Outdrsyguy1
Active Member
Hi everyone! I heard from a fellow reefer that there were some very knowledgable folks here and my local area club can't figure out what's wrong. Hopefully you guys can suggest some things to try to solve the riddle. I never had much luck with sps (too few nutrients, then too many, tried gfo/carbon, carbon dosing, now finally settled on zeovit method). I found my exacting anal nature worked best with zeovit.
Current problem is STN from the base up in all my acros and only in my acros. I have stylo, spongode, digi's, setosa, and birds nests. Everything was super pale/dying for a long time then when I started zeovit I got things under control and it all started coloring/recovering. Went on vacation and tank alk crashed down to 6.4 dkh. STN started then and killed most the acros or is still continuing. I got things settled and back to 7.4 dkh (where I had it before) and about 4 weeks later added ~5 sps figuring that the stn should not affect them since things are stable. Well the new acro's are also STN and I can't figure out why. I'll post my stats now and then everything i've tried followed by a couple pics for example.
A. Total water volume ( Please include sump, etc.)
approximately 100 gallons (110 tall tank (4' wide), and ~15 gallon sump)
B. What are your parameters? ( CA, ALK, PO4,Salinity, etc.)
CA - 430, Alk 7.3 dkh (measured on 2 different red sea test kits, waiting on hanna checker to arrive in mail). Measured against fellow reefers red sea and salifert and they were about 1 dkh higher than me (not sure how old his kits were). 2 LFS worthless tests using api (12+dkh and 16 dkh) which not possible. Alk was 7.4 before I went on vacation and things were doing fine. 0<PO4<.027 using elos test kit, closer to 0 than .027. Nitrate .5 using red sea No3 pro. Salinity 1.026 measured with refractometer calibrated that day with pinpoint 1.026 test solution. Accuracy also verified against 2 other reefers tanks, potassium 425 using red sea potassium pro, temperature 78.3 to 79.3 using apex and chiller (never leaves this range), ph 7.92 to 8.13 depending on night/day measure by apex lab probe, magnesium 1320 by red sea magnesium pro
C. Type of lighting. Please include age, watts, and bulb/ballast name.
2 custom made Cree binned LED panels with 3 watt LED's (66 total per light bank) from reefledlights.com. I went with this over commercial builds for more led power and to spread the lights out over the top of the tank better. 18" x 8.5" per panel. Each LED bank has 3 dimmer channels, 1. cool white/royal blue, 2. blue, 3. highnoon/moonlighting. Each bank has the following make-up 36 XT-E Royal Blue, 15 XT-E Cool White, 3 XP-blue (moon lights and high noon), 6 Hyper violet UV, 6 XT-E High noon. The high noon's really have some par boost to them so I don't run them very high. If everything was on full I get around 800 par near the top and 500 par in the sand. I run things typically around 200 to 450 par with most of the corals in the 250 to 350 range. Lighting schedule: blues/whites ramp up for 1 hour, then stay constant for about 7 hours and ramp down 1 hour, high noon ramps up and back down over 4 hours to emulate mid day sun. System looks about 20k most of the day with the high noons around 14k color. I believe the dimmers provided also run led's at less than full 3 watts to preserve life. Lights are about 1 year old now. Originally ran coralife 2 x 250 halide w/ 2 95W PC's that provided very poor par and too much heat.
D. Filtration method (Skimmer, GFO, DSB, etc.)
2 - 200 micron mesh filter socks in return, 1 - 100 micron felt filter sock on outlet of skimmer (mostly to catch air bubbles, but also catches a fair amount of debris missed by return socks. Socks all changed about every 5 days and washed in washer with mild soap and super rinse cycle, also a little bleach added. Dried thoroughly afterwards before use
Kent Marine Nautilus turbo-eductor skimmer (came used with tank, seems to work fairly decent for me.
Zeovit method with 1 Liter of zeolites and .35ml zeostart 2x a day. I dose other stuff depending on the day but dosing seems similar to others i've seen.
NO GFO or any other po4 reducers per zeo instructions
~ .5" sand bed, not more than 1"
RO/DI for make-up water measures 0 tds with hand held meter recently calibrated
zeovit carbon ~.5 liter in loose bag changed once a month
E. What types of corals do you keep other than SPS?
I have green star polyps, a few scattered mushrooms (~15 max), 2 leath toad stools (one brown, 5" diameter, one huge with green tenticles ~10" in diameter), green digi, purple digi, some other kind of blue/purple digi, purple stylo, spongode, psammacora, gold aussie torch, duncan, setosa, purple monti, red monti, sour apple birds nest, bird of paradise birds nest (i think), bright green branching leather, kenya branching brown leather, green slimer (STN bad), garf bonsie (STN bad), Oz's green acro (STN a bit), red millie (STN bad), ORA Red Planet (STN medium+), Green staghorn (STN bad), light blue staghorn (STN bad), pulsing steel blue zenia, pulsing pink zenia, ORA red goniopora, some branching LPS that looks like green frogspawn but without the splitting (single tentacles), zoa's in a few places ~ 100 polyps total, purple sea fan (photosynthetic kind), 5 head kryptonite candycane, small sunset montipora frag. Most everything is frag sized with a few colony's. The brown toadstool had GSP growing on the trunk of it and irritating it obviously. I just removed it and put it in quarantine tank 4 days ago.
F. How long has the tank been running?
2 years almost to the day
G. What are you dosing? Dosing schedule?
dose 2 part from brs. about 15 ml per night alk and 10 ml per night calcium. never had to add magnesium
a few drops zeofood7, sponge power, coral booster, coral vitalizer, and amino acids. Only a few drops a night from a couple of those and changes every day
H. Which brand of salt are you using?
reefers best currently. Iv'e used instant ocean in the past, both regular and reef crystals, and also red sea coral pro
I. What brand of test kits are you employing?
red sea, elos, soon hanna, see above for which for which elements
J. What are you using for CA/ALK supplementation?
BRS 2 part with dosing pumps via apex schedule. Calcium doses once an hour over the course of mid day for about 4 hours. Alk doses at night once an hour for about 6 hours (a few minutes per dose typically on both of those)
water changes every 2 weeks about 10%
K. What are you using for flow? (Pump names, how many, placement, etc.)
Not sure the main return pump, it's pretty big (came used) and sits outside the sump.
2 - Tunze 6105 that go from 0 to 100%. One 0 for 2 secs, on for 4, other 0 for 2 seconds on for 6.
One medium sized korellia (came used, not sure the size). I've got a pretty serious amount of flow now, i used to run the tunzes lower but a couple weeks ago someone recommended more flow so I jacked it up. hasn't seemed to have made a huge difference. Some polyps extend more and some things might grow a hair faster. STN still similar rate, maybe a hair slower. I have 2 jabao i can use but more flow than i have now might be just a little too crazy honestly.
Here's what i've done recently
checked stray voltage (around 8 volts, pretty minimal)
changed RO/DI cartridges/resin even though already had 0 tds, had to try something...
increase flow
I'm thinking of trying to pull all the leathers out and maybe the xenia too and see if anything changes. I run carbon and "massage the bag" every couple days but who knows.
my old sps were pale but new sps stayed decent color but just STN from base up. I really think alk is okay, lightings good, and water params are good. very little algae though I do have some bubble algae going on and some aptasia i'm trying to kill with CBB and peppermints (not going very well currently)
I'll post a couple pics after this.
Please let me know if you have ANY suggestions I could try, I really want to be able to grow acro's, especially millie's!!!!!
In the last 2 years i've battle zoa pox, red bugs, AEFW (that sucked!), too little nutrients, and clownfish that decided to be on a hit squad. I've beat it all but just can't get acro's to do well.
Thanks in advance!!!!!!!
Rusty
Atlanta Reefer
Current problem is STN from the base up in all my acros and only in my acros. I have stylo, spongode, digi's, setosa, and birds nests. Everything was super pale/dying for a long time then when I started zeovit I got things under control and it all started coloring/recovering. Went on vacation and tank alk crashed down to 6.4 dkh. STN started then and killed most the acros or is still continuing. I got things settled and back to 7.4 dkh (where I had it before) and about 4 weeks later added ~5 sps figuring that the stn should not affect them since things are stable. Well the new acro's are also STN and I can't figure out why. I'll post my stats now and then everything i've tried followed by a couple pics for example.
A. Total water volume ( Please include sump, etc.)
approximately 100 gallons (110 tall tank (4' wide), and ~15 gallon sump)
B. What are your parameters? ( CA, ALK, PO4,Salinity, etc.)
CA - 430, Alk 7.3 dkh (measured on 2 different red sea test kits, waiting on hanna checker to arrive in mail). Measured against fellow reefers red sea and salifert and they were about 1 dkh higher than me (not sure how old his kits were). 2 LFS worthless tests using api (12+dkh and 16 dkh) which not possible. Alk was 7.4 before I went on vacation and things were doing fine. 0<PO4<.027 using elos test kit, closer to 0 than .027. Nitrate .5 using red sea No3 pro. Salinity 1.026 measured with refractometer calibrated that day with pinpoint 1.026 test solution. Accuracy also verified against 2 other reefers tanks, potassium 425 using red sea potassium pro, temperature 78.3 to 79.3 using apex and chiller (never leaves this range), ph 7.92 to 8.13 depending on night/day measure by apex lab probe, magnesium 1320 by red sea magnesium pro
C. Type of lighting. Please include age, watts, and bulb/ballast name.
2 custom made Cree binned LED panels with 3 watt LED's (66 total per light bank) from reefledlights.com. I went with this over commercial builds for more led power and to spread the lights out over the top of the tank better. 18" x 8.5" per panel. Each LED bank has 3 dimmer channels, 1. cool white/royal blue, 2. blue, 3. highnoon/moonlighting. Each bank has the following make-up 36 XT-E Royal Blue, 15 XT-E Cool White, 3 XP-blue (moon lights and high noon), 6 Hyper violet UV, 6 XT-E High noon. The high noon's really have some par boost to them so I don't run them very high. If everything was on full I get around 800 par near the top and 500 par in the sand. I run things typically around 200 to 450 par with most of the corals in the 250 to 350 range. Lighting schedule: blues/whites ramp up for 1 hour, then stay constant for about 7 hours and ramp down 1 hour, high noon ramps up and back down over 4 hours to emulate mid day sun. System looks about 20k most of the day with the high noons around 14k color. I believe the dimmers provided also run led's at less than full 3 watts to preserve life. Lights are about 1 year old now. Originally ran coralife 2 x 250 halide w/ 2 95W PC's that provided very poor par and too much heat.
D. Filtration method (Skimmer, GFO, DSB, etc.)
2 - 200 micron mesh filter socks in return, 1 - 100 micron felt filter sock on outlet of skimmer (mostly to catch air bubbles, but also catches a fair amount of debris missed by return socks. Socks all changed about every 5 days and washed in washer with mild soap and super rinse cycle, also a little bleach added. Dried thoroughly afterwards before use
Kent Marine Nautilus turbo-eductor skimmer (came used with tank, seems to work fairly decent for me.
Zeovit method with 1 Liter of zeolites and .35ml zeostart 2x a day. I dose other stuff depending on the day but dosing seems similar to others i've seen.
NO GFO or any other po4 reducers per zeo instructions
~ .5" sand bed, not more than 1"
RO/DI for make-up water measures 0 tds with hand held meter recently calibrated
zeovit carbon ~.5 liter in loose bag changed once a month
E. What types of corals do you keep other than SPS?
I have green star polyps, a few scattered mushrooms (~15 max), 2 leath toad stools (one brown, 5" diameter, one huge with green tenticles ~10" in diameter), green digi, purple digi, some other kind of blue/purple digi, purple stylo, spongode, psammacora, gold aussie torch, duncan, setosa, purple monti, red monti, sour apple birds nest, bird of paradise birds nest (i think), bright green branching leather, kenya branching brown leather, green slimer (STN bad), garf bonsie (STN bad), Oz's green acro (STN a bit), red millie (STN bad), ORA Red Planet (STN medium+), Green staghorn (STN bad), light blue staghorn (STN bad), pulsing steel blue zenia, pulsing pink zenia, ORA red goniopora, some branching LPS that looks like green frogspawn but without the splitting (single tentacles), zoa's in a few places ~ 100 polyps total, purple sea fan (photosynthetic kind), 5 head kryptonite candycane, small sunset montipora frag. Most everything is frag sized with a few colony's. The brown toadstool had GSP growing on the trunk of it and irritating it obviously. I just removed it and put it in quarantine tank 4 days ago.
F. How long has the tank been running?
2 years almost to the day
G. What are you dosing? Dosing schedule?
dose 2 part from brs. about 15 ml per night alk and 10 ml per night calcium. never had to add magnesium
a few drops zeofood7, sponge power, coral booster, coral vitalizer, and amino acids. Only a few drops a night from a couple of those and changes every day
H. Which brand of salt are you using?
reefers best currently. Iv'e used instant ocean in the past, both regular and reef crystals, and also red sea coral pro
I. What brand of test kits are you employing?
red sea, elos, soon hanna, see above for which for which elements
J. What are you using for CA/ALK supplementation?
BRS 2 part with dosing pumps via apex schedule. Calcium doses once an hour over the course of mid day for about 4 hours. Alk doses at night once an hour for about 6 hours (a few minutes per dose typically on both of those)
water changes every 2 weeks about 10%
K. What are you using for flow? (Pump names, how many, placement, etc.)
Not sure the main return pump, it's pretty big (came used) and sits outside the sump.
2 - Tunze 6105 that go from 0 to 100%. One 0 for 2 secs, on for 4, other 0 for 2 seconds on for 6.
One medium sized korellia (came used, not sure the size). I've got a pretty serious amount of flow now, i used to run the tunzes lower but a couple weeks ago someone recommended more flow so I jacked it up. hasn't seemed to have made a huge difference. Some polyps extend more and some things might grow a hair faster. STN still similar rate, maybe a hair slower. I have 2 jabao i can use but more flow than i have now might be just a little too crazy honestly.
Here's what i've done recently
checked stray voltage (around 8 volts, pretty minimal)
changed RO/DI cartridges/resin even though already had 0 tds, had to try something...
increase flow
I'm thinking of trying to pull all the leathers out and maybe the xenia too and see if anything changes. I run carbon and "massage the bag" every couple days but who knows.
my old sps were pale but new sps stayed decent color but just STN from base up. I really think alk is okay, lightings good, and water params are good. very little algae though I do have some bubble algae going on and some aptasia i'm trying to kill with CBB and peppermints (not going very well currently)
I'll post a couple pics after this.
Please let me know if you have ANY suggestions I could try, I really want to be able to grow acro's, especially millie's!!!!!
In the last 2 years i've battle zoa pox, red bugs, AEFW (that sucked!), too little nutrients, and clownfish that decided to be on a hit squad. I've beat it all but just can't get acro's to do well.
Thanks in advance!!!!!!!
Rusty
Atlanta Reefer
