Thinking about a reboot.

[topjimmy]

Greetings all. I am considering a reboot of my 65. The reason? Every most sps that I put in the tank , except for a couple montipora, never encrust , little if any growth, slowly fade in color, stn , and then die. The process takes a few months. I have never noticed any pests on them.

Tank parameters
In it's current setup for 10 plus years.
65 g display with a trigger emerald 26 middle section full of chaeto and some siporax lit opposite of display witha UFOled grow light.
CS 5 skimmer set to skim medium wet.
Couple inches of sand on the bottom depending on where the gobies feel like putting it.
Internal flow is two mp10 one on the side one on the back, and a gyre 130 all are turned up to almost max.
Return pumpis a mag 7
Lights are a single 250w Hamilton 15k with two blue plus t5 . T5 on for about 10 hours mh about 8. 10 inches above the water.
77- 78 degrees

Fish
Two clowns
Comb tooth blenny
Pink spot goby
High fin goby
Melanurus wrasse
Flasher wrasse
Pygmy flame back Angel
Feed once or twice a day with nsl pellets.
Chemistry
pH last time I bothered to check 8.3
ALK 7.8
Calcium 450
Magnesium 1400
NO3 barely detectable maybe 2-5
Phosphate .03

All make up water is RO then dual di canisters tds is 0 out the di. Sits in a brute can and is added by peristaltic pump whenmy reef Angel detects a drop-off in level.
Supplement is Randy / Jim Welsh's diy two part . Dosing is done by a ghl 2 spread out over the day and spaced apart from each other.

I have been doing a 5 gallon water change every week. Salt is Drs F&S , used to use IO.

Fish and inverts do fine, bubbletip for the clows healthy. Zoa's grow great. Couple chalice corals and a favia do ok, not super fast growth but not unhealthy. Montipora caps and digitata do ok also.

No algae or cyano in the display. Coralline algae grows like crazy. Little film on glass , once a week cleaning is fine.

what the heck am I doing wrong.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

You may need to do a ICP test to see if anything you don't normally test for is out of whack. Your alk is a little low though, I've found that anything below 8 tends to seriously slow the growth of my SPS corals. It may also be a good idea to remove a good amount of the coraline algae so the competition for resources (minerals in the water, alk, calcium, mag, etc.) can swing more in favor of the SPS corals.

Also, when was the last time you changed your bulbs?

 

[DarkSky]

Flow might be a tad low with only an MP10 and a XF130?

Maybe take a water sample to your LFS and have them test your PO4/NO3 to make sure your test kits are accurate. If they're fading away and dying, it sounds like they're starving.

 

[topjimmy]

You may need to do a ICP test to see if anything you don't normally test for is out of whack. Your alk is a little low though, I've found that anything below 8 tends to seriously slow the growth of my SPS corals. It may also be a good idea to remove a good amount of the coraline algae so the competition for resources (minerals in the water, alk, calcium, mag, etc.) can swing more in favor of the SPS corals.

Also, when was the last time you changed your bulbs?

ATI test

http://lab.atiaquaristik.com/publicAnalysis/9970

 

[topjimmy]

Flow might be a tad low with only an MP10 and a XF130?

Maybe take a water sample to your LFS and have them test your PO4/NO3 to make sure your test kits are accurate. If they're fading away and dying, it sounds like they're starving.

Two mp10 one gyre bulbs are 6 months old

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

#reefsquad, any thoughts?

 

[reeferfoxx]

How is salinity measured and maybe the flame back angel is eating coral?

 

[reeferfoxx]

Nevermind, just saw the icp test. Seems this tank should be growing sps just fine. I would look at the angel fish and possibly stray voltage in the water.

 

[Anirban]

With your test result and write up it seems everything is fine. How old is the tank and how you measure your NO3 and PO4? You have chaeto and siporax both so do you dose carbon or any other bacteria product? How is your chaeto growth?

 

[topjimmy]

With your test result and write up it seems everything is fine. How old is the tank and how you measure your NO3 and PO4? You have chaeto and siporax both so do you dose carbon or any other bacteria product? How is your chaeto growth?

Salinity is measured with a Milwaukee salinity meter recalibrated every time with RO/di. All other tests are salifert and backed up with Hannah checkers.

I haven't seen the angel picking at anything and nothing looks like it was bitten. I used to dose carbon but haven't in months. Chaeto grows like mad , I tried the tunze bacterial addition thinking maybe I have some sort of vibrio or something. Didn't seem to make a difference.

 

[Anirban]

Salinity is measured with a Milwaukee salinity meter recalibrated every time with RO/di. All other tests are salifert and backed up with Hannah checkers.

I haven't seen the angel picking at anything and nothing looks like it was bitten. I used to dose carbon but haven't in months. Chaeto grows like mad , I tried the tunze bacterial addition thinking maybe I have some sort of vibrio or something. Didn't seem to make a difference.

My only guess will be too low nutrient with MH lighting is creating all the mess. I will suggest to take out the siporax and observe how the system reacts.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Verify salinity with a sample to compare with at your local shop.
Also are you feeding them? ( best to feed at night).
Lights: How bright are your lights. I have mine high on blue(s) and low to moderate flow and they are doing best under this lighting
Did you dip them when placed in tank? ( Look for any unusual creatures when lights go out.( Takes one nudibranch, etc to disrupt the whole plan)

 

[Big E]

Cut the photo period down to 4 hour MH and 7-8 hours T5 for now.

After you reduce your photo period you may want to try to put a few tester frags near the bottom of the tank and see what they do. If they brown out or stay dark that will be a good sign that previously you were causing photo inhibition.

Your nutrient numbers read ok on test kits but your fish load is low..............smallish fish and not big eaters. You aren't really putting a lot of food into the system daily to create a high level of nutrients cycling through the system. Try feeding frozen foods that are messier and will leave clouds and smaller particles. Pellets aren't going to do that.

I feed a lot of mysis, ocean plankton, and frozen foods like scallops, shrimp, and clams that I freeze and chop up.

If a few tester frags start to follow the same fade out, I would pull the chaeto and see how your tank responds without it.

 

[Yas]

This may be nothing to do with your system, but where your tank is located at? Mine is in a very bright living room facing south. I had to adjust my lighting much lower than others, plus had to cover the tank with some sheets during night so that I can limit the photo period. I had long been struggling not knowing my problem had been extremely long light period and extra light intensity due to natural light coming in from the window, but once I started covering the tank and moderately reduced my lighting, it's been pretty stable. That was my solution for fading color and STN.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Can you try and catch the angelfish and put him in the sump for a few weeks. Put a tester coral or a couple and watch. Evrything else seems fine. May need to add some more fish wish will help with feeding the corals. Like someone has mentioned drop the photoperiod. Also make sure you hae your flow in different patterns! everything else seems ready for coral. I believe a reboot is unnecessary.

 

[Scorpius]

You are ONLY supposed to calibrate your Milwaukee Refractometer with DISTILLED WATER. I bet your salinity is off.

 

[topjimmy]

You are ONLY supposed to calibrate your Milwaukee Refractometer with DISTILLED WATER. I bet your salinity is off.

Just calibrated with the supplied distilled. The reference solution shows 1.027 though it is supposed to be 1.025. Tank tests at 1.025. so either the reference sample is wrong or the meter read it high.

The tank is in the basement so I don't think outside light is much of a concern , though there's a lot of natural light from glass block windows it's pretty diffused.

I am going to try the mh limited to 4 hours. I never have tested par I just didn't think that the single mh would be too much.

I'm all for some more fish too. Any suggestions? More wrasses? I thought about a tomini tang but the 65 might be too small.