Why are my corals ticked off?

[Alexgar224]

Good evening,

This is my first post to this forum so here's to hoping everything goes well! haha

I've been wondering why my tank hasn't been doing too good for the past 2-3 months. The corals have basically been retracted and slowly dying off for the previous time stated.
my current tank parameters as of today are:

Calcium: 490
Alk: 9.24
Mag: 1350
pH: 8.2
Phosphate: 0.01
Nitrate: 14
Salinity: 1.025-1.026
Temp: 77.5F

Tank Size:
30 Gallon Bow Front

My Lighting - Reef Breeder Photon V2+ at:
Royal Blue: 10%
Cool White: 1%
Cool Blue: 10%
Violet: 10%.
Time Span: 11:00 AM to 8:00PM

Filtration/Circulation:
2x Tidal 35 with Filter Floss and Carbon/PhosGuard
2x Jebao SOW-4 at lowest GPH

Stock:
2x Clown Fish - Approx. 2-3in each
1x Six Line Wrasse - Approx. 1.5in
1x Lawnmower Blenny - Approx. 2in

Corals: - Mainly LPS & Softies
1x ToadStool
1x Elegance
2x Goniopora
1x Xenia
1x Acan
1x Hammer

I recently stopped dosing Vibrant to my tank to fight off GHA bc I was noticing a worse response from corals during dosing and proceeded to do a 1/3 water change. I'm just not really sure what the cause for the slow coral death could be? I've been pretty much on top of my parameters consistently. I'm running out of thoughts of what could be causing the corals to be so ticked at me haha

Any and all help would be greatly appreciate!

Best,
Alejandro Garcia

 

[anthonygf]

How long has your tank been running?

 

[4kidsandapug]

Can you get a pic without the blues?

 

[TCoach]

Light levels seem very low. Have you measured your PAR?

 

[Uncle99]

Phosphate is way low at 0.01, I’d bump that up to .1ppm.
All others look good.
The low (or no) phosphate will bring pest algae, maybe cyano.
Corals got to feed.

 

[Alexgar224]

The tank has been up and rolling for about 1.5-2 years now! It was doing really good for a while, ran into a problem with Brooks and it killed all my livestock (curse you Petco, never bought from them again ) after waiting the necessary time for it to go through it's life cycle I added the new fish I listed in small increments.

I've added a photo of the tank w/o the blue light!

and I looked up to see if coral retraction could be from lights being too low and I couldn't really find anything about it! it all said they'll be super extended if that was the case. I measured par at the surface of the water to be ~50 and around 25-30 right above where the corals are placed now

 

[elysics]

Edit -

 

[elysics]

Is there a reason you have lights that low? That's the very bottom of the range and you measured at the surface
But more importantly, why do you run phosguard when you are at 0.01? That could easily turn into 0 when the last feeding has been a while and kill your corals
Take the phosguard out

 

[TCoach]

I measured par at the surface of the water to be ~50 and around 25-30 right above where the corals are placed now

That is really low par, even for softies. With the hammer and Acan, you definitely want more. I have similar corals in my reef, and my par is closer to 200-250 at the top. I would definitely work on turning up the lights to add more par.

 

[lake985]

I agree, those par numbers are very low. I also run a RB Phtoton V2+, but my max is at 72%.l and corals are doing great. I think you also need to boost phosphate levels a bit.

 

[Uncle99]

You have not been feeding your fish while going fallow.
That means phosphate has not been added as before, but, corals would still be consuming it, I think you’ve just run out.
Bump that phosphate by dosing Seachem Phosphorus or Brightwell Neophos.
Once feeding and fish levels return to normal, you can decrease if test sats they are building.

 

[Alexgar224]

Okay awesome! I appreciate all the input!

I'll get those light values higher and work on increasing phosphate levels to around .1ppm and see what happens!

 

[4kidsandapug]

As others mentioned above, PAR is way too low. And that could be why for a tank almost 2 years old, you should have a heck of a lot more coralline on your rocks. It looks newish, especially with the gha.

Boost the lights. Any friends with established tanks to re-seed your tank with some live rock? Get some AB+ and try dosing phyto

 

[anthonygf]

Good evening,

This is my first post to this forum so here's to hoping everything goes well! haha

I've been wondering why my tank hasn't been doing too good for the past 2-3 months. The corals have basically been retracted and slowly dying off for the previous time stated.
my current tank parameters as of today are:

Calcium: 490
Alk: 9.24
Mag: 1350
pH: 8.2
Phosphate: 0.01
Nitrate: 14
Salinity: 1.025-1.026
Temp: 77.5F

Tank Size:
30 Gallon Bow Front

My Lighting - Reef Breeder Photon V2+ at:
Royal Blue: 10%
Cool White: 1%
Cool Blue: 10%
Violet: 10%.
Time Span: 11:00 AM to 8:00PM

Filtration/Circulation:
2x Tidal 35 with Filter Floss and Carbon/PhosGuard
2x Jebao SOW-4 at lowest GPH

Stock:
2x Clown Fish - Approx. 2-3in each
1x Six Line Wrasse - Approx. 1.5in
1x Lawnmower Blenny - Approx. 2in

Corals: - Mainly LPS & Softies
1x ToadStool
1x Elegance
2x Goniopora
1x Xenia
1x Acan
1x Hammer

I recently stopped dosing Vibrant to my tank to fight off GHA bc I was noticing a worse response from corals during dosing and proceeded to do a 1/3 water change. I'm just not really sure what the cause for the slow coral death could be? I've been pretty much on top of my parameters consistently. I'm running out of thoughts of what could be causing the corals to be so ticked at me haha

Any and all help would be greatly appreciate!

Best,
Alejandro Garcia

I'm sorry you used Vibrant, I also tried that stuff and noticed and bad reaction to it also. Now I try a more natural approach to control the nasties in my tank, but it will take more time to fix.

 

[BostonReefer300]

You're getting good advice here. Given the low phosphate level in your tank, the use of Vibrant (the bacteria will stick around for quite a while despite water changes), and the chronic low light conditions, you're probably going to get a dino explosion when you turn your lights up (also maybe cyano). It's not a 100% certainty, but chances are better than even IMO. If that happens, there are great sticky threads in the algae forum to help you and some friendly experts as well. For dinos, the first step in the battle is identification. For that, you'll need a microscope---which is handy to have anyway for a reef tank. Here's a good one that I got for cheap:
Amazon product
More likely than not, you'll also need a UV sterilizer. Hold off on that until you definitely need to get one. If you do, lots of people with small tanks get the green killing machine. Amazon product
I've never used it though, so I'd recommend researching it first.
Anyway, I really hope you don't end up with dinos! But at least now you have a running start against them!

 

[anthonygf]

You're getting good advice here. Given the low phosphate level in your tank, the use of Vibrant (the bacteria will stick around for quite a while despite water changes), and the chronic low light conditions, you're probably going to get a dino explosion when you turn your lights up (also maybe cyano). It's not a 100% certainty, but chances are better than even IMO. If that happens, there are great sticky threads in the algae forum to help you and some friendly experts as well. For dinos, the first step in the battle is identification. For that, you'll need a microscope---which is handy to have anyway for a reef tank. Here's a good one that I got for cheap:
Amazon product
More likely than not, you'll also need a UV sterilizer. Hold off on that until you definitely need to get one. If you do, lots of people with small tanks get the green killing machine. Amazon product
I've never used it though, so I'd recommend researching it first.
Anyway, I really hope you don't end up with dinos! But at least now you have a running start against them!

Hi BostoReefer300. I heard that the Bull and Finch ("aka Cheers" for those than do not know) pub on Beacon Hill closed. I was born and raised in R.I. and used to love visiting Boston and the pub. That was 25 years ago. Last time in Boston was 10 years ago when going to R.I. to visit family.

Anyway, don't get me confused with the OP PapaReefer, I used Vibrant long time ago. I run my lights 90% blue and 25-35% others. I run a UV, skimmer and fuge light on opposite main light schedule. Corals and Squamosa are growing and very colorful. Last year in October I upgraded from 46 bowfront to 75. Then in Jan I had a aiptasia outbreak that could not control with all means avaliable. So I removed all rock and cleaned and fragged all coral, cleaned all components, replaced all plumbing. The rock I scrubbed and soak in vinegar for several days, rinse and boiled the rocks. During that time I had bio media getting some bacteria growing from in the tank.

A week later put all rock back in tank along with some bottle bacteria and a couple pieces of live rock from my LFS. So now I have been going through the ugly stages again, some pics to show, my 46 bowfront 3 years old, my 75 about 7 months old. The third photo was just after transfer. I had very little GHA in the 46 maybe because I had my mag up around 1500, getting GHA now and have mag at 1300. i am going to slowly raise it to 1500 and keep it there.

Sorry for the long story, hope you enjoy.

 

[anthonygf]

Just recently added a new light, Cobalt C-Ray 200 center to go with my Kessils. What a great light. Does more than a Kessil, liked it so much I bought a second one for a spare, was only $350 each new on ebay.

 

[BostonReefer300]

Hi BostoReefer300. I heard that the Bull and Finch ("aka Cheers" for those than do not know) pub on Beacon Hill closed. I was born and raised in R.I. and used to love visiting Boston and the pub. That was 25 years ago. Last time in Boston was 10 years ago when going to R.I. to visit family.

Anyway, don't get me confused with the OP PapaReefer, I used Vibrant long time ago. I run my lights 90% blue and 25-35% others. I run a UV, skimmer and fuge light on opposite main light schedule. Corals and Squamosa are growing and very colorful. Last year in October I upgraded from 46 bowfront to 75. Then in Jan I had a aiptasia outbreak that could not control with all means avaliable. So I removed all rock and cleaned and fragged all coral, cleaned all components, replaced all plumbing. The rock I scrubbed and soak in vinegar for several days, rinse and boiled the rocks. During that time I had bio media getting some bacteria growing from in the tank.

A week later put all rock back in tank along with some bottle bacteria and a couple pieces of live rock from my LFS. So now I have been going through the ugly stages again, some pics to show, my 46 bowfront 3 years old, my 75 about 7 months old. The third photo was just after transfer. I had very little GHA in the 46 maybe because I had my mag up around 1500, getting GHA now and have mag at 1300. i am going to slowly raise it to 1500 and keep it there.

Sorry for the long story, hope you enjoy.

Hi Anthonygf, nice to meet you. I don't think I was confusing you with the OP, but regardless I appreciated learning more about your tank. Beautiful by the way!

 

[anthonygf]

Hi Anthonygf, nice to meet you. I don't think I was confusing you with the OP, but regardless I appreciated learning more about your tank. Beautiful by the way!

Thank you. This hobby is like a roller coaster, you have your ups and downs periods. At this time I am on my way back up. It may take another year for my tank to look as good as my 3 year old 46 bowfront.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Lack of food and light. At minimum, moderate light and water flow.
What test kits are you using ?