Losing Battle with SPS

[Paul Howard]

I have to agree with comments that it's not a light thing. I don't think I have ever killed sps by too much or to little light (at least not killed them FAST). Alk. fluctuations can be trouble. I am no expert but FWIW I believe lots of live rock, old and real, can't hurt.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Salinity, temp?
Focus on high blue, less white with moderate water flow and light feeding with reef roids or similar

 

[tah532]

Its not the light, I have 1 Prime on a 20 gallon high and it is growing multiple SPS and they are very healthy and robust. I have this same issue in my 40g tank and have narrowed it down to Alk being too high. I was running in the high 8's and this particular tank is very very clean so it was bleaching/killing my SPS. The 20g I run in the high 8's but it is a "dirtier" tank so the SPS do fine. On my 40g I have lowered my Alk to low to mid 7's and I am seeing improvement but it takes time to see noticeable results. It wont happen overnight. Lower you Alk to 7.0-7.6 and see what happens. Also if you are trying to keep SPS you gotta give in and run dosers, but still with dosers keep testing and make sure levels are remaining stable. I do water changes every 2 weeks as well and use a salt mix that has an Alk around 8 so there arent any huge swings.

 

[Duffer]

i think i am causing too much Alk swing, i was moving the dhk too much when i was dosing (when i was at 8.0 i was trying to acheive 8.5 in one night). As far as light i may have to look at this in the future but for now i want to concentrate on alk and see what that leads me. I adjusted the gyre's last night and put them on a better 24 hr schedule , i'm happy with that. Temps stay around 78-79. Salinity is always stable at 1.26. I feed all corals twice a week with benepets and reef roids.

Thanks everyone i learned alot.

 

[MaiReef]

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.

Adding T5s would help, but your issue is not lighting. If your parameters are stable, almost no coral would die unless it was exposed to RTN in a tank. Did you dip all your coral?

 

[Duffer]

Adding T5s would help, but your issue is not lighting. If your parameters are stable, almost no coral would die unless it was exposed to RTN in a tank. Did you dip all your coral?

I always dip with Bayer...

 

[jda]

I read the whole thread and have a few questions... do these corals come from the same source or just a few sources?

I do think that you have way too little light, but they die too quickly for this to be the only reason, unless the corals are coming from a place where they are stressed already. Then, the move and the low light can finish them off. Most THRIVING corals will take 2-3 months to die from a move and underlighting, but stressed corals can die in a day to a week.

Your N and P are fine - don't mess with these. Keep up with the water changes - they are doing things that most people don't even know about. Keep up the bayer dips - they are gentle and great practice.

 

[CeeGee]

The two things I see are the alk swings look a bit excessive.

Another thing I might add is that I was a IO user for a very long time. I started looking for a salt that mixed up closer to where I like to keep my alk and better magnesium so I switched to Red Sea Blue bucket. My tank never looked worse. Constant problems and I lost a lot of SPS that we’re doing fine previously. Huge dose of cyano came with the switch as well.

Switched from the Red Sea Blue bucket to the new live aquaria salt. I have been doing 30% changes weekly for about 3 months now. Tank has never looked better.

Salt may not be your problem but that brand will never go back in my tank. Also hate their test kits they are waaaay out of line from what I get with salifert. I basically use salifert and Hannah for alk.