I think I am giving up

[lpsouth1978]

...set your Uv 50%, Violet 50%, Royal 56%, Blue 56%, Green 7%, Red 7%, White 15%...

Where did you come up with these numbers? While these settings may work in your tank, there is no way to know that these will work in this case. Not saying they won't, but the only way to know where to set the lights is to test with a PAR meter. Anything else is simply a shot in the dark.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Do you use a ato? In such a small tank topping of manually may cause some serious fluctuations.

 

[fish_bucket]

Sorry to hear that.

sps are fairly picky,

try to up your KH levels to 9, do it slowly but get on it, Ph is ok but you would want that at 8.3
when you say phosphate 0 as of 0.00 or 0.01 or 0.02 cause not having any phosphate also not good for corals as they need a little.

Also can you please tell me what your Led settings are and how long, it might be that your par may be too much, and how far up is your led light from the top of your water line?

your water is on the cooler side bring that up to 78f-79f degrees, for you that will be 26 celsius

Im willing to bet that your Par is probably too strong for the sps corals,

acans, and leaherheads corals can handle many variations of things.

Bring your ai as follows
led must be at least 12'' to 14'' high from the water line

set your Uv 50%, Violet 50%, Royal 56%, Blue 56%, Green 7%, Red 7%, White 15%

no more then 9 hours.

I promise you if you do these steps you will start to see some positive things in your tank,

In terms of lighting please see the below it Karen Vazquez setup, AI Prime's signature series from their website.

Noted on the temperature. I will bring it up. I have ordered a salifert test kit, I will work on the KH.

I was running chemi pure, I was adised i don't need it, so I have removed it, in hope I could bring up the nutrient levels.

 

[Johny Cash]

Where did you come up with these numbers? While these settings may work in your tank, there is no way to know that these will work in this case. Not saying they won't, but the only way to know where to set the lights is to test with a PAR meter. Anything else is simply a shot in the dark.

he said its a 50 gallon tank, BRS TV did a excellent way to explain par meters and distance from the water line how high your led should be in order to get evenly par spread on a 60 gallon tank, ill try to find the link, it made a lot of sense along with lots of testing on there part, I personally own a 40 gallon tank at home and followed there advice after watching there video and boy can i tell you how happy i am after 2 months later. All my corals are thriving, my water parameters as follows

Kh 11
salinity 1.023
Ph 8.4
Calcium 400
temp 79
Phosphate 0.02
Nitrate 5

I am just trying to see what are his led settings may be someone messed with it and running super high spectrum.

 

[Johny Cash]

In terms of lighting please see the below it Karen Vazquez setup, AI Prime's signature series from their website.

Noted on the temperature. I will bring it up. I have ordered a salifert test kit, I will work on the KH.

I was running chemi pure, I was adised i don't need it, so I have removed it, in hope I could bring up the nutrient levels.

May i ask how high is your led light bulbs over the water line?

 

[jcolliii]

Is the PO4 absolutely zero? Did you try the 'increased sensitivity' procedure on your PO4 test kit? If memory serves, you double the water sample volume, double the reagents, then when you read the color from above like normal, you divide the value read off the color chart by 2. Works pretty well for picking up on low values, and low values are all you need.

 

[Pico bam]

Hey Man first post on R2R in years new account and all. Try getting your alc up there. I run reef crystals out the box my alc is 13, 7-8 is good for fish, Higher calcium too. I dont know what kind of info your getting but 450 is a good place to start. I've had some problems due to lack of water changes and bacteria infections but that's about it. I like to overskimm! But that's not for everybody, find what works, I always find deals on my coral that's a good place to start. Sell them off when there doing well and get some nicer stuff, a little live water never hurt anything
So in all obviousness
Alc 10+
Calc ~450~~~
Temp 78-80 not too high look up where coral come from and there environment I am from Minnesota,
Salinity! 1.024 not over 1.025 big one,1.023 even. Just seems like you have a little misinformation what's your salt brand? Is it fresh?? Stuff like that 8-10 hours of light not too much sun the right amount of flow for the right coral you got It, take it easy

 

[fish_bucket]

Is the PO4 absolutely zero? Did you try the 'increased sensitivity' procedure on your PO4 test kit? If memory serves, you double the water sample volume, double the reagents, then when you read the color from above like normal, you divide the value read off the color chart by 2. Works pretty well for picking up on low values, and low values are all you need.

0 on both tests.

 

[fish_bucket]

Hey Man first post on R2R in years new account and all. Try getting your alc up there. I run reef crystals out the box my alc is 13, 7-8 is good for fish, Higher calcium too. I dont know what kind of info your getting but 450 is a good place to start. I've had some problems due to lack of water changes and bacteria infections but that's about it. I like to overskimm! But that's not for everybody, find what works, I always find deals on my coral that's a good place to start. Sell them off when there doing well and get some nicer stuff, a little live water never hurt anything
So in all obviousness
Alc 10+
Calc ~450~~~
Temp 78-80 not too high look up where coral come from and there environment I am from Minnesota,
Salinity! 1.024 not over 1.025 big one,1.023 even. Just seems like you have a little misinformation what's your salt brand? Is it fresh?? Stuff like that 8-10 hours of light not too much sun the right amount of flow for the right coral you got It, take it easy

Salt brand is an unknown as I purchase my water directly from the LFS.

Salinity is 1.026 but that is the salinity sold to my by my LFS.

 

[fish_bucket]

In summery, steps I have taken today.

I am slowly increasing the tank temp to 26c
I have purchased a new KH test kit (Salifert)
I am feeding more
I have removed my chemi pure blue

 

[JumboShrimp]

Go FOWLR and enjoy some fish. And best wishes!

 

[jcolliii]

I'd definitely not suggest pumping ALK up with low nutrients like that.

The course of action you've laid out makes perfect sense to me. Don't change too much at once. Feed some frozen.

 

[NS Mike D]

In summery, steps I have taken today.

I am slowly increasing the tank temp to 26c
I have purchased a new KH test kit (Salifert)
I am feeding more
I have removed my chemi pure blue

you can always ask your LFS what level ALk are they mixing to while waiting for the new test kit. that would give you an idea what your tank is as I don't think you are having a massive alk uptake

 

[NS Mike D]

I'd definitely not suggest pumping ALK up with low nutrients like that.

 

[Crustaceon]

When I see this:

“Salinity 1.026
Temp 24
Ammonia 0 API
Nitrite 0 API
PH 8.0 API
KH 7.0 API
Nitrate 5 Salifert
Phosphate 0 Salifert
Calcium 400 Salifert”

I think “this is posted everywhere but it’s not real”. These are specs of someone who is doing too much.

They aren’t normal parameters. When I say this, I mean a lot of things are being left out of the equation. Let’s start with 5ppm nitrates. A lot of people have success with this number and lps, but what many people won’t list is how they also dose aminos or feed like crazy and export just as much. This is different than holding your tank at 5ppm nitrates through reduced feedings or water changes. In reality, most people probably should keep their nitrates at 10ppm, especially for lps and softies. Also, the idea of keeping phosphates at .03ppm drives me nuts. Do we not realize our hanna checkers aren’t that accurate? Not to mention how things seem to go downhill fast when our tanks dip under .03ppm? I’d rather run .1ppm and not worry about bottoming out that parameter. As a matter of fact, I do right now with a sparse amount of frags and without a speck of hair algae in sight. What acros I do have are developing good color and are encrusting like crazy. I modeled my 55 after my 29 gallon tank because it worked. You know what I did that made that tank work so well? Barely anything. I cycled it, added rocks & sand and after a month, I added a few fish. Water changes were me taking a gallon of water out of the 55 and using it in the 29. Nitrates were probably 50ppm in that little tank. So what. I didn’t bother testing phosphates either and I didn’t worry about it because I adjusted feeding based on how the glass looked. No algae? No problem. This tank didn’t use a skimmer either and when I eventually added coral, I used a five gallon bucket with some kalk added for topoff, which if I remembered to do it, I added manually every few days via a brs hand pump. You see, it doesn’t have to be hard and a lot of the difficulties in this hobby are human-induced. The less we impact these eco-systems, the better they tend to do. This is where the idea of stability comes into play.

My 55 runs a skimmer with a small biopellet reactor. Dosing is a 20g brute can full of full-strength kalk solution on a jebao doser. I test and adjust phosphate every few days as my system has been trying relentlessly to bottom it out. Alk/cal/mg/nitrates get tested and slightly adjusted if needed twice a month.

1.025
79 temp
8ppm nitrates
.12ppm? phosphates
alk 7.8
ph 8.2
cal (alot)
mg (also alot)
Water changes - maybe 10% every other weekend or once a month tbh.

 

[Rick.45cal]

0 on both tests.

That zero phosphate is what is causing your coral woes. You can add some via brightwell aquatic NeoPhos, or you can make your own solution using food grade tri sodium phosphate. It will solve the immediate problem.

Chemi pure blue contains GFO which scavenges phosphates very efficiently. I know you’ve taken it offline but in the future be very careful with using any phosphate scavenging substances because removing too much, or too quickly results in permanent damage to corals.

 

[Johny Cash]

I think you got a ton of great info from these folks apply it and enjoy your reef tank

its what makes this hobby a great one, the challenges!!!!

peace out

 

[JJ Ligs]

Seems like a stupid question but what type of flow did you have the torch and hammer in? Also Bring up Cal Alk and where is your mag?

 

[homer1475]

When I see this:

“Salinity 1.026
Temp 24
Ammonia 0 API
Nitrite 0 API
PH 8.0 API
KH 7.0 API
Nitrate 5 Salifert
Phosphate 0 Salifert
Calcium 400 Salifert”

I think “this is posted everywhere but it’s not real”. These are specs of someone who is doing too much.

They aren’t normal parameters. When I say this, I mean a lot of things are being left out of the equation. Let’s start with 5ppm nitrates. A lot of people have success with this number and lps, but what many people won’t list is how they also dose aminos or feed like crazy and export just as much. This is different than holding your tank at 5ppm nitrates through reduced feedings or water changes. In reality, most people probably should keep their nitrates at 10ppm, especially for lps and softies. Also, the idea of keeping phosphates at .03ppm drives me nuts. Do we not realize our hanna checkers aren’t that accurate? Not to mention how things seem to go downhill fast when our tanks dip under .03ppm? I’d rather run .1ppm and not worry about bottoming out that parameter. As a matter of fact, I do right now with a sparse amount of frags and without a speck of hair algae in sight. What acros I do have are developing good color and are encrusting like crazy. I modeled my 55 after my 29 gallon tank because it worked. You know what I did that made that tank work so well? Barely anything. I cycled it, added rocks & sand and after a month, I added a few fish. Water changes were me taking a gallon of water out of the 55 and using it in the 29. Nitrates were probably 50ppm in that little tank. So what. I didn’t bother testing phosphates either and I didn’t worry about it because I adjusted feeding based on how the glass looked. No algae? No problem. This tank didn’t use a skimmer either and when I eventually added coral, I used a five gallon bucket with some kalk added for topoff, which if I remembered to do it, I added manually every few days via a brs hand pump. You see, it doesn’t have to be hard and a lot of the difficulties in this hobby are human-induced. The less we impact these eco-systems, the better they tend to do. This is where the idea of stability comes into play.

My 55 runs a skimmer with a small biopellet reactor. Dosing is a 20g brute can full of full-strength kalk solution on a jebao doser. I test and adjust phosphate every few days as my system has been trying relentlessly to bottom it out. Alk/cal/mg/nitrates get tested and slightly adjusted if needed twice a month.

What works for you, will most certainly not work for everyone. If I let my PO4 creep up to .1 I would have algae for days. if I let my nitrates creep up over 5, 90% of my SPS would be dead.

 

[KimG]

In summery, steps I have taken today.

I am slowly increasing the tank temp to 26c
I have purchased a new KH test kit (Salifert)
I am feeding more
I have removed my chemi pure blue

Has I said, plenty of help
Be carfull not to go down the rabit hole and change everything at once.
From your previous post, most corals are doing good, so don't change too many things at once.

As most have said, try to increase your phosphate. It will give your corals nutrients and help you avoid Dinos (if you already want to quit, you will trough your tank out of the window).

You could increase Alk, but make sure you can keep it stable. You are better off having it rock solid at 7, then having it go to 9 and then come down to 7, up to 9 again, down to 7.
Do you want to put a picture of your tank?
Is the tank 50 gallons of 50 liters?

Cheers and good luck. As someone said before, you have plenty of people rooting for you