I'm a bad reefkeeper. Looking for help to not be one.

[JasonK84]

I’m definitely no expert in lighting but you said you run your radions at 100%!
These LED lights are very powerful and I’m wondering if your trouble with coral is from either running par way to high or maybe it’s not to high but need to be ramped up slowly from what they were used to when you bought them? Again I’m definitely no expert in this.
@Dana Riddle

 

[Dana Riddle]

I’m definitely no expert in lighting but you said you run your radions at 100%!
These LED lights are very powerful and I’m wondering if your trouble with coral is from either running par way to high or maybe it’s not to high but need to be ramped up slowly from what they were used to when you bought them? Again I’m definitely no expert in this.
@Dana Riddle

I tested a Radion G5 at full power (it was mounted 9.5" above the water surface if I recall correctly) and it is indeed a powerful light. Too powerful at 100% at this height, IMO. Photosaturation is almost a certainty, so is dynamic photoinhibition and, worst, chronic photoinhibition. Research I did with Porites corals showed 'good' water motion and high alkalinity can increase rates of photosynthesis by up to 60%. So, lots of variables involved (not even mentioning the photoadaptive capabilities of zooxanthellae clades.) In a nutshell, PAR values of 100 (for low light corals) and up to 400 (for high light corals) is all that's needed.

 

[Gravity]

I have had good success with Dr Tim’s recipes which use Refresh and WasteAway . I did the Dino treatment which is heavy dosing and blackout. The followed up with the cyano treatment which is moderate dosing. Had some cyano dusting in between but this seemed to do the trick for me.

 

[JasonK84]

I tested a Radion G5 at full power (it was mounted 9.5" above the water surface if I recall correctly) and it is indeed a powerful light. Too powerful at 100% at this height, IMO. Photosaturation is almost a certainty, so is dynamic photoinhibition and, worst, chronic photoinhibition. Research I did with Porites corals showed 'good' water motion and high alkalinity can increase rates of photosynthesis by up to 60%. So, lots of variables involved (not even mentioning the photoadaptive capabilities of zooxanthellae clades.) In a nutshell, PAR values of 100 (for low light corals) and up to 400 (for high light corals) is all that's needed.

So do you think some of the OP’s coral issues could be his light settings? I will quote his lighting settings that were stated in his original post.

For lighting, I have a pair of Radion XR15 Gen4 fixtures in an Aquatic Life T5 Hybrid 48" fixture (2x ATI Blue Plus, 1x ATI Coral Plus, 1x ATI Purple Plus). The T5 bulbs are on for 7 hours a day (1 PM to 8 PM), and the Radeons run at full power for 10 hours (12 PM to 10 PM) before going into moonlights (1% power, blue only) until 12 PM the next day.

 

[Biokabe]

So do you think some of the OP’s coral issues could be his light settings? I will quote his lighting settings that were stated in his original post.

I'll correct a misconception (my own fault, I wasn't clear on it in the first post) - when I said I run them at full power, I wasn't referring to full power of the Radions themselves, but the max setting I have them at. I'd have to load up the Radion software to say for sure where that is, but I think it's about 40% of the actual max of the units. I actually have a PAR map of my tank in an earlier post, but to sum up - I get between 250-280 PAR at the top of the rocks, and about 110 in the corners of the bottom of the tank.

 

[pseudorand]

The plumbing in my house leeches trace amounts of copper into my RO/DI water, even when my TDS meter shows 0

Like others, I'm very curious as to how you detected "trace" amounts of copper. I don't think any home-grade test kits can test for them in saltwater.

I had planned to rinse and reuse a fish QT for inverts after treating with cupramin. I got it set up, ran cuprasorb for a week and tested with my Hanna LR Cu checker. It read 0, so I put in some astrea snails and such - which couldn't stay on the glass and 5 of 6 died in a week. I re-tested for copper many times and got results ranging from 0ppb (yes 'b', this is the LR kit) to 250ppb. I emailed Hanna support and they said the LR kit hasn't been certified for sea water.

So how did you test for copper? Various things have different sensitivity, but some astrea snails seem to be very sensitive. One lived and is now in my DT though, so some are not. 9 coral frags did fine I that tank too. And I later had ammonia problems when adding too many fish, so I can't rule out trace ammonia instead of copper on the snails.

I'd still bet copper isn't it if you haven't noticed snail die-off, but I think the IPC test is the only way to rule it out. Could be pods and such don't survive, and no pods could explain a lot.

 

[Garf]

I'll correct a misconception (my own fault, I wasn't clear on it in the first post) - when I said I run them at full power, I wasn't referring to full power of the Radions themselves, but the max setting I have them at. I'd have to load up the Radion software to say for sure where that is, but I think it's about 40% of the actual max of the units. I actually have a PAR map of my tank in an earlier post, but to sum up - I get between 250-280 PAR at the top of the rocks, and about 110 in the corners of the bottom of the tank.

Can you not remove the copper from the water before putting it in your tank?

 

[Biokabe]

Like others, I'm very curious as to how you detected "trace" amounts of copper. I don't think any home-grade test kits can test for them in saltwater.

I had planned to rinse and reuse a fish QT for inverts after treating with cupramin. I got it set up, ran cuprasorb for a week and tested with my Hanna LR Cu checker. It read 0, so I put in some astrea snails and such - which couldn't stay on the glass and 5 of 6 died in a week. I re-tested for copper many times and got results ranging from 0ppb (yes 'b', this is the LR kit) to 250ppb. I emailed Hanna support and they said the LR kit hasn't been certified for sea water.

So how did you test for copper? Various things have different sensitivity, but some astrea snails seem to be very sensitive. One lived and is now in my DT though, so some are not. 9 coral frags did fine I that tank too. And I later had ammonia problems when adding too many fish, so I can't rule out trace ammonia instead of copper on the snails.

I'd still bet copper isn't it if you haven't noticed snail die-off, but I think the IPC test is the only way to rule it out. Could be pods and such don't survive, and no pods could explain a lot.

Can you not remove the copper from the water before putting it in your tank?

It was an ICP test that initially detected the copper. This was several years ago, when I was still running my 55g tank. I'll save the long-winded story and say that I eventually narrowed it down to my RO/DI - specifically, the first 5-10 minutes or so worth of water that it produced whenever I used it. When I tested that water, I would consistently show a small amount of copper; when I tested water that had been produced after it had been running for several minutes, there was no copper. It wasn't much, but since I was trying to use the Trident method (no water changes) at the time, the small amounts of copper were being concentrated in the tank from my top-off water.

I also don't really think copper is to blame for my current issues; back then, I did have troubles keeping snails alive, but I haven't had any problems with snails in the current tank (and in fact, I'm pretty sure they're breeding).

 

[Garf]

It was an ICP test that initially detected the copper. This was several years ago, when I was still running my 55g tank. I'll save the long-winded story and say that I eventually narrowed it down to my RO/DI - specifically, the first 5-10 minutes or so worth of water that it produced whenever I used it. When I tested that water, I would consistently show a small amount of copper; when I tested water that had been produced after it had been running for several minutes, there was no copper. It wasn't much, but since I was trying to use the Trident method (no water changes) at the time, the small amounts of copper were being concentrated in the tank from my top-off water.

I also don't really think copper is to blame for my current issues; back then, I did have troubles keeping snails alive, but I haven't had any problems with snails in the current tank (and in fact, I'm pretty sure they're breeding).

Are you sure your temp probe is reading ok and your refractometer is calibrated to 35ppt.

 

[Biokabe]

Unfortunately I do.

I don't know why what I say is so contraversial, but alas it is.

"All you need to do to lose weight is exercise more and eat less."
This makes me chuckle. My brother is a bariatric surgeon. He told me this. He said actually all you need to do is eat less calories. This is funny because people want to fight reality. Calories are calories regardless if they are from a jelly donut or a stalk of brocolli. If you simply limit your calories you will lose weight. It's really that easy. He also said that exercise won't really contribute to your weight loss. It helps to supress your appetite but the amount of calories you burn won't really add up to much. The concept that he was applying was that of calories as energy and he understood if very well. The funniest part is that he makes his money off of people that don't want to accept this one simple truth.

It is the underlying idea. There are lots of ways to implement but if you want to have a successful tank you need to grasp the underlying idea. The ocean is turbulent and the oxygen levels on reefs are near constantly over-saturated. I posted a picture of the reef area that snorkeled in the Philippines on a different post. People thought that I was dumb for posting it because ... duh. I was trying to show that gas exchange is important. There are multiple ways that the tanks in our homes don't get proper gas exchange. I was cryptic because when I start asking questions about your set up and recieving answers I am applying my underlying understanding to the concrete situation that you have with your tank. People don't seem to like this they want to follow some predefined formula. There isn't such a thing. There is only the concept, and from the concept you get infinite applications.

As I have stated gas exchange and biology are the key to a successful aquarium and you need to understand them from a conceptual level so that you can see where you are not implementing them correctly, and I can see from your pictures that is exactly what is happening.

Best of luck.

I still feel like you're being a little too obtuse and it would be more helpful if you just came out and said what you think. From what I can see though, you're basically suggesting to increase the oxygen content in the tank - do I have you correct? And more to the point, to increase turbulence, particularly at the surface level, to promote more active gas exchange.

If so... I can't really say that I disagree. I'll see if I can alter my flow to get a bit more surface agitation.

 

[Biokabe]

Are you sure your temp probe is reading ok and your refractometer is calibrated to 35ppt.

Reasonably sure on both, yes. Error is, of course, always possible, but I have multiple independent sources to monitor both of them. For temperature, I have a thermometer on its own, the thermometer on my heater controller, and the thermometer on the Apex. They all agree with each other to within half a degree.

For the refractometer, I use both a digital refractometer (Milwaukee Instruments) plus an analog refractometer (BRS) with a calibration solution. So it's possible to be off, but I don't think it's likely.

 

[Dana Riddle]

I read through all posts. PAR numbers look OK.
A few years ago, I got a call about a suffering tank. As it turned out, the aquarium was in an office of a manufacturing firm and fumes were wreaking havoc on it. Sometimes problems don't fall into any neat category. So, is the tank near a kitchen, or shop?

 

[Biokabe]

I read through all posts. PAR numbers look OK.
A few years ago, I got a call about a suffering tank. As it turned out, the aquarium was in an office of a manufacturing firm and fumes were wreaking havoc on it. Sometimes problems don't fall into any neat category. So, is the tank near a kitchen, or shop?

I hadn't thought to look at the immediate surroundings. I don't know if it's all pertinent, but here's everything that is nearby.

It's not completely to scale, but probably close enough for our needs. To the right of the tank is my garage/workshop. There aren't often any fumes in there - most of what I do is woodworking and assembly. The only fumes that would be created would be when I'm painting something, which doesn't happen often - maybe once every six months. To the left is our fireplace, which we don't use - it's actually blocked off. So there shouldn't be any fumes or exhaust coming from there.

It does get some light from the windows and the sliding glass door (to the south and north of the tank, respectively), but not much. The blinds are usually down on the windows, and we have a thick curtain that usually blocks the sliding door.

However, the kitchen is right nearby. I should've marked it on the drawing, but the stove is on the long side of the island. It does have a hood (which we use religiously to vent out cooking fumes), but of course I don't expect that it captures 100% of the cooking fumes. Probably about 15-20 feet from the stove to the tank. My wife will occasionally burn a candle in there, but not terribly often. Maybe 3-4 times a year, and it's been several months since the last time we used anything like that. There is a small nano tank even closer to the stove, though, and it isn't exhibiting any of the same problems. So I don't know whether that rules out kitchen fumes as an issue or not.

And if we're looking at other things in the immediate environment - our cats' litter boxes are just to the right of the door to the garage. I don't know if that's anything that can impact reef tanks, but occasionally dust does lift out of it when cleaning the box; it's certainly conceivable that some of it could get lofted far enough to get to the tank.

 

[Kal93]

I can understand where you are coming from, but you're not a bad reef keeper, just one having some difficulties.

Regarding the fish, it's possible that the specimens (while eating) were stressed or had internal parasites/flukes, as aggression, bacterial diseases, and external parasites weren't the cause. We can only control what happens to the fish once it's in our care, so other factors before you received the fish could be the culprit. Where do you source your fish, and how do you acclimate them (time, salinity differences, ammonia neutralization, etc?) Do you do an observational QT or treatment regimen?

Cyano can reduce oxygen levels (potentially cusing the fish to die if they have gill damage from ammonia during acclimation) and smother corals. We had a very aggressive strain of cyano that did not respond to conventional treatment. Our solution was to set up a quarantine tank for the corals and, if cyano appeared on a frag, manually remove the cyano. We then dosed twice the suggested dosage of cyano rx and left it in our systems for 2 weeks before performing water changes. During this time, we manually removed cyano from our tanks. After treatment, we began performing weekly 25-30% water changes for 1 month, after which we made 15% water changes. This (with growing chaeto and hair algae in my sump) took care of my cyano, but not his. He is currently repeating the cyano rx treatment schedule I described.

Finally, if you're feeding nutrient-dense pellets 3x per a day, are all of the pellets eaten? If not, you could be having nutrient issues, which would feed the cyano. Your nitrate/phosphate tests may be in the 0-low range despite having a considerable amount of nutrients (which would be consumed by the cyano)

I think that your best bet is to stop buying livestock until the cyano is treated and (perhaps) reduce your auto-feeding to 2x per a day.

 

[Biokabe]

I mostly get my fish from my LFS. I don't know all of their sources (I know they buy from LA Wholesalers, Biota, and ORA), but they do a 2-week quarantine w/ copper and hyposalinity before they offer the fish up for sale. I believe they keep their fish-only display tanks at either 1.019 or 1.021 salinity (I think its 1.019); when they bag them up, they fill the bag with oxygen before tying it off. For fish, I'll usually do a 45-75 minute drip acclimation. I haven't quarantined in the past, and I'm not likely to do so in the immediate future until I finish a few projects around the house. I don't really have a spot to keep a QT tank up and running. I'm in the midst of building something that'll let me keep a 10g tank set up near the main tank, so once that's done I may start.

I'll dial back the pellets a little bit. The fish go after them pretty aggressively, but for sure some of them make it down the overflow or into the sandbed before they can be consumed. Last I checked, nitrates were at ~ 2 ppm, and phosphate at 0.06 ppm. But clearly the cyano is feasting on something, and I know that heavy cyano loads can mask the true nutrient levels.

I've been hesitant to go down the Chemiclean route so far, but I think at this point it's the best option. Manual removal of the cyano doesn't seem to do much beyond temporarily decrease its concentration for a few hours. I probably will get a nutrient spike when I use it, but I guess I shouldn't be afraid of that. When I've used it in the past, it always led pretty directly to a hair algae outbreak (usually bryopsis, if you want to classify that as a hair algae), but I have three things now that I didn't have then:

- A functioning, productive refugium
- A mostly adjusted protein skimmer
- A voracious tang

Hopefully the strain I have is not robust against Chemiclean and I don't have to go down a multi-tank route to get things back in order.

 

[schuby]

When I use Chemiclean, I have to turn my skimmer off for almost two weeks. During this time, I run an air-stone in my sump to keep the oxygen-level up.

 

[Biokabe]

Well, Chemiclean did the trick. For now, at least. I'll grab some comparison shots tomorrow once the lights are on, but there's nary a spot of cyano anywhere. I think I vastly underestimated just how deep the cyano had gotten - the rocks look completely different now. I just finished up the water change yesterday, so I'll run a nitrate and phosphate test tomorrow to see how those levels look now that the cyano isn't feasting on it. Hopefully it just translates into more growth in the refugium! Though I have already spotted some potential bryopsis fronds popping up, so I'll need to monitor those. By no means do I think the Chemiclean solved the problem... just reset it. So now it's on to make sure I keep those nutrients under control.

For the sake of anyone in the future who might benefit from this, I'll keep updating this thread periodically... and maybe actually start the build thread for this tank and keep it updated. And to everyone who very helpfully replied here, thank you, you dragged me back from sadness.

 

[Biokabe]

And time for some good news/bad news.

Good news - cyano hasn't yet come back after the Chemiclean. Corals are doing better than ever. I'd added in some acros 2-3 weeks ago, and they've maintained polyp extension and not lost any flesh, and may even be growing.

Bad news - at the same time I added the acros, I added a sixline wrasse to help clean up the flatworms. When I went out to check on the tank just now, he was being eaten by the clean-up crew. No wounds that I could see, but he was missing some flesh where they had been feasting. So that's nice.