Newly purchased open brain dieng Help!

[Tab28]

It looks like you also have a naso tang. If that is 3 and naso and the maybe sailfin are both large tangs in a 125 gallon. You will have issues trying to keep nitrates low. It will be hard because of bio load.

It looks like you mostly have soft corals. They are a good coral for your setup. Generally they are more hardy than many LPS and SPS.

 

[mcarroll]

I agree with others that even pic #1 didn't look great, but that could have been old damage - you say he was healthy enough to bring home.

IMO it looks like he may have gotten sweepered by the meat coral in the night. Too close for comfort in my book. If you try one again, keep it away from the meat by 18" or more.

Either that or one of your fish beat up on him. Otherwise how'd the sand get on him? Any fish that bury themselves at night?

And on the tank's nutrient levels, I wouldn't try any more stony corals until you reliably keep nitrates <10 ppm.

It does seem like you may have too many (too big) fish in that tank, btw.

If you have no short term plans to upgrade, I would strongly consider selling/giving away your largest fish ASAP. There's no way a (e.g.) Naso is going to grow up happy and healthy in a tank that small that is that crowded anyway, and it will make a big difference in your nitrates.

Short of that, switch to a weekly water change schedule. Try to feed less, and less-often if you can. Cleaning the skimmer daily will help a little. Swirl your finger or something around in the sand bed to see if you have detritus in there. Flow looks to be on the weaker side, and this is likely to happen over time anyway. If so, big nitrate source - siphon out the whole bed over 4-5 water changes and improve flow to keep it from happening again.

GFO, carbon, denitrate pellets, et al are band aids. Unless you find a detritus issue, the problem is the quantity of nutrients going in, and that is anchored to the bio-load being too big.

I hope this helps!

-Matt

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

Thanks Matt. I have had those same nitrates even when I had my 55 setup with no skimmer so the skimmer has made no improvements. I believe they are inbeded in the rocks and I wished I had did the muric acid bath for my rocks while I was in the process of my upgrade. I have been over feeding because only one fish does not eat pellets. I have been contiplating on upgrading to a 210 but my back has been giving me a lot of trouble doing water changes so I have been trying to figure away to make water changes easier on me.All my fishes pick up sand when they are getting the food that is on the sand bed. But that spot was there on day one there when I put them in the tank.
I also clean the collection cup every third day or when I see it dirty.

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

What do you guys think about the Zeovit System since it was mentioned that Bio-Pellets, Di-Nitrating stuff, gfo reactors are just a band aid for the issues at hand?

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

My bad here...
I just found my card with my testing results from about 1-2 weeks ago here are the numbers:
Phos - .5
Salinity 1.025
Amno - 0
Ni - 0
Na - 10
Alk - 162 do not remember how to convert to dkh
Calc - 460

But I would still like to you your thoughts on the Zeovit system is that just another band aid to say in the round about way????

 

[Tab28]

Never did the zeo. The others are not really band aids. Phos and nitrates are always manufactured. Bio pellets are just a place for the natural organisms to live quantity. There is nothing band aid there. GFO rids phosphates. Phosphates, like nitrates on a continuous need to be removed. A de nitrater comes in two types. A sulfur and bio The difference is sulfur works much faster. Both these are kinda like bio balls or bio pellets in theory. The use a substance to grow organisms to collect and rid the nitrates. De nitraters are generally used until the nitrates are in check. Then regular water changes are all that is needed. Once the nitrates are exhausted from the aquarium there will not be enough to support the de nitrater organisms. This process is not much different than people who carbon dose. Just de nitraters work faster, mostly the sulfur.

GFO is for phosphates only. The other 2 take months to work since many tiny organisms need to grow to enough to eat/control to quaintly of nitrates manufactured by your tank on a daily basis.

 

[Tab28]

My bad here...
I just found my card with my testing results from about 1-2 weeks ago here are the numbers:
Phos - .5
Salinity 1.025
Amno - 0
Ni - 0
Na - 10
Alk - 162 do not remember how to convert to dkh
Calc - 460

But I would still like to you your thoughts on the Zeovit system is that just another band aid to say in the round about way????

Your alk is 9.072 which is ok. Just take the 162 and multiply by .056

 

[Tab28]

There is a huge difference between 10 and 40. You were sure last time at 40. API is not a very good test. I used the them years ago and found big difference in other more accurate tests, but not that large of difference. I mean toxic 40 or not bad 10 for nitrates.

It was mentioned the close proximity of the meat coral. How long did you have the open brain coral AKA tracy before you took the picture.

 

[benny z]

that coral wasn't healthy to begin with. i wouldn't use its perishing as a reason to take any drastic measures like completely revamping your system or suddenly switching to zeovit...especially being that your tank is soft coral dominant. there are plenty of very nice soft corals and i would stick to purchasing those if they are what is already thriving in your tank. some hardy lps like euphyllia, trumpet corals, and blastos might make a nice addition.

that said, i would revisit your fish stocking list and maybe make some adjustments - especially as those fish grow.

good luck!
ben

 

[Tab28]

that coral wasn't healthy to begin with. i wouldn't use its perishing as a reason to take any drastic measures like completely revamping your system or suddenly switching to zeovit...especially being that your tank is soft coral dominant. there are plenty of very nice soft corals and i would stick to purchasing those if they are what is already thriving in your tank. some hardy lps like euphyllia, trumpet corals, and blastos might make a nice addition.

that said, i would revisit your fish stocking list and maybe make some adjustments - especially as those fish grow.

good luck!
ben

I agree. You do not have a real problem with phosphate or if 10 nitrates are correct. You have a soft corals tank. With the fish size ratio to tank size a nitrate level of 10 means you must have a great skimmer doing overtime. But tangs, not so much the yellow will get too large for a 120 tank. You may want to invest in good test kits for yourself especially if you want to have some LPS corals.

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

I am going to get my water re-checked again tonight so I will update with the numbers later on tonight. The de-nitrate I am currently using is from Seachem I believe they look like little grey pebbles I have them in a mesh bag hanging in the sump.

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

Well I just came from the store and water test is very good if correct:
Salinity - 1.024
Ammo - 0
Ni - 0
Na - 5
Ph - 8
Alk - 8
The lady did not test Cal and phos she said with the numbers that I have they should be close to the same as my last reading.

 

[cginter]

Lots of fish = large bio load. You may want to look into building yourself and algae scrubber.

I myself have a 125 fish only with lots of fish. I had a problem with keeping my nitrates down as well. Could not keep it below 20 no matter what, and I'm using a reef octopus skimmer and doing 40g water changes monthly. I built myself algae scrubber and now my nitrates are always below 15. And my water changes were greatly reduced.

 

[glb]

I am going to get my water re-checked again tonight so I will update with the numbers later on tonight. The de-nitrate I am currently using is from Seachem I believe they look like little grey pebbles I have them in a mesh bag hanging in the sump.

I've used denitrate and also Seachem purigen. There's another product called Dr. G's nitrate remover that I've had in my tank, and I really like it.

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

Thanks guys for your input. On the side note here the mest corsl is doing well. Is there a link or thread on how to make an algae scrubber?

 

[gobeach]

Thanks Matt. I have had those same nitrates even when I had my 55 setup with no skimmer so the skimmer has made no improvements. I believe they are inbeded in the rocks and I wished I had did the muric acid bath for my rocks while I was in the process of my upgrade. I have been over feeding because only one fish does not eat pellets. I have been contiplating on upgrading to a 210 but my back has been giving me a lot of trouble doing water changes so I have been trying to figure away to make water changes easier on me.All my fishes pick up sand when they are getting the food that is on the sand bed. But that spot was there on day one there when I put them in the tank.
I also clean the collection cup every third day or when I see it dirty.

I've been able to avoid picking up buckets by using a pump to move water from my mixing container into the tank. It's helped my back out quite a bit.

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

Thanks gobeach.. I was looking at the Lagoona pond pumps to put in my mixing container. I need to find them locally so I can take a good look at them since I never got a repsonce from the email I sent to them.

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

What is the correct alk for LPS ???