jccaclimber
Active Member
I've been keeping coral for 8 years, several of which I had what I considered a successful mixed reef (acros I could see growing every week, zoas, assorted other LPS and SPS).
About 2 years ago I moved across the country. I dry started a smaller (170 gallon) tank, then moved the fish, and a bunch of coral, and some rock to the new system. It never did great, but it hung on and I was moving again anyways. I moved that tank in March of this year (only a couple miles).
At first everything was a bit pale and there was a lot of bryopsis. Flucon later the bryopsis was taken over by hair algae. Nitrate tested zero (Red Sea) and phosphate was very close to zero (Hanna ULR, Red Sea). Feeding more didn't do much for that, and so I started dosing some phosphate and nitrate (powder from GLA, have been using them on things for years). I had to dose nitrate in my last tank to keep it above zero, so this wasn't a surprise.
The chalices, toadstool, and zoas started perking up, the SPS remained stagnant. Somewhere in here I started growing my own phyto (nanno) and periodically pour some of that in. Might not do much, but I always found it under the microscope in my old tank and didn't see any in this one.
At some point the hair algae started getting bad and dinos started showing up. The coral all started looking bad again. I could kill the algae with H2O2 spot treatments, but it would come back. Late fall though the beginning of this month I increased my phosphate, nitrate, kept on the algae with the H2O2, and added a ton of snails. Now the algae is nearly gone and staying that way, but the coral has all been going down hill. I'm seeing polyp bailout on my duncan (a softball that I grew from a single head). My cyphastrea that I grew in this tank from a frag during the summer went from a 5" circle to dead in a week. The chalices and even faivia are getting thin and dying, and today the trachy started losing tissue. The SPS is pretty much all gone. The clam is still putting on shell, but I'm nervous seeing everything around it go. The duncan really has me confused, I'm pretty sure I could grow one of those in a stagnant water glass on a good day.
With the tank going downhill and the dinos gone I turned off the UV a few weeks ago. Potassium measured low (360) so I raised that what should have been about 30 PPM over a week earlier this month, although that made no change.
Last guess was to send out for a Trident test. That came back this morning. It claims iodine at 20 PPB, but I'm not sure that explains all of this. Phosphate at 0.2 PPM, which is expected at the moment. That's high, but my acro tank was the same and that doesn't in any way explain dying LPS.
When it's actually consuming calcium and alk the tank gets 2 part from BRS plus some occasional epsom salt. I'm not a water changer historically, but I've been changing ~10% weekly. I'm using the same batch of black bucket Red Sea that I've been using for the past 5 years, so no changes there. My RO TDS reads 0. The fish get a half sheet of nori most days and some PE mysis or LRS when I'm feeling nice.
To me it looks like a tank does when it's severely short on nitrate, but that isn't the case (10 PPM).
There is plenty of coraline growing on the glass, but none on the rocks.
I ran carbon for a few weeks when fighting the light dino infestation. Maybe a slight increase in things declining, but no real changes.
Please forgive if this is a bit scatter brained. Walking by the tank is really depressing right now as I seem to notice something else dying every time I do.
About 2 years ago I moved across the country. I dry started a smaller (170 gallon) tank, then moved the fish, and a bunch of coral, and some rock to the new system. It never did great, but it hung on and I was moving again anyways. I moved that tank in March of this year (only a couple miles).
At first everything was a bit pale and there was a lot of bryopsis. Flucon later the bryopsis was taken over by hair algae. Nitrate tested zero (Red Sea) and phosphate was very close to zero (Hanna ULR, Red Sea). Feeding more didn't do much for that, and so I started dosing some phosphate and nitrate (powder from GLA, have been using them on things for years). I had to dose nitrate in my last tank to keep it above zero, so this wasn't a surprise.
The chalices, toadstool, and zoas started perking up, the SPS remained stagnant. Somewhere in here I started growing my own phyto (nanno) and periodically pour some of that in. Might not do much, but I always found it under the microscope in my old tank and didn't see any in this one.
At some point the hair algae started getting bad and dinos started showing up. The coral all started looking bad again. I could kill the algae with H2O2 spot treatments, but it would come back. Late fall though the beginning of this month I increased my phosphate, nitrate, kept on the algae with the H2O2, and added a ton of snails. Now the algae is nearly gone and staying that way, but the coral has all been going down hill. I'm seeing polyp bailout on my duncan (a softball that I grew from a single head). My cyphastrea that I grew in this tank from a frag during the summer went from a 5" circle to dead in a week. The chalices and even faivia are getting thin and dying, and today the trachy started losing tissue. The SPS is pretty much all gone. The clam is still putting on shell, but I'm nervous seeing everything around it go. The duncan really has me confused, I'm pretty sure I could grow one of those in a stagnant water glass on a good day.
With the tank going downhill and the dinos gone I turned off the UV a few weeks ago. Potassium measured low (360) so I raised that what should have been about 30 PPM over a week earlier this month, although that made no change.
Last guess was to send out for a Trident test. That came back this morning. It claims iodine at 20 PPB, but I'm not sure that explains all of this. Phosphate at 0.2 PPM, which is expected at the moment. That's high, but my acro tank was the same and that doesn't in any way explain dying LPS.
When it's actually consuming calcium and alk the tank gets 2 part from BRS plus some occasional epsom salt. I'm not a water changer historically, but I've been changing ~10% weekly. I'm using the same batch of black bucket Red Sea that I've been using for the past 5 years, so no changes there. My RO TDS reads 0. The fish get a half sheet of nori most days and some PE mysis or LRS when I'm feeling nice.
To me it looks like a tank does when it's severely short on nitrate, but that isn't the case (10 PPM).
There is plenty of coraline growing on the glass, but none on the rocks.
I ran carbon for a few weeks when fighting the light dino infestation. Maybe a slight increase in things declining, but no real changes.
Please forgive if this is a bit scatter brained. Walking by the tank is really depressing right now as I seem to notice something else dying every time I do.
