Watch me kill SPS...

[Skep18]

Hi there! I just saw your thread and am following along. You are very insightful and seem to have a clear understanding of reefing 101! Everyone has some great ideas on here. I have a 200 gallon mixed reef. Way more LPS than SPS.....but I do have a several SPS corals. I added them a year ago. So far so good. I have no low nutrient issues....lol...I have about 20 fish, and feed Mysis a couple of times a day. PO4 is around .08 or so, and NO3 is about 15ppm. I run a algae scrubber and Chemipure and. Alk is 9.5 and calcium is 410ppm. I dose 2 part daily manually. Don't laugh, but I don't trust automatic dosers....lol. I have a ato but that is it.

Keep plugging away.....with all of these great suggestions, you will be golden in no time! Here a few pics of my only SPS. Sorry for the poor pic quality.

Thank you for the encouragement. Believe it or not, its good to see posts like this. Its all to tempting to OOPS a hammer into the glass and tear it all down, lol. But I am gonna just keep trying I guess. Surely it'll come around soon enough...

Good looking colonies you have there BTW.

 

[melanotaenia]

Start them at 150-200 PAR and work up from there; most Acros that are in good shape are pretty resilient to lighting changes/intensity, within reason, of course.

You are right though, it is good not to move them much; start them low, then put them into a position they are happy, and leave them there. And no, I don't think lighting is your problem. I think your tank needs live rock.

Good luck!

 

[cancun]

Thank you for the encouragement. Believe it or not, its good to see posts like this. Its all to tempting to OOPS a hammer into the glass and tear it all down, lol. But I am gonna just keep trying I guess. Surely it'll come around soon enough...

Good looking colonies you have there BTW.

Thanks! You are absolutely right! I have had my share of ups and downs too! I think it is so encouraging to see your thread the good, bad, and ugly so we can all learn together! Your fish look amazing in your video by the way! Nice colors and fat and happy! I have faith you will figure this out and have your dream tank full of huge healthy SPS!!!

 

[Skep18]

Start them at 150-200 PAR and work up from there; most Acros that are in good shape are pretty resilient to lighting changes/intensity, within reason, of course.

You are right though, it is good not to move them much; start them low, then put them into a position they are happy, and leave them there. And no, I don't think lighting is your problem. I think your tank needs live rock.

Good luck!

Respectfully noted on the live rock. I know all reefers are different but in my eyes, having unwanted pests is just as much a failure as being unable to grow acros. I'm afraid if I bring in 100lb of live rock, there's no way I'd eradicate it of all the pests. If I found a vermetid snail in my tank, I think I would die, lol. My personal nature couldn't handle it. As said before, I am QT'ing a maricultured frag. I don't know if thats enough live rock to seed the tank long term or not though. And as has been pointed out in this thread earlier, I know I am not what others are but I know people have had success with dry rock tanks. I just have to believe its possible. While I have not experienced it first hand, I gotta think there are people out there who have done it successfully. Either that or there are a lot of lurkers on these forums with failed tanks because I'm guessing companies like BRS sell a lot of dry rock. lol.

I'm constantly learning. Its crazy these acros can be so different in 200 PAR vs 225 PAR. I just always thought they weren't that sensitive to lighting intensity to respond differently to a difference of 25 PAR or 10%. Heck, I figure our measuring devices and methods have more error in them than that. But it sounds like 225 might be too high to start new frags at.

Thanks for the feedback!

EDIT: Now that I think about it, Adam with Battle Corals I think said in his 2020 interview with CoralVue that he started his big system on dry rock. It just has to be possible! lol.

 

[Skep18]

Thanks! You are absolutely right! I have had my share of ups and downs too! I think it is so encouraging to see your thread the good, bad, and ugly so we can all learn together! Your fish look amazing in your video by the way! Nice colors and fat and happy! I have faith you will figure this out and have your dream tank full of huge healthy SPS!!!

As unsuccessful as I have been with coral, I have only lost one fish in the DT in my two years of keeping this tank up. I've treated all incoming fish in QT per @Humblefish instructions and have never seen any sign of fish disease in my tank. So if nothing else, I am happy to be able to say with pretty high confidence, I have as good a chance as anyone who practices QT to not have fish pests in my tank.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

Take a look at my old tank journal. I started with all base rocks.

The journey of BOBS never ending SPS build - Reef Central Online Community

The journey of BOBS never ending SPS build SPS Keepers

www.reefcentral.com

i had tremendous growth. Within two months of setting up the tank.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

its Funny people keep saying you need live rocks etc.

 

[Skep18]

Take a look at my old tank journal. I started with all base rocks.

The journey of BOBS never ending SPS build - Reef Central Online Community

The journey of BOBS never ending SPS build SPS Keepers

www.reefcentral.com

i had tremendous growth. Within two months of setting up the tank.

Lol, well I certainly am hopeful and want to believe the same, that live rock isn't required for SPS. That said, subjectively, I do tend to believe the nebulous term "live rock" can/does likely have something in it that has a positive effect on growing SPS. But it just seems there are too many accounts of people growing SPS in dry rock started tanks (not to mention frag tanks) that there has to be a way of doing it.

Looking at your thread, that definitely looks to be some nice, white growing edges/bases on those frags. I wish I could replicate this! lol.

 

[wilsonline]

SO, I did read the whole thread, OMG! lol
So even though I think you can improve light, flow, etc, I don't think that's likely to be the cause of sps death. Contamination that would be another possibility isn't bc you did the ICP test and everything came ok. So, we could go on and on about possibilities. BUT!!! There's something we can see there and we know it kills acros!
IMO it's what I saw in the first video from the first post. That brown slime that covers the rock and later on we see covering you frags, that can be deadly. Looks like some kind of dino, but only a microscope will tell. But doesn't matter if it's dinos or cyanobacteria, that kills sps and we know that. So, first thing to do is to solve that. Not easy I know! I had dinos here and almost lost all my acros (little frags haha). I know of very experienced aquarists that lost many large colonies to dinos. Yeah, it can be a pain in the butt. Sorry, it's not something easy.

Now, I think it's clear the brown slime is the issue here. What to do? There are many strategies to solve this issue. First, solve the nutrient unbalance by raising PO4.
This unbalance makes it harder for beneficial organisms to come through ecological succession. And you end up with an outbreak of undesirable things like dinos and cyanobacteria. They end up with little to no competition and predators in this rush environment.
What I did here to solve dinos may or may not work for you bc there are many different species of dinos (if that's dinos). But I did a 4 days blackout, dosed vibrant (yeaahh, maybe that is rush on acros), dr tim's waste away, niteout, stirred the substrate, added a UV rated for 4 times the size of my tank and went with low flow. I also did microbubble and cleaned the skimmer and socks twice a day. This may not be the ideal treatment, it's just what I heard online and did as I was kind of desperate to get rid of the dinos. So far, I only see brown algae here, no confirmation of dinos. But I don't know yet, they may come back.
And this treatment was VERY VERY rush on my acros. In your case, I would take those frags out. And I did lose 5 anthias purple quem, but that's another story... Acros seems to be recovering here. I started dosing acropower too.

EDIT: I'm far away from being an experienced aquarist, ok?! haha only 4 months since I added fish to my tank and it's my first time doing saltwater. So, I don't have half of your experience. So I may well be wrong.

 

[wilsonline]

And congrats for doing the QT. I lost a lot of fish here and I know most of it could be avoided if I had a QT and did a better selection of my fish. My bad!

 

[Skep18]

SO, I did read the whole thread, OMG! lol
So even though I think you can improve light, flow, etc, I don't think that's likely to be the cause of sps death. Contamination that would be another possibility isn't bc you did the ICP test and everything came ok. So, we could go on and on about possibilities. BUT!!! There's something we can see there and we know it kills acros!
IMO it's what I saw in the first video from the first post. That brown slime that covers the rock and later on we see covering you frags, that can be deadly. Looks like some kind of dino, but only a microscope will tell. But doesn't matter if it's dinos or cyanobacteria, that kills sps and we know that. So, first thing to do is to solve that. Not easy I know! I had dinos here and almost lost all my acros (little frags haha). I know of very experienced aquarists that lost many large colonies to dinos. Yeah, it can be a pain in the butt. Sorry, it's not something easy.

Now, I think it's clear the brown slime is the issue here. What to do? There are many strategies to solve this issue. First, solve the nutrient unbalance by raising PO4.
This unbalance makes it harder for beneficial organisms to come through ecological succession. And you end up with an outbreak of undesirable things like dinos and cyanobacteria. They end up with little to no competition and predators in this rush environment.
What I did here to solve dinos may or may not work for you bc there are many different species of dinos (if that's dinos). But I did a 4 days blackout, dosed vibrant (yeaahh, maybe that is rush on acros), dr tim's waste away, niteout, stirred the substrate, added a UV rated for 4 times the size of my tank and went with low flow. I also did microbubble and cleaned the skimmer and socks twice a day. This may not be the ideal treatment, it's just what I heard online and did as I was kind of desperate to get rid of the dinos. So far, I only see brown algae here, no confirmation of dinos. But I don't know yet, they may come back.
And this treatment was VERY VERY rush on my acros. In your case, I would take those frags out. And I did lose 5 anthias purple quem, but that's another story... Acros seems to be recovering here. I started dosing acropower too.

EDIT: I'm far away from being an experienced aquarist, ok?! haha only 4 months since I added fish to my tank and it's my first time doing saltwater. So, I don't have half of your experience. So I may well be wrong.

Thank you for putting the time in to read it all. It is a lot. Lol.

At this point, I am in agreement with the suspicion of dinos. I have a microscope coming in today. I have been using Vibrant for maybe 6 months already and am continuing to use it. Reading stuff online, I am starting to prepare to follow some of the generally accepted recommendations. I already have a UV sterilizer and will continue to use that. I have BioSpira on-hand and will be dosing small amounts of that daily. I have ordered some MicroBacter7 which has daily dosing instructions. Once it comes in, I will use that instead of or intermixed with my BioSpira. Hopefully, with the microscope I can ID the brown substance and confirm, if dinos, the type I have and can treat specific to that type. I think/hope that will yield some results.

As far as these frags in there now go, I am not terribly concerned about them. I kinda expected them to die. All in all, this is an expensive hobby and I have foregone any thoughts of trying to save money while attempting to fix this problem. This is far from my most expensive hobby so I kinda plan on keep trying stuff and, if things improve, I'll buy another frag pack. No worries there.

And congrats for doing the QT. I lost a lot of fish here and I know most of it could be avoided if I had a QT and did a better selection of my fish. My bad!

I understand. I can attest, QT'ing is not without its efforts and expenses. If I didn't have a 210gal tank, I wouldn't probably buy another QT setup either. Luckily it seems there are ways to work around QT'ing in terms of being careful of your fish selection and keeping your fish fat and happy.

Thanks again for the feedback!

 

[wilsonline]

Thank you for putting the time in to read it all. It is a lot. Lol.

At this point, I am in agreement with the suspicion of dinos. I have a microscope coming in today. I have been using Vibrant for maybe 6 months already and am continuing to use it.

I dosed Vibrant here twice. And on both, I had my acros going downhill. not sure if Vibrant was the cause, but lately I've heard a lot of bad reports about vibrant being rush on acros. So I would go easy with that. The first time I had issues with my corals, I thought it was caused by prazipro, but now after so many bad reports about vibrant, I think that maybe Vibrant was the cause. The second time I dosed Vibrant was in the blackout and I almost lost the acros. IDK, but many people said the corals should do ok with the blackout and that prazipro was really reef safe. Again, it's just a hypothesis.

Dinoflagelados en el acuario marino. ¿qué son y cómo combatirlos? - Blog Coral Wonders

Los dinoflagelados, una de los principales amenazas en nuestros acuarios. Descubre lo que son y aprende a controlarlos manteniendo el acuario limpio y seguro.

blog.coralwonders.com

 

[Skep18]

I dosed Vibrant here twice. And on both, I had my acros going downhill. not sure if Vibrant was the cause, but lately I've heard a lot of bad reports about vibrant being rush on acros. So I would go easy with that. The first time I had issues with my corals, I thought it was caused by prazipro, but now after so many bad reports about vibrant, I think that maybe Vibrant was the cause. The second time I dosed Vibrant was in the blackout and I almost lost the acros. IDK, but many people said the corals should do ok with the blackout and that prazipro was really reef safe. Again, it's just a hypothesis.

Dinoflagelados en el acuario marino. ¿qué son y cómo combatirlos? - Blog Coral Wonders

Los dinoflagelados, una de los principales amenazas en nuestros acuarios. Descubre lo que son y aprende a controlarlos manteniendo el acuario limpio y seguro.

blog.coralwonders.com

Oh wow. I haven't seen but one or two posts in the large Vibrant thread where people thought their issue was Vibrant only to figure it was something else. Sometimes its the result of Vibrant killing off things and what that does to the water column that can cause issue.

Either way, I would be very interested if you had links to these posts about issues with Vibrant. I would love to read them.

 

[wilsonline]

No, I don't have the links. And some were not here, but in the lfs, or in whatsapp groups, or in other forums.. Someone else here said it too.
And again, I'm not saying it was vibrant, but that both times when I dose it, my acros went downhill. It could be something else or not, IDK.

 

[Skep18]

No, I don't have the links. And some were not here, but in the lfs, or in whatsapp groups, or in other forums.. Someone else here said it too.
And again, I'm not saying it was vibrant, but that both times when I dose it, my acros went downhill. It could be something else or not, IDK.

Gotcha. Well I will proceed cautiously but luckily I have no acros as of yet, lol. Gotta laugh so you don't cry.

 

[Skep18]

Well I got the little microscope and pulled some off a powerhead. Already made an ID thread and it seems/looks like they are the common "ostreopsis".

I have started reading the Sticky Dino Thread but being almost 500 pages, does anyone know if the info is in there to treat specific dinos or if there is another thread for that? I was surprised to see in that thread OP there doesn't appear to be direct links to images of each type. Idk if that is to assume recommendations aren't included as well either but I will be reading through it.

Here's the image of the dinos:

 

[Surfzone]

UV will clear them up in a matter of days

 

[Skep18]

UV will clear them up in a matter of days

I've been running UV 14hr a day for over a year. No joy. :(

 

[Surfzone]

I've been running UV 14hr a day for over a year. No joy. :(

How old is the bulb? Also try running UV 24/7

 

[wilsonline]

I said what I did to get rid of this, also ostreopsis. And left you an interesting site (link).
If you speak Portuguese, let me know, I know a really good link.