Why don't my corals grow or use major elements?

[kevin_e]

I didn't use nopox for years and haven't for about 9 months so I highly doubt nopox is my problem and it is a great product if used correctly guys. And I don't see a need to turn my skimmer off with elevated nutrients and algae, cyano.

Did glu say which algae ylu are struggling with?

 

[Oerussc]

This may sound really stupid but you might check your hydrometer / refractometer carefully. I had been using one of those expensive Milwaukee refractomers for the past several years and while it calibrated fairly close, it was off by a mile. I had hyper salinity in my frag tank for a few months and experienced similar issues. I bought a cheap refractometer from bulk reef and was shocked how far off the Milwaukee was. Everything is back to normal with good growth, coloration, and coralline growth. I guess I am just suggesting that you have your lfs double check your salinity or buy another meter for comparison. It’s funny how salinity can be that one thing that we just jump over when there are issues.

 

[ReefSlice]

Nice tank, glad it's working for you, not many people can do that.
Algae is mostly hair algae, bubble algae and some cyano which comes and goes.
I actually thought the same thing and bought an extra refractometer but both are dead on, I calibrate them every time I take a reading. Also have 4 different bottles of calibration fluid to quadruple check!

 

[Hermie]

Yes ICP was clear, and I'll restate I did have my nitrates at 0-5 for a long time, I had no algae at all, no film on glass, and the corals looked even worse. People run much higher nitrates than 20 and have plenty of growth, especially in a tank this old. I just can't see nitrate being my problem as I've had it everywhere on the scale (for 3+ months at each level to observe) and it hasn't helped a bit. Right now it is at 10, and if it was a high nutrient issue why would my corals become pale like they're starving? I also have to dose Po4 daily to keep it above 0.
I guess I'll give the light's a go one last time, I've gone up and down with them so many times I just can't see it making a difference. And when I changed the lights, I did NOT go straight up to 100... I research everything I do extensively and how I did it was blues up 5% a week, then whites up 5% the next (alternating). I went from 40-50% blue and 15-25% white all the way up to 100% blue 80% white with some several week breaks in between and my corals just looked the same. Just can't get these things to grow coral for me!
I appreciate all the suggestions! I've basically just made it an experiment tank for the last month of its life and am willing to give anything a go that I haven't already tried. In a few months, once the 150 is well cycled (50% TBS rock, T5 lights, reefflakes sandbed, opposite of this tank), I will be fragging away what I can salvage from this tank and moving it over to the 150 to start anew.

I don't have much experience here but my suggestion would be to run "test" configurations of your lights for months at a time instead of weeks

 

[ReefSlice]

I don't have much experience here but my suggestion would be to run "test" configurations of your lights for months at a time instead of weeks

Sorry to be clear the weeks of time were just ramp up time. I remained at 90/100% for 4-6 months, and then dropped them back down slowly. Been at 50/90 for a while now, probably 3 months. Going to start bringing it up again slowly now and max them out. Also going to rent a par meter at some point in the near future.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Nice tank, glad it's working for you, not many people can do that.
Algae is mostly hair algae, bubble algae and some cyano which comes and goes.
I actually thought the same thing and bought an extra refractometer but both are dead on, I calibrate them every time I take a reading. Also have 4 different bottles of calibration fluid to quadruple check!

Many ppl run tanks without skimmers. All of Reefersdirect sps tanks were run without skimmers and BRS recommends an underrated skimmer because corals and algae absorb ammonia and ammonium, not no3 and po4. Skimmers pull out a majority of ammonia and bacteria, both of which are coral food. Besides all of that, your by the book/numbers method isn’t working. You have a 40 gallon tank with only 2 fish and starving corals. You probably don’t need your skimmer right now and you don’t need to worry about no3 and po4 or algae growth. I have nuisance algae but it doesn’t bother me because I have beautiful colored, growing acros and monti’s. What would you rather have? No algae and struggling sps or a little algae and happy sps? I’m only trying to help. I assumed you started this thread because you were looking for an alternative method, which I have provided. Ideal numbers don’t guarantee sps success. The sps forum has countless “my sps are dying but my numbers are perfect and I have the best skimmer, etc” threads. Sps need a somewhat stable big 3, strong light, pulsing flow and fish poop. I grew acros like crazy 10 years ago in a 29 gallon biocube, with a 250 watt metal halide, fish poop and bi weekly water changes. That’s it. No skimmer, no dosing and no testing at all. I didn’t test alk, cal, mag, no3, po4, k ......
You said you wanted to use this phase as an experiment. I can’t think of a better one than no skimmer.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Lighting and chasing numbers seem to be the main issue. Nutrients are important as is water flow which should be moderate, not blasting.
Lights need to get within 15" and focus on more blue, less white.

 

[DHill6]

Same situation not long ago, now adding KH daily, coralline explosion, corals growing with good PE. Reefer 170, approx 32g., Tonga branch, one clown, one mandarin, one urchin, snails, SPS and LPS. My conclusion, I use TM Pro salt, in the small bucket only, the 200 g bucket was off three different buckets. Radion Pro4, 9 inches off the water turned down to 38% on the A+B program, and two mp10s turned up to 55% on random flow. I do 4g w/c weekly. Use only LRS frozen and TDO pellet for food broadcast in tiny pieces. Running a Nyos skimmer with a ph reactor, it reads 8.2-8.3 constantly, started an ATS for the uglies GHA, cut everything else out and went simple. Reefroids every now and then. I’m going to give AF food a try for the coral every now and then. Corals are definitely growing, colors are bright, all high end pieces. In my case...Good salt, less light, more flow, less messing around with dosing stuff. SPS at top reads 250 on par meter.

 

[DHill6]

Agree with vetteguy53081. Nutrients are needed. I have N03 -5, p04-.01, stays pretty constant. Corals aren’t blasted with flow, just enough to see PE moving. I don’t want to blow the LPS apart. HW has changed the way it was growing every time I messed with the flow. Lowering the light intensity, the coralline has really taken off. Higher light seemed to get pink coralline along with the purple.

 

[ReefSlice]

@Randy Holmes-Farley I had a question here I was hoping you could shed some light on. I know my city uses chloramines however I don't think there's any way they're getting through my Ro/di (5 stage, 1 micron carbon block and catalytic carbon stage). I have tested with some pool tests and got zilch but just to be positive, would the chloramines show up on ICP testing as chloride if it was present? Nothing came up but a small amount of silicon in my ATI ro/di test. I'm just trying to clear up any possible problems here!

 

[ReefSlice]

A bunch of my corals also close up and look terrible if I hold off on water changes any longer than a week and a half or so. As soon as I do a water change they open back up and stay open for a week, then go back to dying promptly. So something is contaminating the water or being taken out, didn't come up on icp tests though. Pretty ridiculous that I have to do 25% water changes once a week to keep the tank from dying! Very backwards compared to the direction this hobby is going.

 

[VR28man]

After a pair of tank disasters, a recovery period where cyano and GHA was controlled but slowly dying corals, I took off for a week, and the fish-sitter apparently massively overfed the fish. I came home to a tank loaded with long HA fronts. But the corals grew. I know target feed 3-4 times a week and so far have been getting much better growth.

I might recommend more fish, and definitely spot feeding.

 

[Realposition]

I think having to dose po4 to keep it detectable is a big red flag that it's a nutrient issue. I would add more fish and up the feeding, it might help.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

A bunch of my corals also close up and look terrible if I hold off on water changes any longer than a week and a half or so. As soon as I do a water change they open back up and stay open for a week, then go back to dying promptly. So something is contaminating the water or being taken out, didn't come up on icp tests though. Pretty ridiculous that I have to do 25% water changes once a week to keep the tank from dying! Very backwards compared to the direction this hobby is going.

Is your tank grounded? Have you checked for stray voltage?

 

[Chewdoggie]

I may have missed this, but which brand ICP test did you use? I have used every single one I can find and got some different results. I now have decided to stick with ATI.

I would rent the PAR meter from BRS. Every tank is different, period. You need to know your numbers and not go by what worked or didn't work regarding intensity/color values for other people. And then you need to give the coral time to acclimate and not move to another variable too soon.

 

[Beats001]

Hey, have you been able to figure out your issues at all? I'm going through the same thing. Corals living but not growing.

 

[ReefSlice]

Hey, have you been able to figure out your issues at all? I'm going through the same thing. Corals living but not growing.

Nope. Tank is worse than ever, last of my healthy sps frags began looking stressed a few weeks ago, STN on some, and my growth of coralline and soft corals came to a complete halt. Nothing changed. Did a few 30-50% water changes with brand new ro/di filters and didn't change a thing. The tanks cursed I tell ya! Pretty tough to keep up on testing and maintenance when it doesn't help one bit, but I'm still keeping a rigorous testing schedule and weekly water changes. Even tried dosing my po4 to .15, no change in anything. No feeding response out of any corals anymore either, just slow death or nothing at all.
Also, I have tested for stray voltage, as well as everything else

 

[Jinko]

I haven't read the whole thread but from what I did read you haven't mentioned Ph much, at the start you said it was 7.8 but didn't think that was correct.
You did mention that something is impeding calcifaction, which I'm betting is low Ph, try upping your pH to 8.2-8.4.
Higher pH should help calcifaction.

 

[RobW]

Trying this one more time, 3rd time I'm trying to solve this over 2 years. I have had a 40b set up for 3 years, lit by 2 kessil a350w's (50% white 90% blue), 2 jebao pp8s for flow, and bubble magus skimmer, barebottom tank. This tank has never grown coral or coralline. I keep up with 15% weekly water changes, although I have tried going longer with bad effects. I even test sometimes daily. I cannot figure out what is wrong with this tank. I'm about to tear it down to start a new build, but I want to solve this problem before I move on to avoid the same problem in my new tank. I have about 10 sps frags from 1" frags to mini colonies, they all paled out within a few months of introduction, lost PE and most never grow a millimeter, some encrust a tiny bit and then halt. And all of these have been in for over a year. Even zoas get pale color, and only one frag of zoas grows maybe a new polyp a month, others not at all in over a year, some close to 2.
I use Ro/di with 0 tds, red sea blue bucket salt and parameters are alk 8.2, calcium 420, mg 1340, po4 .04, no3 10-20. All stay consistent with not much hassle, as my coral use NO elements. My alk will drop by maximum .1 in a day (8.2 to 8.1). I dose 3-7 ml 2 part every few days... Usually don't even need to dose anything but alk. I even sent in an icp to ATI and nothing popped up out of the ordinary, just slightly low iodine.
The tank only has 2 clownfish, but I get a decent amount of hair algae on my overflow and sporadic cyano blooms. I feed LRS reef frenzy 1x a day. Have tried acropower, reef roids etc with no improvement. Once in a while I will get a few specks of coralline, and it dies back shortly after.
Can anyone help?! I'm so confused with this tank and don't want my new tank to end up the same way...

To much light?

 

[ReefSlice]

That's the last thing I have yet to try, however I don't see an easy way of doing this, and although I am aware a ph of 7.8 to 8.05 isn't perfect, is it enough to cause complete lack of calcium uptake?