SPS Keep STNing Need Help and Ideas

[aarbutina]

Hope it works out, if you tell a difference pretty fast then you can probably narrow it down to the TDS being off 0 with the water in the main tank.

I'm hoping it works out too. I am getting really sick of spending some much time (and money) trying to figure this one out. It also sucks to have livestock that just can't make it.

 

[aarbutina]

The couple of frags that I transferred over to the new tank appears to be responding well. As of yesterday evening frags that had been getting no polpy extension were starting to show their polyps again, which is a good thing. However for the DT that isn't such a good thing. I will probably do a series of water changes and see if that helps the frags that are still left in the tank.

On a side note would it be recommended to has a fish or two in the frag tank so there is some sort of biowaste for the corals. I know a lot of people use 6lines for pest control but I don't have any sand and there is not rock work for them to hide around. I have also head some people say that damsels are good for pests as well. A couple of large turbos should be able to handle any algae.

 

[BigJohnny]

The couple of frags that I transferred over to the new tank appears to be responding well. As of yesterday evening frags that had been getting no polpy extension were starting to show their polyps again, which is a good thing. However for the DT that isn't such a good thing. I will probably do a series of water changes and see if that helps the frags that are still left in the tank.

On a side note would it be recommended to has a fish or two in the frag tank so there is some sort of biowaste for the corals. I know a lot of people use 6lines for pest control but I don't have any sand and there is not rock work for them to hide around. I have also head some people say that damsels are good for pests as well. A couple of large turbos should be able to handle any algae.

Yes I would add a fish or two to the tank if properly cycled.

 

[aarbutina]

Frags in frag tank seem to be continuing there recovery. I probably should have been keeping a photo log to document. Fingers crossed.... hopefully the recovery will continue. Now I just have to crack the code on the DT.

 

[Ashish Patel]

It is certainly an interesting article. One major difference between what the author as well as Sanjay did to what I am doing is the use of dead rock. As previously mentioned I used live rock transferred from a previous tank that had sprung a leak. That being said I did use a good amount of dead sand so there could be a parallel.

Your tank maturity can't be compared to Mikes and Sanjay. They like me added 100% dry rock to avoid those pest and underestimated the importants of adding cured LR. After my cycle was over I decided to add 40LB of sponge covered LR because I knew this was vital to a thriving SPS Reef - Made a hugh difference and sponges are already growing in the sump.

If you can't pin point what is going on then just focus on maintaining your CA/Alk/Temp and do 30% water changes. Sometimes Acro's just die if you look at em funny

 

[RamsReef]

Your tank maturity can't be compared to Mikes and Sanjay. They like me added 100% dry rock to avoid those pest and underestimated the importants of adding cured LR. After my cycle was over I decided to add 40LB of sponge covered LR because I knew this was vital to a thriving SPS Reef - Made a hugh difference and sponges are already growing in the sump.

If you can't pin point what is going on then just focus on maintaining your CA/Alk/Temp and do 30% water changes. Sometimes Acro's just die if you look at em funny

BEEEN THERE :O

 

[Mattrg02]

For me, I bought premium cured LR from my LFS. I'm way too impatient to wait for all the curing.

Honestly, with what people spend on frags alone, I'm suprised they don't buy premium cured LR from their LFS.

I think I spent about $80 on the cured LR. I've probably spent ten times that on frags.

Never seen a cycle.

 

[ashr]

I had a very similar issue, you can check my threads. I zeroed it down to being lazy and not doing water changes, and also my TDS was 1 too.

Once I started doing weekly water changes, making sure my TDS is 0 (I added an extra carbon block and DI filter way worth the $50 to do that). Everything got sooo much better. I had the same problem with the corals looking great for 2 weeks then just stning from the tips (very slow too). All I did was do the water changes, keep everything as simple as possible and everything is doing great now. (knock on wood).

If I was you, I would do multiple water changes after you get your new filters. Like 20g every 4-5 days for a month and see how everything looks then. Make sure when you are doing the water change you are matching the alk (muritac acid will help lower it). Also I would try to get your phosphates off 0, just feed your fish more.

I feel like this is my issue. I am having the same issues and all my levels seem fine.. though my P04 is at 0.00 (hanna) I think I need to do more water changes and get my TDS rom 1 or 2 to 0 but having a card time.. already running 2 carbon blocks and resin. I have kept SPS for news but nothing but issues in my new home.

 

[Ashish Patel]

My TDS was 0 when i setup the RO/DI and remained at 0 Until I filled the tank and after 2 months its now at 2 TDS. I did not think much of it and figured id just wait until it hits 3-4 TDS before rotating the dual DI chamber. I have not seen any ill effect on the tank and this is why running carbon is a good insurance policy for such harsh unknown contaminants.

 

[Ashish Patel]

For me, I bought premium cured LR from my LFS. I'm way too impatient to wait for all the curing.

Honestly, with what people spend on frags alone, I'm suprised they don't buy premium cured LR from their LFS.

I think I spent about $80 on the cured LR. I've probably spent ten times that on frags.

Never seen a cycle.

Agreed! You can get away with only Dead rock for Softies and LPS but if your setting up for SPS you have to figure out a way to add some LR to the mix while avoiding pest. Cured rock you at least can see what has survived and avoid the pest as best you can.

I setup my tank with 100% 50LB of dry rock and after 1 month I added 40LB of cured LR from a fellow hobbyist = Best decision I made as my acros are encrusting and water is very stable.

 

[tutmatt3]

I've gone (going?) through the same STN regime. Tanks @ 8x months now. I kept targeting 1 thing at a time trying to figure it out. On top of that, my tank is sumpless.

I think the most impactful discoveries I've made so far were:
• Don't done anything directly into the tank. Everytime I did this, the next day I had some type of tissue recession. Anytime I've dosed it into my HOB filter, no issues next day
• Quality RODI. Found out my city uses chloromine. I always had 0-2ppm (when I catch it at 4 I would change DI), but was using a tiny RO buddie. Can't say 100%, but im pretttttty certain chloro got past it, especially 6x months into use. TDS alone couldn't tell me for certain
• Recently changed it out for a BRS 5 Stage, added a chloroplus stage before the carbon, and made the DI dual DI. Might be overkill, but now @ 7stages, I can say for certain if quality water did help. Doing water changes to swap out all the previous water for this pristine stuff

I also started with Dry rock, and one small mushroom live rock I got from a fellow reefer, so maybe 40lb dry, 3lb live. Could the dry rock be the cause of all my issues from the beginning? Not sure!
I have had coral encrust on it, acros & montis, so I want to say it is most likely not the dry rock, but of course it'll be too hard to tell!

Most acros that had STN are healing quite good. Maybe 50%+ recovered over the exposed surfaces. The ones struggling (but haven't gotten worse) are the ones covered with algae on exposed skeleton.

 

[Ashish Patel]

I know we are getting away from the topic at hand and the person who posted used actual LR. issue i have is everyone says use Dry rock to avoid pest and save cost, protect the environment etc. No one mentions its vital to the tanks growth and survival to seed with sponges and beneficial bacteria. - Frag plugs don't make the cut!!! I've setup many tanks and knew after 1 month that the tank was not the same as one that was started with some LR. I was lacking everything good about LR including sponges, fan worms, and varied bacterias...

Also, good heads up on testing the RO water for Chlormine!

 

[tutmatt3]

I know we are getting away from the topic at hand and the person who posted used actual LR. issue i have is everyone says use Dry rock to avoid pest and save cost, protect the environment etc. No one mentions its vital to the tanks growth and survival to seed with sponges and beneficial bacteria. - Frag plugs don't make the cut!!! I've setup many tanks and knew after 1 month that the tank was not the same as one that was started with some LR. I was lacking everything good about LR including sponges, fan worms, and varied bacterias...

Also, good heads up on testing the RO water for Chlormine!

Yeah. As a newb at the beginning of the year, it all made sense:
"stay away from pests, cheaper, environment, etc"

It all seemed too good to be true, and hey... there had to be something we were missing. I did seed w/ bottled bacteria (dr tims, bio-spira, waste away, etc)
Some sponges actually hitchhiked somehow, and I ended up 1000000s of them, but they're finally on their way to settling down. Added a bottle of tigger pods, and some bristle worms multipled like crazy, so the life is definitely starting to occur in the sand/rock - but as everyone is pointing out, this will tank a long long time before it becomes anything close to live rock

Not to mention that rough surface, just begging for algae to grow on it

I don't regret it, no. But def a learning lesson!

And yeah, chloromine can be annoying. Added in some PRIME (5ml for 50gallon water volume I believe if my memory serves me right), which should hopefully help with any currently in the tank

 

[aarbutina]

I know we are getting away from the topic at hand and the person who posted used actual LR. issue i have is everyone says use Dry rock to avoid pest and save cost, protect the environment etc. No one mentions its vital to the tanks growth and survival to seed with sponges and beneficial bacteria. - Frag plugs don't make the cut!!! I've setup many tanks and knew after 1 month that the tank was not the same as one that was started with some LR. I was lacking everything good about LR including sponges, fan worms, and varied bacterias...

Also, good heads up on testing the RO water for Chlormine!

No worries.... We can talk about LR vs DR. Its all fair game. Just because it may not be applicable to my situation doesn't mean it might not help the next person who is reading through this thread and is having the same issues.

What is really interesting is that there is no right way to do things, only the way that works best in your particular system. It can cause a lot of frustration some time to find what that right thing may be, but when you do things just work. So far in the thread we have people with High nutrients, we have people with low nutrients, we have live rock, we have dry rock, we have old tanks we have new tanks, we have ZERO TDS we have Above zero tds..... but everyone is finding a way to make things work.... and that is interesting.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Yes - Well said!

 

[Anthony_MC67]

Hi I am not sure if this has been mentioned already but when you say your lights are dialed down, what do they max out at? I recently went through the same issue. My ai hds are only 6 inches from my water line in a 30 inch deep tank and I was bleaching all of my sps corals and starting getting tissue recession in my LPS after I added t5s. I dialed them all the way down to 45% blues and now my corals look great. I also ran low nutrients with slightly high kh. The combo of low nutrients high kh and high low is no good.

Hi!! I have 4 T5 bulb hybrid with 2 AI Prime HDs. Tank is a 28" cube, with 24" height. Would you please help me set up my LED intensity. Not having a PAR is difficult at judging what is right. I am finding my self using tailored BRS LED setting with blues up in the 90s%. I am not getting any bleaching but my corals dont look as great as they should and growth is almost non existent.
All my water parameters are within acceptable ranges. NO 0.5, PH 0.01, Alk 8.5, CA 440

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Hi!! I have 4 T5 bulb hybrid with 2 AI Prime HDs. Tank is a 28" cube, with 24" height. Would you please help me set up my LED intensity. Not having a PAR is difficult at judging what is right. I am finding my self using tailored BRS LED setting with blues up in the 90s%. I am not getting any bleaching but my corals dont look as great as they should and growth is almost non existent.
All my water parameters are within acceptable ranges. NO 0.5, PH 0.01, Alk 8.5, CA 440

That doesn’t sound like much light. Those primes should be maxed out on the blues and UV and violet, reds and green around 10 and then the white should be adjusted to your color preference. It also sounds like your no3/po4 is too low. What are your export methods, how many fish and how much/many times are they fed??

On a side note
A 28” cube sounds awesome. Who makes it??