Frustrated with Corals

[pdiehm]

Particularly SPS.

I have a 120 gallon tank, and the plan was, let's make it an sps dominant tank. Stylo's, Birdnests, etc. Nothing crazy. Buddy gave me 5 frags to start. Started them low (on the sand) and after a few weeks moved them up 3-5" each time until they were in their final spot.

Death. Doom. Ghostness (ie: lost all flesh).

Set up a frag tank with t5 lighting, 30% water changes weekly. Alkalinity was always around 8, Calcium 420, Magnesium 1350 or so. Ph was 8.3. Made 5g water changes weekly using the Red Sea Blue Bucket to 1.026. $100 worth of SPS frags...all died. Not at once, I just threw out the last 3 that were in the tank.

Long story short, I am convinced that I don't have the foggiest idea how to take care of SPS corals. The LPS corals I have in my biocube are doing pretty well. Not growing overly fast, but they aren't dead...so maybe that's my avenue for corals.

The other issue I have had with the 120 is my light. I have a Photon 48 that in almost 2 years, haven't ever been able to get it dialed in to the right intensity. I'm almost to the point that I think I need a plug and play setup, where the light comes on, and it goes off. Don't rely on me to change the intensity. I don't know enough about what par should be at X spots to place Y coral, and such and I'm better off getting a 4 bulb T5 unit, 3 blue+ 1 Coral Plus and calling it a day.

Or maybe I just scrap corals all together and keep fish only but the fact the LPS are doing well in my cube upstairs gives me some hope.

 

[reefwiser]

I hear you SPS can be a tricky coral to keep. The Plug an Play lighting will truly help you by eliminating the issue of do I have the correct lighting.
Stability is the most important factor in keeping SPS. Checking alk on a daily basis will let you see how they are doing by letting you see how much uptake of Alk the corals are consuming daily. If I see the alk rising over an above the dose it has been I know I am having a problem with corals.
So maintaining it daily is very important.

 

[pdiehm]

My alkalinity in the frag tank I set up ranged from 7.8 to 8.1, I did test that daily. I tested Calcium weekly, and magnesium monthly.

I'm definitely leaning toward changing my lighting and if I went with the 4x54 ATI, I could still keep my canopy as the light would probably be 6" off the water surface. I don't think I've seen a 4 bulb 60" model.

 

[Emmagmrtz]

@reefwiser alk can be a factor for sps. And not saying you believe that's what happen in the OP case. You only want to consider that when have a dominant sps tank growing not just a couple frags. . Now to the OP. You started this thread with no po4, no3, ph parameter or if your using rodi carbon dosing or active carbon. Lighting can be an issue. To much lighting will bleach the tissue or not enough will brown out. Also sps will brown out if there to much nitrate or if phosphate is out of wack. Active carbon or carbon dosing will make sps rtn. And using tap water unfiltered is no good. I pretty much start up a tank once my rocks are cured and drop in my coral in 1 week after starting up tank. No problem. Really easy once your know what you need to keep coral alive and thriving.

 

[pdiehm]

pH was 8.2-8.3 as I have an airline connected to my skimmer.
Temp was apex controlled 77.7-78.1

No NO3, PO4 readings.

I do use rodi, and change the filters every 6 months or so. Change resin as often as I need to.

I do run GFO and Rox 0.8 carbon. And do not carbon dose.

I am almost dead certain it was the lighting in the 120. I have no idea what the issue was in the frag tank. Used T5 (blue+ and Coral+) and rox 0.8. Maybe the carbon is the issue but my water had a significant yellow tint to it without the carbon.

After the demise in the frag tank, that's when I started to think maybe SPS isn't for me

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

It may have been the lighting in both cases. If the frags came from a lower light system and your systems had much higher PAR levels, the corals could bleach and possibly die. The issue does not appear to be a water chemistry/quality issue.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

What kind of lighting did you have in the 120?

 

[pdiehm]

What kind of lighting did you have in the 120?

Photon 48 that I have never been able to figure out what intensity to run it at. It's a lot different then the AI Prime I have on the cube. I set that at 20k (100%) for 10 hours a day and my LPS corals in there are loving life. The photon is a great light that has just frustrated the hell out of me.

One thing I do know is my anemone, which I was told was more picky than any coral I can ever buy is completely happy, always out, bubble tips, colorful.

I just don't know.

 

[Dhofman]

My .02 cents....you stated in a followup post you had no Nitrate or Phosphate readings. I had similar issues and the results were often the same. Your corals are starving. Feed them. I have been keeping my nitrate around .05ppm and phosphate around .02 to .03.

Feeding them combined with a Triton water test, which revealed way too much iodine, have changed the game for me and SPS.

 

[happyhourhero]

How often are you having to clean the glass? How is your flow?

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

The issue could also be too little light. Did the frags turn brown before they died? If the LPS is doing well, that tells me that maybe the lighting is not adequate for SPS.

 

[Emmagmrtz]

Try get some po3 and p04 reading carbon can be the problem. After dealing with flat worm I used flatworm exit and active carbon and everything died. That why I had to restart. And I doubt it's an lighting issue. If it rtn which tissue continuously start to coming i will say carbon. I always ball park my lighting on. The lower end and raise in time. I just look at my coral to see how they react

 

[pdiehm]

The corals did not turn brown, their tissue just started receeding....and fast.

The LPS I have in the biocube. There is no LPS in the 120 yet.

How often are you having to clean the glass? How is your flow?

Maybe every 3rd or 4th day? Flow wise, I'm good. a pair of Gyre 150's controlled by Apex, ramping up to 50% in alternating fashion. Left, then right.

Make no mistake, I'm not complaining. I'm frustrated because I'm doing everything that I've been taught to do. While in the frag tank, they got 1 drop of coral vitalizer 2x weekly, 1 drop of amino's 2x weekly and 1ml of Pohls Xtra 1x weekly.

Everyone who sees my tank goes, wow, that'd be an awesome tank for SPS and that's where the information stops. Regardless, I've only been messing with corals for about a year or so, and I possibly jumped into sps too soon. The one thing that concerns me about the 120 is that I don't have a speck of coraline algae after 2 years. It's on my snail shells, crab shells, and a rock I took from the cube...so it's been introduced.

That aspect bothers me. My biocube grows coraline like it's GSP. I have to scrape the coraline off the glass weekly.

 

[Anirban]

pH was 8.2-8.3 as I have an airline connected to my skimmer.
Temp was apex controlled 77.7-78.1

No NO3, PO4 readings.

I do use rodi, and change the filters every 6 months or so. Change resin as often as I need to.

I do run GFO and Rox 0.8 carbon. And do not carbon dose.

I am almost dead certain it was the lighting in the 120. I have no idea what the issue was in the frag tank. Used T5 (blue+ and Coral+) and rox 0.8. Maybe the carbon is the issue but my water had a significant yellow tint to it without the carbon.

After the demise in the frag tank, that's when I started to think maybe SPS isn't for me

Ok let me guess some possible issues:

1. No NO3 and PO4 (how do you measure it)...a little of both will help you.
2. Take out the Rox carbon its very strong and can strip the water of essential elements. You can use it occasionally like 2 days a week.
3. What you feed to the corals or fish? I am not getting how with LPS and no nutrient you are not using any carbon dosing. So how you control nutrient?
4. With no nutrient and high light intensity you will eventually bleach them or may even kill them.
5. How old is the system?

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

The RTN combined with no coralline algae almost sounds as if there's an alkalinity problem.

 

[Emmagmrtz]

Coraline algae need nutrient and being the cube is small tell me you have more nitrate in there which isn't bad just need to be monitored

 

[pdiehm]

The RTN combined with no coralline algae almost sounds as if there's an alkalinity problem.

Will test the 120 alkalinity in a bit (can't tell you what it was. There's no corals in there now, will test it though).
will test the frag tank alkalinity in a bit (this was at 7.9 on Friday, and now has no corals in it)
and I'll test the Biocube Alkalinity (this was at 7.7 2 days ago)

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Will test the 120 alkalinity in a bit (can't tell you what it was. There's no corals in there now, will test it though).
will test the frag tank alkalinity in a bit (this was at 7.9 on Friday, and now has no corals in it)
and I'll test the Biocube Alkalinity (this was at 7.7 2 days ago)

I think a high alkalinity with low nitrate/phosphate can cause SPS to RTN.

 

[Rick.45cal]

Contrary to what people seem to believe, these animals require some NO3 and PO4 to survive. Without those materials they slowly starve. Exactly like you describe.

Having detectable NO3 and PO4, infact having ample amounts of NO3 and PO4 does not result, by itself, with corals "browning out". That's a factor more with inadequate lighting/spectrum/photoperiod in conjunction with nutrients being available. The zooxanthellae are multiplying in an attempt to gather as much light as they can. In ULNS with lower intensity lighting the corals can't "brown out" because the zooxanthellae population is held in place by lack of available nutrients.

Now if you put them in a tank with high nutrients and high light, they are forced for part of the day into photoremission where they spend most of the time being prevented from photosynthesizing by the coral withholding fuel for the symbiotic algae to prevent an over abbundance of photosynthetic byproducts (which can harm the coral in excessive amounts). The zooxanthellae are prevented from multiplying and causing the coral to brown.

This is my very rudimentary understanding of it anywho, at least a "regurgitation" (good or bad ) of what I've gathered over the years.

 

[Nickster135]

From my experience, the rox carbon and gfo can really strip the water clean to the point of too clean. I had stn issues and reducing my carbon and turning gfo offline was my cure.