LPS PE issues, water/flow/lighting seems fine?

[jake royston]

Current water parameters:

Salinity: 35ppt (refractometer)
Alk: 8 dkh (Hanna)
Calc: 417 (Hanna)
Mag: 1260 (Salifert)
Phos: .09 (Hanna)
Nitrate: 1.85 (Hanna)

I added a couple coral frags on Tuesday. Neon frogspawn, pocillopora, alpha omega zoa, and frosted tips Acan.

my issue is with my LPS. They extend a bit, but seem a bit shy. I’ve always seemed to struggle with PE. Taking a look at flow last week I realized it was maybe a bit much. I was running the new MP40’s in reef crest, anti synced at 35%. I was looking at the calculator on ecotechs site and turned the power down to 23% t days ago. May still turn it down some if it may help. The Acan and pocillopora looks great, but everything else seems a Any input is appreciated! Only thing I can think of was salinity was a tad high 36-37 ppt earlier this week, and was brought back down to 35 over a couple days.

The gioni has been in my tank for about a month, and hasn’t really extended fully. It pokes through about 1/4” at night but shrinks back up before the lights kick on.
I moved it to a lower light area (80-90 par) Last week to see how it does, but still no improvement.
Torch, hammers and frogspawn all getting between 85-130 par.

Also, wanted to add that I have seeded the tank with bottled coralline algae twice now. I had a few small spots grow on the old reef wave before I removed it, has not grown on rocks or glass that I have noticed. Alkalinity, calcium and magnesium have been relatively stable for the past 3-4 months, alk varying no more than .3, calc b/t 415-440, and mag b/t 1250-1350.

I started dosing tropic Marin NP bacto balance a couple days ago to try to get phosphates down to the recommended .05.

I’ve also started dosing brightwell coral amino to see if that helps, but so far color is better but no more PE than I had been getting.

 

[Shirak]

What are you feeding besides the Aminos? Your Nitrate could be up a bit. The tank looks pretty sparse and I don't see any fish and CUC. In a fairly new tank with lots of open space and not much livestock, I would suggest target feeding the corals if you aren't already. Other than that I would bump your Mg to 1400 range.

Also are you calibrating your refractometer or at least checking with a standard solution?

 

[jake royston]

Tank is currently fallow for the last 20 days after an ich outbreak. Fish are in qt. Have about 5 hermits and 3-4 trochus snails in the tank. I’ve been target feeding with brs reef chili every other day.

I’ve been checking and calibrating my refractometer at least once a week.

I’ll start getting the magnesium up a bit.

 

[Shirak]

Tank is currently fallow for the last 20 days after an ich outbreak. Fish are in qt. Have about 5 hermits and 3-4 trochus snails in the tank. I’ve been target feeding with brs reef chili every other day.

I’ve been checking and calibrating my refractometer at least once a week.

I’ll start getting the magnesium up a bit.

Calibrating with what?

The reef chili is good. I find the LPS with the larger polyps like to get some chunky food occasionally. Maybe try some mysis cubes. I chop them up while still frozen so the mysis are not whole. My frag system is essentially fishless and I feed every other day all sorts of things like reef chili to lps pellets to frozen foods and the refrigerated fish eggs.

 

[jake royston]

ive fed them mysis a couple times, torch seems to accept it, with the hammers it usually falls off eventually or they aren't accepting it. ill have to order some of the LPS pellets, ive heard good things about them.

I use refracto juice from BRS.

 

[Shirak]

ive fed them mysis a couple times, torch seems to accept it, with the hammers it usually falls off eventually or they aren't accepting it. ill have to order some of the LPS pellets, ive heard good things about them.

I use refracto juice from BRS.

The pellets work well for the hammers but I have to turn the flow off for half and hour or the frogspawn and hammers will just lose all the food they are trying to eat.

Lots of posts on BRS refracto juice being off in the reef chemistry forum. Yours may be just fine but I have read enough to be skeptical of it. I make my own now. From a recent conversation

"Well I'll be d@mned. So I made up the DIY calibration solution to @Randy Holmes-Farley's specs, using a digital scale that measures tenths of a gram, and Morton's kosher salt, which they state can be subbed at the same volume with table salt.

My BRS refractometer calibrated to 35 ppt using BRS juice is reading about 38.5 ppt with the calibration standard I just wipped up, which equates to about 1.029 sg. This seems to be about the same difference my ICP reported, about 3.5 ppt (they showed me at about ~31.5). So apparently my tank has been running at about 1.022 sg for some time now. Lovely.

Is it reasonable to conclude that the refractometer is okay, but my BRS calibration juice is bunk?"

Thread here if you want to read more.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ati-icp-salinity-issues.719822/

 

[Shirak]

Could explain too why your Mg is a little low and calcium is on the verge of getting low..

What salt are you using?

 

[jake royston]

Wow, I'll definitely be looking more into this. I ordered the Hanna salinity checker so that may help out a bit. Also ordered an Apex EL and trident to help me keep a close eye on things. Funny thing is, it was supposed to be delivered today (and it arrived at the delivery facility today) but they say it's "delayed due to a late truck" so I won't get it until Monday.

Currently using Red Sea blue bucket which should mix up to be:

Element Levels @ 35.5 PPT

• pH: 8.2 - 8.4
• Alkalinity: 7.8 - 8.2 DKH
• Calcium: 420 - 440 mg/l
• Magnesium: 1250 - 1310 mg/l
• Potassium: 380 - 400 mg/l

Which seems pretty on par with my PH (8.2 - 8.3), alk (8) and calcium (417-440).

 

[Shirak]

Definitely good to have a backup salinity check. Your parameters seem to fall in line with the salt you are using. While I personally run much higher Ca and Mg I don’t think it’s the main concern for the corals. I think it’s more nutrients and the low nitrate. I also wouldn’t get hung up on .09ppm phosphate and trying to get it to .05. Bring your nitrates up and algae and corals can use the phosphate to grow.

 

[Shirak]

Gonis are just notoriously difficult and take a lot of trial and error and a steep learning curve so don’t feel too bad on that one. They need to be fed frequently.. and once they start to decline very hard to bring them back.

 

[Spare time]

Try dosing amino acids or something to get nitrate up.

 

[jake royston]

Thank you for the replies, I ordered a triton ICP test on amazon to dig a little deeper, should be able to get it in the mail Monday so ill keep this thread updated. I appreciate that link, Ill have to make my own reference solution to check my refractometer's accuracy.

 

[jake royston]

The pellets work well for the hammers but I have to turn the flow off for half and hour or the frogspawn and hammers will just lose all the food they are trying to eat.

Lots of posts on BRS refracto juice being off in the reef chemistry forum. Yours may be just fine but I have read enough to be skeptical of it. I make my own now. From a recent conversation

"Well I'll be d@mned. So I made up the DIY calibration solution to @Randy Holmes-Farley's specs, using a digital scale that measures tenths of a gram, and Morton's kosher salt, which they state can be subbed at the same volume with table salt.

My BRS refractometer calibrated to 35 ppt using BRS juice is reading about 38.5 ppt with the calibration standard I just wipped up, which equates to about 1.029 sg. This seems to be about the same difference my ICP reported, about 3.5 ppt (they showed me at about ~31.5). So apparently my tank has been running at about 1.022 sg for some time now. Lovely.

Is it reasonable to conclude that the refractometer is okay, but my BRS calibration juice is bunk?"

Thread here if you want to read more.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ati-icp-salinity-issues.719822/

I made my solution today according to the article. Mixed 3.65g of salt to as close to 96.35g of rodi I could get using a scale. Mixed for about 20min, but there’s still some salt that doesn’t seem to dissolve, water is a little cloudy.
Not sure I should trust this… measured at about 39ppt on my refractometer that was just calibrated with the BRS solution. Scale was zeroed with the measuring cups empty for an accurate measurement.

UPDATE: after letting the solution sit for a while, it cleared up. Calibrated with my solution and tested my tank water which read about 31ppt, 4ppt low. (Hard to read through an iPhone lens, but hey, I tried lol)

Which jives with the slightly low numbers, and other members findings on the thread linked above. I added some premixed saltwater to the tank, and will monitor the levels as it evaporates off. It will be interesting to see what the ICP test says. Thank you all and I’ll keep this updated in case others are having similar issues!

 

[attiland]

Wow, I'll definitely be looking more into this. I ordered the Hanna salinity checker so that may help out a bit. Also ordered an Apex EL and trident to help me keep a close eye on things. Funny thing is, it was supposed to be delivered today (and it arrived at the delivery facility today) but they say it's "delayed due to a late truck" so I won't get it until Monday.

Currently using Red Sea blue bucket which should mix up to be:

Element Levels @ 35.5 PPT

• pH: 8.2 - 8.4
• Alkalinity: 7.8 - 8.2 DKH
• Calcium: 420 - 440 mg/l
• Magnesium: 1250 - 1310 mg/l
• Potassium: 380 - 400 mg/l

Which seems pretty on par with my PH (8.2 - 8.3), alk (8) and calcium (417-440).

Blue bucket mixes for me low mg and alk never hit the figures on the label so I always supplement it.

 

[Shirak]

I made my solution today according to the article. Mixed 3.65g of salt to as close to 96.35g of rodi I could get using a scale. Mixed for about 20min, but there’s still some salt that doesn’t seem to dissolve, water is a little cloudy.
Not sure I should trust this… measured at about 39ppt on my refractometer that was just calibrated with the BRS solution. Scale was zeroed with the measuring cups empty for an accurate measurement.

UPDATE: after letting the solution sit for a while, it cleared up. Calibrated with my solution and tested my tank water which read about 31ppt, 4ppt low. (Hard to read through an iPhone lens, but hey, I tried lol)

Which jives with the slightly low numbers, and other members findings on the thread linked above. I added some premixed saltwater to the tank, and will monitor the levels as it evaporates off. It will be interesting to see what the ICP test says. Thank you all and I’ll keep this updated in case others are having similar issues!

Using just table salt it should all dissolve without issue. Interesting you found your tank to be reading low too when using the DYI calibration solution.

Look forward to hearing if the ICP confirms the salinity was low.

 

[jake royston]

Using just table salt it should all dissolve without issue. Interesting you found your tank to be reading low too when using the DYI calibration solution.

Look forward to hearing if the ICP confirms the salinity was low.

I still had some particles in the bottom of the solution. I used Morton’s iodized salt so I was a bit surprised by that. Maybe impurities in the salt? However, I want to trust the measured solution since if the brs fluid was indeed 35ppt, the home made solution should have measured lower if it was not fully dissolved. I added a bit of water to the tank to evaporate off, so I’ll test the tank again tomorrow. ICP should be here tomorrow and I’ll get that done same day.

 

[jake royston]

Well, this pretty much confirms the issue, Hanna checker came in today, got it calibrated, checked my tank, and BAM 31.9PPT. Same as what my test after using the home made solution results were. Man, I feel so betrayed lol. All these months of irritation and frustration are due to something so easy. CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK SALINITY CALIBRATIONS!

I’ll continue to post my updates here as I get my tank on track. Thank you all so much!

 

[jake royston]

Got my Triton ICP results back. Didn't give me a useful salinity reading, but showed me high in silicon, lanthanum, tungsten, and zinc. I'm not sure if this is contributing to the issue, corals look like they are starting to bounce back slowly. Salinity is now corrected at 1.026sg.

Im not to sure where these contaminants are coming from, but I've recently upgraded my 4 stage RODI filter to a 6 stage, adding a second carbon block and second DI resin.

I've done 2 or 3 10-15% water changes since.

Triton Lab Showroom - Explore this water test results and click on the image above.

Someone wants to show you the water test results and shared this link to the evaluation. Click on the image above to explore the water test results.

www.triton-lab.de