Trouble getting nano tank to help corals grow

[waleedk]

Hey folks,

Really appreciate all the help in advance!

I have a Red Sea Max Nano that's about 4 months old (second saltwater tank after a previous pico reef). All water measurements seem good (more details below), but some of the corals are just not developing, or extending their polyps. Really looking out for what else it could be after I tried what I thought was the obvious things. Any thoughts on what I'm missing? Photos of some poor state candy cane and alveopora corals below.

Tank Setup:

• Red Sea Max Nano (20 gallon all-in-one) with ReefLED 50 light.
• Upgrades: ATO (Auto-Aqua Micro), Skimmer (Tunze Comline 9001).
• Mechanical filtration: filter sock.
• Biological filtration: 1/2 MarinePure Block, 2 quarts of MarinePure balls.
• Dry shelf rock (Stax).
• Bare bottom (no sand).

Lighting: ReefLED 50 at 40% power (Blue and white) for 8 hours, 10% for 2 hours. Maximum clouds. Don't want to cause too much brightness.

Flow: IceCap Gyre 1K running between -30% and +30%.

Water Measurements:

• Salinity: 34 using both Apex and Milwaukee refractive measurement.
• pH: varies between 8.1 and 8.2 depending on time of day based using Apex.
• Alkalinity: between 8.0 and 8.5 using Hanna HI772 checker.
• Calcium: 480 using Red Sea test kit.
• Magnesium: 1450 using Aquaforest test kit.
• Nitrate: between 3 and 5 using Nyos Test kit.
• Phosphate: 0.03 using Hanna Low range checker.

Supplements:

• Tropic Marin All For Reef 8 ml/day (dosed through ATO)
• Vibrant to keep algae at bay 2ml/week

Livestock:

• Fish: Clownfish, Six Line Wrasse, Royal Gramma, Sharknose Goby. Everyone gets along fine.
• Inverts: Cleaner Shrimp, 2 Emerald Crabs, 6 small hermits, 5 cerith, 5 trochus, 1 astarea, 1 tuxedo urchin.

Feeding:

• PE mysis shrimp frozen: 1/wk
• PE mysis pellets 2x a day (a pinch).
• Benepets twice a week targeted feeding of corals.
• Coralamino: 2 ml every day targeted feeding.

Corals and their state:

• Green Star Polyp: Growing great.
• Turbinaria: not dead, in good light but not doing great.
• Goniopora: Still purple, hasn't lost color, but no polyp extension whatsoever.
• Blastomussa: Doing OK, but not growing.
• Frogspawn: 5 heads now splitting into 8 heads, but still not a lot of polyp extension.
• CandyCane: good color on polyps but super small.
• Clove Polyp: Doing well.
• Plate Coral: doing well.
• Alveopora: losing polyp by polyp as the yellow of the poly disappears.
• Pulsing Xenia: not doing well.

 

[Tahoe61]

Did you start with dry rock?
The images of the candy cane and other problem corals did not post.
If you do not have an algae problem back off the vibrant and see.

 

[waleedk]

Tahoe,

Thank you very much for your reply! Sincerely appreciate it.

OK, will back off the vibrant. More photos of the problem corals here.

Yes, it was dry rock (stax).

My current hypotheses are that the water is "too clean" -- there's not enough nutrients in the water. Alternatively, there may not be sufficient phytoplankton in the water (and/or copepods) for the corals to consume. Other hypotheses I've considered are the lights are too bright (but ... 40% of a reefled), there's too much flow (but again ... 30% intermittent), but still nothing seems to explain this.

More top-down photos of problem corals below.

 

[Katrina71]

I'd raise nitrates to about 10

 

[waleedk]

Thank you, Katrina! That's a great suggestion. I'll feed more often .

Any thoughts on how to do it without risking an algae outbreak? I tried increasing the amount of coramino I dispensed (and switching off the skimmer for a while) and green film algae started appearing on the glass within 24 hours (vs before when it could go for 3 or 4 days before I'd have to scrape it down).

Would coramino be the way you'd increase the nitrates?

I just got done dealing with an algae outbreak three weeks ago

 

[Katrina71]

Algae will happen. It will go away. I'd personally use frozen food.

 

[Katrina71]

I'd just get more snails to combat the film algae.

 

[Flippers4pups]

From the looks of the corals, I would definitely reduce light intensity for a little while. 10%-20%

 

[Tahoe61]

You have a lot media for that tank. Might have over corrected in combating the initial ugly phases.
With the tank being 4 months old and the use of dry rock you can expect some hiccups.
My tank is 5 months, started with dry rock and the tank is just now settling down.

 

[Flippers4pups]

You have a lot media for that tank. Might have over corrected in combating the initial ugly phases.
With the tank being 4 months old and the use of dry rock you can expect some hiccups.
My tank is 5 months, started with dry rock and the tank is just now settling down.

Adding some established "live" rock can help with good bacterial strains. It's like a jump start for your tank.

 

[NanoDJS]

A redsea 50 has 40w of blue and 1 huge 10w white bulb . the same one in the redsea 90 which has 80w blue 10w white, so half the blue but all the white. equal % of blue white , would be like 10k on the 50 , I would run blue at 50 % and whites at 25% for 8 hours then all blue at 25% for the last few hours. that will give you more like 20k spectrum , also at 4 months a tank is barely able to keep coral from a dead rock start. WWC and a few recommend you dont even add coral till month 4 of a cycle and your water testing has been stable and consistant for a while . Those lights are awesome , I use the 90's on my DT . Also your nutes are way out of range. I run close to 1.0 po4, with 4 -5 no3, If you were running all wild red sea SPS or something you might need .03 thats just almost , try to get it upto at least .10 and switch up the lights , that white bulb never run over 25% ever on that size tank.

 

[waleedk]

Thanks for the great advice, everyone!

I'll be:

- Reducing the lights.
- Increasing feeding.
- Backing off Vibrant.
- Introducing some live rock.
- Waiting and just accepting this is how it will be for a while

Let me know if you folks have any other suggestions (copepods? phytoplankton?)

 

[nothingreefer]

how much stax did you use?

 

[waleedk]

About 15 pounds (I'm guessing here).

Just an update: I've done most of the things above and a few more (reduced lights, increased feeding, backing off vibrant, adding copepods, reduced temperature from 79 to 77) and I'm still not seeing progress. Things aren't getting worse, but they're not getting better either.

 

[Tahoe61]

Why the temp drop?
It takes weeks and longer to see improvement.

This is most definitely a patience game. One change at a time, wait for any results and wait some more.

Consider running the skimmer on a timer for six hours a day.

 

[brandon429]

if you want to copy something that works, check this out. Notice his tank is new, brand new. no time to develop mature bacterial or food web colonies

so why are his corals growing in three weeks

he will be at a full reef in the maximum speed allowed time, corals growing and absolutely not bleaching or failing to add mass
lemme know what you think he's doing, that hasn't been mentioned so far here

we havent really dealt in nitrate or phosphate measures either, notice that part

Cycling a new Biocube 32

It is looking gorgeous! So wish I had that bounce wow Yes hes very nice. Opened up right away when i introduced him. You wouldnt believe the price we got him for...

www.reef2reef.com

creative changeups you can do:

get an extended injector, like Julian Sprung's the thing injector. however much you feed your tank daily, instead of broadcast feeding like normal, use that injector while pumps are off/stilled to slowly spot feed every coral directly, see how thats better input than broadcast feeding


before you feed corals, put a tiny amnt in the water and wait 15 mins, this elicits feeding buildup.

be changing water more often, the key is paired feed/water change events, business, action, not sitting there with increased feed stewing. its high protein in, high out, active, you back off a few mos later when its regenerated.