I know nothing about sps really, just added an acro to test out my water stability, lighting and whatnot for this coral. But from what I'm understanding from this thread is since it takes so long to see differences in the corals you may not want to make too many changes over night if a coral worsens. You may have already fixed the issue but because you don't see an overnight improvement you may then undo the fix if more changes are made.
In my rookie opinion if you have stable water parameters no need to really do a water change, it's useful to calculate how much alk is consumed by corals over a 3 day period then offset that number by dosing but figuring out exact water volume can be difficult. I believe a uv sterilizer would really help with the algae you are concerned about and when that's better just turn down its flow and let it fry any unwanted bugs. It you don't have space under the tank you can always attach it to the outside of the tank. It doesn't look as tacky as it sounds
If you find yourself moving the corals around may be better to let them rest in one spot for a couple weeks to let them adjust to the spot.
It can be very difficult to not tinker around inside the tank and I've been told a few times to stay out of my tank. If you get to a point where you feel you have done everything reasonable to do then I would just get parameters where you want, test 1-2 times a week establish a routine of maybe one 5 gallon wc a week or even every other week.
If your lights are working, corals are settled in, water is stable over time and in good condition then I would assume you would then just need to sit back, observe and just give it time before any other big changes. I believe ive heard corals can actually be resiliant to maybe not the most ideal paramters as long as they have time to settle in and get comfortable and things stay consistant within the system. I'm not positive but isn't changing your salt a pretty big change for livestock?
Sorry Im not one of your experts here but was reading through this and just wanted to throw out my humble opinion.
You are correct. I am sure the stability is an issue. And changing salt is a big change. I changed salt since issues would come up after water changes and I was wondering if something was up with the bucket of salt I was using.
I did have a routine, 10g water change once a week on the 75g. Originally I was trying to go monthly, but I noticed the corals were getting pale by the end of the month. Doing this I was seeing some growth, but admittedly not great colour.
The 25g for 3 years now I have been doing 5g water changes. Within the last year and a half things really took off. I was even able to add some corals dying in other systems to the tank and they recovered nicely. I am now seeing the same die off as the big tank.
I think for now I am just going to let things go the course and then reevaluate what I want to do with the tanks if and when things start to improve.
I had to start all over a few year ago, and the reason was the bucket I used for mixing saltwater before WC. It was made from plastic that somehow leaked I-don't-know-what and slowly killed my sps corals.
I spended months on ICP test and whatever I could imagine was the cause and did a lot of water changes.
New corals died within a month and older corals died one by one and coralline algeas stopped growing on my rocks, but grew on glass and pumps.
I found the cause by mixing saltwater in both the one I've used for around two years and a new hard plastic bucket approved for food storage. While the powerhead was on there was no difference but leaving the water for like 30 min, a grey oil-like film was generated on the surface of the bucket I've used for mixing
What were you using to mix salt? I have one of the plastic brute garbage cans I see people use. It's about 3 years old. I use a 5 gallon blue water cooler jug to store RO/DI water. It's about 4 years old. My hose for filling/emptying water is 10+ years old.
I haven't noticed any film in the bucket. I do wonder if I need a new hose though.
I have noticed no coraline growing on rocks in both my tanks... it is growing on the glass and pumps.
Comparing tests from last week .
Is it possible the issue is instability ? Mag is 150ppm lower . Even alkalinity is close but not the same . Could be the time of day test was performed ..
phosphates have increased a lot .
do you have any phosphate media such as rowaphos ?
When I had a massive sps issue I was advised from here to lower phosphates . Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.026
Alk: 8.9
Cal: 470
Mag: 1260
Nitrate: 11.7
Phosphate: 0.205
Phosphates went up with vacations. The people who were checking in on the cats/fish over fed a bit. It could be instability, but I have a hunch it's something else just due to the fact that my 25g which has been stable and going strong for a few years now is going through the same thing. But on this tank, the instability isn't helping and something I need to dial in.
Where in Canada are you ?
For decent prices and quality corals I would recommend
@Fragbox Corals
I'm in BC, I've ordered from Fragbox a few times. I'm going to wait awhile and decide what I want to do going forward. SPS might not be in my skill level at this point in time.
I read page 1 and 3.
Back on page one of was mentioned that 15 gallon water changes are not necessary.
I see page 3 you are still doing 10~15 gallons. 20% is a lot.
This could lead to some instability.
Have you tried smaller changes? Have you tried no water changes for a couple weeks?
Why are you doing such large changes on an sps system?
You should drop down to 5% a week or even skip a week or two and don't do such a large change unless it's an emergency.
IMHO
Probably not wrong in this aspect. I talked to another user who ran into something similar and said they did 3 big water changes and things turned around for them. But each water change things seem to get a bit worse. So I think I am just going to sit and monitor now. I may try adding some phyto as I was told that could help with the gha.
It's very frustrating as both my tanks are having the same issues. Losing a bunch of corals right now. Not fun.
