Why is SPS so hard?

[Chameleon]

Temp is stable at 79 through the day and goes to 78 sometimes 77 at night.
Salinity is always at 1.025 I check it every morning and night.

double check your calibration on salinity

 

[allboutthe305]

I have 2 hydro meters and they read the same.

 

[allboutthe305]

I know hydro meters aren't as good as refractometers. My refractometer has shipped and isn't going to be here for another 5-7 days.

 

[Tahoe61]

I have Hydor 850 on a 20 gallon tank with sps, I imagine in a 55 your not getting the flow needed to make many sps happy.

 

[Oscaror]

Why do you think SPS are hard? Calcium carbonate skeleton, duhh.
I'm kidding carry on everyone.

 

[TwelveL16]

more light

 

[allboutthe305]

Flow flow flow. Think that's my downfall. Putting my hydor 600 in tomorrow with the 850 and see what I can stir up.

Haha oscaror

 

[Alan600]

I had the same problem I was losing frags every day. Imo the two most important things to keep sps is alk and purity of water 0 tds . I was not checking my parameters like I was suppose to now I check alk every day if not every other day and make sure I have 0 tds water topping it off . Every since I made that change my sps have been getting there color back and regaining there tissue back . Don't trust lfs for water source .

 

[WetWhistle]

Not all sps need super high flow and light. Why not try some medium level light ones? Like a Branching Cyphastrea, Acro Echinata, Deepwater Aussi acro etc. If you have the other parameters of your tank locked in you can try lower light ones. If they live you know it could be not enough light that was your problem.

 

[nazzman]

Phosphate reading?

 

[Sangheili]

Full intensity at what color setting though? I'm pretty sure it's got to be higher than that with full intensity and the blue turned all the way up. These things are a lot stronger than they look.

Midway between the white and blue settings on the dial - so full intensity and full spectrum. I would say that Kessil adequately covers about an 8" circle at a 10-15" height for SPS. For comparison, I mounted my 36" ATI Powermodule (no leds) w/ 4 bulbs over the same frag tank and now get 150-350 PAR over the entire tank (36x24) at basically the same height. I'd estimate the difference is 5-10x more coverage with 100-200% the PAR using 4x the power.

The small Kessils really are way less powerful then people think.

(I tried all settings, and the above is what gave the highest par reading - all blue was 10-30% less)

 

[Clownman727]

Make your own saltwater. I would bet that the flow is not killing your coral, or your lights, but the freshwater used to make the saltwater.

 

[swk]

Not all sps need super high flow and light. Why not try some medium level light ones? Like a Branching Cyphastrea, Acro Echinata, Deepwater Aussi acro etc. If you have the other parameters of your tank locked in you can try lower light ones. If they live you know it could be not enough light that was your problem.

So he should try some more difficult corals? That just doesn't make sense.

I would check source water like the others have said. SPS aren't all that difficult compared to other corals, they're just not as forgiving. I would get some of the easy, bombproof sps to start with and see what happens. Get some monti caps, digitata, green slimer and or a couple birdsnest corals and see how they do. Once they start to take off, then look at adding more acropora.

The 2 best pieces of advice I received to keep healthy sps is to monitor alk religiously, and make sure you have the purest source water possible. I check alk EVERY friggen day! I don't skimp on RO production and products as well. Replace carbon and prefilters often and I run 2 DI canisters. One with a regular maxcap DI and a silicabuster DI both from spectrapure. Most importantly - don't give up!

 

[cdness]

After reading the title, the first response in my head was "because they are stony corals" but I'll leave the smart-alec comments off the thread ;)

I would say you have a combo lighting and flow issue. increasing both may help greatly. The rest looks good parameter wise.

I would also have to say to start making your own saltwater. You never know what you are going to get at the LFS. It's an unfortunate truth in the hobby that all LFSs are different. Yours may be good, but if you have issues, at least if you make your own, you have full control over it.

 

[afamousjohnson]

because if sps wasn't hard............it would be a softie lol

 

[afamousjohnson]

After reading the title, the first response in my head was "because they are stony corals" but I'll leave the smart-alec comments off the thread ;)

I would say you have a combo lighting and flow issue. increasing both may help greatly. The rest looks good parameter wise.

I would also have to say to start making your own saltwater. You never know what you are going to get at the LFS. It's an unfortunate truth in the hobby that all LFSs are different. Yours may be good, but if you have issues, at least if you make your own, you have full control over it.

Haha should have read this post 1st. I actually thought it yesterday and when I saw the thread this morning thought - I have to lol

 

[WetWhistle]

So he should try some more difficult corals? That just doesn't make sense.

I would check source water like the others have said. SPS aren't all that difficult compared to other corals, they're just not as forgiving. I would get some of the easy, bombproof sps to start with and see what happens. Get some monti caps, digitata, green slimer and or a couple birdsnest corals and see how they do. Once they start to take off, then look at adding more acropora.

The 2 best pieces of advice I received to keep healthy sps is to monitor alk religiously, and make sure you have the purest source water possible. I check alk EVERY friggen day! I don't skimp on RO production and products as well. Replace carbon and prefilters often and I run 2 DI canisters. One with a regular maxcap DI and a silicabuster DI both from spectrapure. Most importantly - don't give up!

I was just saying try some lower light SPS so it does make sense....

Some of the corals you suggested are no better then the ones I did. Birds nest as bombproof? really?

Speaking of not making sense it is over kill to test your alk daily and is totally not needed. You should learn to take a look at your tank and see the signs your corals give you when they need something. They give you almost all the feed back you need, experience will teach you that.

 

[swk]

I was just saying try some lower light SPS so it does make sense....

Some of the corals you suggested are no better then the ones I did. Birds nest as bombproof? really?

Speaking of not making sense it is over kill to test your alk daily and is totally not needed. You should learn to take a look at your tank and see the signs your corals give you when they need something. They give you almost all the feed back you need, experience will teach you that.

Lol.

Well buddy....We will have to agree to disagree on pretty much all that you just wrote. [emoji6]

 

[WetWhistle]

Lol.

Well buddy....We will have to agree to disagree on pretty much all that you just wrote. [emoji6]

That is ok bud I also agree to disagree on what you wrote. ;)

That is the beauty of this hobby so many ways of doing things. I have been in this hobby a long long time and I don't mess with my tank unless it needs it. I rarely test my tank unless I have a problem and because I keep my hands out and don't tinker unnecessarily I don't have issues often. We just take different approaches is all. All good.

 

[fishroomlady]

I'll weigh in with a brief comment. I think it takes a good while to get observant enough to know that something is up with your corals and what may be the culprit. What you know by looking at your tank takes a lot of experience imo.