ekandler
Active Member
I have two tanks, both almost identical, one old and established with lots of high dollar equipment that can't keep SPS alive, and one very new with basically no filtration and can keep healthy SPS...
My established tank is 3 years old with basically the same rock and same sand it's entire life, Trident/DOS for alk/calc stability with BRS 2-part and Tropic Marin trace elements mixed in, also daily dose brightwell aminos, have a refugium and skimmer for nutrient control, and carbon in a reactor with filter floss. I've kept happy LPS, mushrooms, anemones, and other softies throughout my reefing career, but always had issues with SPS. Could never keep a happy monti, acro, anything SPS really, despite happy corals of most other variety. Over the years of investigating this issue I've upgraded equipment, done ICP tests, switched salts, you name it I've tried it.
I recently set up a frag tank, an IM lagoon with only filter sponges and some ceramic media, that's been running for 3 months. When I recently tried a monti cap in my display, started to turn white in spots so I moved it to my frag tank, now it's puffed up and is healing nicely. Same story with a forest fire digi I tried a couple weeks ago, lost color and polyps retracting in my display, moved it to my frag system and is happy...
the tanks are nearly identical: both running gen 5 radion blues (frag is an XR15, display is 2 XR30s) on the same spectrum although my display is on 1 hour longer at peak, I use the same RO water (BRS 7 stage RO), and same salt (RedSea blue bucket). I don't do anything else to my frag system except dose nutrients based on test results, but the two systems are very similar levels. I started going down the rabbit hole of inhabitants being my issue, so I first got rid of my strawberry crab, didn't help. Now, the only non-reef safe fish I have is a coral beauty angelfish which I just caught two days ago and moved to my frag tank to test his reaction to the healthy SPS down there. So far, no reaction, so I assume it's not him either.
My frustration is that my nice 90gal display in my living room with all this equipment can't keep SPS alive but the frag tank I barely pay attention to and has barely any filtration is doing fine... What could my issue be? Trying to think of differences in the systems:
- my display is in my living room, and does get sunlight during the day where my frag system is in my dark basement. Could sunlight be an issue....?
- Obviously my display has aged rock and sand which I cured myself, could it somehow have gotten contaminated with something over the years?
.... any other ideas are welcomed.
My established tank is 3 years old with basically the same rock and same sand it's entire life, Trident/DOS for alk/calc stability with BRS 2-part and Tropic Marin trace elements mixed in, also daily dose brightwell aminos, have a refugium and skimmer for nutrient control, and carbon in a reactor with filter floss. I've kept happy LPS, mushrooms, anemones, and other softies throughout my reefing career, but always had issues with SPS. Could never keep a happy monti, acro, anything SPS really, despite happy corals of most other variety. Over the years of investigating this issue I've upgraded equipment, done ICP tests, switched salts, you name it I've tried it.
I recently set up a frag tank, an IM lagoon with only filter sponges and some ceramic media, that's been running for 3 months. When I recently tried a monti cap in my display, started to turn white in spots so I moved it to my frag tank, now it's puffed up and is healing nicely. Same story with a forest fire digi I tried a couple weeks ago, lost color and polyps retracting in my display, moved it to my frag system and is happy...
the tanks are nearly identical: both running gen 5 radion blues (frag is an XR15, display is 2 XR30s) on the same spectrum although my display is on 1 hour longer at peak, I use the same RO water (BRS 7 stage RO), and same salt (RedSea blue bucket). I don't do anything else to my frag system except dose nutrients based on test results, but the two systems are very similar levels. I started going down the rabbit hole of inhabitants being my issue, so I first got rid of my strawberry crab, didn't help. Now, the only non-reef safe fish I have is a coral beauty angelfish which I just caught two days ago and moved to my frag tank to test his reaction to the healthy SPS down there. So far, no reaction, so I assume it's not him either.
My frustration is that my nice 90gal display in my living room with all this equipment can't keep SPS alive but the frag tank I barely pay attention to and has barely any filtration is doing fine... What could my issue be? Trying to think of differences in the systems:
- my display is in my living room, and does get sunlight during the day where my frag system is in my dark basement. Could sunlight be an issue....?
- Obviously my display has aged rock and sand which I cured myself, could it somehow have gotten contaminated with something over the years?
.... any other ideas are welcomed.
