SPS FADING...HELP PLEASE

[Joewestwood]

LPS corals:

I'm not having good luck with these. My euphyllias are surviving but the heads are shrunk- just slightly bigger then the skeleton, not puffed up like they should be. I'm guessing this is also do to low nutrients. I would imagine they would need nitrates in the 5-10ppm range. It seems impossible at this point to achieve that without a forest of algae growing. I often feed the LPS but it doesn't appear that they are capturing the food (Reef Roids, shredded shrimp and salmon).

Any thoughts?

 

[rmiller7891]

Make sure you are running carbon behind GFO as some GFO media can release copper.

 

[Joewestwood]

Make sure you are running carbon behind GFO as some GFO media can release copper.

Thanks. I didn't know that. I've pulled my carbon and GFO to help get the nitrate higher.

 

[SeaDweller]

LPS corals:

I'm not having good luck with these. My euphyllias are surviving but the heads are shrunk- just slightly bigger then the skeleton, not puffed up like they should be. I'm guessing this is also do to low nutrients. I would imagine they would need nitrates in the 5-10ppm range. It seems impossible at this point to achieve that without a forest of algae growing. I often feed the LPS but it doesn't appear that they are capturing the food (Reef Roids, shredded shrimp and salmon).

Any thoughts?

do you have anything to control any potential algae? Seems like people are more terrified of some algae than dead sps

 

[Joewestwood]

do you have anything to control any potential algae? Seems like people are more terrified of some algae than dead sps

Great point. A little algae in a system is not a bad thing.

I've enhanced my CUC this week. I now have 8 Turbo snails, 2 Astrea snails, about 8 scarlet hermits, 1 fighting conch, and 1 Tuxedo urchin. My Tomini and Blue Tang help a bit also.

Maybe add a couple more algae eaters? I like to be careful not to overpopulate on the CUC because when they die, their bodies fuel more algae growth.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Feed 8x a day it will help u

brb, telling my boss I am quitting so I can keep up with feeding my reef tank 8x a day.

Just take GFO offline. I am fighting the same stuff with my po4 being too low which caused my nitrates to get crazy and my corals are suffering. Phosphates are so important but people are so obsessed with GFO and never want to take it offline for some strange unknown reason. You're really only supposed to use GFO if your tank has trouble keeping po4 low and not "just because".

 

[DarkSky]

brb, telling my boss I am quitting so I can keep up with feeding my reef tank 8x a day

Or just get an auto feeder.


If you're getting cyano, you probably have an inbalance of nutrients - I usually see cyano when my phosphates were in the right range, but my nitrates were too low.

The reverse was true when I ran GFO - my nitrates were around 5, but my phosphates were 0 - I got dinos.

Just dose nitrates until your feeding keeps them at an acceptable level for you, imo.

 

[Joewestwood]

Or just get an auto feeder.


If you're getting cyano, you probably have an inbalance of nutrients - I usually see cyano when my phosphates were in the right range, but my nitrates were too low.

The reverse was true when I ran GFO - my nitrates were around 5, but my phosphates were 0 - I got dinos.

Just dose nitrates until your feeding keeps them at an acceptable level for you, imo.

What are your nitrates and phospates at currently?

 

[DarkSky]

What are your nitrates and phospates at currently?

10-15 ppm NO3, 31 ppb P.

 

[*Mista314*]

Update:

Most corals are at full color and growing well. Still not using a skimmer or gfo...just filter socks and small weekly water changes. I'm still dosing nitrates and aminos but not nearly as much. Nitrates are reading around 1 or 2.

I've been unable to keep any birdsnests corals of any kind. They seem to be starving. All Acros, montis, and poccis are doing well. In addition most LPS have very poor polyp extension.

I'm also getting cyano and funky algae outbreaks that I'm having to manage.

I’m literally dealing with this same exact issue. I upgraded from a 75 gallon to a 210 gallon about 4 months ago. I only have 2 clowns, 2 chromis and a yellow watchman goby so the bio-load is very light. I feed 3 time a day to help out with that. I have a mixed reef. All the softies and LPs are thriving but the SPS are mostly fading. I have 2 birds nest that i think are done!

I’m currently not running a skimmer. I have a bag of carbon in my sum that could be causing an issue. Here are my levels;

KH = 10.8
Calcium = 400
Mag = 1200
Nitrate = 3.8
Phosphate = 0.04