Needing advice

[BAngieB]

Hello all! I decided to come to the forums for some sound advice. I’m beyond frustrated with my tank and need some help. I’ve been in the hobby about 5 years now so I’m still a relative newcomer I suppose. I have a 75g mixed reef tank that mostly has soft coral, zoanthids and some LPS. I did have SPS but I can’t seem to keep it alive. My parameters:
Salinity - 1.026
Alk- 9.2
Calcium - 420
Magnesium - 1350
Nitrates - 1-2
Phosphates- need to test(they were high but I started using AQuaForest nitraphos minus to get rid of hair algae outbreak)

My Alk stays high and I don’t know why. Ideally I wanted to keep it around 8- 8.5 but it always goes back up. I test every other day and there’s no drop in alk and I don’t dose so I’m not sure how it is happening. I do water changes every 2-3 weeks and it mixes around 8 so I add some buffer to bring it up to 8.5 so I don’t have a huge alk swing and try to bring the alk level down. Yet after I do a water change 1-2 of my LPS frags die off. They don’t bleach, they turn brown and die. Any SPS bleaches and dies. So I stopped doing water changes for a while and stuff still randomly died. I had 2 Maxspect Ethereals and measuring with a par meter the highest output was 250 at the top under the lights and 50-80 on the sand bed. I thought maybe the coral wasn’t getting enough light so I tried slowly increasing the light. Coral still dies, even faster. So I lowered the lights back down and things look better. I move on to my RODI water being the issue so I start buying water at a LFS. No difference. I got some aquaforest component 1,2,3 to try the balling method but I haven’t started because it will increase my Alk. What am I doing wrong??? Suggestions please- at this point I’ll try anything.

Second part of this is- Thinking the lights were part of the problem (the ethereals were old) I bought 2 of the Viparspectra black box LED’s and hung them over my tank at about 12” off the water. Now it looks like way too much light. So this is another question I have- My tank measures 40”x 23” x 20” deep. And one black box coverage is supposed to be 24”x24” so I’m wondering if I should just have one black box over my tank?

When I first started out in the hobby I had a 55g with 2 black box leds, didn’t dose and I could grow anything! So frustrating!!!!

 

[SPR1968]

A picture of your tank might be helpful and also a reading for the phosphate which can cause issues with corals if it’s to high

Have you tested the water from your LFS is 0 TDS RODI as that’s one of the basics and many LFS don’t produce particularly good quality water

 

[BAngieB]

I’ll take a picture and post it shortly. My home TDS on my RODI unit reads zero however I’m on a well and had to get a filter for extremely high iron content. Even after installing a whole home filter some iron is still showing up in my mixing station. Looks like rust colored stuff that I wipe off the sides of the trash can the water is stored in. As for the LFS water- TDS is zero for that as well.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Stop using buffer. It can raise your alkalinity. Still reading.......

 

[Scotty Buttons]

What kind of test kits are you using? Could be errors in those.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Okay, looks like some changes relatively soon back to back.

I would recommend not buying water from your LFS. You have no control over what their water quality is and how well they maintain their RO/DI units. If you have a RO/DI unit, maintain it and make sure your producing 0 TDS water.

Your lights at first were way under powered. Most SPS corals need at least 200-300 par. Most CBB's will provide more than enough PAR to grow SPS.
SPS that brown out usually indicates low light intensity, incorrect spectrum and or excessive N03 and P04. You need a P04 test kit.

On to your coral frag additions. Do you dip them for parasites?

 

[BAngieB]

I use geisemann and Red Sea test kits so I can compare test results. Phosphates were reading zero but I suspected phosphate was being absorbed by the green hair algae and not giving an accurate test result. Nitrates read zero for a while so I started over feeding and adding amino acids, coral food, etc to try and get some nitrates and still the test reads zero. I forgot to mention I would get a cyano outbreak after every water change. The reason I started using LFS water is only because of the rust colored junk that remained on the inside of the clean water trash can. I change filters and media on my RODI unit often so I didn’t know how the rust color stuff was remaining. I thought it may be the salt so I switched from Red Sea to AQuaForest and still got the rusty stuff.
I suspect the color spectrum in the ethereals was bad. I tried turning up the lights only to have my soft corals burn and LPS and SPS bleach. And I suspect the cyano may be a result of the color spectrum as well. I’m not sure though, I may be grasping at straws.

Oh and yes I dipped my corals. Only pest I have now that I know of are zoa eating nudibranchs (which are a PAIN to get rid of)

Maybe I am tinkering too much? I try not to make too many changes too quickly, I usually try to do them slowly

 

[Scotty Buttons]

Some salt mixes leave a "rust color" residue on mixing containers especially if you mix the water for days on end.

 

[MnFish1]

I use geisemann and Red Sea test kits so I can compare test results. Phosphates were reading zero but I suspected phosphate was being absorbed by the green hair algae and not giving an accurate test result. Nitrates read zero for a while so I started over feeding and adding amino acids, coral food, etc to try and get some nitrates and still the test reads zero. I forgot to mention I would get a cyano outbreak after every water change. The reason I started using LFS water is only because of the rust colored junk that remained on the inside of the clean water trash can. I change filters and media on my RODI unit often so I didn’t know how the rust color stuff was remaining. I thought it may be the salt so I switched from Red Sea to AQuaForest and still got the rusty stuff.
I suspect the color spectrum in the ethereals was bad. I tried turning up the lights only to have my soft corals burn and LPS and SPS bleach. And I suspect the cyano may be a result of the color spectrum as well. I’m not sure though, I may be grasping at straws.

Oh and yes I dipped my corals. Only pest I have now that I know of are zoa eating nudibranchs (which are a PAIN to get rid of)

Maybe I am tinkering too much? I try not to make too many changes too quickly, I usually try to do them slowly

Im not sure there is a huge difference between an alkalinity of 8.5 and 9.2 - I wouldn't worry about an alk of 9.2. I remember Randy Holmes Farley saying once that there is no way alkalinity can increase on its own - it will decline slowly - or more quickly depending on the amount of coral in your tank. If you're adding 'buffer' - you may be adding borate alkalinity - in addition to carbonate alkalinity. The test kits do not measure carbonate alkalinity - but total alkalinity - so its a little unclear (unless you have an alkalinity test kit that measures specifically carbonate alkalinity - you cant really be sure whether you have enough or too much.

 

[Captain Quint]

Stop using buffer. It can raise your alkalinity. Still reading.......

+1

 

[BAngieB]

I o

Im not sure there is a huge difference between an alkalinity of 8.5 and 9.2 - I wouldn't worry about an alk of 9.2. I remember Randy Holmes Farley saying once that there is no way alkalinity can increase on its own - it will decline slowly - or more quickly depending on the amount of coral in your tank. If you're adding 'buffer' - you may be adding borate alkalinity - in addition to carbonate alkalinity. The test kits do not measure carbonate alkalinity - but total alkalinity - so its a little unclear (unless you have an alkalinity test kit that measures specifically carbonate alkalinity - you cant really be sure whether you have enough or too much.

I used buffer only 1 time and that was so my freshly mixed water would be closer to the alk of my tank. Other than that I don’t use it. I don’t need to bc my Alk never drops. It’s weird

 

[BAngieB]

Some salt mixes leave a "rust color" residue on mixing containers especially if you mix the water for days on end.

That may be it...that makes me feel a little better

 

[BAngieB]

Here’s some pics. You can see that the softies, zoas and my hammers do great (although they are extremely slow growing.)
The other stuff not so much.

 

[MnFish1]

Here’s some pics. You can see that the softies, zoas and my hammers do great (although they are extremely slow growing.)
The other stuff not so much.

Nice tank. Are you sure your alk tests are accurate - each of them has a margin of error - are you sure you're not just reacting to a test thats not accurate?

 

[BAngieB]

Since my last reply I’ve been doing testing every other day on my tank and the results show that my Alk, magnesium and calcium are slowly rising without dosing or adding anything to the tank. I’ve used several different test kits to see if something is wrong with the test and I get the same results. I’m the time period of one week my Alk went from 8.0 to 8.4, calcium went from 425 to 480 and magnesium went from 1350 to 1470. How is this possible??? Can my RODI water be the culprit? How do you test alk in freshwater? If anyone has any ideas I’m all ears...I’m baffled at this point.

 

[MnFish1]

Since my last reply I’ve been doing testing every other day on my tank and the results show that my Alk, magnesium and calcium are slowly rising without dosing or adding anything to the tank. I’ve used several different test kits to see if something is wrong with the test and I get the same results. I’m the time period of one week my Alk went from 8.0 to 8.4, calcium went from 425 to 480 and magnesium went from 1350 to 1470. How is this possible??? Can my RODI water be the culprit? How do you test alk in freshwater? If anyone has any ideas I’m all ears...I’m baffled at this point.

The time of day you do the test will play a role - you can only compare tests done at the same time of day. There is no way your Mg can rise like that - its either a problem with the test itself - or the way you're doing the test. A difference in All of 8 to 8.4 is not significant. Which test are you using. If the stuff in your tank looks ok - perhaps you should stop testing for a bit.