About to just give up

[Eleni18]

I think your lights are too strong for your setup. I have a 150 gallon tank and run 8 X 39 W ATI bulbs, 4 from 16:30 to 24:20 and all 8 from 18:30 to 23:00 and I have been wondering if they are too strong for my system, as I the colors of my corals look a little bleached. I think yours may be an overkill

 

[ScottB]

I find T5 to be the most forgiving lights available. No hotspots and no crazy spectrum shift issues. I run 8x80 watt ATI over a 120 and nobody gets hurt.

 

[velandracorey]

Don't give up!

ICP test could be really helpful in possibly finding what is wrong! This community is here to help, and we can all hash out the problem to hopefully find an answer!

Thanks for the reply!
I got my Triton test mailed out today, so hopefully it won't be too long before I get the results back on it!

 

[velandracorey]

I think your lights are too strong for your setup. I have a 150 gallon tank and run 8 X 39 W ATI bulbs, 4 from 16:30 to 24:20 and all 8 from 18:30 to 23:00 and I have been wondering if they are too strong for my system, as I the colors of my corals look a little bleached. I think yours may be an overkill

Really?
It's weird though because the ricordea I've tried are probably the only things that I've tried that I would say really retracted from the light and looked bleached to me and that was right under an overhang of the rocks so it wasn't even getting direct light.

Several other lower light species I've tried out never lost any color, or bleached out, they just kinda lose tissue (stn/rtn) then bail-out from their skeleton. This happened with the acans, blastos and candycane corals I've tried.

With the different euphillia I've tried, I did notice some color loss, but they never got to the point of turning white, or losing all of their color completely. They just sort of turned more translucent, got slightly less vibrant and then started to lose flesh. When I noticed this with these species in particular I thought maybe too light but moving them under some overhangs never helped bring them back or even slowed progression of tissue loss.

Granted, I haven't done PAR readings in my tank so I could very well be blasting them with light, I'll have to see if my LFS has a PAR meter that they rent out.

Are these normal signs of bleaching or too much light?

 

[velandracorey]

So far since starting the thread -- I skipped my waterchange for last week, and will move most likely to smaller waterchanges every two weeks. I cut my protein skimmer for now as well, I'm thinking it might be stripping a bit too much nitrate maybe from the tank which could be leading to some of the issues.

It's a ReefOctopus 152-S
I might have gone a little overkill on the filtration, but on BRS' website they have recommended sizes for it as below. It's just kinda arbitrary what they're considering light/medium/heavily stocked so it's confusing lol.
The tank is 75 and my sump I believe is 20ish gallons as well.

• Light Stocked - 200 Gallons
• Medium Stocked - 140 Gallons
• Heavily Stocked - 90 Gallons

I would think I have a decently stocked tank -- right now I have in there.
Aside from the below there are probably only about 8 trochus snails in there.

2 Clownfish
1 Yellowhead Jawfish
1 Royal Gramma
1 Neon Goby
1 Firefish
1 Starry Blenny
1 Court Jester Goby
1 Lubbock's Fairy Wrasse

Could adding some more bio-mass help with things as well?
I didn't really plan on adding much else to the tank, I originally wanted to add a mandarin to this list, but with all my other issues and not being able to keep a refugium running I put that idea off.

 

[Fakegolfnews]

Id run the ICP test. How long ago did you start making the water yourself? Alk swings like that in the salt will definitely kill corals and inhibit growth. If it was recently Id keep doing whatever your doing and give the tank consistency, dont make any big changes just guessing at the problem, that will most likely only set the tank back further.

 

[velandracorey]

Id run the ICP test. How long ago did you start making the water yourself? Alk swings like that in the salt will definitely kill corals and inhibit growth. If it was recently Id keep doing whatever your doing and give the tank consistency, dont make any big changes just guessing at the problem, that will most likely only set the tank back further.

I ordered the RO/DI unit on 7-28 so it's been approximately a month and a half now that I've been mixing my own.

 

[Fakegolfnews]

I ordered the RO/DI unit on 7-28 so it's been approximately a month and a half now that I've been mixing my own.

Id give it some time with the new salt and water. Doing 20% water changes a week with an inconsistent source has kept your tank in a constant state of flux and corals hate that. If it were me I'd stay the course and not make any big changes. The one change i might make is cutting the weekly water changes to 10%, that will create more stability since less water is being changed the levels will change less week to week (or 2 weeks if you made that change) . But i would stick with weekly, it will also promote stability since the levels will change less from water change to water change.

Dont give up tho, youll laugh about this soon and be amazed how easy this hobby once you find your groove.

 

[smacbride]

If your chaeto didn't make it, I would suspect nitrates and phosphates are too low. Also most people replace their bulbs every 6 months. I've read where the spectrum shifts more to red as they get past 6 months old.

 

[ArnoldosAquariums]

Let’s look outside your tank…

are you sticking your hands in a tank? are you wearing any perfumes, or oils?

are you using any kind of aerosols?

any cleaners that are around the tank they shouldn’t be there, including the sump?

***
Now let’s look at your tank itself… Do you see any pests that shouldn’t be there?
Starfish? Flatworms?

 

[velandracorey]

Let’s look outside your tank…

are you sticking your hands in a tank? are you wearing any perfumes, or oils?

are you using any kind of aerosols?

any cleaners that are around the tank they shouldn’t be there, including the sump?

***
Now let’s look at your tank itself… Do you see any pests that shouldn’t be there?
Starfish? Flatworms?

I do put my hands in a bit -- feeding shrimp/coral, brushing off algae off the rocks etc.
I always make sure I've washed my hands fairly recently before doing so. If I handle any cleaning sprays/wipes/liquids or whatever, I make sure not to put my hands in or near the tank for the rest of the day just to be sure.

I don't keep any aerosols in the house because I've always been paranoid having anything near the tank.

The only thing I use on the tank (to clean the glass, or any salt creep) is a spray bottle with water and some vinegar in it.

As far as pests, nothing that I've ever noticed..... I try to take random peeks at night after the lights have been off for a couple of hours. I've never noticed anything on corals or any kind of bite marks or anything. I've never seen any type of flatworm in the tank, the only things that I can think of that I've seen at night would be micro brittle stars, bristle worms, and I quite a bit of chitons in there, but I don't think they would be bothering anything?

 

[ArnoldosAquariums]

I do put my hands in a bit -- feeding shrimp/coral, brushing off algae off the rocks etc.
I always make sure I've washed my hands fairly recently before doing so. If I handle any cleaning sprays/wipes/liquids or whatever, I make sure not to put my hands in or near the tank for the rest of the day just to be sure.

I don't keep any aerosols in the house because I've always been paranoid having anything near the tank.

The only thing I use on the tank (to clean the glass, or any salt creep) is a spray bottle with water and some vinegar in it.

As far as pests, nothing that I've ever noticed..... I try to take random peeks at night after the lights have been off for a couple of hours. I've never noticed anything on corals or any kind of bite marks or anything. I've never seen any type of flatworm in the tank, the only things that I can think of that I've seen at night would be micro brittle stars, bristle worms, and I quite a bit of chitons in there, but I don't think they would be bothering anything?

Interesting.

Can you post a photo of the micro brittles?

Any fish casualties? What fish do you have?

 

[velandracorey]

Interesting.

Can you post a photo of the micro brittles?

Any fish casualties? What fish do you have?

I can try -- I've only seen the outside of the rocks maybe twice. They just chill in the nooks and crannies and hang their little arms out to try to catch food.

Since setting everything up, I've only lost 3 fish. I had a yellow watchman goby just disappear, I never found him. I had a clownfish and a firefish jump unfortunately before I had my top put on the tank. Aside from that, they all seem fat and happy, I've never seen any of the fish poking at anything.

2 Ocellaris Clownfish
1 Lubbock's Wrasse
1 Starry Blenny
1 Yellowtail Damsel
1 CourtJester Goby
1 YellowHeaded Jawfish
1 Firefish
1 Royal Gramma
1 Neon Goby

1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
6-8? Trochus snails

 

[BeltedCoyote]

I wonder if there’s any chemical warfare going on in there with the leather(s) you have. Have you ever tried running some activated carbon to see if it has any effect?

 

[skiman27]

Any updates on the ICP? Very curious, not so sure that it's completely light based

 

[Fakegolfnews]

I can tell you with certainty its not chemical warfare from one leather frag fighting with itself. haha I have 5 in a 10g and no issues.

 

[BeltedCoyote]

I can tell you with certainty its not chemical warfare from one leather frag fighting with itself. haha I have 5 in a 10g and no issues.

good point. Just wondered if it could be a possible part of the puzzle. Thanks for weighing in my friend!

 

[amazongb]

Just to add a bit to the other posts, which are all great. Keeping corals is mostly about water quality. Your ICP test will shed light on what's going on. I've had similar issues, and using the Triton ICP has been a blessing.. last go around, corals were pale and via Triton ICP I learned that I had no iodine among other things (dosed the recommended dose and colors came back). Another test before that found silicates in my RODI water which caused a chrysophyte outbreak (brown slimy nasty stuff). So it's all a process to achieve the best water quality you can - the rest is easy to fix, such as lighting etc.. so hang in there, and we'll await your ICP results. You are much closer to having the tank you want my friend..

 

[ArnoldosAquariums]

I can tell you with certainty its not chemical warfare from one leather frag fighting with itself. haha I have 5 in a 10g and no issues.

That’s irrelevant… where the coral comes from, and the overall lineage have a huge role. Not all coral of the same type is exactly the same in the way it behaves.

 

[Fakegolfnews]

That’s irrelevant… where the coral comes from, and the overall lineage have a huge role. Not all coral of the same type is exactly the same in the way it behaves.

Its very relevant and your statement is silly. Youre saying corals from certain regions will give off chemicals as warfare (to claim territory) no matter if they need the territory or not. This coral has nothing that is competing for its needed nutrients, why would it spend its energy producing those chemicals instead of growing when they have the space to grow? and nothing to compete with. They do it when they are claiming territory and approaching other corals. That is not the case in this situation. Toadstool leathers are not prone to chemical warfare no matter the region.