Ready to throw in the towel

[Dilan Patel]

Can I ask the reason you do waterchanges. I know this sounds sort of weird ut I want to know your specific reason for doing waterchanges. Also what salt do you us. Do you do waterchanges for nutrient reduction or do you do it because people told you to or some other reason? If you run GFO and still have phosphates at .25 maybe somthing is leeching phosphates and other stuff into your water lets say your rock.

 

[Kial]

Ah ok awesome I'll take a look into getting the Triton done with them.
I do water changes just because I thought I'm meant to and to replace the stuff corals need?
I use blue treasure salt, not the best I know.

Right so this morning I've looked at my tang and it definitely has ich [emoji58]
This is obviously the problem with the fish.

I've only recently changed the media out my phos reactor but it doesn't seem to be bringing it down at all. I started with dry rock so possibly it's now leaving from there?

 

[Kial]

Ich or something else?

 

[Kial]

NEVER let coral kick you in the butt and research..research..research BEFORE you purchase. Take things slow also. Always temptation and impulse but take it slow- Worth the wait.

Please mention also your water flow/flow method, type of lighting and lighting schedule and if you feed/dose corals.

Lighting is on for 9 hours a day I think. Starts with blue and ends with blue.
I feed reef roids and dose a product called bio enhance.

Yeah not getting anything else for the task now

 

[Kial]

PO4 is high but that is not going to kill anything, just will grow nuisance algae. As others have said you will not grow corals with the lights you have and you don't have to send a fortune to get better lights. The dying fish may or may not be related to dying corals. I have had fish die on occasion for no explainable reason. I would replace the lights and not add anything until you see improvement in whatever corals you have left and just make sure the fish are eating good and not scratching. I lost 2 fish once to flukes, they looked fine but in retrospect I did notice one scratching against the glass on occasion. By the time I figure out the problem and put them into a fresh water dip to confirm they had flukes it was too late. I treated the tank with Prazipro and never had the problem again. Good Luck.

What is a decent cheap light for a 4ft tank?

 

[Kial]

Also I dont have a qt set up or have the stuff to treat ich yet. Would a fresh water dip be beneficial for the tang?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Also I dont have a qt set up or have the stuff to treat ich yet. Would a fresh water dip be beneficial for the tang?

I have had success with freshwater dipping

 

[Kial]

I have had success with freshwater dipping

Do you just put some rodi in a bucket and place the fish in for a few mins?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Same temp as in tank with RO for 2-5 minutes or when fish appears uncomfortable in fresh and return it to tank.

 

[Kial]

Same temp as in tank with RO for 2-5 minutes or when fish appears uncomfortable in fresh and return it to tank.

Ok thanks will give that a go

 

[ThunderGoose]

I feel your pain. I've been in the hobby about a year and a half now and I'm struggling, too. I can't keep corals alive and I have every type of nuisance algae. It's nice to hear that I'm not alone in this. I have the strange situation where I have no problems with keeping fish and the only problem I have with invertebrates is a hitchhiking mantis shrimp that I haven't captured yet. Next week I'm setting up a temporary tank to hold her until I either decide to keep her or re-home her.

I watched a LOT of @BRS videos and read a lot of R2R threads and came up with a plan for my tank. I'm making some changes which will probably tick off the corals I do have but will hopefully end up with a better result. Fingers crossed and good luck with yours.

 

[Kial]

I feel your pain. I've been in the hobby about a year and a half now and I'm struggling, too. I can't keep corals alive and I have every type of nuisance algae. It's nice to hear that I'm not alone in this. I have the strange situation where I have no problems with keeping fish and the only problem I have with invertebrates is a hitchhiking mantis shrimp that I haven't captured yet. Next week I'm setting up a temporary tank to hold her until I either decide to keep her or re-home her.

I watched a LOT of @BRS videos and read a lot of R2R threads and came up with a plan for my tank. I'm making some changes which will probably **** off the corals I do have but will hopefully end up with a better result. Fingers crossed and good luck with yours.

Good luck with yours to mate. Just seems to cost money to sort stuff out aha and money is tight at the moment

 

[Marie7]

I believe one of the problems you have is exactly your light.. I will consider change it for something different where you can set up between day light and moon light I did mine and my corals are multiplying like crazy and spreading...

 

[Kial]

I believe one of the problems you have is exactly your light.. I will consider change it for something different where you can set up between day light and moon light I did mine and my corals are multiplying like crazy and spreading...

I've got my lights in times so blue is on first, then whites come on and near the end just blues. Is this what you mean?

 

[ZoWhat]

Not sure why we see 2-3 times a month a "I'm giving up" thread. What are all of us suppose to do? Beg you to stay in the hobby?

This post is a good thread. Not my intention to slam the OP. Lots of good convo and information.....

Heres a good example,
I don't play golf as a hobby bc its
1) the hardest, most frustrating sport out there,
2) expensive as all get out,
3) very time consuming bc to be any good, you need to play a few times a week.

But I don't go out of Golfing Forums to announce I played my "once a year round of golf" and I'm quitting until next year.

Note to OP: reading in btwn the lines you don't have above avg lighting, using subpar drymix salt, but are wanting showroom-quality results. I feel everyone has put th hrir 2cents in that if you want showroom-quality you're gonna have to open your wallet. Me personally, I spend roughly $1500 a year just to maintain my 180g....btwn equip failures, buying top end salt....etc etc

 

[Kial]

Not sure why we see 2-3 times a month a "I'm giving up" thread.

What are all of us suppose to do? Beg you to stay in the hobby?

For example, I don't play golf bc its 1) the hardest sport to be good at, 2) expensive as all get out, 3) very time consuming bc to be any good you need to play a few times a week. But I don't go out of Golfing Forums to announce I played my "once a year round of golf" and I'm quitting until next year.


Note to OP: reading in btwn the lines you don't have above avg lighting, using subpar drymux salt, but are wanting showroom results. I feel everyone has put th hrir 2cents in that if you want showroom quality you're gonna have to open your wallet. Me personally, I spend roughly $1500 a year just to maintain my 180g....btwn equip failures, buying top end salt....etc etc

Most definitely not looking for people to beg me to stay in the hobby and not expecting showroom results on my budget [emoji23] Just some advice on how I can keep what I have healthy that's all.
Which I've been given so hopefully I'm able to sort it

 

[ZoWhat]

That's awesome then! The forum worked for you with some solid advice.

Sweet!

 

[Dilan Patel]

I recommend SBreeflights. Very budget friendly and will def get the job done for any corals in the future. If it was me I would switch to a more known brand such as instant ocean and not very expensive for 200 gallon mix which is under 50$ in U.S. Also I would recommend taking the fish to the LFS as from what I can see your tank is not necessarily big enough for the blue tang to stay healthy. I know it is hard to get rid of a fish that you care for. But you have to think of it in the fish best interest. If you do decide to take him back let us know the current stocking situation fish and coral and inverts. In my personal experience I do not do waterchanges and have yet to do one for a good amount of years even in my reef setup. I believe it messes with my tanks balance so may I reccomend stopping waterchanges for a month or so keep an eye on alk and calc and dose something if it falls to low like a dry alk powder and the same for calc. This and the light upgrade to some chinese black box and getting rid of the blue tang I would think would increase your success in this hobby

 

[Retro Reefer]

I have had a couple tanks that took 2-3 years to really mature and stabilize, every tank is different but your tank still looks like it has some aging to do..

One of my 2 current tanks went through a 1 year ugly stage starting at around the one year mark, really bad cyano outbreak and hair algae everywhere.. I added a larger clean up crew and basically road it out, at the 2 year mark the tank is spotless with just about zero effort or maintenance beyond filling my ATO and feeding the fish..

I also agree with others your lighting is not sufficient for coral health but wouldn’t be the reason for fish loss..

Check every magnet in your tank for rust, I had a problem recently where my thriving reef went down hill fast.. multiple water changes and replacement of all media made no difference, I was starting to see color changes and skeletal protrusions from stony corals. I went through every inch of my system and found a rusty magnet! Pulled it, did big water change and added a poly filter.. 2 days later the tank looked completely back to normal like nothing had happened.

 

[mattgsa]

I'm sorry for your losses, I know that can be very disheartening. As for lights I would recommend ocean revive t247. They can grow anything you put in the tank. I recommend going to their site and chatting with the rep, ask for the discount. I got two for 250, with free shipping.