Very frustrated...I can't keep SPS and idk why

[Biff0rz]

As it pertains to replacing rock with live rock, I'd still stick with the 10-15% I mentioned, at a minimum. But that's not based on anything really except my own experiences. And if you decide to boost your biological diversity, tag me and I'll give you some more sources. I think using multiple sources is important.

You mentioned dinos/GHA/cyano/bs. How long ago was that? Did you get each of those, or a mix? And what did you do to fight it?

I sent you a PM, check it please @undermind.
I want to say dinos lasted for 1 year or so. I spent a lot of time battling them and posted in the main dino thread here on r2r. Dino led to other things when you try and take them out, like GHA, and cyano, but those are also common with the uglies. The GHA was bad, I battled that 3x, and the whole tank was covered. Like, really bad. And mixed with dino. Then I had two bouts of cyano, one horrible. For the dino I purchased a UV, and focused on manual removal via the gha and filtering. The GHA I ended up using FluxRx. For cyano, I ended up using red slime remover.

GHA has been gone for about 6mo. Cyano about 5mo. Dino about 2-3mo.

The tank is growing a lot of coralline, does not have algae blooms, params stabilized, and I have some algae growing but not a lot.

What’s your livestock and tank size? I would try to manage phosphates and nitrates through your ats and water changes alone. I think running carbon long term is a detriment in most cases. Use it sparingly to remove medication then remove it.

See original post - fish list there.

I would take both gfo and carbon offline and monitor your levels daily. Fix your feeding routine if you are seeing a steep rise in nitrates and phosphates.

Yea, I agree, I can cut them both back

Based on what I’m reading it sounds like you have a bit too much going on. The goal is to maintain the most stable conditions with the least amount of input into the system.

thanks!!

 

[homer1475]

I run carbon 24/7/365

Carbon is not your issue. It simply removes tannins, and chemicals from the water.

Chemiclean is an antibiotic, it can often mess with SPS, and for many months after use as well.

Dinos, GHA, cyano, rinse, repeat. You have a lot going on in that tank, all of it not good for a biome for SPS. Just give it a little more time for your biome to establish after using an antibiotic.

GFO is another issue with SPS. Unless you know how to use it properly, it can cause wild fluctuations which corals do not like. Most people see high PO4(like .1 OMG), dump in a bunch of GFO, then drop them to .01 in a few hours, to back up to .1 in a day or so when the GFO is exhausted. Rinse, repeat. See the issue here?

I personally use GFO with no issue, but know that just 3TBS in my tank and reactor can drop my PO4 from .2 to .1 in a few hours. So I like to run my PO4 at .1 and use GFO very sparingly to get to that number and maintain it there.

 

[Big E]

You're basing one digi frag on failure of your tank to support Sps???

Get a half dozen or so acros and see how they do. I would not change anything until you do that.

There are a ton of inexpensive hardy acros so the cost is minimal.

 

[undermind]

I sent you a PM, check it please @undermind.
I want to say dinos lasted for 1 year or so. I spent a lot of time battling them and posted in the main dino thread here on r2r. Dino led to other things when you try and take them out, like GHA, and cyano, but those are also common with the uglies. The GHA was bad, I battled that 3x, and the whole tank was covered. Like, really bad. And mixed with dino. Then I had two bouts of cyano, one horrible. For the dino I purchased a UV, and focused on manual removal via the gha and filtering. The GHA I ended up using FluxRx. For cyano, I ended up using red slime remover.

GHA has been gone for about 6mo. Cyano about 5mo. Dino about 2-3mo.

The tank is growing a lot of coralline, does not have algae blooms, params stabilized, and I have some algae growing but not a lot.

Sorry, I missed that DM. I really wish I didn't get DM's from R2R everyday. Then I'd know when I get real DM's.

Thanks for the history on the Dinos/GHA/Cyano. I was asking in order to see what your remedies were, how recent they were, and how aggressive. I agree with the others that posted above that a lot of the treatments for those things can throw off the biome a bit. I think that time may be needed to stabilize after more aggressive stuff like Red Slime remover. But I think that it's all the more support for adding a biological boost like real live rock.

If you decide to go with some KPA rock, I would definitely consider going all in with a cocktail of beneficial creatures:

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The mix n match is 100 bucks shipped

Live Reef Rubble

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Live rock rubble is 50 shipped

 

[sneekapeek]

The tank has quite a bit of algea growing in it, even with those things. Check out the params, it's not like nitrates and po4 are super low or anything.

I’d consider finding out what your parameters are over a week time frame, not so much a snap shot at a given time! I like the details to understand the big picture. Phos/nitrate before you feed, after you feed and the next day. That’ll tell you your trend how much is consumed, how much is filtered out etc. IE .04ppm sounds low after you feed!

 

[sneekapeek]

Algae is your balancing factor, you’ll grow algae no matter what, depending on how much nutrients are in the tank will decide how quickly the algae grows and if it ain’t quick you are starving the poor guys. That’s why it’s so huge to get a good clean up crew of herbivores to mow it down as quickly as it sprouts up!

 

[Biff0rz]

I’d consider finding out what your parameters are over a week time frame, not so much a snap shot at a given time! I like the details to understand the big picture. Phos/nitrate before you feed, after you feed and the next day. That’ll tell you your trend how much is consumed, how much is filtered out etc. IE .04ppm sounds low after you feed!

I test po4 daily at 10am. The chart in the original post shows that over time. Today it was at 0.08 as I've been dialing back gfo slowly.

 

[Biff0rz]

Icp finally came back... Looks fine to me. Anyone notice anything?

Triton Lab Showroom - Explore this water test results and click on the image above.

Someone wants to show you the water test results and shared this link to the evaluation. Click on the image above to explore the water test results.

www.triton-lab.de

 

[wareagle]

What kind of UV unit do you have ? If it's one of the cheap Amazon/ebay ones, you should check to make sure the plastic housing isn't being destroyed by the UV. Wipe the inside with a paper towel and it will turn the same color as the plastic if you had one of the bad ones. I think I remember Jebao having a bad run of the 36-55 watt models.

 

[mermaid_life]

I am no expert and can only share my experience hoping that it will help. My first tank was a 45gallon about 10 years ago. I started it with live rock and was able to grow a clam, easy SPS, and LPS with no dosing.... just water changes for the first 3 years. It grew them prolifically and sold a many cuttings as they got too big. When froggies and SPS REALLY got too big, everything started dying because I didn't understand the need to dose. My Alk would drop from 11dkh to 7 between water changes.

I then moved and took the opportunity to upgrade to a Reefer 350 and started with dry rock because I didn't want any of the pests that I had experienced in my first tank - I laugh because I didn't even have or know about bristleworms back then. Even after 2 years with this new tank, I kept killing 'expensive' sps and my froggies almost completely died. I bought a doser and got the big 3 under control. I even got my pH super stable. I thought that I was doing pretty well so I wanted to add some basic sticks. They just kept dying and dying. Even the easy SPS that grew prolifically in my first tank would not grow in this one.

At the time I started reading about the need for bacterial diversity. I couldn't find live rock so I bought a bunch of different bacteria, added some phyto, added aminos (minimally), and all of a sudden, things started thriving. It could be coincidence with tank maturity, but whatever it is, that's about the timeframe (2.5yrs) with dryrock that I started being able to grow and keep SPS again.

Hope that helps.

 

[Biff0rz]

What kind of UV unit do you have ? If it's one of the cheap Amazon/ebay ones, you should check to make sure the plastic housing isn't being destroyed by the UV. Wipe the inside with a paper towel and it will turn the same color as the plastic if you had one of the bad ones. I think I remember Jebao having a bad run of the 36-55 watt models.

I have a expensive lifegard 90w uv. It has replaceable sleeves. I just replaced the inner sleeve at the 1yr mark. However the company had back ordered the end caps to the sleeves. I just got them last week and yes the liners are deteriorated to when I wiped them it came off on my hands or a paper towel. I plan to replace the end caps this weekend. Is this something you've experienced as an issue? Did something come up in the icp that indicates this?

 

[gbru316]

120-150. It came from a tank where it was at 150.

You matched PAR, but what about spectrum? PAR is just the amount of light energy available between wavelengths of 400 nm and 700 nm. It's entirely possible to have 150 PAR in solely blue light, and 150 PAR in solely red light. One will successfully grow corals, the other, won't.

I acclimate regardless just to be safe.

 

[wareagle]

I have a expensive lifegard 90w uv. It has replaceable sleeves. I just replaced the inner sleeve at the 1yr mark. However the company had back ordered the end caps to the sleeves. I just got them last week and yes the liners are deteriorated to when I wiped them it came off on my hands or a paper towel. I plan to replace the end caps this weekend. Is this something you've experienced as an issue? Did something come up in the icp that indicates this?

I don't think broken down plastics will show on an ICP, but that's just speculation on my part. The chemistry forum, or your ICP testing lab can probably answer that. There have been several threads of people linking problems with degrading Jebao UVs to coral death. I had some death in one of my tanks and several months later I saw the threads on the UVs and sure enough mine turned a paper towel black. It's also been proven in scientific studies that micro and nano plastics can kill coral, softies, LPS, and SPS in three different ways, and UV is the number one way of plastics being broken down in the ocean.
I use the green killing machine kind of UV unit now, and I only use it when I need it for bacterial blooms, the bulb and bulb housing are disposable on it.
I would bet it's like carbon and Tangs, some people get problems and some people don't.

 

[TKirby918]

my .02 on this. I had a similar issue a while back. Turned out it was low iodine. Within a week of dosing lugols, everything that was receding stopped and things began to encrust. Logic behind it is that iodine helps the coral to produce its own "sunblock" that prevents the zoox from getting burned and the tissue from becoming necrotic. how much of that is gospel, who knows, but i for sure saw an immediate turn around after doing ICP and started dosing lugols.

 

[jda]

Lugols is an un natural form that cannot really be used. Chemistry forum and Dr. RHF articles talk about this. If you are convinced that iodine is necessary, iodide is likely better.

Plasma can not detect plastics.

 

[TKirby918]

Lugols is an un natural form that cannot really be used. Chemistry forum and Dr. RHF articles talk about this. If you are convinced that iodine is necessary, iodide is likely better.

Plasma can not detect plastics.

from what i understand, brightwell lugols is potassium iodide and not pure iodine. i am no way trying to say its going to be a silver bullet fix. I was mentioning it because i had basically the same situation as OP. chemistry all in line. one system had T5s with no issue growing acro and same chemistry as another system with LED only that was having issues. dosed brightwell lugols and i stopped having problems with acros in the LED only system. This was after doing ICP on both and finding the only variable out of whack was low iodide.

 

[RichardNeoOcean]

In my Humble opinion.. you should step back and do the basic … the basic is a fundation ! Who sustain everything in place… .
In your place i would :

1buy some Alive rock from some safe source.
2 - do water changes every single week for at leat half year.
3 - calibration of tds and Refractometer

4 Check up the Test … or go in full to Red Sea pro test .

The basic steps is what keep stable … just make a routine. And put some hard core sps but cheap*** ! I think different. Just do the basic with consistency…

 

[undermind]

I couldn't find live rock so I bought a bunch of different bacteria, added some phyto, added aminos (minimally), and all of a sudden, things started thriving.

Hi ya, what bacterias did you use? And do you dose them ongoing now?

 

[mermaid_life]

Hi ya, what bacterias did you use? And do you dose them ongoing now?

I used Microbacter clean and 7 and Dr. Tim's products. There was also a smaller label that I used but for the life of me I can't remember the name.

After I finished a bottle of each (I would rotate and dose after water changes) I found I didn't really have to add anymore. I think overall I dosed for about a year.

 

[2_much_junk_in_the_sump]

There is no reason to dose those bacteria in a bottle products after your tank is cycled IMO. It is just denitrifying bacteria.

I read through your build thread and noticed you had dinos and were dosing Vibrant. I had bad algae about a year+ ago and used Vibrant. It got rid of the algae, but it also threw off my whole tank and most of my SPS died or greatly struggled after. I really think that stuff is not good and especially not long-term. You need to get your tank off that if you are still using it and build back up natural biodiversity. Your rock should be plated in coraline after 2 years and they are just not. It seems like you are set back a ton due to the dinos and the only cure is time at this point. It sucks. I had a ton of problems when I first started as well.

You can try that live reef rubble/sand product that was recently released to kick things into gear. It may be worth a shot.

Oh, and those forrest fire/bubble gum digitatas can be finicky. Try a green slimer or garf bonsai - they are indestructible.