Need some guidance - SPS wont encrust

Studjunior · Jun 17, 2013

My tank has been up and running for almost 2 years - 150 G SPS dominated. Everything seems to be going along nicely, decent color and growth however for the last 6 months I've notices that corals won't encrust on my live rock and some corals that have encrusted have receded. This has not been happening consistently though as there are some corals which are encrusting while others wont. I've tested my parameters ans they all seem in-line. The rock was all dry marco rock when the tank started except for one piece of live rock from my previous tank to seed it. Any help/suggestions on what could be causing this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

bct15 · Jun 17, 2013

What is your alk, cal, and mag? Need the numbers. Also what are your nitrates and phosphates, need the numbers? Either one of your big three is low, or nitrates or phosphates are high inhibiting calcification. Do you have any soft corals? Have you checked for pests?

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Studjunior · Jun 18, 2013

I will test my parameters again tonight and post an update. I have some soft corals, a large toadstool leather, a brain coral, bubble coral and a hammer coral. I used to have red bugs but I was able to get rid of them by treating the tank with interceptor. I do have an abundance of asterina stars of late.... Also some aptasia but no near any of my SPS. Any other pests I should be looking for???

Thanks,

Chameleon · Jun 20, 2013

Hey Stud,
I had a similar problem and I came to the conclusion it was bound phosphates in the rock. I started the tank with Marcos rocks and it did great for a year. Then after a tank move things started going down hill fast. I think I lost a lot of the biological filtration during the move as I started with new MArcos sand and then a few months later I had the same issues you suggested. Maybe since it hasn't gotten out of hand yet try running a small amount of GFO to pull compete for phosphates and eventually if you change it on a regular basis your rocks will become pristine again. Maybe try 1/4 cup gfo in a reactor and change it weekly. The small amount and frequent changes were what worked for me. It was funny, I never had the slightest nutrient problem until after the tank move and then my refugium was masking the problem because tests came back fine, but the turnover between the refugium and display wasnt fast enough to prevent the rocks from leaching up the phosphates.
Let us know what you figure out

Vpham · Jun 20, 2013

my tank has a same problem as STUDJUNIOR's. Slow grows on sps, some en crushing and some don't, all sudden, they starts to receed from bottom. Everything checks out ok. No changes were noticed, except for ph n temp showed a bit different when day and night. Not sure if that is a cause.
At day temp 79_80F, ph 8.15
night temp 78.5, ph drops 7.8
Also I read alot of peoples discussions, most said that phosphates would have some impacts on sps receedings...where do u guys keep it at, in relative with alk cal and mag?
my readings
alk 9.5 (api test)
cal 430 (red sea pro)
mag 1300 ( red sea pro)
Phophate 0.09 ( hanna intrument tester)
Any suggestions would help. ...thanks

fusch13 · Jun 20, 2013

Tagging along

johnanddawn · Jun 20, 2013

Flow could be another issue to consider. If the bases are not getting enough they tend to recede, and/ or not encrust

shred5 · Jun 20, 2013

johnanddawn said:
Flow could be another issue to consider. If the bases are not getting enough they tend to recede, and/ or not encrust

Lots of times it is flow.. Or if the colonies are getting larger it could be self shading issue especially if you use a narrow led fixture.

Badspstank · Jun 20, 2013

if water quality is in check flow will be your issue. Sps if getting that random water flow stimulates them to lay down base to attach and grow.

Studjunior · Jun 20, 2013

Thanks for the responses everyone. I don't think flow is an issue. My tank is 150g (5*2*2) and I'm running to MP40s for flow. I'm starting to think that Chameleon hit the issue right on the nose. I'm running BRS HC GFO and BRS ROX carbon in a dual reactor but do to my busy life schedule and hard to get to placement of the reactor I find myself not changing the media often enough. What leads me to believe it's the phosphates is that it's usually a problem with frags placed directly on the rocks but less so if secured on putty or frag plug. I will try changing my GFO on a regular basis and see if it makes a difference.

Occasionally a random colony will start to recede for no reason so I'm wondering if it's all related.

On a maybe side point... When I started my refugium in this tank 1.5 years ago I had started with a small fist of Cheto.. Since then this has grown like crazy. Because of the placement in my sump and its density I find that it's now home to a LOT of detritus that's getting caught in it. A) should I be taking out the Cheto once in a while and giving it a good wash??? Will a fresh water dip kill it??? B" should I be trimming it back a lot to allow space for new growth or is that irrelevant???

Thanks for all the responses and help. I will try to keep you all posted with hopefully positive updates.

Badspstank · Jun 20, 2013

Do not let you cheato get to big pull it out let it regrow can cause more problems then good when to big

jda · Jun 25, 2013

Add in, or switch to a wavebox. I went wavebox and dropped the flow pumps and my SPS encrust better and grow more uniformly. IMO, the box really does a better job of making sure that the whole tank gets water movement. I will never again have a tank without a wavebox.

MrMitch · Jun 26, 2013

Could be the toadstool doing some chem warfare. How much carbon are you running?

Studjunior · Jun 26, 2013

He toadstool is pretty large but is located all the way to one side of the tank. I'm currently running around 1 cup of carbon in a reactor.

Is it still possible to run a wave box on a eurobraced tank??

Thanks,

bct15 · Jun 26, 2013

Either step up on your carbon or try removing the toadstool for a while. Try changing carbon every three days for a while, to get the nastiness from the toadstool away from the sps. If it is phosphates your coral would all be brown, especially if its high enough to preventing growth. Phosphates prevention growth of stony corals happens every where on the coral, not just the base and they would all look like brown turds. My brother had a similar problem with acans and some other stuff not growin, removed the toadstool he had then ran a little carbon and low and behold he has growth in everything now. Kept telling him, but he wanted to swap his lights, powerhead, filter, skimmer, then finally removed the toadstool and it worked.

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Chameleon · Jun 26, 2013

bct15 said:
Either step up on your carbon or try removing the toadstool for a while. Try changing carbon every three days for a while, to get the nastiness from the toadstool away from the sps. If it is phosphates your coral would all be brown, especially if its high enough to preventing growth. Phosphates prevention growth of stony corals happens every where on the coral, not just the base and they would all look like brown turds. My brother had a similar problem with acans and some other stuff not growin, removed the toadstool he had then ran a little carbon and low and behold he has growth in everything now. Kept telling him, but he wanted to swap his lights, powerhead, filter, skimmer, then finally removed the toadstool and it worked.

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Hate to disagree, but as I had a similar experience to Stud I can verify that phosphates can become bound to rocks even if water level phosphates are low. In this case you will test 0 phosphates even if there are phosphates leaching from the rock. The Refugium will pull out phosphates faster than you can detect them, but the rocks still have them. In this case you will experience recession at the base of corals but every other part will be as colorful as they can be because the water level phosphates are low. You will often experience recession and regrowth as the coral comes into high phosphate laden rock, dies back, then regrows to the phosphate laden rock.

For me the problem went un diagnosed for so long I had a massive HA outbreak that I couldn't understand as water parameters were always in check. It looks like Stud has caught it before this (congrats by the way) and can hopefully turn things around with frequent GFO changes. This kind of incident made me stop using a refugium and now I have gone back to my previous successful ways of live rock, skimmer, and water changes. This way I no longer mask any issues and will see them before they go too far.

Best of luck

Chameleon · Jun 26, 2013

Vpham said:
my tank has a same problem as STUDJUNIOR's. Slow grows on sps, some en crushing and some don't, all sudden, they starts to receed from bottom. Everything checks out ok. No changes were noticed, except for ph n temp showed a bit different when day and night. Not sure if that is a cause.
At day temp 79_80F, ph 8.15
night temp 78.5, ph drops 7.8
Also I read alot of peoples discussions, most said that phosphates would have some impacts on sps receedings...where do u guys keep it at, in relative with alk cal and mag?
my readings
alk 9.5 (api test)
cal 430 (red sea pro)
mag 1300 ( red sea pro)
Phophate 0.09 ( hanna intrument tester)
Any suggestions would help. ...thanks

You dont keep phosphates in relation to the big 3 alk, cal, and mag. Your goal is 0.00 or actually 0.03ish seems to work great. Yours seem pretty good, but it couldn't hurt to bring it down a bit more. I use GFO, but there are many ways to accomplish the goal of reducing phosphates. Most start with reduced feeding, but all end with better export, whether it be refugium, ATS, lanthanum chloride drip, or GFO as well as other I may not have thought of. Good luck

Studjunior · Jun 28, 2013

Just tested my water with my Hanna testers:

Phos - .06
Calc - 464
Alk - 10.2
Mag - 1410

I think my alk is too high so I've adjusted my doser. I think it related to the lack of encrusting and growth with is leading to a lower consumption rate as I used to dose a lot more.

With my phos at .06 I will keep changing out my GFO weekly for a bit and see what happens.

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Mrfresh · Jun 28, 2013

Crazy other idea. Just a thought.

Lights might be to weak. I have notices with a birds nest sps.
If the light is to weak the sps will reach up for the light in order to grow.
If the light is to strong it will grow down/ out like plating.

Just a theory!!! Please don't hate just what I have seen in my own tank.
Like right now I have vote-5s and all sps are encrusting.
I have a strawberry lemonade that I have had for 9 months and the base is close to 4 inches.
And still only has the one little stick sticking up....

You do need some phos in ur tank unless u plan on feeding heavy all the time. I would say shoot for the .04 to .02 phos level.

Good luck