PghReef
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2017
- Messages
- 930
- Reaction score
- 738
- Location
- Pittsburgh
- What state or country do you live in
- Pennsylvania
So I'm not sure what's going on with my tank. Absolutely nothing makes sense and it has me banging my head against a wall as I watch all the coral deteriorate. This is my second time setting up a SW reef tank and I dont remember having these issues last time. Had some corals I couldn't keep and it drove me nuts but never an overall tank decline.
Background, tank was set up with fully cycled dry rock about 10 months ago. Used kessil LEDs from day 1 and never had a nutrient spike since the rock was cycled in a tote for close to a year. Added fish and corals and everything did great and grew for 7 months. Minor setbacks with ich where I went fallow and had some algae uglies but nothing serious.
I've used RODI from day 1 and started with coralife salt but switched to liveaquaria salt when fosterandsmith closed. Did 5 to 10 gallon WC weekly or biweekly to reach about 50% monthly. Ive had ALK and CA dosers set up for the whole time the tanks been up and my levels have been fairly steady. My fish are healthy pigs and my million snails reproduce and grow with minimal losses. My pod population seems healthy and they crawl all over the sandbed and glass.
Now the problem. About a month ago I noticed corals kinda stopped growing and my birdsnest colony had dead tips. Everything continued to test good but nutrients had always tested 0 and 0. Figured they were starving so started reef roids and acropower. Immediately my encrusting monti started to look terrible with bleaching from the center out. Also had some more algae so decided to start the fluconazole treatment after reading 100 pages of the thread and decreased feeding. Within days my corals all looked worse and I thought maybe turning down the lights would help in case they were stressed. Road the treatment for 2 weeks even though things didnt look good trying to be hands off and let stuff work out. Couldn't take it anymore so added carbon back online and did a 30% WC. Kept the lights dimmer than originally set.Doesn't matter, no improvement. Now I've lost the 2 acros, all encrusting and digitata monti have no flesh left, stylos less PE and tissue recession, birdnest half dead with no PE, 1 frogspawn mostly dead with others looking ok but not great extention compared to before. My 2 oldest hammer frags seem ok but not great. My elegance coral, galaxea, psammocora, and mushrooms seem unaffected.
Doesnt make sense as my tank has been the most stable its ever been the past few months.
SG is 1.026-1.027
Ca 460-480 with red sea
Alk 8.6-9.6 with hanna checker
Mag around 1560 with red sea
Nitrates always 0
Phos 0 with the 713 checker, just got the 736 and its reading 16ppb.
Nothing I do helps or stops the decline. I have been unable to spot any pests day or night and dont see how 1 pest would affect so many species of sps and lps but leave my elegance and psamnicora alone. I feel like this is crossroads where I either grow and learn as a reefer or throw in the towel. Its tempting to tear down and start over with TBS liverock and hope for the best.
Background, tank was set up with fully cycled dry rock about 10 months ago. Used kessil LEDs from day 1 and never had a nutrient spike since the rock was cycled in a tote for close to a year. Added fish and corals and everything did great and grew for 7 months. Minor setbacks with ich where I went fallow and had some algae uglies but nothing serious.
I've used RODI from day 1 and started with coralife salt but switched to liveaquaria salt when fosterandsmith closed. Did 5 to 10 gallon WC weekly or biweekly to reach about 50% monthly. Ive had ALK and CA dosers set up for the whole time the tanks been up and my levels have been fairly steady. My fish are healthy pigs and my million snails reproduce and grow with minimal losses. My pod population seems healthy and they crawl all over the sandbed and glass.
Now the problem. About a month ago I noticed corals kinda stopped growing and my birdsnest colony had dead tips. Everything continued to test good but nutrients had always tested 0 and 0. Figured they were starving so started reef roids and acropower. Immediately my encrusting monti started to look terrible with bleaching from the center out. Also had some more algae so decided to start the fluconazole treatment after reading 100 pages of the thread and decreased feeding. Within days my corals all looked worse and I thought maybe turning down the lights would help in case they were stressed. Road the treatment for 2 weeks even though things didnt look good trying to be hands off and let stuff work out. Couldn't take it anymore so added carbon back online and did a 30% WC. Kept the lights dimmer than originally set.Doesn't matter, no improvement. Now I've lost the 2 acros, all encrusting and digitata monti have no flesh left, stylos less PE and tissue recession, birdnest half dead with no PE, 1 frogspawn mostly dead with others looking ok but not great extention compared to before. My 2 oldest hammer frags seem ok but not great. My elegance coral, galaxea, psammocora, and mushrooms seem unaffected.
Doesnt make sense as my tank has been the most stable its ever been the past few months.
SG is 1.026-1.027
Ca 460-480 with red sea
Alk 8.6-9.6 with hanna checker
Mag around 1560 with red sea
Nitrates always 0
Phos 0 with the 713 checker, just got the 736 and its reading 16ppb.
Nothing I do helps or stops the decline. I have been unable to spot any pests day or night and dont see how 1 pest would affect so many species of sps and lps but leave my elegance and psamnicora alone. I feel like this is crossroads where I either grow and learn as a reefer or throw in the towel. Its tempting to tear down and start over with TBS liverock and hope for the best.
