LPS dying need advice.

[Kershaw]

Hello all.
I have been in the hobby since 2012 though I did take a brake.

Current system
145gal started 14 moths ago or so.
This is the first tank started with out live rock from the ocean and it has been the most challenging.

Coral:
Frogspaw
Hammer
Torch
Encrusting and plating Montis
Duncan

Coral was all doing well. But I have been fighting cyno followed by GHA and back and forth. Fix one other comes back.

I did use chemiclean and reef flux a few months ago.

I am trying to get nitrates up as I think thats the issue as they went to zero but I am unsure when they went to zero as I got lazy on testing. Nitrates were 1.7 when things were doing well.

Skimmer is off to raise nitrates
Fresh carbon running
have UV but it is off due to the pump pulsing causing my tunze ATO to over fill.

Last two Current tests
SG: 1.026 Hannah
DKH: 8.2 Hannah
Phos: .05 Hannah
Nitrate HR .00 Hannah


SG: 1.026
DKH: 8.0
Phos: .03
Nitrate HR: .00
PH 8.15
Temp 77

Anyway any advice would be appreciated.

 

[LPS Bum]

I have a majority LPS reef, with some Montis, a few clams and some soft corals. Lots of fleshy LPS (acanthos, Scolys, elegance, bubbles, hammers, favias, chalice, etc). To be successful I think you need to decide if you want a low energy system (LPS and soft corals) or a high energy system (Acros, Birdsnest, etc).

If it’s a low energy system, you need lower light (50-80 PAR on the sand bed for most of the LPS), gentle random flow (gyre wave makers on a random setting work best) and cooler temps (75-77). Feed your fish and corals heavily. Keep your alk and calcium stable, and add mag daily. Those are the tips I’ve found to be most successful for LPS.

 

[Kershaw]

I have a majority LPS reef, with some Montis, a few clams and some soft corals. Lots of fleshy LPS (acanthos, Scolys, elegance, bubbles, hammers, favias, chalice, etc). To be successful I think you need to decide if you want a low energy system (LPS and soft corals) or a high energy system (Acros, Birdsnest, etc).

If it’s a low energy system, you need lower light (50-80 PAR on the sand bed for most of the LPS), gentle random flow (gyre wave makers on a random setting work best) and cooler temps (75-77). Feed your fish and corals heavily. Keep your alk and calcium stable, and add mag daily. Those are the tips I’ve found to be most successful for LPS.

Thanks, I’m pretty sure I am hitting most of those except gyres and adding mag daily. I do have some XF 230s but they are a bit noisy. But I will give them another try.

 

[LPS Bum]

Thanks, I’m pretty sure I am hitting most of those except gyres and adding mag daily. I do have some XF 230s but they are a bit noisy. But I will give them another try.

I’ve found that LPS appreciate having magnesium available. In truth I’ve never worried too much about the numbers, just that some of it is present daily in the water.

They all like to eat. I have a roller mat and a skimmer, and those allow me to feed heavily (fish 3 times a day and corals twice a week with zooplankton and cyclops). Heavy in, heavy out. Low to medium light and gentle random flow. Can’t go wrong with that approach.

 

[Kershaw]

I’ve found that LPS appreciate having magnesium available. In truth I’ve never worried too much about the numbers, just that some of it is present daily in the water.

They all like to eat. I have a roller mat and a skimmer, and those allow me to feed heavily (fish 3 times a day and corals twice a week with zooplankton and cyclops). Heavy in, heavy out. Low to medium light and gentle random flow. Can’t go wrong with that approach.

I have had hammers and frogspaw the size of softballs in the past. And the green hammer was the size of a tennis ball. I am just unsure what happened. I can only assume something to do with dealing with algae. I pulled rocks out a scrubbed off GHA it’s been a rough dealing with it and now it appears my coral are is paying for it.

 

[CeylonCorals]

What's your calcium and magnesium level? Hammers are excellent at showing their personality, whether they're happy or upset. I have a mixed reef dominated by LPS, and based on the picture, when magnesium is low, they tend to shrink immediately.

 

[Lavey29]

Chemiclean destroyed your biome so your one year tank starts over inside. Bottomed out nutrients means your corals are slowly starving to death. Magnesium only depletes at 1/10th the rate of alk so you definitely don't need to dose that daily. Maybe a little weekly but not if doing weekly water changes. Rent a par meter and par map your tank.

 

[LPS Bum]

Chemiclean destroyed your biome so your one year tank starts over inside. Bottomed out nutrients means your corals are slowly starving to death. Magnesium only depletes at 1/10th the rate of alk so you definitely don't need to dose that daily. Maybe a little weekly but not if doing weekly water changes. Rent a par meter and par map your tank.

To be clear, I wasn’t suggesting that the OP dose magnesium chloride daily. However if it’s part of a system (All For Reef, Reef Complete, etc) that contains magnesium and is dosed daily then it will be bio available on a regular basis. That’s what has worked well for me, and many others.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

The nutrients are very low. No info on the light or flow. Many of these "my corals don't grow" threads turn out to be low light issue's. Corals need light, good flow, and nutrients to thrive. My hammer, frogspawn, duncan, and monti's are all under MH lights and thriving.

 

[Kershaw]

What's your calcium and magnesium level? Hammers are excellent at showing their personality, whether they're happy or upset. I have a mixed reef dominated by LPS, and based on the picture, when magnesium is low, they tend to shrink immediately.

I don’t have calcium or mag test kits on hand at the moment. Due to the amount of corals I have and doing water changes often I expected to have more time. In the past I never had to supplement with dosing with so few corals.

 

[Kershaw]

The nutrients are very low. No info on the light or flow. Many of these "my corals don't grow" threads turn out to be low light issue's. Corals need light, good flow, and nutrients to thrive. My hammer, frogspawn, duncan, and monti's are all under MH lights and thriving.

Flow is two Nero 5 and a octopulse 4. All running in lps mode at about 60 percent. I have adjusted the flow over time to what the coral respond to best. Lighting is 2 Kessil a360x and one ap9x.
The hammer coral in the pictures was a single head when I bought it. It now has 4 heads and when it was fully open just a week or so ago it was large.

 

[Kershaw]

Chemiclean destroyed your biome so your one year tank starts over inside. Bottomed out nutrients means your corals are slowly starving to death. Magnesium only depletes at 1/10th the rate of alk so you definitely don't need to dose that daily. Maybe a little weekly but not if doing weekly water changes. Rent a par meter and par map your tank.

This is what I am thinking caused the issue, but I have used it in the past with out any noticeable issues. I have been doing bi-weekly water changes and have stepped it up to weekly over the last month trying to fight cyno. By blowing it off rocks and doing water change.

 

[Dburr1014]

Hello all.
I have been in the hobby since 2012 though I did take a brake.

Current system
145gal started 14 moths ago or so.
This is the first tank started with out live rock from the ocean and it has been the most challenging.

Coral:
Frogspaw
Hammer
Torch
Encrusting and plating Montis
Duncan

Coral was all doing well. But I have been fighting cyno followed by GHA and back and forth. Fix one other comes back.

I did use chemiclean and reef flux a few months ago.

Yup, flip flopping when using chemicals. Not uncommon. I'd personally fight cyano over the GHA. just get the nutrients balanced out and it will go away on its own. Keep flow up and syphone it off as it comes.

I am trying to get nitrates up as I think thats the issue as they went to zero but I am unsure when they went to zero as I got lazy on testing. Nitrates were 1.7 when things were doing well.

Skimmer is off to raise nitrates
Fresh carbon running
have UV but it is off due to the pump pulsing causing my tunze ATO to over fill.

Last two Current tests
SG: 1.026 Hannah
DKH: 8.2 Hannah
Phos: .05 Hannah
Nitrate HR .00 Hannah

My nitrates are reading zero all the time. I don't have your troubles though.
PO4 is at the minimum, can you raise that a little bit?

SG: 1.026
DKH: 8.0
Phos: .03
Nitrate HR: .00
PH 8.15
Temp 77

Anyway any advice would be appreciated.

The rest of your numbers look good.
Cudos for trying to raise NO3. I don't think that's your problem if you have fish in the system.

I'm going to guess your par is good but it's nice to know.
Same with calcium/magnesium.

 

[BryanM]

You could use microbacter7 to re-kickstart things, and at the same time I would dose NeoNitro and NeoPhos. You need nitrates for sure, either N or P bottomed out creates problems.

 

[Kershaw]

Yup, flip flopping when using chemicals. Not uncommon. I'd personally fight cyano over the GHA. just get the nutrients balanced out and it will go away on its own. Keep flow up and syphone it off as it comes.

My nitrates are reading zero all the time. I don't have your troubles though.
PO4 is at the minimum, can you raise that a little bit?

The rest of your numbers look good.
Cudos for trying to raise NO3. I don't think that's your problem if you have fish in the system.

I'm going to guess your par is good but it's nice to know.
Same with calcium/magnesium.

The GHA was a nightmare, I took each rock out and scrubbed it a tub. Issue is no mentions when I looked it up that the water gets so cloudy you can’t see where to scrub. Took forever and lots of saltwater trying preserve life. When I put rock back in and seen how much I missed I used chemicals hoping that with how much I removed they would handle the rest. I do have par meter it’s like $150 one but seems constant. I will check today when lights are at peak. Last time I was around 50-80 at sand bed and around 150 at highest rock. I did increase intensity on lights to bring that up a bit but that was some time ago and have not re checked.

 

[Kershaw]

You could use microbacter7 to re-kickstart things, and at the same time I would dose NeoNitro and NeoPhos. You need nitrates for sure, either N or P bottomed out creates problems.

As of yesterday I have started adding more bacteria. I don’t think I have a lack bacteria as I would imagine if I had ammonia in the tank fish, crabs, and snails would be dying. They seem fine for now.

 

[Lavey29]

The GHA was a nightmare, I took each rock out and scrubbed it a tub. Issue is no mentions when I looked it up that the water gets so cloudy you can’t see where to scrub. Took forever and lots of saltwater trying preserve life. When I put rock back in and seen how much I missed I used chemicals hoping that with how much I removed they would handle the rest. I do have par meter it’s like $150 one but seems constant. I will check today when lights are at peak. Last time I was around 50-80 at sand bed and around 150 at highest rock. I did increase intensity on lights to bring that up a bit but that was some time ago and have not re checked.

That ain't enough light

 

[The Mushroom Man]

Yeah 150 par at the highest point is on the low end of what euphyilla should receive, i would aim for 180-250 par

 

[Kershaw]

Yeah 150 par at the highest point is on the low end of what euphyilla should receive, i would aim for 180-250 par

Updated testing. I am aware I have low par, and I am not saying it isn’t an issue. I just don’t think it explains a seemingly rapid decline. I need to lower my lights or add more. Tests also indicate that a single AP9x is more effective then two A360X

 

[Lavey29]

Updated testing. I am aware I have low par, and I am not saying it isn’t an issue. I just don’t think it explains a seemingly rapid decline. I need to lower my lights or add more. Tests also indicate that a single AP9x is more effective then two A360X

My LPS sit in 150 to 250 par and thrive. That's bottom and mid tank zones.