Tank consultation

[tptguy]

Hi everyone,

Hoping to get some help from the good folks here. My tank has been up and running for over two years, and I am still struggling with keeping coral. Some things do fine in my tank, like pulsing Xenia and mushrooms, while other things like any LPS do not. I’ve done basically everything imaginable, including icp testing to ensure my water parameters are acceptable and getting a trident and dos to keep them extremely stable. I believe my lights are adequate but have not done par testing.

I really think it could be something stupid that I’m just not noticing, like poor flow as I’m often battling cyano and detritus. I will share my tank parameters below, but I was wondering if anyone offers something more in depth like a consultation over video chat. I can also take some pictures and post if that would help. Happy to be as detailed as needed about my set up if it means I can keep coral healthy and happy.

Tank size: 125g, 6ft long
Nitrate: 12
phosphate: .07
Alk: 8.58
Calc: 470
Mag: 1501 (much higher than usual, but had this problem when it was in normal range)
Temp: 78.1 - 79 today
Ph: 8.15-8.25 today
Salinity: 35.1 on apex

The only anomaly on my first and only icp was slightly elevated Si so I added two more stages of RODI to eliminate per suggestion of BRS.

My sump has filter socks which I change every few days, protein skimmer is a reef octopus (150 I think), and my refugium never grew chaeto so I switched to an algae reactor which has been successful. Lighting is 3 hydra 26’s running the recently published BRS spectrum for softie/LPS.

I don’t change things up often, and have only changed light spectrum a couple times in 2 years. For flow I have 2 gyres running at 40%, and two koralia 3rd gens at the back pointing up for more surface agitation. I really think flow is the problem so recently moved the gyres down a couple of inches. When I put my hand near the coral, I barely felt flow so maybe that was it all along.

Happy to add more detail or pay for consultation service. Thank you for any and all help.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Sorry to read about your issues with corals.

Your water parameters look pretty good. You think your light is good, but you haven't tested the PAR. And you didn't mention what fixture it is that you are using or what power/intensity levels you are running them at... or for how long.

I doubt that flow is your real issue. Tell us about your lighting and what kind of corals you have been having troubles with. And is it just slow growth or are they dying on you?

 

[tptguy]

Good morning, and thanks for the reply. I have 3 AI Hydra 26's running the attached spectrum. They ramp from 8-9am, full intensity from 9-5, ramp down 5-6pm. LPS in general last a couple weeks, shrivel and die. For example, hammers will shrivel then eject their head. The rest have their flesh recede and eventually die. It’s depressing and I hate doing that to coral, they deserve better.

 

[SPR1968]

i have 4 hydra 26’s in my Red Sea S650 and below are the settings I’ve used for over 4 years other than I go ‘blue’ in the evenings. There are the recommended reef spec settings from Red Sea

You will see there considerably more intense than your levels especially the white.

 

[tptguy]

And that isn't too much light for LPS, even with 4 Hydras? My rock goes maybe halfway up the tank and I was hoping to put LPS on top. I see you have LPS up high in the 2000L thread you've posted. Your tank looks amazing

 

[Ron Reefman]

I read your reply and was going to recommend almost exactly what Shawn said in his post!

 

[Bosreef]

2 years and not aable to keep any coral besides xenia... its not the light...
Its something I don't know what but I wish you luck.

But even with the wrong light the corals will still survive they will not thrive and grown but they won't die....

I wish you luck in your quest

 

[tptguy]

2 years and not aable to keep any coral besides xenia... its not the light...
Its something I don't know what but I wish you luck.

But even with the wrong light the corals will still survive they will not thrive and grown but they won't die....

I wish you luck in your quest

Sorry I should say mushrooms, xenia, toadstool leather are all ok, plus a long tentacle anemone

 

[Ron Reefman]

None of your tests showed any heavy metals or other potential toxins?

 

[tptguy]

None of your tests showed any heavy metals or other potential toxins?

Other than slightly elevated Si, Bromine and Lithium were a little low. That's it. I figured I must have heavy metals too

 

[GabeM]

How do the corals die when they do? Are thy bleaching or receding? Do you see polyp bail out? Do they stay closed until they die?

 

[Bosreef]

Sorry I should say mushrooms, xenia, toadstool leather are all ok, plus a long tentacle anemone

Even sooo...
This is not a light problem IMO
Any mgnets in tank that have busted open? Any chemicals you are using consistently in the house... windows open??? Um salitly prob calibrated?
You really won't be able to feel flow with your hand all that good you wanna see you flow pump some air in to your power heads (litterly blow bubbles with a tube if you have nothing else...)

Take some pics video of your tank in detail dont need to narrate just shoot it in detail sometimes things stick out to us.

 

[SPR1968]

And that isn't too much light for LPS, even with 4 Hydras? My rock goes maybe halfway up the tank and I was hoping to put LPS on top. I see you have LPS up high in the 2000L thread you've posted. Your tank looks amazing

Thank you, that system has Radion G4 XR30 Pros in that are run at 90% power most of the daylight hours schedule but with cloud effects to provide some relieve to the corals.

If you look at the S650 pictures thats a full blown mixed reef, probably only a bit bigger than yours, and no, the lights are not to much, the corals grow like weeds on those settings. There what Red Sea recommend or at least used to. Notice no green or red because they believed it encourages algae growth.

The 2000l system has some LPS at the top but mainly SPS and this is a new tank, but all these corals love the light and are growing very well

If you do change maybe increase the levels over a week or so to acclimatise your corals, but your levels are quiet low in my opinion especially the white.

Your other parameters look fine other than maybe slightly raised magnesium and calcium but there still ok so I wouldn’t worry about those to much.

As far as flow is concerned maybe get that increased as much as you can, it can make a big difference, but I still think your lights are very low

 

[tptguy]

 

[SPR1968]

Having seen those pictures and in particular the brown patches I would consider seriously increasing the flow to see if you can get rid of that. It might be worth taking some close up shots of those patches so we can have a closer look

They look a little like the start of dino’s especially if they have bubbles starting to form but it’s not clear from the pictures and could also just be simply diatoms.

 

[tptguy]

Hopefully this is a decent shot of the sand. The bubbles are in the cyano. Cyano comes and goes, I’ve used chemiclean in the past but I’m trying to avoid doing that as much as possible. I will usually brush off and remove cyano, syphon sand during water changes etc but I didn’t want to hide problems for this thread. I recently got some frags which are on the rack, and the sand that is shadowed is not brown, if that helps.

 

[tptguy]

As far as CuC I just have a few hermit crabs, turbo snails and trochus snails. Probably not enough for a 125g

 

[KJones90s]

I would definitely up the flow on those gyres.
I have them running at 60% in a 4x2x2 and am still a little concerned there’s not enough flow.
That tank looks pretty long, crank those babies up and push some stuff around!

 

[tptguy]

I would definitely up the flow on those gyres.
I have them running at 60% in a 4x2x2 and am still a little concerned there’s not enough flow.
That tank looks pretty long, crank those babies up and push some stuff around!

I always thought too much flow was bad for LPS and thought that’s why my hammers died. I wasn’t worried about SPS, I just really like hammers and was more designing to have a bunch of those

 

[Gernader]

As far as CuC I just have a few hermit crabs, turbo snails and trochus snails. Probably not enough for a 125g

I would recommend to increase more flow and definitely increase your clean up crew! I have about 105 snails (half of them are tiny and some big ones) in a 75g. As long you have enough algae for CUC to eat, then you can add some more.