Skep18
Valuable Member
I've gone back and forth debating whether to make this thread... I think I know the responses I'm going to get. There seems to be many ways to success and much of the feedback and/or research I've seen in the past seems to have just as many testimonies which show direct conflict to the claims. (I.e. LED's don't grow SPS, dead rock won't grow SPS, etc.) That said, with the money I've spent on frags that end up in the sump rock rubble is enough to have made a second tank setup... Which is to say whatever it is I am doing isn't work AT ALL so here I am again looking to see if anyone has something insightful to perhaps help my situation.
As some background, my 210gal tank has been up for almost 2 years. Since day 1, I have heeded the advice of some on this forum and @BRS videos and have quarantined nearly everything wet that goes into my tank. The only exception being some SPS frags which, according to R2R info, cannot harbor encysted parasites on healthy coral fleshy tissue. By QT I mean all fish have been treated with PraziPro and copper in a QT tank for at least 30 if not 45 days. All corals are dipped in Bayer. All corals are either moved on a fresh plug or have their existing plug exposed surfaces completely covered in super glue. My tank was started with Marco Rock bought directly from Marco. As such, I have never seen symptoms of any parasite or disease in my tank. (Exhibit 1 which will draw contraversy)
As far as equipment goes, my lighting is Reef Breeders Photo V2+ LED's with 2/ea T5 Blue+ bulbs to supplement. Settings are ~4hr of full light where PAR levels are ~400 at the highest rock and ~120 at the sand bed. I run a RO skimmer. I generally run BRS ROX carbon at amounts slightly less than instructions recommend. I have 2/ea Maxspect Gyre XF280's and 2/ea Neptune WAV pumps for in tank flow. Not sure what else to mention but I feel my equipment is pretty standard or at least not crazy far away from what maybe considered "common".
For maintenance, I usually do water changes once a month with ~40gal. I used to use Red Sea Blue Bucket but switched to Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt. I have a BRS 6 stage RODI unit. My parameters are generally as follows:
salinity - 35ppt*
temp - 77.6 - 78.4*F
Alk - 8.0 dKH
Calcium - 440ppm
Magnesium - 1300ppm
Nitrates - 5ppm**
Phosphates - 0.02ppm*
*Salinity recently trended down to 33ppt. Been bringing it back up slowly. Currently at 34ppt.
**For a long time, after I gave up on coral, my nutrients dropped to ~0 despite heavy feeding. Dunno why. Had to dose to get them back up. After dosing to get them up, they have stayed steady. Somewhat suggests nothing is consuming them anyways?
I have run an ICP test maybe a year ago when I tried to grow SPS last time. Test results didn't reveal anything revolutionary.
Here is what I experience with my SPS corals. Frags come in looking great. After my receiving practices, I put them on a frag rack near the sand bed. I've tried leaving them there any I've tried raising them slowly. It doesn't seem to change the end result. Generally, about a week into their receipt, the bases start to look what I describe as "crunchy" or "crusty". Oddly I have been unable to find posts that use descriptors such as this. Generally, it looks as if the skin of the base is slowly receeding to expose the pointy skeleton bits at the base. From there, tissue at the tips starts to look beaten and worn. Corallites start to look "burned" exposing skeleton. Over the coming weeks, this ultimately leads to what I assume is STN and rarely over night RTN.
In my most recent endeavor, I reached out to Adam @Battlecorals who was nice enough to let me buy a "tester SPS box" which included a monti, a stylo, a milli and an acro. Its been 15 days since receipt and they are seemingly heading down the same path as I've experienced in the past. Here are some photos to illustrate:
Day 1
Day 15
As you can see, I think its safe to say none of them look as good as they did when they came in. According to what I see on here, the majority of people experience that new frags generally do not look worse before they start looking better. The general consensus is they should look good the whole time. As I have never successfully kept an SPS alive, I am unclear as to what success looks like to be honest. I have no idea if any of this is normal or not.
In full disclosure, as mentioned some above, I have experienced some less than stable parameters as of my most recent attempt at SPS. I don't know if any of them are extreme enough to cause the dramatic changes in the frags as I am seeing.
Also as note, in the past I have kept zoas alive and growing. At some point, something I did seems to have negatively effected the zoas. I lost most of them but have three different zoa "colonies" left. Two of them are stagnant, going in and out of being fully open for days or being bothered and being mixed of closed and open. One colony continues to grow and multiply though.
In an effort to try and document my experiences, I have written the following email to Adam at Battle Corals as a "hail mary" to get some help. However, I think its unreasonable for me to expect a vendor to evaluate my situation as I'm sure they get these all the time. I'm also sure its hard to really get a picture of a tank from just an email, video or pictures. The system is dynamic and complex and I'm not even sure anything short of letting a "professional" take over my tank maintenance would even stand a chance. Nonetheless, the following is my most recent email to Adam to share some of my information:
Adam,
Just an update, unfortunately I think things are headed the direction I expected. Admittedly, some of it is likely my fault. My lack of trying to add stony coral for many months has let me lapse on my water testing. As such, some of my parameters had swung out of "ideal" ranges. I have begun to slowly correct them but I'm not sure which, if any, could contribute to this. Also, there's one big mistake I think I made. In thinking maybe they weren't getting sufficient lighting on a magnetic frag rack at the bottom corner of my tank, this past Thursday (Day 10) I moved the frag rack to maybe the top 1/3 of my tank, still in the corner. It's hard to tell if its coincidence in timing or contributing, but this seems to have made the most dramatic difference on the couple frags that were still doing OK. I moved it in the PM so they only spent one photo period in high light.
As far as the coral go, I've taken daily photos of each frag to be able to look back at the progress. I'd describe them as follows:
- Montipora went down hill pretty quickly. I'm not very familiar with monti's. Their growing edges look kinda white to me anyways so I wasn't sure when that one started showing skeleton. I'd say on Friday (Day 5) I could positively say polyps weren't showing as much and edges were getting "crusty". By this past Wednesday (Day 9) there was some flesh still but there was more skeleton than flesh. As of today, I see some yellow polyps in the "corallites" (or whatever they are on monti's) but I suspect its just the receded tissue showing them. I'll leave it on the rack but I suspect its gone.
Day 10, prior to frag rack move:
Today, after being move to high light:
- The stylo showed good polyps until maybe Day 8. They came and went a couple days before that but I figured that was maybe normal. The flesh between the polyps did look different at Day 2 or 3, losing some of its "white color" but I figured showing polyps was still good. Following the move higher in the tank, the polyps continued to come and go as they did lower in the tank but maybe were less pronounced overall. As of today, I'm seeing even more white between the polyps. Thinking maybe its on its way out as well but not very definitive as of yet. (Notable, the coralline on the plug I left exposed is definitely growing.)
Day 10, prior to frag rack move:
Today, after being move to high light for 2 days, only one photo period:
- The millipora I though was doing pretty well through Day 9 or so. Polyps appeared out. Maybe not as pronounced as they were when they just came in but still out. On around Day 7, I believe the base was even starting to encrust over the glue on the plug. Overall, it has been pretty good. However, following the raising to higher light, I noticed today the top middle tip is looking "crusty" almost as if the light burned back the skin there. I think this one is not necessarily gone, but hate to see this recent change.
Day 10, prior to frag rack move:
Today, after being move to high light for 2 days, only one photo period:
- The acropora has probably done the best of them all. Like the milli, I think around Day 7 I started to see the base encrust over the glue. There was a bleached portion that was there when it came in (a very small spot) that maybe got a little bigger, but no skin loss there. As my previous email stated, the encrusted base did get a little crusty in the initial days but with the encrusting, I figured that was maybe just an adjusting period or, as you said, reacting to glue. I'd say the frag itself, not the base, looked about 90% as good as it did when it came in as of Day 9 prior to the move. However, as of the moving of the frag rack, it has started to pale out a bit. Polyps seemed quite happy in the higher flow area in the higher part of the tank though. Overall, I have hopes for this one but we'll have to wait and see.
Day 10, prior to frag rack move:
Today, after being move to high light for 2 days, only one photo period:
As an aside, I have gotten some frags from a couple of locals as of Monday this week. I also got a maricultured piece from Live Aquaria in an attempt to "seed" that tank with ocean rock and test the "SPS need ocean-seeded live rock to survive, dead/dry rock tanks always stuggle" theory I hear all to often on R2R. They are in my QT system. The SPS are a red plating monti, a spongode and a green slimer. The maricultured piece is a big secale with loads of plating/encrusting coralline on the rock. They are much newer to my possession so comparing them isn't entire accurate but they look almost identical as to when they came in. Maricultured piece is maybe lightening on the tips a very small amount, so small I hesitate to note it, but that's it. The 5 SPS in my QT look great.
In case its of interest, the following are the tank changes alluded to above:
- Salinity crept down to 33ppt. I've began raising it on Day 7 by adding salt water a little but every day instead of letting my ATO top off with RODI. As of today, its probably 34ppt.
- My calcium was low at 390ppm as of Day 1. Suspect its related to my low salinity. I've been dosing on my DOS to raise it to steadily. As of today, it read 450ppm.
- Alkalinity was lower at 7dKH. Like calcium, I think it had some to do with my salinity. I have not dosed it up. Increasing salinity has brought it up to 8.1dKH as of today.
- I've always struggled with readings of zero nitrates and phosphates. I've added sodium nitrate to my ATO as of Day 3. Its come up to 5ppm over the period.
- I added trisodium phosphate initially to my ATO but noticed it fueled algae growth pretty rapidly. It came up to 0.02ppm from dosing then went back to zero the next day. Interestingly, having not dosed for a week now, its reading 0.07ppm as of last night. It could be a bad Hanna packet but I thought it was positive to show some phosphates "naturally".
Finally, should it help share, here is a link to a short video I took of my tank. This maybe help communicate my setup details.
YouTube Video:
I'm partially writing this to get it all out and to organize my thoughts and document my experience. Should you find the time/interest in looking it over, I would be grateful. Of course, if you have ideas, I'm nearing desperate and very disheartened by all this. I firmly believe my "LARS" contributed to all this. I am looking into adding some more flow to my tank
If you're still reading at this point, thank you. I am doing this in hopes someone maybe able to help. Any and all feedback will be appreciated. As outlined above, I am going to try and change a couple things then throw away another $200 on a battle box I guess...
Thanks again for your time.
As some background, my 210gal tank has been up for almost 2 years. Since day 1, I have heeded the advice of some on this forum and @BRS videos and have quarantined nearly everything wet that goes into my tank. The only exception being some SPS frags which, according to R2R info, cannot harbor encysted parasites on healthy coral fleshy tissue. By QT I mean all fish have been treated with PraziPro and copper in a QT tank for at least 30 if not 45 days. All corals are dipped in Bayer. All corals are either moved on a fresh plug or have their existing plug exposed surfaces completely covered in super glue. My tank was started with Marco Rock bought directly from Marco. As such, I have never seen symptoms of any parasite or disease in my tank. (Exhibit 1 which will draw contraversy)
As far as equipment goes, my lighting is Reef Breeders Photo V2+ LED's with 2/ea T5 Blue+ bulbs to supplement. Settings are ~4hr of full light where PAR levels are ~400 at the highest rock and ~120 at the sand bed. I run a RO skimmer. I generally run BRS ROX carbon at amounts slightly less than instructions recommend. I have 2/ea Maxspect Gyre XF280's and 2/ea Neptune WAV pumps for in tank flow. Not sure what else to mention but I feel my equipment is pretty standard or at least not crazy far away from what maybe considered "common".
For maintenance, I usually do water changes once a month with ~40gal. I used to use Red Sea Blue Bucket but switched to Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt. I have a BRS 6 stage RODI unit. My parameters are generally as follows:
salinity - 35ppt*
temp - 77.6 - 78.4*F
Alk - 8.0 dKH
Calcium - 440ppm
Magnesium - 1300ppm
Nitrates - 5ppm**
Phosphates - 0.02ppm*
*Salinity recently trended down to 33ppt. Been bringing it back up slowly. Currently at 34ppt.
**For a long time, after I gave up on coral, my nutrients dropped to ~0 despite heavy feeding. Dunno why. Had to dose to get them back up. After dosing to get them up, they have stayed steady. Somewhat suggests nothing is consuming them anyways?
I have run an ICP test maybe a year ago when I tried to grow SPS last time. Test results didn't reveal anything revolutionary.
Here is what I experience with my SPS corals. Frags come in looking great. After my receiving practices, I put them on a frag rack near the sand bed. I've tried leaving them there any I've tried raising them slowly. It doesn't seem to change the end result. Generally, about a week into their receipt, the bases start to look what I describe as "crunchy" or "crusty". Oddly I have been unable to find posts that use descriptors such as this. Generally, it looks as if the skin of the base is slowly receeding to expose the pointy skeleton bits at the base. From there, tissue at the tips starts to look beaten and worn. Corallites start to look "burned" exposing skeleton. Over the coming weeks, this ultimately leads to what I assume is STN and rarely over night RTN.
In my most recent endeavor, I reached out to Adam @Battlecorals who was nice enough to let me buy a "tester SPS box" which included a monti, a stylo, a milli and an acro. Its been 15 days since receipt and they are seemingly heading down the same path as I've experienced in the past. Here are some photos to illustrate:
Day 1
Day 15
As you can see, I think its safe to say none of them look as good as they did when they came in. According to what I see on here, the majority of people experience that new frags generally do not look worse before they start looking better. The general consensus is they should look good the whole time. As I have never successfully kept an SPS alive, I am unclear as to what success looks like to be honest. I have no idea if any of this is normal or not.
In full disclosure, as mentioned some above, I have experienced some less than stable parameters as of my most recent attempt at SPS. I don't know if any of them are extreme enough to cause the dramatic changes in the frags as I am seeing.
Also as note, in the past I have kept zoas alive and growing. At some point, something I did seems to have negatively effected the zoas. I lost most of them but have three different zoa "colonies" left. Two of them are stagnant, going in and out of being fully open for days or being bothered and being mixed of closed and open. One colony continues to grow and multiply though.
In an effort to try and document my experiences, I have written the following email to Adam at Battle Corals as a "hail mary" to get some help. However, I think its unreasonable for me to expect a vendor to evaluate my situation as I'm sure they get these all the time. I'm also sure its hard to really get a picture of a tank from just an email, video or pictures. The system is dynamic and complex and I'm not even sure anything short of letting a "professional" take over my tank maintenance would even stand a chance. Nonetheless, the following is my most recent email to Adam to share some of my information:
Adam,
Just an update, unfortunately I think things are headed the direction I expected. Admittedly, some of it is likely my fault. My lack of trying to add stony coral for many months has let me lapse on my water testing. As such, some of my parameters had swung out of "ideal" ranges. I have begun to slowly correct them but I'm not sure which, if any, could contribute to this. Also, there's one big mistake I think I made. In thinking maybe they weren't getting sufficient lighting on a magnetic frag rack at the bottom corner of my tank, this past Thursday (Day 10) I moved the frag rack to maybe the top 1/3 of my tank, still in the corner. It's hard to tell if its coincidence in timing or contributing, but this seems to have made the most dramatic difference on the couple frags that were still doing OK. I moved it in the PM so they only spent one photo period in high light.
As far as the coral go, I've taken daily photos of each frag to be able to look back at the progress. I'd describe them as follows:
- Montipora went down hill pretty quickly. I'm not very familiar with monti's. Their growing edges look kinda white to me anyways so I wasn't sure when that one started showing skeleton. I'd say on Friday (Day 5) I could positively say polyps weren't showing as much and edges were getting "crusty". By this past Wednesday (Day 9) there was some flesh still but there was more skeleton than flesh. As of today, I see some yellow polyps in the "corallites" (or whatever they are on monti's) but I suspect its just the receded tissue showing them. I'll leave it on the rack but I suspect its gone.
Day 10, prior to frag rack move:
Today, after being move to high light:
- The stylo showed good polyps until maybe Day 8. They came and went a couple days before that but I figured that was maybe normal. The flesh between the polyps did look different at Day 2 or 3, losing some of its "white color" but I figured showing polyps was still good. Following the move higher in the tank, the polyps continued to come and go as they did lower in the tank but maybe were less pronounced overall. As of today, I'm seeing even more white between the polyps. Thinking maybe its on its way out as well but not very definitive as of yet. (Notable, the coralline on the plug I left exposed is definitely growing.)
Day 10, prior to frag rack move:
Today, after being move to high light for 2 days, only one photo period:
- The millipora I though was doing pretty well through Day 9 or so. Polyps appeared out. Maybe not as pronounced as they were when they just came in but still out. On around Day 7, I believe the base was even starting to encrust over the glue on the plug. Overall, it has been pretty good. However, following the raising to higher light, I noticed today the top middle tip is looking "crusty" almost as if the light burned back the skin there. I think this one is not necessarily gone, but hate to see this recent change.
Day 10, prior to frag rack move:
Today, after being move to high light for 2 days, only one photo period:
- The acropora has probably done the best of them all. Like the milli, I think around Day 7 I started to see the base encrust over the glue. There was a bleached portion that was there when it came in (a very small spot) that maybe got a little bigger, but no skin loss there. As my previous email stated, the encrusted base did get a little crusty in the initial days but with the encrusting, I figured that was maybe just an adjusting period or, as you said, reacting to glue. I'd say the frag itself, not the base, looked about 90% as good as it did when it came in as of Day 9 prior to the move. However, as of the moving of the frag rack, it has started to pale out a bit. Polyps seemed quite happy in the higher flow area in the higher part of the tank though. Overall, I have hopes for this one but we'll have to wait and see.
Day 10, prior to frag rack move:
Today, after being move to high light for 2 days, only one photo period:
As an aside, I have gotten some frags from a couple of locals as of Monday this week. I also got a maricultured piece from Live Aquaria in an attempt to "seed" that tank with ocean rock and test the "SPS need ocean-seeded live rock to survive, dead/dry rock tanks always stuggle" theory I hear all to often on R2R. They are in my QT system. The SPS are a red plating monti, a spongode and a green slimer. The maricultured piece is a big secale with loads of plating/encrusting coralline on the rock. They are much newer to my possession so comparing them isn't entire accurate but they look almost identical as to when they came in. Maricultured piece is maybe lightening on the tips a very small amount, so small I hesitate to note it, but that's it. The 5 SPS in my QT look great.
In case its of interest, the following are the tank changes alluded to above:
- Salinity crept down to 33ppt. I've began raising it on Day 7 by adding salt water a little but every day instead of letting my ATO top off with RODI. As of today, its probably 34ppt.
- My calcium was low at 390ppm as of Day 1. Suspect its related to my low salinity. I've been dosing on my DOS to raise it to steadily. As of today, it read 450ppm.
- Alkalinity was lower at 7dKH. Like calcium, I think it had some to do with my salinity. I have not dosed it up. Increasing salinity has brought it up to 8.1dKH as of today.
- I've always struggled with readings of zero nitrates and phosphates. I've added sodium nitrate to my ATO as of Day 3. Its come up to 5ppm over the period.
- I added trisodium phosphate initially to my ATO but noticed it fueled algae growth pretty rapidly. It came up to 0.02ppm from dosing then went back to zero the next day. Interestingly, having not dosed for a week now, its reading 0.07ppm as of last night. It could be a bad Hanna packet but I thought it was positive to show some phosphates "naturally".
Finally, should it help share, here is a link to a short video I took of my tank. This maybe help communicate my setup details.
YouTube Video:
I'm partially writing this to get it all out and to organize my thoughts and document my experience. Should you find the time/interest in looking it over, I would be grateful. Of course, if you have ideas, I'm nearing desperate and very disheartened by all this. I firmly believe my "LARS" contributed to all this. I am looking into adding some more flow to my tank
If you're still reading at this point, thank you. I am doing this in hopes someone maybe able to help. Any and all feedback will be appreciated. As outlined above, I am going to try and change a couple things then throw away another $200 on a battle box I guess...
Thanks again for your time.
