Please Tell Me It Gets Better.....

[reeferpdx415]

Ok. Just need someone to walk me off the ledge and tell me it gets better. I'm 8months in to my new mixed reef tank and I just can't get my tank to be happy. Every day there is something dying in the tank. Mostly corals but fish too. My trachy was the happiest in the tank. Left for 3 days, came back and it was basically dead. All of the sudden my Euphylia are melting. My Raja chalice was super happy and now it receding like crazy and won't stop. I have my LFS doing weekly maintenance which include a 15-20% water change each week. My parameters seem to be in a relatively good range. I have corals that are usually hard to keep thriving and corals that are usually bullet proof dying left and right. Just don't know what to do. Bummer is instead of walking in each day to enjoy my little piece of ocean I walk in each day stressed about what I'm going to find dying. Ugh!!

 

[JoshSmith]

I have been in the same boat. Everything including Acros and other SPS doing well in a tank but mushrooms melting, etc. There are people that cant keep GSP and xenia alive. I cant really answer whats going on in your tank, but checking params is a good start.

 

[johnnycamp5]

I get it. I think it’s just the way it goes sometimes with new tanks.
Mine is 9 months old and I am succeeding with some LPS/SPS, yet can’t keep any zoa alive.

I just keep going with what thrives,
hoping that time/maturity will help.

 

[exnisstech]

9 years in and I still can't keep a chalice alive, torch, Xenia, goni, all die. I couldn't keep GSP for years and now it thrives.
What helped me through was to focus in the corals that did survive and grow them out.
Later if I was successful I started trying other corals one at a time. If I failed I moved on and tried something different.
IME ive found each tank different and some coral thrive in one and will die in another even tho parameters are similar. its something that would go unnoticed with just one tank.

TLDR
Don't fret the ones that don't survive and focus on the ones that do.

 

[SOGavity]

Having your parameters written down for us to see would help us determine what's going on in your tank. pH, Alkalinity, Salinity, Temp, Nitrates, Phosphates, Ammonia, Calcium, Lights you use, and so on. I believe almost (not everyone), but a big chunk of us fail the first time. The first year of your very first tank is all about spending days researching, asking questions and getting multiple answers, having success and failure, learning from mistakes and others' experiences. Figuring out what works with your setup is a different journey for all of us and I would bet not a single one of us have the exact same combination of equipment and parameters, but there is a happy middle ground that we can help you with. That's what we're here for.

 

[bubbgee]

9 years in and I still can't keep a chalice alive, torch, Xenia, goni, all die. I couldn't keep GSP dor years and now it thrives.
What helped me through was to focus in the corals that did survive and and grown them out.

I never got a GSP lasting longer than a week closed up. Xenia and cloves as well. Plate corals die almost within 48 hours in my tank.

 

[bubbgee]

Ok. Just need someone to walk me off the ledge and tell me it gets better. I'm 8months in to my new mixed reef tank and I just can't get my tank to be happy. Every day there is something dying in the tank. Mostly corals but fish too. My trachy was the happiest in the tank. Left for 3 days, came back and it was basically dead. All of the sudden my Euphylia are melting. My Raja chalice was super happy and now it receding like crazy and won't stop. I have my LFS doing weekly maintenance which include a 15-20% water change each week. My parameters seem to be in a relatively good range. I have corals that are usually hard to keep thriving and corals that are usually bullet proof dying left and right. Just don't know what to do. Bummer is instead of walking in each day to enjoy my little piece of ocean I walk in each day stressed about what I'm going to find dying. Ugh!!

What helped me is regular testing (alk, cal, mag, po4 and no3).

Also, after struggling for a while, dosing Aquaforest Lifesource helped me accelerate my tank's maturity. Something in the mud adds so much diversity in the biome. Coralline algae was something i couldn't grow in my tank. After a month of dosing mud, I started growing coralline all over my tank.

You can give that a go and see if that helps.

 

[VintageReefer]

I can’t keep cloves
Acans I’m about 50% success rate
Blastos about 25% survive

But my tank…

There’s just weird easy things that simply don’t do well for me.

 

[exnisstech]

I never got a GSP lasting longer than a week closed up. Xenia and cloves as well. Plate corals die almost within 48 hours in my tank.

I forgot about cloves, I still can't keep them.

 

[Reef_Squirrel]

When i had my first tank setup(Fluval Flex 32.5) I couldn't seem to shake the green hair algae. No matter what i did it wouldn't go away. I bought CUC, multiple water changes, manual removal, lowered light intensity and even threw chemiclean at it...just kept coming back. Sometimes the battle seems to never end.

I ended up pulling everything out into temp tubs and did a complete scrub down of the tank. After i got it all back together with fresh saltwater and a new round of bacteria dosing it was fine...just had a short lived diatom breakout then it solved itself...lol.

I'm sure if you keep your head up and keep powering through the battle you'll come out the other side proud to have survived it.

 

[reeferpdx415]

9 years in and I still can't keep a chalice alive, torch, Xenia, goni, all die. I couldn't keep GSP for years and now it thrives.
What helped me through was to focus in the corals that did survive and grow them out.
Later if I was successful I started trying other corals one at a time. If I failed I moved on and tried something different.
IME ive found each tank different and some coral thrive in one and will die in another even tho parameters are similar. its something that would go unnoticed with just one tank.

TLDR
Don't fret the ones that don't survive and focus on the ones that do.

Really appreciate that. Needed to hear it!!

 

[reeferpdx415]

Having your parameters written down for us to see would help us determine what's going on in your tank. pH, Alkalinity, Salinity, Temp, Nitrates, Phosphates, Ammonia, Calcium, Lights you use, and so on. I believe almost (not everyone), but a big chunk of us fail the first time. The first year of your very first tank is all about spending days researching, asking questions and getting multiple answers, having success and failure, learning from mistakes and others' experiences. Figuring out what works with your setup is a different journey for all of us and I would bet not a single one of us have the exact same combination of equipment and parameters, but there is a happy middle ground that we can help you with. That's what we're here for.

Params tend to sit around

Salinity: 1.025
Alk: 8
Phos: .7
Nitrates: 15-25
Calc: 400
Mag: 1200
Temp: 77

Using AI Primes. Switching to AI Hydra Edge 44s tomorrow and adding a Trident + Dos in the next few weeks.

 

[Reef Jedi]

I had this same feeling 22 years ago. I kept going to prove to my self that I could have my slice of ocean in my living room. 23 years later I have learned to leave it alone. Keep up on regular water changes and regular maintenance. I’ve been through everything you can think of including Dino’s. I will say don’t give up, sometimes simple water changes back to back can really turn a tank around. If you keep putting your energy and effort into it, I promise over time it will give it back to you.

What size tank are you running?

 

[reeferpdx415]

I had this same feeling 22 years ago. I kept going to prove to my self that I could have my slice of ocean in my living room. 23 years later I have learned to leave it alone. Keep up on regular water changes and regular maintenance. I’ve been through everything you can think of including Dino’s. I will say don’t give up, sometimes simple water changes back to back can really turn a tank around. If you keep putting your energy and effort into it, I promise over time it will give it back to you.

What size tank are you running?

90g display volume. And thank you!!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

One of the number one advice that got given to me is never change your tank for one coral that isn't doing well if the rest of your corals are doing great. Focus on what is doing well in your tank. Corals can be moody, or simply not do well in various tanks. It can be caused by anything (stressed out when you got it, something irritated it, generally just doesn't like your tank). My tank when it was set up? Never did good with candy canes, but GSP spread like wildfire in my tank.

 

[SOGavity]

Params tend to sit around

Salinity: 1.025
Alk: 8
Phos: .7
Nitrates: 15-25
Calc: 400
Mag: 1200
Temp: 77

Using AI Primes. Switching to AI Hydra Edge 44s tomorrow and adding a Trident + Dos in the next few weeks.

I'm guessing your phos. is ppm... which means 0.7 is too high. You want it 0.03-0.2. Also try to bring the nitrates down to 10 or lower. I'd also dose some magnesium which should sit around 1250-1350.

A lot of people will tell you not to chase numbers, but when things are dying, sometimes you have to look at those numbers.