Somebody help me!

[jmp21677]

8 dkh seems to be considered a good base line. The ICP test you did looks like it has recommended values on the right hand side. I keep my tank as close as I can to 7.5 dkh.

Lower DKH due to lower nutrients I'm assuming?

 

[jmp21677]

I did just make a small adjustment to my doser. Now dosing every other day 10 ml per additive per day

 

[Camaro Show Corals]

I did just make a small adjustment to my doser. Now dosing every other day 10 ml per additive per day

Can you dose smaller amounts throughout the whole day?

 

[Dave Cureton]

Smaller amounts throughout the day are more beneficial. Try 1 ml every 3-4 hours if possible.

 

[ycnibrc]

Did u start your tank with dry rock? If u are then read this

Why cant u keep sps?

Water change is a way to export nutrients? Yes but it also change your alk and others parameters. A bad bag of salt can crash your tank easy.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Greg P]

Definitely try to dose as many small doses throughout the day as you are able to. The smaller the Alk swings the better.
Your pics look like either Alk burn or fish nipping.
You didn't mention having other test kits. I use Salifert for Alk, Calcium and Mag. Consider buying some.

Are you doing water changes?
If so, do you test your replacement water before water changes?
WCs with high Alk can cause Alk burn similar to your pics.
I use Instant Ocean regular salt and the Alk is absurdly high in their buckets.
So much so that I do some math before a WC to ensure my Alk won't have too big of a swing.
If I didn't care about money, I'd use Red Sea blue buckets as their parameters are pretty much where I keep my tank.

Before a WC, I test both my DT and the new water (NSW), and I adjust the NSW accordingly to match my DT. I also go so far as to dose enough of the Big 3 to the NSW to bring my DT levels back to where I want them if they're low.
The key here is to keep the parameters as stable as possible - no big swings up or down.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Your corals are dying from starvation OP. Not enough light or not enough fish poop or both. I think your alk is a touch too high for your po4. No3/po4 really only matter when it comes to algae control. How many fish do you have? I have 15 fish in my 50 gallon cube and my no3 is 15-25 po4 0.10-.25. I feed 2 cubes of frozen, 1 sheet of nori, zoo plankton, phyto plankton and reef energy ab+ everyday. My skimmer only runs when the lights are off. I’m not saying feed this much but acros need way more organics than most ppl believe. I would start by turning your skimmer off for a couple weeks and I bet your sps will thank you for it. Turn it back on when your po4 gets above 0.20 but don’t let it get below 0.10

 

[jmp21677]

Your corals are dying from starvation OP. Not enough light or not enough fish poop or both. I think your alk is a touch too high for your po4. No3/po4 really only matter when it comes to algae control. How many fish do you have? I have 15 fish in my 50 gallon cube and my no3 is 15-25 po4 0.10-.25. I feed 2 cubes of frozen, 1 sheet of nori, zoo plankton, phyto plankton and reef energy ab+ everyday. My skimmer only runs when the lights are off. I’m not saying feed this much but acros need way more organics than most ppl believe. I would start by turning your skimmer off for a couple weeks and I bet your sps will thank you for it. Turn it back on when your po4 gets above 0.20 but don’t let it get below 0.10

I have 7 fish in the tank
Purple tang
Pair of picassos
Royal gramma
Lawnmower blenny
Yasha hasa
Damsel

In did just up my lights in the last week. I saw zoas on the bottom stretching for light. That seems to have stopped. I'll try the skimmer piece and see if that helps as well

 

[jmp21677]

Definitely try to dose as many small doses throughout the day as you are able to. The smaller the Alk swings the better.
Your pics look like either Alk burn or fish nipping.
You didn't mention having other test kits. I use Salifert for Alk, Calcium and Mag. Consider buying some.

Are you doing water changes?
If so, do you test your replacement water before water changes?
WCs with high Alk can cause Alk burn similar to your pics.
I use Instant Ocean regular salt and the Alk is absurdly high in their buckets.
So much so that I do some math before a WC to ensure my Alk won't have too big of a swing.
If I didn't care about money, I'd use Red Sea blue buckets as their parameters are pretty much where I keep my tank.

Before a WC, I test both my DT and the new water (NSW), and I adjust the NSW accordingly to match my DT. I also go so far as to dose enough of the Big 3 to the NSW to bring my DT levels back to where I want them if they're low.
The key here is to keep the parameters as stable as possible - no big swings up or down.

Just stopped water changes in the last three weeks but was using blue bucket red sea. I did use Pro at one time but it always seemed to have really high alk. I have just about every test kit available. Calc,alk and phosphate are Hanna. Elos for mag and nitrate. I'm willing to try anything so I'll work on setting up the smaller doses throughout the day as well.

 

[Reef_in_Denver]

I use $15 timers that you can setup 8 different programs on. I dose 2-3 ml every 3 hours. Less at night as less is being consumed.

 

[ScottB]

I am with @Chaswood79 on maintaining higher nutrient for acropora. I wouldn't necessarily rush to dirty up the tank, but gradually let your levels creep up.

If I am reading your post correctly, the acros are stressed from the beginning almost. You get no honeymoon period with them at all? A month? If it is happening that fast then we need to look at a couple of things:
a) Your parameters versus the system they came from. ALK, NO3, PO4, PAR should be darn close. Don't buy if they are not.
b) Acclimation & dipping process.

Here is mine. If the frags are shipped, I consider this critical. Local LFS, they are likely much less stressed and I can speed things up.
a) temp acclimate in sump. no/low light. 1-2 hours
b) Visual inspection under lit magnifying lense. Remove plug if possible.
c) Place in your system away from light. Let it destress a couple days.
d) Then do your dip. If using CoralRX keep it super short like 3-4 minutes but baste hard.
e) Place again in low light for a day or two and redip

The point is this: Shipping is stressful. Temp & parameter change is stressful. Dipping can be very stressful. Let the poor thing recover a little before adding new stressors to it.

 

[jmp21677]

I am with @Chaswood79 on maintaining higher nutrient for acropora. I wouldn't necessarily rush to dirty up the tank, but gradually let your levels creep up.

If I am reading your post correctly, the acros are stressed from the beginning almost. You get no honeymoon period with them at all? A month? If it is happening that fast then we need to look at a couple of things:
a) Your parameters versus the system they came from. ALK, NO3, PO4, PAR should be darn close. Don't buy if they are not.
b) Acclimation & dipping process.

Here is mine. If the frags are shipped, I consider this critical. Local LFS, they are likely much less stressed and I can speed things up.
a) temp acclimate in sump. no/low light. 1-2 hours
b) Visual inspection under lit magnifying lense. Remove plug if possible.
c) Place in your system away from light. Let it destress a couple days.
d) Then do your dip. If using CoralRX keep it super short like 3-4 minutes but baste hard.
e) Place again in low light for a day or two and redip

The point is this: Shipping is stressful. Temp & parameter change is stressful. Dipping can be very stressful. Let the poor thing recover a little before adding new stressors to it.

I do get a honeymoon period typically. I have a sunset that's still kicking and have had it around 3-4 months.

 

[jmp21677]

So I removed the chemipure and expanded my dosing out to four times per day. Skimmer has been turned off as well. Let's see what happens

 

[RCS82]

Wouldn't just take the cup off and leave it running for the added oxygenation?

 

[PeaBrain]

It may not be likely, but don't rule out animals nipping at them.

 

[MurphyJ]

I would not turn off the skimmer. Skimmers provide oxygen to the system. You can open the valve so the skimmer does only dry skim or no skim but still provide oxygen. Or you can remove the cup and just let it overflow.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I would not turn off the skimmer. Skimmers provide oxygen to the system. You can open the valve so the skimmer does only dry skim or no skim but still provide oxygen. Or you can remove the cup and just let it overflow.

Skimmers are not required to keep corals alive. The fastest growth I’ve had was when I didn’t have a skimmer and I don’t use a skimmer on my frag tank. Reefraftusa doesn’t use skimmers, one of the 500g display tanks at wwc doesn’t have a skimmer and the entire sps system when reefersdirect was still open was skimmerless.

 

[phillygeeks]

It sounds like you are changing a lot in a short amount of time to save the corals. I think there is a tendency to lose more if you keep changing things. Something is going on and you may likely continue to lose corals. That being said I have had corals I thought were almost completely dead and when I found out what my problem was and just let things stabilize some of the corals began growing back and encrusting over the dead branches.

I would really look hard into what clues you have into what is going on and how to fix it and the pick a dosing schedule, water change schedule, lighting schedule and intensity, pick a salt that mixes close to your goal alk and just stay there and keep it stable for a while. You may lose more in the immediate term but the more stable you keep things in the long term the better things will be.

If you have lower nutrients a lower alk around 8 or just under will be good. Don't keep the light intensity too high with low nutrients. May be a good idea to borrow a PAR meter if you haven't checked that yet. Confirm your test kits are good, etc.
Hope you get it sorted without too much headache!

 

[jmp21677]

It sounds like you are changing a lot in a short amount of time to save the corals. I think there is a tendency to lose more if you keep changing things. Something is going on and you may likely continue to lose corals. That being said I have had corals I thought were almost completely dead and when I found out what my problem was and just let things stabilize some of the corals began growing back and encrusting over the dead branches.

I would really look hard into what clues you have into what is going on and how to fix it and the pick a dosing schedule, water change schedule, lighting schedule and intensity, pick a salt that mixes close to your goal alk and just stay there and keep it stable for a while. You may lose more in the immediate term but the more stable you keep things in the long term the better things will be.

If you have lower nutrients a lower alk around 8 or just under will be good. Don't keep the light intensity too high with low nutrients. May be a good idea to borrow a PAR meter if you haven't checked that yet. Confirm your test kits are good, etc.
Hope you get it sorted without too much headache!

Didn't add anything with dosing change just spreading total dose out over more time. I just stopped doing water changes with Triton. I've been using Blue bucket red sea. That always seems to have a good start point for Alk. The Par meter is on the schedule for tomorrow actually. Appreciate everyone's help

 

[Greg P]

Do you have an update for us?
I don't use Triton. I prefer test kits.