Struggling to keep LPS

[vetteguy53081]

Those Hydra numbers could be incredibly useless for his setup or way too powerful.

I have run this schedule on a similar tank over 2 years. Apparently you dont know a thing about these lights.
This is a sample of coral under these settings

 

[SilvermistInc]

I have run this schedule on a similar tank over 2 years. Apparently you dont know a thing about these lights.
This is a sample of coral under these settings

Cool story. Still doesn't mean you can know if it'll work for him. Are you using the exact same tank? Are they mounted the same as him? Is the spread same? Does it produce the same par?

Don't tell me that I "clearly don't know anything" when you seem to believe that your profile will do the same job for him that it did for you. That's completely idiotic.

 

[Lavey29]

Cool story. Still doesn't mean you can know if it'll work for him. Are you using the exact same tank? Are they mounted the same as him? Is the spread same? Does it produce the same par?

Don't tell me that I "clearly don't know anything" when you seem to believe that your profile will do the same job for him that it did for you. That's completely idiotic.

He is just offering his input based on personal experience. Yes, each tank is unique and there is no way of knowing if it will work or not but it gives the person struggling with a problem a baseline idea of what has worked for others and they can adapt it to their application for testing. With my lights, I relied on others with similar set ups to get an idea of what intensity and spectrum I should be running on my mixed reef and made slight adjustments as needed.

 

[Lavey29]

I personally think par is a little low in most spots for LPS.

I see mostly low 100's. Should be in the mid to upper 100's.

I have never directly fed a single coral(unless they are NPS). Corals do appreciate food, but are 99% photosynthetic and do not need to be fed.

Feeding or not feeding is not the OP's problem.

Yea my LPS are probably 125 to 250 bottom to middle.

 

[OBuckNutzO]

I'd stop dosing carbon. LPS like the water a little dirty imo...Carbon can be fixing something that isn't broke.

 

[lion king]

I didn't see a reading on your ca,mg, and alk. Dosing isn't enough if you don't have a baseline to determine how much and how often. If you see tissue pulling away from the skeleton it is very likely low alk. Lps seem to devoir alk levels. Method of dosing also plays a role as ca can precip alk, they must be dosed at seperate times.

 

[SilvermistInc]

I'd stop dosing carbon. LPS like the water a little dirty imo...Carbon can be fixing something that isn't broke.

I don't think he's carbon dosing. I'm pretty sure he just has carbon pellets in his tank.

 

[melonheadorion]

I didn't see a reading on your ca,mg, and alk. Dosing isn't enough if you don't have a baseline to determine how much and how often. If you see tissue pulling away from the skeleton it is very likely low alk. Lps seem to devoir alk levels. Method of dosing also plays a role as ca can precip alk, they must be dosed at seperate times.

its literally in his very first post

 

[lion king]

its literally in his very first post

My bad some how I missed it.

 

[Blue80]

Thanks all, the current setting mimics the ab+ and I will slowly raise them up over a week or so to see if that helps. I will play with the flow a bit and adjust some of the feeding with meatier foods.

 

[Blue80]

I got my results back from Aquabiomics. They are a bit beings so it has been a while and may be a while longer until I get my personalized email. Does anyone have any insight into what these results mean and how I should solve the issues?

1001457_Microbiome_Report

 

[melonheadorion]

if my eyesight serves me right, it was just testing to check the diversity of bacteria in your tank.. doesnt really tell us much about the water quality. to me, it isnt anything useful in solving your issue.

 

[TokenReefer]

Pretty cool you got this report. Watched BRS on it. Now what though? You have this info, now what do you do with it has been my question. Is there a clear path to better your results? Neat tho...

 

[Blue80]

Pretty cool you got this report. Watched BRS on it. Now what though? You have this info, now what do you do with it has been my question. Is there a clear path to better your results? Neat tho...

I am hoping when I receive the personalized email I will get some better insight. My thought is that maybe one or some of the detected bacteria are causing my coral issues, though I do not have enough knowledge to make that determination. If not, I am completely at a loss as to what continues to cause my issues since the ICP test did not reveal much either. Will provide an update when I get the email.

 

[TokenReefer]

Watchin in this one. Good luck!

 

[Daftendire]

Any updates on this? I'm in a similar situation and am curious if the aquabiomics results revealed anything?

 

[LPS Bum]

My reef is mainly LPS. Other than the normal salinity and pH requirements that all corals need, I find LPS benefit from elevated magnesium, lower light, moderate random flow and weekly feedings.

100-125 PAR on the sand bed, like you have, is fine. Your nitrate and phosphate are ok. Do you have moderate, random flow? Your Mag seems low to me. I’d elevate that to 1450 or so.

Do you have any fish picking on them? I have tangs that will occasionally nibble on my Scolys, Acanthophyllia, Elegance and Cynarinas. Some fish just find them irresistible.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

All,

I can't keep any lps in my tank to save my life. I am not sure what the issue is as my softies do just fine. I currently have a 180 gallon aquarium with an icecap 36XL sump and the tank has been set up well over a year with plenty of coraline algae growth in the tank. I fight green hair algae, but it has been minimal for a little while now.

I have 3 mp 40s, two on one end of the tank, one on the other (run in lps mode maxing out around 48%). I also struggle to grow any algae in my refugium (chaeto, caulerpa, etc.). I have switched between the innovative marine 9 watt grow light and a simple 29 watt fluorescent light without much luck. As needed, I run carbon and gfo and test my water weekly. I have 4 ai hydra 32 lights over the tank and run them from 7am to 5 pm. I run filter socks in the aquarium and a reef octopus protein skimmer, which pulls out a lot of junk. These are the numbers I get based on the apogee par meter.





My last test showed phosphates at around .02, but it can get as high as .1. My nitrates were right around 15 but have been as high as 19. I keep my alk between 8.4 and 9 and calcium is 420 and magnesium is 1330. The salinity is 1.025 and tank temp is kept at 78 degrees. I also sent in an icp test a couple of days ago to see if there are issues there, but a previous icp test showed nothing out of the ordinary. I use BRS for alk, calcium and magnesium.

I do a water change every two weeks with ro/di water. I have around 15 or so fish and a decent clean up crew. I stupidly had an air freshener in the room, one of the glade plug ins that I recently removed, not sure if that was creating this issue or how much effect it may have had.

I welcome all questions and suggestions on what I might be doing wrong, so I can reverse this lps trend and how I can also fix my refugium issue.

Thanks in advance!

CF Grow 100watt Amazon. 29.00. placed at same level as top of refuge. I started with a solo cup of chaeto. I have had my 30 crystal sump fill up 3 times in 2 months. As long as you have nutrients it will grow. Are you running your sump light opposite of your display lights?

 

[Blue80]

CF Grow 100watt Amazon. 29.00. placed at same level as top of refuge. I started with a solo cup of chaeto. I have had my 30 crystal sump fill up 3 times in 2 months. As long as you have nutrients it will grow. Are you running your sump light opposite of your display lights?

I am running my sump light on an opposite schedule. I have not put any chaeto back in for a while. The algae in my display tank is not as much of a nuisance anymore, so maybe things are getting back under control.

 

[Blue80]

My reef is mainly LPS. Other than the normal salinity and pH requirements that all corals need, I find LPS benefit from elevated magnesium, lower light, moderate random flow and weekly feedings.

100-125 PAR on the sand bed, like you have, is fine. Your nitrate and phosphate are ok. Do you have moderate, random flow? Your Mag seems low to me. I’d elevate that to 1450 or so.

Do you have any fish picking on them? I have tangs that will occasionally nibble on my Scolys, Acanthophyllia, Elegance and Cynarinas. Some fish just find them irresistible.

I am not really seeing any fish picking on them. I also have not really added anything new. Just letting the softies grow out for now. Will decide later when I want to burn more money