Need help

[savosreef]

Hello my name is Brandon I am new to this group. I have a 13.5 EVO reef tank. This tank has been established for 2 years. I recently noticed over the last week, my toadstone coral has shrunk. Plus my green bubble tip aneome has shrunk and turned to like a white color. Also I have a Polythoa Coral and it has been closed and sometimes opens. Same goes with my frogspawn. Six days ago I did a water change on my aquarium I removed 2 gallons of water and replaced it with Red Sea salt 2 cups and topped it off with R/O Water. When I did the water change the toadstone coral overgrew the plug and wasn’t sitting flat so I removed the plug and the coral shot some kind of juice but that didn’t go into the aquarium.

Other corals I have in there are my gsp and zoas Xenias which are thriving but there are no fish or anything that can harm the corals I’m running a kessil a80 led light that’s on a routine and I have two wave pumps with moderate flow.

I tested all the chemistry on my tank here is the results.
PH: 7.8
Nitrate 10.00 (NO3) PPM
Ammonia: 0.00 (NH3)
Salinity: 1.025
Nitrite: 0.00 (NO2)
Calcium: 480 (PPM)
Magnesium: 1240
Alkalinity: 9.9 (DKH)
Temperature 80 degrees
Can anyone please recommend any tips or advice thanks!
here are the before and after photos

 

[blaxsun]

Water, lighting and flow are the usual suspects. The only thing I didn't see is your phosphate levels. I'm curious what the flow rate of your two wave pumps is?

 

[brmreefer]

Some thought that come to mind with this particular system are as follows:

• Not sure what kind of daily swings exist for this system, but if differences between the lows and highs are significant then work on achieving steady stability and reduced swings. This is based on the tanks size alone.
• How often are water changes done to replenish overall elements and nutrient control? Maybe aim for weekly if not already implemented. I had my 30 gal DT separate from my main, and since plumbing it all together, parameter stability for the 30 got simplified since the whole system is around 200+ gallons now. To me smaller systems would be a challenge, so my hat goes off to those that maintain such systems.
• I have heard of some doing small water changes daily, and installing auto water change (AWC) systems that constantly rotate new saltwater in and old water out throughout the day
• 2 years is pretty established. Were there any significant changes recently, or new dosing regiments introduced?

Just some things off the top of my head.

 

[savosreef]

Water, lighting and flow are the usual suspects. The only thing I didn't see is your phosphate levels. I'm curious what the flow rate of your two wave pumps is?

 

[savosreef]

Moderate flow i have two wave makers but I think my stock pump and flow aren’t as strong. Do you recommend upgrading my sump?
I

 

[savosreef]

Some thought that come to mind with this particular system are as follows:

• Not sure what kind of daily swings exist for this system, but if differences between the lows and highs are significant then work on achieving steady stability and reduced swings. This is based on the tanks size alone.
• How often are water changes done to replenish overall elements and nutrient control? Maybe aim for weekly if not already implemented. I had my 30 gal DT separate from my main, and since plumbing it all together, parameter stability for the 30 got simplified since the whole system is around 200+ gallons now. To me smaller systems would be a challenge, so my hat goes off to those that maintain such systems.
• I have heard of some doing small water changes daily, and installing auto water change (AWC) systems that constantly rotate new saltwater in and old water out throughout the day
• 2 years is pretty established. Were there any significant changes recently, or new dosing regiments introduced?

Just some things off the top of my head.

 

[savosreef]

My phosphate levels were off my pet store recommended a product to dose it made the corals look great for a couple days or two but now im worried because same issue is back some corals in the tank aren’t growing every Sunday I do a water change.

 

[savosreef]

So it can be my lighting causing this? Or possibly flow?

 

[Dkmoo]

Six days ago I did a water change on my aquarium I removed 2 gallons of water and replaced it with Red Sea salt 2 cups and topped it off with R/O Water.

Hey broseph - i think the above is the issue and you very likely mucked up your salinity and the shock is what caused the problem. Specifically:

If I'm reading this correctly -

1) did you just dump the salt directly into the tank then added 2 gallen of RO water and let it "mix" inside the tank? is this the first time you mixed your own Salt water with the water change (maybe prior to this you only used pre-mixed water)? If that's what you did, then that could have lead to all kinds of issues from unstable salinity, to swings, to not properly mixing resulting in other param swings.

2) did you use 2 cups of red sea salt for 2 gallon of Ro water? That's double the concentration... I guess we can blame the US gov't for not adopting the metric system like the rest of the world....The Red Sea salt recipe calls for approx 38 grams of salt per Liter, which converts to approx. 140 grams of salt per gallon (3.78 L = 1 G). I'm not sure how you converted the 140 grams to cups but the ratio is different depending on if you are talking about weight vs volume, or even the material (dry goods like salt, vs water). but the correct conversion is about 1/2 cup per gallon, not 1 cup per gallon.

 

[savosreef]

Hey broseph - i think the above is the issue and you very likely mucked up your salinity and the shock is what caused the problem. Specifically:

If I'm reading this correctly -

1) did you just dump the salt directly into the tank then added 2 gallen of RO water and let it "mix" inside the tank? is this the first time you mixed your own Salt water with the water change (maybe prior to this you only used pre-mixed water)? If that's what you did, then that could have lead to all kinds of issues from unstable salinity, to swings, to not properly mixing resulting in other param swings.

2) did you use 2 cups of red sea salt for 2 gallon of Ro water? That's double the concentration... I guess we can blame the US gov't for not adopting the metric system like the rest of the world....The Red Sea salt recipe calls for approx 38 grams of salt per Liter, which converts to approx. 140 grams of salt per gallon (3.78 L = 1 G). I'm not sure how you converted the 140 grams to cups but the ratio is different depending on if you are talking about weight vs volume, or even the material (dry goods like salt, vs water). but the correct conversion is about 1/2 cup per gallon, not 1 cup per gallon.

Hey man thanks for the advice so I added two cups of salt into ro water mixed the salt snd then poured it in the tank