Triton results and never able to keep corals

[fairladyZ]

Hello everyone, Was wanting to see if anyone else had any insight as to why I can never keep corals, SPS, LPS, I was able to keep some leathers but never really looked that great. Long story short, since i've moved to this house and switched to 2 different tanks I cannot keep coral alive no matter what I do. I've made sure my RODI is good, all the equipment to keep things in line and stable, Even auto water changes, Now with a Triton ICP test my water seems to be almost perfect. I'm at a loss. Dialed lights in with a par meter, flow I can keep low or crank high, nothing seems to work and i'm at a loss. Any thing else I can test for or any ideas? Thanks

I do have one torch and some zoa's in the tank now that are doing ok. I had 3 torch colonies, lost 2 of them, one within days of putting it in, the other a couple weeks.

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/182337

 

[doubleshot00]

Im in the exact position as you op. Just did a ICP test to and it looks great.

I have a complete mixed reef with over 50 frags. In the last 2 weeks all of my mushrooms, gsp, duncan and favias have started to whittle away. Sps, Euphyllia and Zoas doing just fine. Ive done several 25% WC hoping to fix the issue.

Makes no sense and what I’ve learned in the last year none of this makes any sense. Its all a crap shoot.

The mushrooms and duncan are coming back in my IM 15. Same saltwater and same par.

My next step is getting a test from aquabiomics.

I will say i was dosing silicates and stopped right before thanksgiving and that’s when i started to have issues. Just a weird correlation imo.

 

[fairladyZ]

Ya it's rough, sounds like your having a little better luck than me, My sps frags and duncans all died. They look amazing for about a week and then it goes to hell from there.

I'm just wondering if there are organics or anything i can test for, Maybe something in this house that doesn't show up in element tests.

 

[Joepie]

Ya it's rough, sounds like your having a little better luck than me, My sps frags and duncans all died. They look amazing for about a week and then it goes to hell from there.

I'm just wondering if there are organics or anything i can test for, Maybe something in this house that doesn't show up in element tests.

My five cents: forgive me for trying. We know not everything: fe how old is your tank? Do you have a skimmer, not too big or too small?, how often WC, (a littlebit dirty water is mostly not al too bad), often bare hands in water?, feeding?, fish? etc etc. Stability and patience are keys for succes. And keep everything as simple as possible. Check by yourself only the most important parameters: KH, Calc, Magnesium, Nitrate and Fosphate. Sometimes iodine en Fe. No additives when not really necessary. Tip: is it possible for you to buy natural ocean water and osmose water in a LFS nearby for a short period? And then looking to the results? With a good result something wrong with water in your new home? Succes!

 

[fairladyZ]

Alk is 9.29 Calcium is 423 Magnesium is 1395 all from my trident. Nitrate is 17, Phosphate is .12 checked by hanna every week.
Its setup for 4 gallons a day on the Apex for auto water changes.

I've been dosing Ocean Magik and Microbacter7.

It has a reefmat 1200 on it, refugium with chaeto, and a redsea 900 skimmer with skimate locker. The tank is an s1000. Also has a kalk reactor/stirrer, Marinepure block. Right now i'm running carbon in a reactor, when phosphates sneak up I throw in GFO but try to keep it right around .1

Tank has been up and running for 7 months.

 

[Joepie]

Btw: I am a new R2R member but an “old” reefer, > 20 years. You are doing everything perfect. I have no remarks. Only (i am not sure) than let time heal. 7 month is a long time but somtimes (especially SPS corals) short. Give it maybe a trial after >1 year? Sorry for my insufficient remarks. Maybe another reefer a beter solution? Greetings

 

[brucey]

If it’s not your chemistry it’s more than likely your lights and flow.
So what tank
What flow
What light

what corals can’t you grow and add a pic so we can see the scape

 

[elysics]

Have you tried iodine? 0.022 isn't exactly "perfect"

 

[fairladyZ]

If it’s not your chemistry it’s more than likely your lights and flow.
So what tank
What flow
What light

what corals can’t you grow and add a pic so we can see the scape

Tank is a Red Sea S-1000
4- Mp40s on the back @ 37%
5- Radion Gen 5 Blues @ 25% Par is 100 on the sand, the highest point of my rockscape is 300.
I've had acro frags, chalice frags, favia frags, torches, hammers, acanthophyllia. All succumbed in the tank. But I do have 1 torch doing good and a zoa frag, but to me it looks like they are hanging on, not really thriving.

Have you tried iodine? 0.022 isn't exactly "perfect"

Ya i saw it was low, and they said a few others were low. I'm going to switch salts back to red sea coral pro. I've been using Fritz cause I can get it cheap and it stores a little better. I thought about adding iodine+ from red sea i'm just not sure how to calculate my dosage, as they go by using their calcium and i'm using BRS plus a kalk stirrer, so not sure how to do the conversions on that.

 

[elysics]

Tank is a Red Sea S-1000
4- Mp40s on the back @ 37%
5- Radion Gen 5 Blues @ 25% Par is 100 on the sand, the highest point of my rockscape is 300.
I've had acro frags, chalice frags, favia frags, torches, hammers, acanthophyllia. All succumbed in the tank. But I do have 1 torch doing good and a zoa frag, but to me it looks like they are hanging on, not really thriving.

Ya i saw it was low, and they said a few others were low. I'm going to switch salts back to red sea coral pro. I've been using Fritz cause I can get it cheap and it stores a little better. I thought about adding iodine+ from red sea i'm just not sure how to calculate my dosage, as they go by using their calcium and i'm using BRS plus a kalk stirrer, so not sure how to do the conversions on that.

The high alkalinity salts aren't really made for longterm storage, might as well use the blue bucket instead, then things won't precipitate and mess up your plumbing

On that note, how often do you measure salinity?

 

[brucey]

I’d increase the lights slowly
If your running them at 25% the S-1000 is fairly deep so I’d up them
Where do you have the corals in your scape.
Can you add a pic?

 

[dadnjesse]

Are the Radions XR30 or XR15? 25% is pretty low.

 

[billyocean]

Seachem iodide is good and it's cheap

Here's a write up on an iodine test

USING HANNA CHECKER HI-707 TO TEST FOR IODINE

USING HANNA CHECKER HI-707 TO TEST FOR IODINE In my quest to improve my testing accuracy and precision I found the standard colorimetric tests for Iodine difficult to get any kind of accurate reading and the repeatability (precision) was not very good. Being that I dosed Iodine this made me...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[reefluvrr]

Stray voltage?

 

[fairladyZ]

The high alkalinity salts aren't really made for longterm storage, might as well use the blue bucket instead, then things won't precipitate and mess up your plumbing

On that note, how often do you measure salinity?

Check Salinity at least once a week, that is one issue i've had, the salinity does seem to creep down for some reason, no leaks or anything and i keep my AWC salt a little higher to combat it, But i try to keep it at 1.025 and it usually creeeps to 1.023 after a couple week.s

I’d increase the lights slowly
If your running them at 25% the S-1000 is fairly deep so I’d up them
Where do you have the corals in your scape.
Can you add a pic?

I set them all with a par so i had 80-100 with the apogee par meter on my sand.

Are the Radions XR30 or XR15? 25% is pretty low.

xr30

Seachem iodide is good and it's cheap

Here's a write up on an iodine test

USING HANNA CHECKER HI-707 TO TEST FOR IODINE

USING HANNA CHECKER HI-707 TO TEST FOR IODINE In my quest to improve my testing accuracy and precision I found the standard colorimetric tests for Iodine difficult to get any kind of accurate reading and the repeatability (precision) was not very good. Being that I dosed Iodine this made me...

www.reef2reef.com

I'll read up on it. Thank You

Stray voltage?

I don't feel any voltage with my hands in the tank, is there any other way to test it? Only wires in the tank are my returns, skimmer, and heaters.

 

[wculver]

Hello everyone, Was wanting to see if anyone else had any insight as to why I can never keep corals, SPS, LPS, I was able to keep some leathers but never really looked that great. Long story short, since i've moved to this house and switched to 2 different tanks I cannot keep coral alive no matter what I do. I've made sure my RODI is good, all the equipment to keep things in line and stable, Even auto water changes, Now with a Triton ICP test my water seems to be almost perfect. I'm at a loss. Dialed lights in with a par meter, flow I can keep low or crank high, nothing seems to work and i'm at a loss. Any thing else I can test for or any ideas? Thanks

I do have one torch and some zoa's in the tank now that are doing ok. I had 3 torch colonies, lost 2 of them, one within days of putting it in, the other a couple weeks.

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/182337

The test didn't cover Nitrates and based on the relatively low phosphate numbers nitrates are going to be very important to pin down. Nitrates could be bottoming out in that tank and giving you negative results. Ultra low nitrates will slowly chip away at most coral but especially in the case of SPS it can be an over night die-off.

 

[fairladyZ]

The test didn't cover Nitrates and based on the relatively low phosphate numbers nitrates are going to be very important to pin down. Nitrates could be bottoming out in that tank and giving you negative results. Ultra low nitrates will slowly chip away at most coral but especially in the case of SPS it can be an over night die-off.

My nitrates are at 17

 

[wculver]

My nitrates are at 17

Nitrates can be detrimental either too high or too low. Generally my suggestion would be to shoot for the 3 PPM neighborhood. You will read about people with success at far higher numbers but I have never been able to matintain long-term success with nitrates that high. Ionic balance ends up getting too far out of alignment and even water changes become insufficient. Especially when adding net new coral, you can tell from day one they are unhappy with their new home.

So in short, I would work on getting nitrates down over the next few weeks. My choice to maintain nitrate is carbon dosing but depending on your tank there may be other options that would suffice.

 

[bushdoc]

Hello everyone, Was wanting to see if anyone else had any insight as to why I can never keep corals, SPS, LPS, I was able to keep some leathers but never really looked that great. Long story short, since i've moved to this house and switched to 2 different tanks I cannot keep coral alive no matter what I do. I've made sure my RODI is good, all the equipment to keep things in line and stable, Even auto water changes, Now with a Triton ICP test my water seems to be almost perfect. I'm at a loss. Dialed lights in with a par meter, flow I can keep low or crank high, nothing seems to work and i'm at a loss. Any thing else I can test for or any ideas? Thanks

I do have one torch and some zoa's in the tank now that are doing ok. I had 3 torch colonies, lost 2 of them, one within days of putting it in, the other a couple weeks.

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/182337

I have learned a lot from many of posts here.
Many valid observations and advice.
Your tank seem to be fairly young and seem as if you started with dry rock?
I have 120 G reef 3 months old which I established after my previous tank deteriorated due to massive majano infestation.
I initially started with dry rock, but quickly changed my mind and added live rock from 2 different sources.
I think that had tremendous impact and my Euphylia, Montipora and others are sprouting now.
Tanks based on dry rock need about a year to mature in most cases. Also remember that ICP test doesn't check S element (stability).
Good luck with your tank.

 

[brucey]

Check Salinity at least once a week, that is one issue i've had, the salinity does seem to creep down for some reason, no leaks or anything and i keep my AWC salt a little higher to combat it, But i try to keep it at 1.025 and it usually creeeps to 1.023 after a couple week.s

I set them all with a par so i had 80-100 with the apogee par meter on my sand.

xr30

I'll read up on it. Thank You

I don't feel any voltage with my hands in the tank, is there any other way to test it? Only wires in the tank are my returns, skimmer, and heaters.

Tank looks good

shame to have all those 5 lights at 25%
It’s only a pic to go on so don’t just take my view…

Personally I would move your MP40’s off the back wall to either end - 2 on right and 2 on left.
This helps address the flow issues and I’d increase them slowly. 37% is rather low for a tank that size

increase your lights slowly. Most of your corals are placed lower down so with the flow and the lower light that might be the reason…
Difficult to make out but if you have any SPS get to the to the top of the scape

if your still having issues and water, flow and lights are good then I’d look at where your buying corals from…sometimes it not the hobbyist

good luck