Help can't keep hard corals.

that Reef Guy · Dec 12, 2014

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Poly Filter

Aquarium Water Quality: Poly Filters Filter Media

Is that the same type of Filter Pad that is in my Tetra Hang on the Back Whisper Filter?

Or is it made up of something else to change color?

Is it some chemical reaction that makes it blue, green, red, etc?

My Tetra Filter Pads do not do change colors like that but it looks like a Tetra White Filter Pad to me just bigger in size.

Am I missing something?

Kennyb1 · Dec 13, 2014

I'm extremely interested to see what your par meter reads on those lights. Personally I think that with the ramp settings your par is not high enough long enough sometimes. I'm running 52s right now and have 2 at 100% 10in over a 30x30x27. I've have corals growing great at the top and I have corals growing great at the bottom. I had tons of trouble with acros when my lights were at a lower percentage (around 50). The only acros that seemed to do well at that percentage were the onesthat were high up. My photoperiod at that time was about 12 hours starting from zero ramping up to its max where it sat for 4 hours and then it would ramp down. I never lost anything other than acros when my lights were dimmed but currently have a chalice doing great at the top of the tank at 100%. So I'm definitely following this one( I also just recently lost a massive colony of candy canes so I'm right there as well

)

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 13, 2014

that Reef Guy said:
Is that the same type of Filter Pad that is in my Tetra Hang on the Back Whisper Filter?

Or is it made up of something else to change color?

Is it some chemical reaction that makes it blue, green, red, etc?

My Tetra Filter Pads do not do change colors like that but it looks like a Tetra White Filter Pad to me just bigger in size.

Am I missing something?

It is chemically different. Most filter pads are not designed to actually bind individual chemicals, but just to trap detritus particles.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 13, 2014

Volkman said:
Thank you mainereefer. Best way to check for stray voltage being take out my probe and see if the tank shocks me? Or is there aire scientific way of testing? Lol.

Randy, if this were happening to you, what would be your next few steps? I've adjusted the alk to bring that up slowly, testing for magnesium levels, ordering a par/lux meter to see how the light levels are and having a independent water testing company test my well water for all the bad stuff that shouldn't be in my tank, along with the water changes. I'm stumped bud! Ahhhhhh!!!!

Sorry, I'm at a loss for a good plan.

What salt mix are you using and how are you measuring salinity?

I'd raise the temp a bit, but I doubt that is the issue. I target about 80 deg F.

aquariumworks · Dec 13, 2014

Randy I believe has the first point to address, low alk..
The elevated calcium could be putting all other elements below acceptable levels...
Your magnesium, strontium, etc. could be to low due to the high calcium taking molecular space...
Picture a glass of salt water on a counter top filled to the rim?
Now add any dry form of calcium, magnesium, etc.
What happens?

I have a client with a 700 gallon(1100 gallon volume), once add calcium without measuring the dosing, because he thought his system couldn't be overdosed...
His calcium was near 700 and he to was loosing stony coral,with an exception of montipora, pocillapora, and lone stylopora...
I began to test all parameters weekly(strontium, magnesium, calcium, potassium, DKH, and the basics)

What I found was that all the other major salts were out of spec..

Here's an example:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - <10
pH- 8.2
DKH - 5Â°
PO4 - .1(he over feeds also)
Ca - >500
Mg - 700
Sr - 9

I had to do 200 gallon water exchanges with a low quality salt(minimal calcium levels) for 8 weeks to bring the calcium down to 420..
From this point I was able to bring up the Mg and Sr to acceptable levels, also the DKH to 7Â°-8Â°...

I hope this was helpful and good luck resolving your problem...

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 13, 2014

aquariumworks said:
The elevated calcium could be putting all other elements below acceptable levels...
Your magnesium, strontium, etc. could be to low due to the high calcium taking molecular space...
Picture a glass of salt water on a counter top filled to the rim?
Now add any dry form of calcium, magnesium, etc.
What happens?

...

I'd have to disagree with that analogy. Adding magnesium to seawater won't generally reduce calcium, but rather reduce its precipitation and keep it from declining.

eagle · Dec 13, 2014

One of the nicest sps tanks I've seen stays around a 500 orp but he doses aminos a few times a week. Runs biopellets to keep nutrients that low. I have noticed when my orp is that high I have 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates and things start getting *****. I aim for .03 on phosphates. Thats usually in the 420 to 430 orp range ive noticed with my setup. Maybe starving them? With that low of nutrients maybe you can get by with the lower light levels and lower alk. 5 is too low though. Maybe running some gac would be helpful if there is any chemical warfare going on with corals. I've just always ran gac so I'm not real sure. Impressive that you can keep 500 orp without carbon dosing. Your skimmer must be a workhorse. Just try to avoid the alk and calcium swings.

eagle · Dec 13, 2014

The nicest tanks I've seen, and I know there are a lot of other theories, do regular water changes. Usually 30% a month. Now I'm sure others do it other ways, but when I look at tanks like Krzysztof Tryc's that has the craziest colors and growth then I just read and take notes. And he does 40% a month. So after seeing tanks like that I started doing automated water changes. Immediately I noticed everything staying much more stable, and things started coloring up and growing. It's not for everyone I guess but it took many of my headaches away. Good luck, hope things start getting better with it. Nice tank by the way.

saltyhog · Dec 13, 2014

Kennyb1 said:
I'm extremely interested to see what your par meter reads on those lights. Personally I think that with the ramp settings your par is not high enough long enough sometimes. I'm running 52s right now and have 2 at 100% 10in over a 30x30x27. I've have corals growing great at the top and I have corals growing great at the bottom. I had tons of trouble with acros when my lights were at a lower percentage (around 50). The only acros that seemed to do well at that percentage were the onesthat were high up. My photoperiod at that time was about 12 hours starting from zero ramping up to its max where it sat for 4 hours and then it would ramp down. I never lost anything other than acros when my lights were dimmed but currently have a chalice doing great at the top of the tank at 100%. So I'm definitely following this one( I also just recently lost a massive colony of candy canes so I'm right there as well )

This could be a factor. I have the same lights and mine are 90% on the blues, 45-50% on the cool whites and still my sps doesn't do well anywhere in the bottom 2/3's of the tank.

Volkman · Dec 14, 2014

Sorry guys for not replying, been crazy. I'll get back to Ya all this afternoon. Thank you.

Volkman · Dec 15, 2014

Having trouble finding a par meter that's not a couple hundred bucks, seeing if anyone i know has one I can borrow. But I was kinda thinking my lights were low. My fish guy said they we're pretty high so I dropped them a bit and thinking about things, that seems to be when things started to make a turn for the worse. Slowely taking them back up and will report on what I find. Hopefully that will help. Thank you.

Kennyb1 · Dec 15, 2014

Yeah I think those lights just seem like they run brighter than they actually are for some reason. Nothings done as well as when I hit 100% with mine. Even the manufacturer said I'd only want to hit 65 max but from what I can see you have to crank them.

Volkman · Dec 15, 2014

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Sorry, I'm at a loss for a good plan.

What salt mix are you using and how are you measuring salinity?

I'd raise the temp a bit, but I doubt that is the issue. I target about 80 deg F.

Randy, I use the Oceanic salt mix in the blue bucket and will
Be changing that out also as I've never liked that mix and have heard other dislike it also. Salinity is done on my refractometer right at 1.024.

Volkman · Dec 15, 2014

Raising temp slowely also.

Volkman · Dec 15, 2014

Thank you eagle. Adding gac also after a week or two, don't want to do too much all at the same time. I'm doing approx 35-40 gallon water changes about every 10 days in order to get that calcium out and leveled. My corals are starting to perk up a bit too, some hopefully that is helping.

Kinda sounds like this is a multi-pronged issue. Elevated calc and lower other elements along with low light levels. So I'm addressing each of these slowely and hopefully will see some positive changes soon. Crossing fingers.... Thank you all.

Volkman · Dec 15, 2014

Kennyb1 said:
Yeah I think those lights just seem like they run brighter than they actually are for some reason. Nothings done as well as when I hit 100% with mine. Even the manufacturer said I'd only want to hit 65 max but from what I can see you have to crank them.

And I was told that the LED's are much more intense then th 400w mh I was running and should drop em down. Sounds like Isy be getti some bad info.

eagle · Dec 15, 2014

Hope it gets better. I know problems suck. Makes you go crazy. I had a stray voltage issue that drove me crazy and I would have never thought to look without someone on here asking me if I had checked. Just never thought of something like that. I was losing fish like crazy. Good to see any ideas from the board members during those times.

Kennyb1 · Dec 15, 2014

Yeah I think its more of the directness of the diode that causes the intensity. The more its spread and the higher you have it the less of a spotlight effect they have. So the IMO the height allows for a proper color blend yadda yadda. That being said I once set that fixture on my gym shorts and let it run for 15 second not thinking and I now have a pattern burned straight through my gym shorts in the same pattern as the white LEDs

Volkman · Dec 15, 2014

Thank you eagle, they do suck! I've been at this for a while now and can usually figure out most thins but this one had me stumped. Thank you to the great member replies and help I have received here. Couldn't do it with out Ya all!