I need some HELP asap..

[scfurse77]

Ok so my tank has been up and down lately and i cannot figure out what is going on. Maybe you guys and girls can help me out.

First off i did a bunch of testing tonight so i could give you guys the correct info on my tank.

42 gallon tank, 20 gallon sump. 2 RW-4's, jabeo return pump set at about 7-800 GPH, 2 AI Prime HD's set at a max of 25% on the blues and 10% on UV, Green, Red and white. Also i do about a 15%-20% water change every 10 days. (Oceanic) I run phosguard in very slow flowing reactor and purigen and carbon in the filter sock. i change these every 30 days. And i change my filter sock every 4 days. Tank has been set up for 7 months. I also use Coral Colors once a week ( Very small amounts 1-ml of each bottle per week) I feed 1-ml of reef energy once a week as well.

Salinity 1.025
Temp 78.1
Alk-8.5
Cal 440
Mag 1350
Phosphates (Very close to zero) maybe just above
Nitrate 10 ppm
Every thing stays very stable throughout the week as MAG,CAL and ALK are on dosers and salinity is stable because of my auto top off.

Ok So here is the deal, Most problems are with SPS, But others have had up and down issues as well. Just not as much as the SPS does.
The SPS will go almost white in some spots and others will brown out. Yes, like it's getting bleached. But then a few days later they will color back up and look healthy as ever without me making any changes to lighting or parameters. Then a few days later they will start to go white again.

Any ideas on what could be causing these problems.

 

[Vaughn17]

Sounds like they are starving. Pull the phosguard and start feeding heavier.

 

[CastAway]

Have you had any instability in the parameters you posted? Any recent losses? Any recent additions? What does your pH run?

 

[scfurse77]

Have you had any instability in the parameters you posted? Any recent losses? Any recent additions? What does your pH run?

No everything has been very stable. i've been testing a few times a week. pH is around 8.0 most all the time

 

[scfurse77]

Sounds like they are starving. Pull the phosguard and start feeding heavier.

Thanks, I thought about doing this, but i didn't want my nitrates to spike. Think i'll be ok?

 

[fab]

Better to deal with nitrate management than SPS failures. Its the health of your critters that count, not hitting the right "numbers" in your chemistry.
fab

 

[scfurse77]

Better to deal with nitrate management than SPS failures. Its the health of your critters that count, not hitting the right "numbers" in your chemistry.
fab

Great Point!

 

[scfurse77]

Just turned off my reactor for the night. We'll see if that helps.

 

[scfurse77]

Just one other point id like to make is, I'm still having to clean my glass every few days and still have to pull hair algae out every few weeks. That's why I didn't think the Phosguard was the problem.

 

[fab]

You might want to read up on carbon dosing...vodka or vinegar.

Understand why and when to do it.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/c...e-pointers-on-vsv-dosing.243782/#post-2859712
fab

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If allowing phosphate to rise a bit doesn't help, I'm not sure what the issue could be.

 

[WetWhistle]

I would take a look at the Coral Colors as well as the other suggestions above. When I tested this stuff on one of my tanks I got weird issues like that and once I stopped using the product they went away even though I made no other changes. That is how I figured out the cause. With that being said don't just focus on this and look at other possible options. Like stray current, Heavy metals in the water, LPS stinging. I have a female clown that if you or other fish get to close to her eggs she will bite into and swim hard into my frog spawn and spit up pieces of tissue. This then gets into my water column and causes spots of bleaching or burns on my SPS. I find when I run GFO or phosguard for to long My SPS do weird things as well.

 

[scfurse77]

Thanks Guys for all the info. This issue started before i started using Coral Colors. That's actually why i started using the program. I was thinking my tank was lacking some sort of trace elements.

I turned off my reactor last night so we will see if this fixes the problem. I was kind of thinking this could have been the problem. But i always heard that SPS liked pristine water. I'm thinking of changing back to GFO. I think the phosguard strips out to much to fast.

 

[scfurse77]

I will keep you guys posted on what happens.

 

[scfurse77]

I turned the reactor over the weekend and fed the tank a little more than normal and I haven't really seen any changes quite yet. I get my new test kits Tuesday for p04 and N03 so I'm curious to see what those tests look like.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

youll likely not see results for days if not weeks(more likely) very few things you do to a tank get immediately noticeable results.(unless its bad) IE heavy overfeeding this week will result in algae cyano etc next month. Light changes , dosing, etc are the same.
fwiw gfo of any type strips the water first, thats the main source of nutrient transport to a coral. so stripping too fast is bad. algae will grow under very low po no and pull it from rock as well. if the po is indeed very high, slow use of gfo would be best.

 

[jsker]

Beside running colors, your nitrates being high, and you lights running at around 23% total. what salt are you using?

My nitrates have been running at or about 10 for the past 3 three months and yes I had an big algae issue. I went online with a small reactor and started running bio pellets and my nitrates have come down to 4 ppm and that is were they are going to stay. My phosphates are running around a .04 and I am shooting for a .02 and that is a happy place for my system. I am dosing GFO to keep the phosphates under control. The reason for my high numbers is that I feed heavy.

I used to run colors and had no issue with my coral colors, but one issue I did have and you could look at this. My old light were weak and my coral colors were brown and dying. I upgraded my light and my coral colors really perked up. The lights that you have are great lights and I would suggest to run the lights at 50% blue, 50% royal 25 % violet 20% Uv 10%green 8% red and 18%white. I run the Hydra 26 Hd's on my tank and ran the light at that range when I first upgraded back in March. As I stated before my corals really started to really perk up then, in about two week after installing the lights. In June I found a setting and I will post my current setting below and my corals are growing very fast. In fact my corals have almost tripled in size.

As I also stated I used to run colors, and now run a different product and system and that has something to also do with the growth that I am having.

In-closing yes get the nitrates down by some typed carbon dosing and crank up the lights

 

[scfurse77]

Awesome man, I will give this a try. I think i will use your suggested settings for light but i'll use the acclimation period so i don't shock the corals anymore than i have to.

 

[scfurse77]

Beside running colors, your nitrates being high, and you lights running at around 23% total. what salt are you using?

I am using Oceanic Salt mix.

 

[jsker]

Awesome man, I will give this a try. I think i will use your suggested settings for light but i'll use the acclimation period so i don't shock the corals anymore than i have to.

With my last adjustment I did a 30 day acclamation cycle. Looks like a good salt. One other thing, if you are hand dosing look into a auto doser and your dosing will be more consistent.