I own Reef2Reef and I am coming clean....

BRS
Jump to Last
Rev, I am with you on this one... I truly believe my 75G I had years ago was nicer than my 125G now. I have better equipment, better everything, but the tank is still not the best it can be...

So I stopped and thought about it a bit and tried to figure out what the issue was... My skimmer doesn't skim much, I was running GFO and Carbon all the time in a reactor. I was stripping the water of nutrients!

Try something for a few weeks... Before making a change, take a picture of one of your corals and write down the time. Shut off the GFO/Carbon/Skimmer for a week. See what happens to your PE. Keep the rest of the maintenance the same. Then turn the skimmer back on but make sure you are skimming very dry.

I am tempted to shut off the skimmer for a certain period of time during the day just because it will allow the corals to feed better...

I am also adding a set of 6500K T-5 lights to my LEDs. This will be going in the week after Christmas when I don't have the kids around to turn a T-5 lamp into a light saber. A friend did this and his growth and health of the corals is just insane. He tried a few different lamps, but the daylight ones were the best for a few hours around mid-day, just blast the corals and they love it.
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
it's cool Rev, good luck.
if experts like you having issues, there is no hope for newbie like me, hahahaha.
I plan to minimum livestocks and stick to the colorful but hardy ones. So far with 5 wks old tank, I inherited several colonies of zoas and 1 monti, let's see how they do in 4 wks before I add more corals
 
Avast
I have a 33g cylinder full of live rock attached to my system. If that is all the live rock you have I would add more. Also I don't like Gfo and only run it a few days a year.

Try feeding your fish more. I feed a ridiculous amount, about 30 frozen cubes a Day in a 300g. IMO our skimmers have gotten too good and we must compensate by feeding more. Corals eat too
 
I actually had a Nitrate rise several weeks ago and worked on water changes and adding a new skimmer and it has dropped to unreadable.
 
I also might try adding some more LR.
 
Deltec
Did you post parameters? Maybe I missed them?

I'm a big fan of keeping things simple. No Apex controllers or dosing pumps...I use a good skimmer, chaeto and a little live rock in my sump. I don't do water changes religiously but my parameters stay in check somehow. I don't have expensive lights either. I have lost very little in the last couple years. I've been in this hobby for 25+ years and I think some people make this hobby more rocket science than it needs to be.
 
revhtree said:
I've lost all credibility...HAHA!
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I think it's great to see you be human (I mean I'm not laughing at your problems or anything). For a while I thought about leaving the forum because I was embarrassed of my tank and my knowledge. I thought that the people with amazing tanks must have a lot of experience so when things go wrong they know how to fix it. I know now that if I put a lot more money and time into my tank, it would be great. I'm okay with my 5 little happy fish and my puny Frogspawn. My candycanes are currently melting and I'm freaking out about that. I can't get rid of Nitrates either. I'm just now after a year not having a cyano outbreak because of my Diamond Watchman goby. So, I know how you feel, because my equipment was fancy and expensive too. I hope things get better for you :)
 
honestly my tank thrives the less i do to it... i feel some nitrates and phosphates fuel the tank. a happy balance of good and bad... when i was going bonkers over weekly water changes and perfect dosing i was losing more and crashing more. now i do a simple 15 gallon change once a month and everything is thriving.. best of luck to you... maybe just sit back and relax on the tank and let nature run its course.
 
Deltec
If a tank is mature and has been running great for a long time and then mysteriously starts to suffer, my first thought is "sand bed."

In support of that, I recently read a fantastic post from @robert that altered my opinion on the importance of carbon-limiting our systems. If your N and P are low, that is probably why the coral are not doing well (under-nourished). But if you can't raise N and P without causing bad algae, then perhaps the issue may be related to excess carbon. Therefore I would investigate different methods for carbon-limiting your system.

I'm gonna try and copy & paste Robert's post, he provides some good advice on carbon-limiting techniques:
robert said:
The assumption that we need low N and P to keep corals is primarily driven by the effects of these elevated nutrient levels on algae growth and not on the corals themselves.

Studies I have seen, suggest that elevated N and P by themselves are not detrimental to coral growth. On the contrary, if algae is kept in check, coral growth can be enhanced through N and P enrichment.

So the problem becomes one of how to hold algaes in check, while supplying the nutrients required for coral growth.
The redfield ratio is not an absolute, but it is a good point of reference.

We basically have three points of attack of which we typically only pay attention to two. Why? Because these two, N and P are the only ones we can easily measure and manipulate. But here is the paradox - corals rely on algae themselves in the form of Zoox for their carbon requirements. If we starve algae in general we also starve our corals.

So forget N and P - concentrate for a moment on how algae outcompetes your corals - understand that - and the rest makes sense,
There is a third group of organinsms on the reef. These are the bacteria that live everywhere - including in the corals themselves.
These bacteria are growth limited, not by N and P but by a lack of available C. Corals ensure that the bacteria in their structure remain growh limited by producing long chain carbons - which the bacteria have a hard time utilizing.

Algaes on the other hand produce and release simple sugars, short chain carbons which these bacteria readily consume. Once they have sufficient C they attack the tissues of the corals for ready sources of N and P. Bleaching, STN, RTN and band diseases result - and the tissues of the dying corals become the a new food source for the algaes. This is why reefs so quickly transition from coral to algae dominance in the face of pollution.

So yes, you can lower nutrient levels using macroalgaes or turf scrubbers - but in the confines of your tank - their negative affects may be magnified unless care is exercised. But why go this route - the more direct approach is to carbon limit the system.

How? By eliminating algae with grazers (as on the reef) and in doing so, eliminating the simple carbons from the system; Eiminating deutritus, particulate organic carbons with good filteration; Stripping carbons from the water colum with GAC and purigen; Eliminate baterial overload in the water column with UV/ozone/or peroxide (I greatly prefer UV as its self regulating); And exploiting benthic autotrophic bacteria (also as on the reef) to keep nutrients in check. Do not carbon dose. as this pushes the bacterial balance to the algae side of the equation. I prefer to use a small sulphur denitrification system as opposed to excessive rock or algae systems as I am in control of it and its generally "outside" of my water column.

If you do this, then control of N and P can be relaxed, and thats good for corals their zoox guests and growth.

Yes you can have too many denitrifiers. In the absence of waterchanges, you want your levels of N and P to always be gradually building.
This means if your N and P are 0 and you find yourself having to dose nitrate, lose( or open up) some of the rock and ditch the substrate in your system. Get back to a positive N and P balance.

And yes, you do feed your corals, not directly, but with transient short pulses of carbon sources such as fish waste (and excess food particles) but never enough to overwhelm SCM (slime) production, and never enough to destabilize the internal bacterial population of the coral. Studies have shown that short exposures to carbon sources do not destabilize the bacterial populations in corals - but chronic exposures do.

In short - set up a hight nutrient - low carbon - low pelagic/hetrotrophic bacterial system.

By the way - Bentonite - the clay, is a good alternative to reduce phosphates and organics from the water column. I've never seen a bad reaction from any fish or coral and no precipitates. Makes your water very clear as well.
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Hope this helps!
 
I hear you. My 150G tank with a simple skimmer Carbon reactor 10G fuge casual gFO use and MH in small home use reflectors was a success. My current tank still on the simple side but witha 400G display and total system volume of around 8-900 Gallons, much bettter lighting (still MH though) flow and filtration, took 4 years to kickoff during which I tried literally everything and one day it just decided to let SPS live.
Not being able to pinppoint a cause is simply the worst feeling ever. during that time I burned through a crazy SPS collection(more than 150 SPS minicolonies-colonies most started from frags) I collected over 5-6 years of traveling and to make it worse 3 tniy frags survived the 4 years saga with little PE and no colors and are now colorign up and growing crazy fast! Softies and LPS did fine till now when I started struggling a bit with LPS!
 
Man im only 25 nd ive had my first mixed reef when i was 11 , and still to this day learning how to keep corals thriving,
revhtree said:
I also might try adding some more LR.
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Im a fan of lots and lots and lots of live rock, any tank could deffinitly use some more surface area but have u triton tested? Maybe metals might be a culprit
 
www.dinkinsaquaticgardens.com
Ecoscape Reef Rock
Sabellafella said:
Man im only 25 nd ive had my first mixed reef when i was 11 , and still to this day learning how to keep corals thriving,

Im a fan of lots and lots and lots of live rock, any tank could deffinitly use some more surface area but have u triton tested? Maybe metals might be a culprit
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Great idea on the Trition test!
 
The big prob with running a ulns is that we starve the coral some po4 and no3 is good for our tanks. Before i tore my 200 down i was running my alk at around 8.4-9 and po4 at around .03-.05 and no3 at around 10. I was also using a ca reactor keeping ca around 430 it was the best growth i have ever had didnt have issues with algae due to the size and type of cuc i had. I had at least 6 tangs in my tank, 2 orange spotted gobies for sand sifters a wide variety of snails, hermits, and 3-4 emerald crabs. Was running strictly leds for lighting. Just before tear down due to moving to a smaller place i started having some issues with digis and montis found my alk had climbed to around 10 and no3 was up to at least 20 dont know if that had anything to do with it but that is when i started having my issues have now moved and moved back into my 90 gal gonna stay mainly with lps and softies for now
 
Can you go over names of some of the equipment you are using and why you chose them? Were some of them offered to you free of charge as product review?
 
Deltec
revhtree said:
Great idea on the Trition test!
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I thought twice about it also but i wound up having 90 ppm maganese, had a couple of orange hammers bail, my zoas werent opening, burnt tips on acros, i started with real reef rock nd were adding to many corals in at once so i was having a problem with no phosphate readings so i stopped with gfo for 3 months and acros still continued to bleach, did hundreds of gallons worth of waterchanges then i triton tested again my maganese was way way worse , i use(d) redseacoralpro
 
BRS

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