Hey guys, I've been keeping coral for a while and it's always been pretty smooth sailing for me up until now. I moved to a different city (I don't know if that has anything to do with it, hence the thread name) about 3 years ago and I've been trying to get back into keeping coral and not having much luck. I had a 29 gallon with HOB filters/skimmers and I figured my system just wasn't good enough, so I upgraded to a 75g with a 29g sump (live rock rubble as media), 150int reef octopus skimmer, 4 bulb T5/Orphek bar LED combo (putting out ~150 par towards the top of the tank if I had to guess), and two ~1250gph powerheads moving the water in a circular fashion. I switched from instant ocean to red sea mixed reef salt mix about 6 months ago when upgrading to the 75g. I haven't had any problems with fish but coral do NOT thrive for me in this system. Nothing seems to melt/die right away but rather they either don't grow or very slowly wither away. I had a superman rhodactis mushroom slowly stop expanding for a year before he finally jumped off his rock. I have a few zoa's that either don't like to open or have only grown by 1 or 2 polyps. My green star polyp frag has expanded but only by a few inches over a year or so. Kenya trees and green sinularia are fairly doing well, but no where near the explosive growth i've had with soft corals in the past. I bought a torch and hammer within the past two months and they are still alive, but get just a teeny bit smaller every day (~60% the size that I bought them). I keep thinking that i've figured out the issue and find something to upgrade (most recently I upgraded the powerheads to something much more powerful, with no results). It may be worth noting that I've had ZERO nuisance algae/diatom/cyano problems. I've seen a few dinoflagellates pop up recently, which i'll explain below. I feed my fish frozen (mysid, clam, etc mix) every day and dose my corals with amino acids 2x a week (korallen-zucht). I don't dose anything else as I figure at this stage it would do more harm than good , instead I try to do frequent partial water changes. It may be worth noting my corals are just frags that take up very little tank space, and I'm assuming don't uptake all too much from my water.
So I figure all of my equipment is adequate, and it has to be something to do with my water. Here are my wild theories:
About a month ago I was convinced there was something noxious in the tap water here (DC city area). I upgraded my cheap RO buddy to a 5 step RO/deionizing unit and was able to go from 6 tds to 0 tds (tap water is 150tds). Since then I've done two ~20% water changes. I'm not sure if I should keep going with a few more large water changes, as I can't be certain this was not the issue.
Maybe my skimmer does too good a job. My nitrate and phosphate, in the past, using my cheapo API test kit, has tested close to 0. This is kind of supported by the fact that I'm not seeing nuisance algae (I guess?). Am I starving out my coral? I dose amino acids (probably not as much as I should, and I guess the skimmer can take a lot of them out) should I increase my dosage?
There is some sort of precipitant reaction going on that I'm only just becoming aware of. I see a grey "snow" like matter suspended in the tank, and when I use a turkey baster, I get a TON off of my live rock. My alkalinity/calcium is high (see below) but I didn't think it was unreasonably so. I'm just really unfamiliar with participants and what they mean.
So now on to my parameters. I'd like to add that ammonia-nitrite-nitrate-phosphate has come up as pretty much 0 until today, when I got the idea in my head that it had to be my nitrate was too low and I needed to boost it by feeding heavily this morning and turning down my skimmer.
Temperature 78
salinity 1.0255
alkalinity 11.2 dKH
pH 8.2
calcium ~500-520
ammonia ~0-0.25 (usually 0)
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
phosphate 0.05-0.015 (usually closer to 0)
I do not own a magnesium or potassium test but if I had to guess I'd say it's around the salt mixes parameters of 1350 for magnesium and 390 for potassium. Although somehow my calcium has seemed to have crept up so maybe I can't make this assumption...
Does anyone have any ideas of what I'm doing wrong? Even if you aren't certain, I'd appreciate hearing new perspectives and maybe I can find an avenue I haven't explored yet.
So I figure all of my equipment is adequate, and it has to be something to do with my water. Here are my wild theories:
About a month ago I was convinced there was something noxious in the tap water here (DC city area). I upgraded my cheap RO buddy to a 5 step RO/deionizing unit and was able to go from 6 tds to 0 tds (tap water is 150tds). Since then I've done two ~20% water changes. I'm not sure if I should keep going with a few more large water changes, as I can't be certain this was not the issue.
Maybe my skimmer does too good a job. My nitrate and phosphate, in the past, using my cheapo API test kit, has tested close to 0. This is kind of supported by the fact that I'm not seeing nuisance algae (I guess?). Am I starving out my coral? I dose amino acids (probably not as much as I should, and I guess the skimmer can take a lot of them out) should I increase my dosage?
There is some sort of precipitant reaction going on that I'm only just becoming aware of. I see a grey "snow" like matter suspended in the tank, and when I use a turkey baster, I get a TON off of my live rock. My alkalinity/calcium is high (see below) but I didn't think it was unreasonably so. I'm just really unfamiliar with participants and what they mean.
So now on to my parameters. I'd like to add that ammonia-nitrite-nitrate-phosphate has come up as pretty much 0 until today, when I got the idea in my head that it had to be my nitrate was too low and I needed to boost it by feeding heavily this morning and turning down my skimmer.
Temperature 78
salinity 1.0255
alkalinity 11.2 dKH
pH 8.2
calcium ~500-520
ammonia ~0-0.25 (usually 0)
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
phosphate 0.05-0.015 (usually closer to 0)
I do not own a magnesium or potassium test but if I had to guess I'd say it's around the salt mixes parameters of 1350 for magnesium and 390 for potassium. Although somehow my calcium has seemed to have crept up so maybe I can't make this assumption...
Does anyone have any ideas of what I'm doing wrong? Even if you aren't certain, I'd appreciate hearing new perspectives and maybe I can find an avenue I haven't explored yet.
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