Corals deteriorating what am i missing?

[Marc2952]

Now im new to the hobby and from the get go ive done a ton of research from properly cycling a tank to keep parameters stable. But for the life of me i cant figure out why almost every coral i add to the tank ( except softies) dies slowly? The tank is 8 months old and im getting good coralline growth, i had dinos a couple of months back but got it all under control now since i keep my phosphates between 0.07-0.10. I did an icp pest and everything came lookong good except for a high level of antimony and aluminum but not alarmingly high. My parameters are
ALK: 8.4-8.9
Cal:450
MG:1400
PO: 0.07
Nitrate: 5
Salinity: 1.025
Any sps i add from birdsnext to montiporas slowly bleach out withing 2 weeks and completely die after. I dont think it can be the lighting as i got 4 kessil a360x on my 75 gallon with an average Par of 200 on the sandbed and 300 on the upper rockwork. Im at a lost here and cant figure out for the life of me why is this happening. My scoly is slowly getting worse aswell. Even most of my zoas are almost goners and all my acans and hammers have already done poly bailout.

 

[Marc2952]

This is the two mp40 positions on the tank, the one on the back of the rockwork is in reefcrest mode at %60 (any higher and i start to get sand moving too much) qnd the one to the front is in short pulse mode at %60 aswell.

 

[Backreefing]

Are you useing any media like gfo ?
Generally when sps bleach out the light intensity is to high . 400 at the top of the rock might be a little bit to much . Try turning it down a bit .
and 8 months is a short time for adding SPS but it’s doable.
Other than media and light intensity , is all I got now . Good luck

 

[Marc2952]

Are you useing any media like gfo ?
Generally when sps bleach out the light intensity is to high . 400 at the top of the rock might be a little bit to much . Try turning it down a bit .
and 8 months is a short time for adding SPS but it’s doable.
Other than media and light intensity , is all I got now . Good luck

The only thing ive been running is activated carbon apart from that i just let the tank be. Interesting i always thought sps liked PAR in the 250 and 400 range, my guess is that 200 PAR in the sand is too much for the lps?

 

[Backreefing]

I personally run very intense lighting. But LEDs are different from halides. 450 par Halides it’s a party, 450 par LEDs and tips can fry . Also depending on nutrients, generally more nutrients also for more intensity. But turning them down might help . ( did I say that ?, sheesh)
and a ICP test is great but it tells you your numbers at the moment you collect the water . The parameters may be still wild depending on time of day or how long a water change has been.

 

[ScottR]

This is an interesting read and I recommend keeping an open mind.

Why cant u keep sps?

Well first and for most im not a scientist or marine biologist my theory base only on my experience and observation on my reef tank. I just want to help those that have problems keeping sps. In this discussion please keep it positive and dont make it to “i know better than u or led is better...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[JohnMzreef]

Thats too much light for mixed reef. Looks like you have a par meter but short of measuring par, a good way to tune lights is to put zoas on the bottom and make them happy...

 

[Marc2952]

Thats too much light for mixed reef. Looks like you have a par meter but short of measuring par, a good way to tune lights is to put zoas on the bottom and make them happy...

lower them to %50?

 

[Marc2952]

This is an interesting read and I recommend keeping an open mind.

Why cant u keep sps?

Well first and for most im not a scientist or marine biologist my theory base only on my experience and observation on my reef tank. I just want to help those that have problems keeping sps. In this discussion please keep it positive and dont make it to “i know better than u or led is better...

www.reef2reef.com

Yea interesting read, so maybe its because i started with dry rock aswell?

 

[JohnMzreef]

We need to know the tank depth (20 inches?) and mounting height of lights above water. I run the last generation of Kessils so I don't know if the intensity of my lights is comparable to yours..
Zoas can open up and get happy pretty fast if they like the conditions so I would go to all blues and drop the intensity until they open up. Then you can tinker from there. LPS like scoly can be very expressive about their happiness also.

 

[ScottR]

Yea interesting read, so maybe its because i started with dry rock aswell?

Perhaps. Not to say you can’t keep SPS with dry rock but different bacteria play roles in your miniature ecosystem. And just because you go and buy a piece of live rock won’t guarantee that all your problems will go away.

 

[Marc2952]

We need to know the tank depth (20 inches?) and mounting height of lights above water. I run the last generation of Kessils so I don't know if the intensity of my lights is comparable to yours..
Zoas can open up and get happy pretty fast if they like the conditions so I would go to all blues and drop the intensity until they open up. Then you can tinker from there. LPS like scoly can be very expressive about their happiness also.

Yes tank is 20 deep and the lights are 8 inches above the water 9m5 inches apart from eachother like BRS recommended. The spread is awesome but i guess they are just too powerful? What ive notices is that even lowering it to %50 i still get 200 PAR on the sandbed and just 250 on the top. My schedule is 12 hours a day with 1 hour ramp 2 hour ramp up and 2 hour ramp down.

 

[Backreefing]

One question I have is how are you keeping the nitrates low with a immature aquarium? Cheto, frequent water changes? At 8 months I would have expected nitrates to be building in between water changes . It took my 37 gallon aquarium 9 months to stabilize I used a mix of live and dry rock . Generally the larger the aquarium the longer it takes . Just asking .

 

[Marc2952]

One question I have is how are you keeping the nitrates low with a immature aquarium? Cheto, frequent water changes? At 8 months I would have expected nitrates to be building in between water changes . It took my 37 gallon aquarium 9 months to stabilize I used a mix of live and dry rock . Generally the larger the aquarium the longer it takes . Just asking .

Correct i have a refugium that has kept it at a steady 5 ppm. When i fed twice a day it jumped to almost 10 but even then its not a problem. I cant seem to pinpoint whats the issue. I have alot of pods and feather dusters among other stuff but somehow my corals arent good. Maybe itll slowly recover from the dino outbreak that it had.

 

[JohnMzreef]

Since you have a par meter I would just dial it down to where you have 100 par at the bottom, at least until things recover. Seems like you want a mixed reef but you somehow got setup for a high par system.

 

[OCRick]

Does your water district use chloramines?

 

[Ike]

Doubt this has anything to do with lighting, but out of curiosity, how long is your photo period?

I'd get things like your temp, PO4, nitrate and salinty verified as being accurate as those being too low could all be a factor in what you're seeing.

Have you seen nutrients lower than what you're seeing now? Are those levels from your icp or your test kits?What I can tell from your pics and corals corals being nutrient starved could be an issue. No carbon dosing or additives like NoPox or the like?

 

[Marc2952]

Does your water district use chloramines?

I have no idea but my RODI has 0 TDS and was verified by the ICP to be completely clean

 

[Marc2952]

Doubt this has anything to do with lighting, but out of curiosity, how long is your photo period?

I'd get things like your temp, PO4, nitrate and salinty verified as being accurate as those being too low could all be a factor in what you're seeing.

Have you seen nutrients lower than what you're seeing now? Are those levels from your icp or your test kits?What I can tell from your pics and corals corals being nutrient starved could be an issue. No carbon dosing or additives like NoPox or the like?

Yes my salinity always stays at 1.025 comfirmed by a regular refractometer and the Milwaukee one. My temp currently varies throught the day from 77.5-78.2 but i heard thats fine. My photoperiod is currently 12 hours with a 2 hour ramp up in the morning and 2 hour rampdown at night. I did have a problem with dinos back about 3 months ago but ever since i have kept everything stable, and thats when i started growing coralline fast which my urchin has been loving from what i see. Ahhh and another thing i did was the use of fluconazole to treat a small bryopsis problem i had. But was told by many reefers that it has no effect on corals at all.

 

[OCRick]

I have no idea but my RODI has 0 TDS and was verified by the ICP to be completely clean

I don’t believe ICP testing checks for chloramines, I would check with your water district if they use them as a disinfectant and if they do I would start using Prime in your RODI water.