Losing coral / Need some education from the experts!

[NotSoCivil_Engineer]

Hey folks. I need some help. Tank has been up and running for 3 months now. Still new - I get that, but all tests are coming back decent. We're losing a few of our softies, hammer/torch, plate is now long gone. I'm tearing my hair out trying to figure it out. I'm using 7 stage ro/di water with filters less than 6 months old. 1 gallon auto water change daily.

I've read all the warnings and advice about not putting too many coral in until your tank is established and your system has built up. Theoretically, I don't understand it. Why does the LFS that had a grand opening a week after we got our tank running this winter do just fine? Their frag tanks are full and healthy, and are newer than my tank. If the water parameters are correct and the ecosystem is working, why does age of the system matter? I've read and read and am frustrated trying to understand this. Everyone local that I've talked to just shrugs and says "it's a new tank, new tank issues" which isn't satisfying at all. I'm a problem solver by nature and this has a solution I'm sure. I understand water chemistry and quality/filtration. It's my job. But the coral husbandry is all new to me.

I have a combination of salifert, RS, and Hanna test kits and run duplicate tests as often as I can.

Alk steady 8.2-8.6 (RS, Hanna)
Mag 1320-1400 (RS)
Cal 420-480 (RS, Hanna)
pH 8-8.4 (Apex, Hanna, RS)
Salinity 34-35ppm ( refractometer, Apex)
Temp 77.7-78.5 (Apex, Hanna)
Ammonia 0 (salifert, RS)
nitrate 0 (salifert, RS)
phosphate 0 (Hanna ULR)
Nitrate 0-2ppm (salifert, RS)
Dosing 20ml alk/cal BRS 2-part daily.
3 Marine Pure blocks in sump
Filter socks/ chaeto in the fuge
Skimmer octo regal 250int
Tank is a red sea 350
80 lbs live sand / 50lbs reef rock 2.0
40x - tank turnover per hour
Two Radion xr30 g4 at 40% max intensity for 8 hour photo period
Total volume ~80 gallons
Feed reef frenzy & reef chili once a week and pellets every day

Currently have:
Cleaner shrimp
Peppermint shrimp
2 juvi clowns
2 sexy shrimp
Hermit crabs, snails
Variety of frags lps/softies.

The only thing I can figure is that our water is too clean? I've been reading about how lps and softies like dirtier water and how people are dosing to get nitrate and phosphate up a notch. I am so confused on this to be honest. Is it possible I went overboard on anticipating nutrient export? (My fault for geeking out on water quality as a stormwater engineer). We have great filtration and only two juvi clowns, so the biload is minimal. I've turned off my skimmer, but not sure what else to do! I don't want to dose nutrients, yet another monthly cost that I'd rather avoid if I can help it. No QT tank setup yet, hopefully soon, but until then I can't add any new fish to increase bioload.

What am I missing? And if you read this far, thank you for your time and your thoughts!

 

[Bleigh]

I'm in the same boat right now. I'm into the third month that my tank has been up and running. No fish, but corals and a clean up crew. The corals were doing great - some were even growing. Then, all of a sudden, they've gotten angry about something.... no clue what aggravated them. It's incredibly frustrating. What do you do? Just let them die and wait until the tank is more mature to introduce new critters?

Here's some pics of the ones I KNOW are struggling. Holding my breath that my other corals don't follow suit.

 

[jeffchapok]

I'm new at this, so I'll defer to the more experienced here. But my gut feeling is that many corals are filter feeders and there are simply not enough nutrients in the water in a new tank for them to survive on.

 

[OA3B]

I’m not an expert or claiming to be one, but from what I can in your see that could hold you back is your clean water. From what I’ve research, your reef like to get down and dirty if you get what I’m saying. The corals like the nutrients from nitrates and phosphates. Remove one of your or reduce some of your filter media, slowly. See if your nutrients come up a bit.
Like said, I’m not expert just a newbie and I’m sure some knowledgeable reefers will chime in. Patience is the key that I’ve learned you will need.

Happy reefing

 

[NaH20nerd]

What lights do you use? Spectrum, intensity, schedule? Other than nutrients, lighting is crucial.

 

[sideofabarn]

My mistake as a newbie was to run my LEDs with too high of an intensity for my corals. I would run them at low %s but it can still be too much and it can take some time to see the negative affects to the corals. I put "training wheels" on and moved to T5s and it was a different world and I was immediately successful. I'm not advocating moving to t5s, but I'm just saying you might want to try to throttle back the lights even more and wait a few weeks to see what happens. It's just my opinion but I feel like moving to a bluer spectrum is a little easier on the corals....especially for those that are more comfortable with deeper waters.

 

[Musovski]

Bring Nitrates up, bring phosphate up!! youre starving the coral like that. dont mean to sound rude. easiest way to get dirty water is turn the skimmer off. dont run it 24/7. Feed heavier. Dont dose nitrates before doing those things first. People jump to dosing but there is a more natural way to do it.

Also i see you are running filter socks, remove those and let the dirt hit your fuge, the chaeto will need it - as long as it has flow to move it around a bit. And to include Chaeto needs nutrients to grow. No nutrients means starvation. Also, make sure your fuge lights arent on 24/7. I personally run Lights off during day, while lights are on in DT, then when lights are off in DT lights go on in fuge.

 

[NotSoCivil_Engineer]

Thanks everyone for the advice and comments!

4 days of skimmer offline and heavy feeding got our nutrients backup. Everybody seems happy. Going to work on adding livestock (smartly working through our list) to increase bioload.

 

[James Tucker]

I’m about to setup a coral heavy reefer 350, so I’m curious how this works for you. I thought about not touching chaeto until I’m 6+ months in.

 

[NotSoCivil_Engineer]

Half of this is probably due to me being new to the hobby as well. But we picked up a $10 hammer and it is thriving in this "dirty" tank now! The tough part will be maintaning steady nutrient levels on top of everything else.