Why is this local store having issues with their lps ?

Reeffragger

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So this new store opened up in Virginia called Nova tropicals. Only bout 3 months old now. Has top of line equipment tanks.sumps skimmers.. the frag tank is a good 10+ feet long id say. Hes using 4 Radeon G4s with the diffusers on. He had them hung up 30 inchs from the frag rack in the tank.. Which for one imo was way too high. The radeons are only in blue mode though. Nothing but blue UV seems very dark. I suggested changing them to add some reds give the tank more par. And to see corals easier.. He kinda blew that off.

My 9 acroporas i gave him (yes i gave him 9 acros and 4 types of zoas and some other sps to help him out) were losing color. (7 green slimers) and two, 2 or 3 inch frags of tri color valida. My acros in his tank some bleached. Some lost color went from purple on the tricolors to green. Some went rtn after a week. He drove up to ny to get probably 50 frags of zoas. Bird nests and tons of orange setosa. They all RTNed in 24 hrs. He thought they were ok but the flow was so low in the tank he didnt know. I put my hand in and blew a wave of flow on the sps and flesh blew all over the tank he was shocked lol.. never in my life have i seen that.

His flow was and still is pretyy crappy. Ive suggested dozens of times to increase flow. His sump outlets are like trickling out. And he has only 2 on one side and 1 on another. So he got stronger sump pump. That helped a little. He added i think 1 mp40 on one side. But still it isnt enough flow for this long tank. I dunno why he wont listen, if that were my tank i woulda grabbed some of those new gen koralia pumps off the shelf and tossed them in that tank. His LPS barely move at all. Just a stand still

I suggested he lower the light which he did. We lowered it down about 6 inchs. So now its about 14 or so from the water and 24 from the corals.

That helped his zoas arent reaching anymore and the remaining sps look better. But his LPS man.

He had 9 frags of blacklight torch corals. You know the dark purple tentacle with a whitish/greenish glowing tips. Those have been shrivled and bleached for over a month. 3 finally died. I offered him 20$ for the last head on that 4 head branch as its heavily bleached and sunken so far in the skeleton you can see the spiked septa skeleton.

Its been in my tank for 2 days. And its extended more in 48 hours then it did in 4 weeks in his frag tank. Whats funny is he wouldnt sell these to me prior he wanted to populate his frag tank before he sold them.. which is weird and now he killed them and lost money.

Im trying to help the guy.. lowered lights. Dozens of times ive mentioned flow he increased it a little but not nearly enough. I brought my test kits and checked his water ph was 8.2, alk was 8. Calcium 420. Magnesium 1300.

I need to check his nitrates and phosphates thats one thing i didnt check. I have a feeling his nitrates and phosphates are 0.


I dunno i guess this is a rant/give me ideas on helping this guy thread.

Hes a nice dude.. but he doesnt seem nearly as knowlegable as he claimed to be with 30-40 years experience. My 135g tank has 5,000 gph total flow. I have more flow then his 10+ foot frag tank.. lol...
 
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Reeffragger

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Only 4 lights on a 10 foot tank? Yikes


Yea tank is around 8-10 feet long. 4 radeon G4s with the cloudy looking diffiuser. Theyre all on blues too. No other color. I did bring up changing the colors and increasing the light intensity but all he did was lower it which helped.. but yea.

I have more light in my 135g then that tank with 6 T5s and 2 36 inch 50w LEDs. And those LEDS arent that great lol.

He did mention (maybe i should put a 5th one on.) But yea.. oh these are xr15 g4 radeons too.. Not the larger x30
 

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Lowering actually makes it worse, should ramp them up to 100% all channels and jack them up like 3 feet off the water and he will be lucky to get 100 par evenly spread.
 
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Reeffragger

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Lowering actually makes it worse, should ramp them up to 100% all channels and jack them up like 3 feet off the water and he will be lucky to get 100 par evenly spread.


It helped by stopping the sps from dying lol. Maybe it isnt exactly 10 feet long.. 8 foot actually .. but its deff not 6 ft its much longer then my 135.

Here is a pic of his setup.. its nice looking but the lighting sucks imo. And flow like i said for example his colony of frogspawn with maybe 30 heads and large plate coral lps.. the tentacles dont move. They just sit there. Like i said im not bashing this guy.. Im trying to help.. I mean i gave him 200$ in corals for free.. The zoas he sold in 3 days made 85$ on.. my green slimers that didnt die he sold. Still has some of the plating montis i gabe him.. but hes made 140$ free money.. and has some left. Ive helped him sell fish and dry goods. And talk to customers. He has a guy volunteering 8 hour days.. and others helping out too. Someone else gabe him a bunch of corals too.

Lile i said were trying to help.. But i dont know what to do with this lighting and flow issue.. Ive mentioned flow too many times. I wont mention it anymore because ill seem nagging.. The lights.. i dunno what to do with them. They arent lights i woulda picked for a long frag tank.

Im to the point now where im bout to give up on this store. Its 10 min from my house, he wont increase flow. He wont let me or he himself adjust the lighting besides lowering it. Hes killed easily 1000$+ in corals. People lile me have given him corals free.. we help the store by cleaning tanks. Volunteering time. And as far as i know no one asks for anything.

But im starting to get iritated with him getting all this help and him not listening to advice on saving that frag system. Im the only one with enough balls to mention the flow and lighting basically suck in person. But in the end its his store.



Screenshot_20200524-014026_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
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Reeffragger

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But this is the problem. Instead of putting 3 or 4 of those 55$ 2400gph koralia gen 3s in that tank.. He insisted on buying 1 mp40 for 400$.

I mean 1 mp40 is what 4500 gph and that in one direction having to stretch 8 or so feet. Vs 4 2400 koralias. 2 on each side pointing in various directions. That would habe been a lot more random flow but thats just my opinion.. and that woulda costed only 200$ instead of 400$. And he had these on the shelf.

So instead of doing this. He lost 1000$ in corals... i dunno. I guess im ranting now. It just sucks. Another thing koralias could do is point up to break the surface.. His surface is stagnant i can see the film tanks get.. An MP40 cant do that. I know there are better pumps im just saying i woulda used what i had. Then upgraded at least to save my live stock
 
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Reeffragger

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So my question again is what can I do to help him out? What would you guys suggest ? Or suggest i say to him to try and get this system running better
 

Copingwithpods

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Your frustration is obvious and if it was one of my lfs I'd be frustrated too but sometimes you just have to let people make mistakes so they can learn from them. It's very hard watching someone make very obvious mistakes and being powerless to help. I feel for you man.
 

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I was hoping to check this place out soon but it’s disappointing to here about the issues. I’m new to saltwater so I don’t have much experience at all but I’ve had trouble with the flow in my tank as well. It’s hard to try to balance getting enough flow for my zoas but not too much for my Euphyllia and acans
 
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Reeffragger

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I was hoping to check this place out soon but it’s disappointing to here about the issues. I’m new to saltwater so I don’t have much experience at all but I’ve had trouble with the flow in my tank as well. It’s hard to try to balance getting enough flow for my zoas but not too much for my Euphyllia and acans


Go check it out man. Its a nice store. He has lots of corals in the tank now. Mostly basic zoas though. Some birds nest that made it.. the dying torchs and closed up frogspawsn. But he has a really nice captain america favia colony i want.. trying to save up for it before he frags it. Has couple acan colonies too.. one isnt doing too hot though. The other is looking good though.

The system is getting better. But i mean yea.. it just sucked to see all those corals rtn like that.. never seen that before on a large scale in my life.

He does get some very big fish. Tangs butterflies ect. And they eat too like the copper bands. But he doesnt QT the fish like he advertised he was going too. So his main systems all have ich unfortunatly. I asked him about it and he said his supploer qts the fish... well clearly they dont. Whats weird is he has like 100 tanks in the back setup on a system for QT.. but he said they will be for fresh water.

So i dunno where his QT thing came from. I think for now during the pandemic he has to sell fish as fast as he can to stay afloat so maybe in the future hell do the 2 week qt he said he would do.

He has ALOT of fresh watee tanks though.. discus.. other chiclids. Deff has more fresh water variety then petco. Petsmart. And other local stores
 

ReeferB28

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So this new store opened up in Virginia called Nova tropicals. Only bout 3 months old now. Has top of line equipment tanks.sumps skimmers.. the frag tank is a good 10+ feet long id say. Hes using 4 Radeon G4s with the diffusers on. He had them hung up 30 inchs from the frag rack in the tank.. Which for one imo was way too high. The radeons are only in blue mode though. Nothing but blue UV seems very dark. I suggested changing them to add some reds give the tank more par. And to see corals easier.. He kinda blew that off.

My 9 acroporas i gave him (yes i gave him 9 acros and 4 types of zoas and some other sps to help him out) were losing color. (7 green slimers) and two, 2 or 3 inch frags of tri color valida. My acros in his tank some bleached. Some lost color went from purple on the tricolors to green. Some went rtn after a week. He drove up to ny to get probably 50 frags of zoas. Bird nests and tons of orange setosa. They all RTNed in 24 hrs. He thought they were ok but the flow was so low in the tank he didnt know. I put my hand in and blew a wave of flow on the sps and flesh blew all over the tank he was shocked lol.. never in my life have i seen that.

His flow was and still is pretyy crappy. Ive suggested dozens of times to increase flow. His sump outlets are like trickling out. And he has only 2 on one side and 1 on another. So he got stronger sump pump. That helped a little. He added i think 1 mp40 on one side. But still it isnt enough flow for this long tank. I dunno why he wont listen, if that were my tank i woulda grabbed some of those new gen koralia pumps off the shelf and tossed them in that tank. His LPS barely move at all. Just a stand still

I suggested he lower the light which he did. We lowered it down about 6 inchs. So now its about 14 or so from the water and 24 from the corals.

That helped his zoas arent reaching anymore and the remaining sps look better. But his LPS man.

He had 9 frags of blacklight torch corals. You know the dark purple tentacle with a whitish/greenish glowing tips. Those have been shrivled and bleached for over a month. 3 finally died. I offered him 20$ for the last head on that 4 head branch as its heavily bleached and sunken so far in the skeleton you can see the spiked septa skeleton.

Its been in my tank for 2 days. And its extended more in 48 hours then it did in 4 weeks in his frag tank. Whats funny is he wouldnt sell these to me prior he wanted to populate his frag tank before he sold them.. which is weird and now he killed them and lost money.

Im trying to help the guy.. lowered lights. Dozens of times ive mentioned flow he increased it a little but not nearly enough. I brought my test kits and checked his water ph was 8.2, alk was 8. Calcium 420. Magnesium 1300.

I need to check his nitrates and phosphates thats one thing i didnt check. I have a feeling his nitrates and phosphates are 0.


I dunno i guess this is a rant/give me ideas on helping this guy thread.

Hes a nice dude.. but he doesnt seem nearly as knowlegable as he claimed to be with 30-40 years experience. My 135g tank has 5,000 gph total flow. I have more flow then his 10+ foot frag tank.. lol...
Wow. Sometimes people won't be swayed to make changes. Age old saying, " you can lead animals to water, but you can't make them drink.
Probably has 30 years experience keeping freshwater.
 

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I was hoping to check this place out soon but it’s disappointing to here about the issues. I’m new to saltwater so I don’t have much experience at all but I’ve had trouble with the flow in my tank as well. It’s hard to try to balance getting enough flow for my zoas but not too much for my Euphyllia and acans
There are two other stores to check out in the area, that don't have basic colored corals, are experienced and healthy corals and blow their competition away.
Capital Aquarium, Supreme Reefs. Quantum isn't horrible, but you just have to watch out for their stupid prices on corals.
 
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Reeffragger

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Yea ive been to em all i wont go to suorene thkugh the guy smokes weed in his store plave of business.. he also sleeps and lives in that place which isnt zoned for living so hes breaking the law on many seperate issues. I wont go to stores where they openely smoke dope. Ben is also kinda a jerk. And i know im not the only person who knows all this. Alot of locals ive talked too mentioned it.

My go to place is capitol aquariums.. love that store
 

Colin_1122

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There are two other stores to check out in the area, that don't have basic colored corals, are experienced and healthy corals and blow their competition away.
Capital Aquarium, Supreme Reefs. Quantum isn't horrible, but you just have to watch out for their stupid prices on corals.
I’m hoping to go check out capital aquarium on Thursday, that’s about 40 min from my house so not too bad. I’ve been wanting an elegance coral and i saw they have some on Facebook. They also have green torches for $40 a head which is way lower than anything I’ve seen around here. I’ve gotten most of my stuff from blue ribbon koi and marine, if you’re ever in the area definitely check them out. They have nice prices and are super helpful
 

Crustaceon

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Looking at his setup, it’s not that bad. I’m curious to know if he’s losing corals near those mp40s too. I bet he is and if so this isn’t an equipment issue, it’s probably a water parameter issue. My hunch would be zero n @ p as a new store owner would most likely try to keep things ultra-clean, including inside of the tank. The best frag systems I’ve seen have had hair algae in them.
 

Crustaceon

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Go check it out man. Its a nice store. He has lots of corals in the tank now. Mostly basic zoas though. Some birds nest that made it.. the dying torchs and closed up frogspawsn. But he has a really nice captain america favia colony i want.. trying to save up for it before he frags it. Has couple acan colonies too.. one isnt doing too hot though. The other is looking good though.

The system is getting better. But i mean yea.. it just sucked to see all those corals rtn like that.. never seen that before on a large scale in my life.

He does get some very big fish. Tangs butterflies ect. And they eat too like the copper bands. But he doesnt QT the fish like he advertised he was going too. So his main systems all have ich unfortunatly. I asked him about it and he said his supploer qts the fish... well clearly they dont. Whats weird is he has like 100 tanks in the back setup on a system for QT.. but he said they will be for fresh water.

So i dunno where his QT thing came from. I think for now during the pandemic he has to sell fish as fast as he can to stay afloat so maybe in the future hell do the 2 week qt he said he would do.

He has ALOT of fresh watee tanks though.. discus.. other chiclids. Deff has more fresh water variety then petco. Petsmart. And other local stores
I totally get the freshwater stuff. I’ve spoken to a few store owners out here in San Diego and I guess they do WAY more business selling freshwater than saltwater. It’s almost a 3:1 ratio according to some. There’s a stigma to keeping saltwater fish when in reality, a FOWLR isn’t very difficult to keep at all and not much worse than a freshwater tank.
 
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Reeffragger

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I’m hoping to go check out capital aquarium on Thursday, that’s about 40 min from my house so not too bad. I’ve been wanting an elegance coral and i saw they have some on Facebook. They also have green torches for $40 a head which is way lower than anything I’ve seen around here. I’ve gotten most of my stuff from blue ribbon koi and marine, if you’re ever in the area definitely check them out. They have nice prices and are super helpful


Call before you do.. I think they only have 1 or 2 heads left of that torch.. it started with two massive colonies and sold quick.

I know Nova tropicals has a massive elegance colony i havent seen one this size before.. but i saw that 3 or 4 days ago so id csll to check.

This is the green torch youre talkin sbout. I got one. I know they have bubvle corals and frogspawns i traded some of the frog spawns in lol.

20200517_233240.jpg
 

X-37B

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3 month old store? Did he use any live rock in his sump.
Sounds like the new system dead rock blues.
Nice looking from the pictures though.
Most store owners know all and wont take any advice from my experience. I only have 3 lfs to chose from and each one is run completly different.
 

SebastianReefer

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But this is the problem. Instead of putting 3 or 4 of those 55$ 2400gph koralia gen 3s in that tank.. He insisted on buying 1 mp40 for 400$.

I mean 1 mp40 is what 4500 gph and that in one direction having to stretch 8 or so feet. Vs 4 2400 koralias. 2 on each side pointing in various directions. That would habe been a lot more random flow but thats just my opinion.. and that woulda costed only 200$ instead of 400$. And he had these on the shelf.

So instead of doing this. He lost 1000$ in corals... i dunno. I guess im ranting now. It just sucks. Another thing koralias could do is point up to break the surface.. His surface is stagnant i can see the film tanks get.. An MP40 cant do that. I know there are better pumps im just saying i woulda used what i had. Then upgraded at least to save my live stock
I’d have some mp 60’s in that tank like 3 and 4 or 5 xr30 you have to have a lot of expendable capital to start a store of this caliber and you definitely got to be willing to try different things in this hobby especially if your killing your stock
 

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