What is happening to my soft corals?
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I don't use a refractometer, but a swing arm hydrometer. It has been pretty steady at specific gravity 1.025 on both my hydrometer and a friends. I thought about getting a refractometer, but thought even if my salinity was off by a few points in either direction I'd be Ok as long as it's stable.
That's another frustrating thing about this. The friend who's hydrometer I borrowed is completely new to aquariums. I helped him set up his first tank, a 58 gallon reef tank and showed him the ropes, and his tank is doing great. Overgrown with soft corals, and using all the techniques that I taught him! He's actually doing less work than I am because I'm doing so much testing and he just throws stuff in the tank and it grows.
As far as lights, they are LEDs so I don't think they spectrum shift. I thought that lighting could be an environmental issue, but I don't really know how to be certain without having a PAR meter and I really don't want to start acquiring any more gear for this project. I've never met another reefer that actually has a PAR meter. Anyways, the lights are a pair of Hydra26 LEDs which are standard on the specific aquarium I own, a Red Sea MAX S400. I downloaded the settings that several other prominent soft coral keepers have been using. this adjusts the color spectrum throughout the day.
The alkalinity problem will be addressed soon. I re-read the replies I've received in this thread and that seems to be number one, or close to it. I didn't;t think it would be as critical for soft corals, but we'll have some more data soon. I plan on slowly increasing dKH with baking soda starting tomorrow and monitoring Alk and Calcium.
Thanks for your input.
Tank update - to anyone who had been following this thread, I made two changes:
1) Lowered temperature which was way high at 90+ degrees. My temperature monitoring game was negligent and I just assumed things were OK.
and a few days later:
2) Raising my dKH using baking soda from the mod sixes (~6.5dKH) to the mid sevens (~7.5dKH)
A few days after completing step number 2, I have seen encouraging results. The remaining soft corals I had have opened and are looking good. I only have a very small selection of zoas and a rock that had previously been covered with GSP when purchased. They had dissolved to what I had thought was nothing about a month ago, but after raining the Alkalinity I see three weak, tiny, individual polyps struggling to make their way in the world. There is no mat to speak of, and they are separated by each other by about an inch each. They hard look like green star polyps, they are almost white in color, very tiny and thin but I am almost certain they are GSP holing on for dear life. I am rooting for the little guys.
I've also recently decided to take the plunge, and installed an ApexEL controller just this morning. At present I am only using it to monitor and control temperature and monitor pH. I will continue to monitor dKH with my new Hanna tester and Red Sea and Salifert test kits.
I was under the impression that Alkalinity was not as much of a concern for soft corals, but it was probably the number one suggestion on what may be going wrong in my tank give in this thread. It is starting to look like that was the problem (or at least one of them), so thanks to you all.
Now I need to figure out why my dKH was so low in the first place (my freshly mixed water is at ~12dKH) and come up with a regimen to keep it stable and not too low.
1) Lowered temperature which was way high at 90+ degrees. My temperature monitoring game was negligent and I just assumed things were OK.
and a few days later:
2) Raising my dKH using baking soda from the mod sixes (~6.5dKH) to the mid sevens (~7.5dKH)
A few days after completing step number 2, I have seen encouraging results. The remaining soft corals I had have opened and are looking good. I only have a very small selection of zoas and a rock that had previously been covered with GSP when purchased. They had dissolved to what I had thought was nothing about a month ago, but after raining the Alkalinity I see three weak, tiny, individual polyps struggling to make their way in the world. There is no mat to speak of, and they are separated by each other by about an inch each. They hard look like green star polyps, they are almost white in color, very tiny and thin but I am almost certain they are GSP holing on for dear life. I am rooting for the little guys.
I've also recently decided to take the plunge, and installed an ApexEL controller just this morning. At present I am only using it to monitor and control temperature and monitor pH. I will continue to monitor dKH with my new Hanna tester and Red Sea and Salifert test kits.
I was under the impression that Alkalinity was not as much of a concern for soft corals, but it was probably the number one suggestion on what may be going wrong in my tank give in this thread. It is starting to look like that was the problem (or at least one of them), so thanks to you all.
Now I need to figure out why my dKH was so low in the first place (my freshly mixed water is at ~12dKH) and come up with a regimen to keep it stable and not too low.
Looks like your on the right track. I just read thru the whole post and here’s my two cents;
When I started reading my first thought was a toxin of some sorts, but your Icp looks good. I was really hoping the temperature was your only issue. Your Icp looks good- except iodine. And I agree alk is a bit low. both of these are important and I saw an increase in growth in my softies once I started dosing iodine. But I would get a test kit if your going to dose it. Could even be a simple change in salt that has more iodine. Also throw away the swing arm! Lol. Get a cheap refractometer from eBay $20. You will be glad you did. But over all it sounds like your doing everything right and I’m hoping these little tweaks your making will solve your issues.
my tank has always been fairly high in po4 and no3, so I dont have a reference with low nutrients, but that may be something to think about. My po4 is about .7 ppm and no3 is about 15ppm. Most would say this is too high, but it seems this is where My tank stays stable and seems to thrive. I watch it closely but have decided to let it be in that range and since I stoped chasing the numbers the tank has really started to take off. tank was set up in October 2019.
I wish you luck my friend and happy reefing!
When I started reading my first thought was a toxin of some sorts, but your Icp looks good. I was really hoping the temperature was your only issue. Your Icp looks good- except iodine. And I agree alk is a bit low. both of these are important and I saw an increase in growth in my softies once I started dosing iodine. But I would get a test kit if your going to dose it. Could even be a simple change in salt that has more iodine. Also throw away the swing arm! Lol. Get a cheap refractometer from eBay $20. You will be glad you did. But over all it sounds like your doing everything right and I’m hoping these little tweaks your making will solve your issues.
my tank has always been fairly high in po4 and no3, so I dont have a reference with low nutrients, but that may be something to think about. My po4 is about .7 ppm and no3 is about 15ppm. Most would say this is too high, but it seems this is where My tank stays stable and seems to thrive. I watch it closely but have decided to let it be in that range and since I stoped chasing the numbers the tank has really started to take off. tank was set up in October 2019.
I wish you luck my friend and happy reefing!
One other thing I may have missed above that you may want to consider is the lighting. I think you said they are LED but it may help to know the par your tank. Some LFS have par meters you can rent , fairly inexpensive.
If your near Los Angeles you can borrow my seneye.take care
If your near Los Angeles you can borrow my seneye.take care
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