Hello all,
I will start this off by stating that I've had this problem going for a few weeks now, and every time I think I'm starting to get it under control, something else seems to be wrong with it. This all started whenever I got some sort of parasite in my water a few months ago, and caused all my fish to die off. Never used to quarantine, and I learned that lesson the hard way unfortunately. I got this resolved however, and have a fish QT, and a separate coral/invert QT set up now, and have those back under control. While all this has been going on, I have been running my DT (32 gal Biocube) fallow to get ride of any fish parasites that were in there. It has been this way since the end of January. The only things currently in my DT are a pep shrimp, blood shrimp, coral banded shrimp, a few hermits, and a few turbos/nerites. While running my tank fallow, I decided this would be a prime time to get my parameters under control, and start adding the corals I've always wanted to have. The tank is right at 3 years old, and up until this point, I've only had yellow polyps, and pulsing xenia in there, which have grown like weeds. I have added about 20 new corals in to the tank now, and most seem to be doing really well. I added several different zoas, a couple favia, a favite, a couple acans, a blasto, a couple small pavona, a monti, and 2 neon birdsnest. I also had a flame tip polyp that slowly melted away (and seemed to get eaten by my crabs poss?). I have an RBTA in there as well. I know that that seems like a lot, but it was all added in over a month and half, which is probably still pretty quick. I have the Steve's LEDs on the tank , so I believe I have the proper PAR for all the corals and the RBTA. Everything other than the flame tip seems to be fairing well, even the SPS that are in there, which have all had noticeable growth on them in the last month or so. I'm sorry if this seems like a lot, just wanted to give a quick backstory on the tank to hopefully help my situation here.
So now, for the real reason I'm here. I noticed that once everything was in the tank, that some things seem to be having no problems at all, while others seem to be stagnant, or just surviving. My RBTA for example, always stays small and is often only out to be about the diameter if a half dollar or so, then will close back up in to a ball basically. Some of the zoas only seem to be existing, but others are out and thriving (my illuminati for example that has grown 5 heads in the last month) On the other hand, my SPS that are in the tank(birdsnest/moni/pavona) all seem to be doing exceptionally well and are visibly growing and polpys are out every day. I have been doing my best with consistently checking my water parameters, and doing water changes to keep everything as consistent as possible, but it hasn't been what it needs to be as I've been doing a lot of overtime lately (911 dispatcher). Whenever I first started checking my parameters, my nitrates(45), nitrites(24), and phosphates(+1.0) were all sky high(readings in the parentheses next to the parameter), which is confusing to me seeing as I hadn't had fish in it for a while when I got all of my decent checkers in (Hanna instruments for phos/nitries/DKH/ph/temp, and salifert for nitrates/cal/mag), and due to the fact that I only feed the tank about 1 tiny pinch of flake a week, and some Red Sea A and B about every other night. Well, after about a month of weekly 5-10 gal water changes (so I don't change the parameters to quickly), and using some chemipure elite, I have finally gotten my nitrates down to around 1, DKH has stayed between 9.5 and 7.8(which I'm working starting on dosing to keep stable), ph between 8.1-8.4, cal has stayed consistent between 495-480(which is confusing in itself ith the growth I'm seeing), mag has gone from about 1450, down to 1350, which is where I want to keep it. My temperature has spiked in the last few weeks, due to the fan on my lights going out, and has been staying up about 83 degrees f for a bit, where it was about 78-79 before. I have the replacement parts that just came in, so I'm hopefully going to have that fixed later today. I'm also probably getting a chiller this week hopefully to keep the temperature down and consistent from here on out. The most confusing ones to me though, are the nitrites and phosphates. They were sky high whenever I started checking it, and even with everything I've been doing(including using stability some), they have only dropped down to 6(ppb) now for the nitrites, and .62 for the phosphates. I know there has to be some trace in the water at times to help keep the bacteria happy to turn them in to some nitrates for the corals, but I don't understand where they are coming from. unless all the healthy bacteria I had in the tank before going fallow possibly died off, leaving nothing to get ride of the nutrients from the food, even though it's far less food than i used to feed. My tank also has seem to slowly lost all it's coraline over time too. Maybe I'm just thinking to much in to this, but I know that my RBTA doesn't seem happy at all. Not necessarily dying, as I see it out every now and then, but definitely not happy. This is to go along with some of my corals seeming the same way. So I know that something seems/has to be off, and I just can not seem to figure out what it is, which is why I'm turning to you for some help. I can provide any further info to you that you need, just please help me if you can. I'd appreciate it so so much!!
I'll attach some pics for my parameters from my app, as well as a tank shot or 2 to help with visualization. Thank you!!
I will start this off by stating that I've had this problem going for a few weeks now, and every time I think I'm starting to get it under control, something else seems to be wrong with it. This all started whenever I got some sort of parasite in my water a few months ago, and caused all my fish to die off. Never used to quarantine, and I learned that lesson the hard way unfortunately. I got this resolved however, and have a fish QT, and a separate coral/invert QT set up now, and have those back under control. While all this has been going on, I have been running my DT (32 gal Biocube) fallow to get ride of any fish parasites that were in there. It has been this way since the end of January. The only things currently in my DT are a pep shrimp, blood shrimp, coral banded shrimp, a few hermits, and a few turbos/nerites. While running my tank fallow, I decided this would be a prime time to get my parameters under control, and start adding the corals I've always wanted to have. The tank is right at 3 years old, and up until this point, I've only had yellow polyps, and pulsing xenia in there, which have grown like weeds. I have added about 20 new corals in to the tank now, and most seem to be doing really well. I added several different zoas, a couple favia, a favite, a couple acans, a blasto, a couple small pavona, a monti, and 2 neon birdsnest. I also had a flame tip polyp that slowly melted away (and seemed to get eaten by my crabs poss?). I have an RBTA in there as well. I know that that seems like a lot, but it was all added in over a month and half, which is probably still pretty quick. I have the Steve's LEDs on the tank , so I believe I have the proper PAR for all the corals and the RBTA. Everything other than the flame tip seems to be fairing well, even the SPS that are in there, which have all had noticeable growth on them in the last month or so. I'm sorry if this seems like a lot, just wanted to give a quick backstory on the tank to hopefully help my situation here.
So now, for the real reason I'm here. I noticed that once everything was in the tank, that some things seem to be having no problems at all, while others seem to be stagnant, or just surviving. My RBTA for example, always stays small and is often only out to be about the diameter if a half dollar or so, then will close back up in to a ball basically. Some of the zoas only seem to be existing, but others are out and thriving (my illuminati for example that has grown 5 heads in the last month) On the other hand, my SPS that are in the tank(birdsnest/moni/pavona) all seem to be doing exceptionally well and are visibly growing and polpys are out every day. I have been doing my best with consistently checking my water parameters, and doing water changes to keep everything as consistent as possible, but it hasn't been what it needs to be as I've been doing a lot of overtime lately (911 dispatcher). Whenever I first started checking my parameters, my nitrates(45), nitrites(24), and phosphates(+1.0) were all sky high(readings in the parentheses next to the parameter), which is confusing to me seeing as I hadn't had fish in it for a while when I got all of my decent checkers in (Hanna instruments for phos/nitries/DKH/ph/temp, and salifert for nitrates/cal/mag), and due to the fact that I only feed the tank about 1 tiny pinch of flake a week, and some Red Sea A and B about every other night. Well, after about a month of weekly 5-10 gal water changes (so I don't change the parameters to quickly), and using some chemipure elite, I have finally gotten my nitrates down to around 1, DKH has stayed between 9.5 and 7.8(which I'm working starting on dosing to keep stable), ph between 8.1-8.4, cal has stayed consistent between 495-480(which is confusing in itself ith the growth I'm seeing), mag has gone from about 1450, down to 1350, which is where I want to keep it. My temperature has spiked in the last few weeks, due to the fan on my lights going out, and has been staying up about 83 degrees f for a bit, where it was about 78-79 before. I have the replacement parts that just came in, so I'm hopefully going to have that fixed later today. I'm also probably getting a chiller this week hopefully to keep the temperature down and consistent from here on out. The most confusing ones to me though, are the nitrites and phosphates. They were sky high whenever I started checking it, and even with everything I've been doing(including using stability some), they have only dropped down to 6(ppb) now for the nitrites, and .62 for the phosphates. I know there has to be some trace in the water at times to help keep the bacteria happy to turn them in to some nitrates for the corals, but I don't understand where they are coming from. unless all the healthy bacteria I had in the tank before going fallow possibly died off, leaving nothing to get ride of the nutrients from the food, even though it's far less food than i used to feed. My tank also has seem to slowly lost all it's coraline over time too. Maybe I'm just thinking to much in to this, but I know that my RBTA doesn't seem happy at all. Not necessarily dying, as I see it out every now and then, but definitely not happy. This is to go along with some of my corals seeming the same way. So I know that something seems/has to be off, and I just can not seem to figure out what it is, which is why I'm turning to you for some help. I can provide any further info to you that you need, just please help me if you can. I'd appreciate it so so much!!
I'll attach some pics for my parameters from my app, as well as a tank shot or 2 to help with visualization. Thank you!!
