Losing Battle with SPS

[Charlie’s Frags]

Sounds to me like you don’t have nearly enough light. Are the sps acros or monti’s? I have 2 hydra 52 HD’s cranking 210 watts of power, (105 each) over my 50 gallon cube. I have acros and monti’s receiving 600 par so I doubt your 3 primes could be burning them. They’re most likely starving from too little light. 0.1 po4 is not going to kill sps. Most of the high end vendors I collect from like to keep their po4 between 0.05 and 0.1. Don’t go chasing low po4, it’ll just make things worse. You should check for stray voltage and do an icp test, but I bet your lighting is too low.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

 

[golfman99]

Ai primes struggle to grow sps they are not very powerful for leds. Xr15 radions are much more powerful but people look at them the same because it’s one puck of lights. Completely different lights.

 

[Reefpuck]

What exactly is happening to the corals? Are they just bleaching out consistently throughout the whole piece...or does it start at the base or tips?

I'm also gonna say that your lighting might not be enough. I have a 90g and originally was looking into the HDs that you have...but after reading countless threads the consensus was they're more of a nano type light. I was considering 3 on my 90g with 2-4 T5s supplementing. In the end...it didn't seem cost effective so I went a different route.

Have you considered tying to supplement with T5s...or maybe 2 supplemental LED bars?

 

[Auto-pilot]

Will low light kill corals in a week though???? If the light wasn't enough I feel like the corals would slowly die and it would take a little while

 

[Duffer]

i also have RTN on sps corals

 

[Duffer]

What exactly is happening to the corals? Are they just bleaching out consistently throughout the whole piece...or does it start at the base or tips?

I'm also gonna say that your lighting might not be enough. I have a 90g and originally was looking into the HDs that you have...but after reading countless threads the consensus was they're more of a nano type light. I was considering 3 on my 90g with 2-4 T5s supplementing. In the end...it didn't seem cost effective so I went a different route.

Have you considered tying to supplement with T5s...or maybe 2 supplemental LED bars?

most times they start at the base and work it's way up

 

[Auto-pilot]

most times they start at the base and work it's way up

Sounds like stn is your alkalinity stable

 

[MrObscura]

OK, a few things... Your po4 levels are not going to harm corals, let alone kill them, neither is not enough light going to do it that quickly. Also your Alk level is fine, there's no reason to lower it. The question is, is it stable?

Primes can light a large tank(AI has a large display lit by them alone), but you need enough of them. I wouldnt use one to cover more than 12" so on a 4' x 2' tank I'd want 8.

I also don't feel light acclimating is necessary most of the time. Trying to move a low light corsl into high light is one thing, but most sps are likely coming from similar or higher par.

 

[Crustaceon]

bi-weekly water changes

This will kill sps in a week. Stability > Alk/Cal/Mg > No3/Po4 > Equipment.

First off, if you’ve had the tank up and running for a year, that dry rock is full of bacteria simply by adding coral frags. Secondly, if you want to keep lower nitrates and phosphates and not give your sps a lethal alk spike bi-weekly and you happen to be running a protein skimmer, dose a little vinegar (start with 1ml) each day and cut back on the amount and frequency of your water changes. Lastly, dosing once per day isn’t ideal and will again, cause alkalinity to spike. This can be avoided by spreading the dosing out throughout the day.

 

[Auto-pilot]

I agree completely with MrO. I'm not familiar with your lights but lack of won't kill them fast. My phosphates have slowly gotten up to .20 ppm and my corals don't grow but they don't die. Alkalinity swings can kill corals really fast!! Really like CRs little chart of importance

 

[Crustaceon]

Whenever I see successful tanks that have high nitrates and phosphates, they tend to be completely filled with coral. I highly doubt those tanks started with any more than 5 nitrates & .03 or less phosphates in the beginning and those nutrient levels had to rise over time to sustain the growing reef.

 

[Duffer]

This will kill sps in a week. Stability > Alk/Cal/Mg > No3/Po4 > Equipment.

First off, if you’ve had the tank up and running for a year, that dry rock is full of bacteria simply by adding coral frags. Secondly, if you want to keep lower nitrates and phosphates and not give your sps a lethal alk spike bi-weekly and you happen to be running a protein skimmer, dose a little vinegar (start with 1ml) each day and cut back on the amount and frequency of your water changes. Lastly, dosing once per day isn’t ideal and will again, cause alkalinity to spike. This can be avoided by spreading the dosing out throughout the day.

i guess i don't fully understand this. I should not do water change once ever two weeks?

I do have a protein skimmer

i don't dose every day, most times my alk is good and calcuim, mag is what i dose alot of...seems to drop..

if i want to maintain alk around 8 and it has dropped to say 7.9, should i dose or leave it alone?
maybe i'm doing it wrong, if my alk dropped below 8 i was dosing for fear in two days time it would drop lower

 

[64Ivy]

Just for kicks, you might want to throw in a Poly-Pad and see if you get a 'reading'.

 

[Justfebreezeit]

Imo water changes won't do any harm if your salt mixes at your tank levels. Should only help.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

i guess i don't fully understand this. I should not do water change once ever two weeks?

I do have a protein skimmer

i don't dose every day, most times my alk is good and calcuim, mag is what i dose alot of...seems to drop..

if i want to maintain alk around 8 and it has dropped to say 7.9, should i dose or leave it alone?
maybe i'm doing it wrong, if my alk dropped below 8 i was dosing for fear in two days time it would drop lower

I test my alk every night and dose what ever is needed to bring it back to 8.0-8.5. Sometimes it swings a full dKH in both directions.

This time last year every acro I would buy would be ok for about a week then the polyps would retract, and then I’d get stn or burnt tips or rtn or all of the above. They would start to look dried out. I had “ideal” numbers by using gfo and Red Sea no-pox and dead acros. I decided to buy a par meter and discovered my single hydra 52 Hd wasn’t producing nearly as much par as I had estimated. So I threw out all the nopox and gfo, bought another 52 HD, raised them to 16” to eliminate “hot spots”, removed my skimmer and all my acros have been encrusting, growing, coloring up and have had insane polyp extension ever since.

 

[BestMomEver]

My experience.... corals that bleach from the top down are getting too much light. If they are bleaching from the bottom up, or in the middle, you may have parasites eating them. Usually corals that don’t get enough light turn brown before they die. I assume you’re dipping your corals...seems like you’re experienced at this. For what it’s worth, I had a 500 gallon tank and could never keep anemones or clams... don’t know why.

As for lights, I would try to borrow a par meter. I’m not familiar with the spectrum of those lights but if they’re similar to my Radion xr15, and I think they are, I’m running my blue, ultraviolet, and purple at 100%. Green and red at about 35% and white at about 50% at their hottest. And the enire intensity is 100%. Bright!

As for parameters, your dkh should be fine. I run mine at 10+. Your magnesium and calcium are fine too. Your phosphate may be a little high but not enough to kill a coral that quickly. What is your Salinity and can you describe your acclimation protocol?

I would suggest that you run an API test before you try corals again. I had trouble a while back and discovered I had a lot of lead in the tank.

Also, years ago, I tossed an urchin in my sump only to have him chew through a power cord that I had accidentally left draping in the water after I unplugged it. It leached copper into the tank and killed TONS of SPS. Within 48 hours, everything was dead. Do you have snails and crabs that have died too? Maybe heavy metals are an issue.

There will be others that come along too....

Hope this helps...

 

[Crustaceon]

i guess i don't fully understand this. I should not do water change once ever two weeks?

I do have a protein skimmer

i don't dose every day, most times my alk is good and calcuim, mag is what i dose alot of...seems to drop..

if i want to maintain alk around 8 and it has dropped to say 7.9, should i dose or leave it alone?
maybe i'm doing it wrong, if my alk dropped below 8 i was dosing for fear in two days time it would drop lower

The point of doing water changes is to reduce nitrates/phosphate and to replenish trace elements in the tank as needed. As it was noted, having your salt mix at the same alkalinity as your tank’s current level shouldn’t cause a problem but few people actually test their mixed saltwater and don’t realize it’s at 10 dkh or higher (IO reef crystals or Red Sea Coral Pro) and is now being poured into a tank that’s running at 8 dkh. Essentially you’re dosing your tank and causing an alk spike by doing water changes if this is the case.

The point of dosing is to maintain a certain set of water parameters and not continually correct them. Sps corals don’t like rapid change. This is why people run dosers and calcium reactors. It not only automates the process but allows us to very gradually and continually add those additives to the tank to maintain alk/cal/mg. You can get similar results and cause less stress to sps corals for example by taking that every other day dose and dividing it up into eight doses over two days.

 

[SDK]

Edit- Just noticed ou posted your light schedule while ramping and not full power

 

[Waynerock]

Ai primes struggle to grow sps they are not very powerful for leds. Xr15 radions are much more powerful but people look at them the same because it’s one puck of lights. Completely different lights.

I will have to kindly disagree. I have two prime HD’s on a reefer 170 running Saxby at 35% reduction and my couple acros are growing like crazy as well as my montipora and birds nest. They do a lot more than people think. Granted I have much more LPS than SPS but up top they are killing it and I don’t have anything too light hungry but everything is far from starving. I think the OP has other issues.