. Tried a few SPS frags. They last a few weeks.

Tank is a 90g reef running 2x Radion XR15 Blues (tried 60% to 70% over months). Flow is an MP40 and a MP-10. Apex controller for monitoring and Bluebird for heater controller. Eshopps skimmer. Could run a fuge but that I have tried chaeto months ago and it died off.

Water parameters
Alk 9.3
Cal 400
Msg 1050
Amon 0
Nitrate 2.5
PO4 0
Temp 77-78
ph 8-8.3
Sal 1.024
Orp 400-420

Use Red Sea Salt

Fish: red hawk, 2 small ocealaris clowns and a goby. Various snails, and few snails.

 

[Gill the 3rd]

Your msg and your phosphate seem low. I would aim for at least 1100-1200 ppm msg and .03 phosphate. My phosphate easily gets to the 0.5 range sometimes and I haven't had any issues. I would start there and keep those numbers steady. Everything else looks good.

 

[Reef_puck]

Note this is over months.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Your nutrients are pretty low. I think a tank pic will help generate more idea's.

 

[Spare time]

"Nitrate 2.5
PO4 0"


That is probably the reason. I also believe it is why the refugium chaeto died. I would start feeding the corals daily until these numbers rise or become slightly higher and stay stable. Some of the foods I like are reef energy, vitachem marine, (recently) reef enhance, and fish food. I am willing to be this would fix the issue.

 

[exnisstech]

I would start with getting phos measurable and raising mag. I don't dose anything for mag but mine stays 1350 - 1400 so it could be my salt, I've never tested it. Nitrate could be a little higher I think also. Softies tend to like a little dirtier water at least mine do.

 

[Reef_puck]

Tank pics

 

[Reef_puck]

Changed the light for the pic

 

[Lavey29]

Hello,

Looking for some ideas for little to no growth in corals. Mushrooms fade away or never grow, Zoas grow very slow, some don’t open. Frogspawns hammers don’t grow and eventually die after months. Have a toad stool leather that barely opens. Ricordeas start off strong then all shrink. Coralline however is all over the place. Tried a few SPS frags. They last a few weeks.

Tank is a 90g reef running 2x Radion XR15 Blues (tried 60% to 70% over months). Flow is an MP40 and a MP-10. Apex controller for monitoring and Bluebird for heater controller. Eshopps skimmer. Could run a fuge but that I have tried chaeto months ago and it died off.

Water parameters
Alk 9.3
Cal 400
Msg 1050
Amon 0
Nitrate 2.5
PO4 0
Temp 77-78
ph 8-8.3
Sal 1.024
Orp 400-420

Use Red Sea Salt

Fish: red hawk, 2 small ocealaris clowns and a goby. Various snails, and few snails.

You have multiple problems going on which is resulting in your corals dying. You have no nutrients so your corals are starving to death and your lighting is quite low. You need nitrates at 10 to 15 and phosphate at .05 to .1. You need magnesium 1350 to 1400. Your alk also should be 8 to 8.5. I have the same lights on a smaller tank and I run my XR 15 lights at 100% intensity on the AB plus program to barely get adequate light par for my mixed reef tank. Your light par is very low and your corals can not photosynthesize even if you had nutrients in your system. All these areas need to be corrected or you will struggle indefinitely .

 

[threebuoys]

If the photos were taken with lights at normal intensity, you definitely need more. How old is the tank? Do you dose or do you use water changes to stabilize parameters?

 

[Garf]

Hello,

Looking for some ideas for little to no growth in corals. Mushrooms fade away or never grow, Zoas grow very slow, some don’t open. Frogspawns hammers don’t grow and eventually die after months. Have a toad stool leather that barely opens. Ricordeas start off strong then all shrink. Coralline however is all over the place. Tried a few SPS frags. They last a few weeks.

Tank is a 90g reef running 2x Radion XR15 Blues (tried 60% to 70% over months). Flow is an MP40 and a MP-10. Apex controller for monitoring and Bluebird for heater controller. Eshopps skimmer. Could run a fuge but that I have tried chaeto months ago and it died off.

Water parameters
Alk 9.3
Cal 400
Msg 1050
Amon 0
Nitrate 2.5
PO4 0
Temp 77-78
ph 8-8.3
Sal 1.024
Orp 400-420

Use Red Sea Salt

Fish: red hawk, 2 small ocealaris clowns and a goby. Various snails, and few snails.

Lol, so many opportunities to get things wrong in this hobby. Do you trust your magnesium result? Do you supplement calcium and alkalinity? If so I’d question your chosen salinity calibration method, ie. salinity. Try checking your new saltwater and see if it confirms to what they are supposed to be at a given salinity, ie. Alk, calcium, magnesium.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

you have a list started from everyone else already but I add raising salinity to it. shoot for 35ppt 1.026 honestly alkalinity much over 8 in this low light low nutrient system is unnecessary, im curious what salt you are using and how you are measuring salinity.

a few minor tweaks should get you going better, the fact things last a few weeks is a sign that you are not far off from a successful recipe, you just need to address a few minor things.

good luck

 

[Reef_puck]

Try to water 30g water changes every 6 weeks.

The pics were at normal intensity but the phone does not do the blue lights justice.

Will look to gradually increase the intensity up.

i have not supplemented any Alk/ca/mag yet.

This tank was setup in November after moving up from a 40g cube. What is throwing me off is the coralline is all over the place and rocks and thriving. I have the reef energy that I have tried sporadically. Did not want to turn the tank into an algae farm like on previous tanks so even the fish feeding (frozen mysis) every other day is probably light.

 

[Reef_puck]

Red Sea Salt (blue bucket). I use a refractometer that I have compared against LFS water. And even a 1 gallon water to 1/2 cup mix to get 1.025.

 

[Reef_puck]

Some corals I have had since the beginning. They just don’t grow or actually shrink.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Red Sea Salt (blue bucket). I use a refractometer that I have compared against LFS water. And even a 1 gallon water to 1/2 cup mix to get 1.025.

I use the same salt and the same ratio,but I never get above 8.3 dkh or less than 1.025sg

I shoot for 1.026 and run my tanks around 7.8-8.5 not past 9dkh basically

 

[jackson6745]

The low nutrient is killing your stuff. Until you get your nutrients up, lower your alk to 7.5 dkh, can raise when nutrients come up. I would start dosing a liquid nitrate supplement get up to about 10ppm and start feeding reef rods once or twice per week to get your phosphate up. You will see an immediate difference.

 

[Garf]

Red Sea Salt (blue bucket). I use a refractometer that I have compared against LFS water. And even a 1 gallon water to 1/2 cup mix to get 1.025.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-06/rhf/index.php

 

[Uncle99]

Some corals I have had since the beginning. They just don’t grow or actually shrink.

Nothing to eat, low nitrate, zero phosphate.
These got to be in check, or everything starved, including your unseen bio diversity.
Get them into range.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-06/rhf/index.php

what does all that mean!!!! so many words and numbers!! sometimes I think he writes to frustrate...his articles need more pictures!!! (although there's quite a few in that one )