What the heck am I doing wrong with SPS?

[BOYERZ]

So you think more flow would make a difference? I would have thought 2400gph in a 75 would be enough. When I get the $$ I'll try another gyre.

I'm thinking less flow, hard to tell from the video.

 

[kdx7214]

I spent the first few months killing birdsnest left and right. They were definitely not indestructible in my hands that’s for sure.

I can’t tell you the one single thing that might be wrong unfortunately and it may a combination of a couple of things. Things turned around for me when I started carbon dosing and using bacteria as a food source for my corals and now I can definitely keep SPS including Acropora.

It’s hard to tell from the picture but is that bleaching or is it STN? Is the coral losing tissue or color?

Absolutely no idea. Could be bleaching or STN. To my uneducated eyes it looks like concrete on the surface of the coral. It's smooth and hard to the touch and I would think the bleached out coral would have bumps and/or holed.

 

[Manpeckz]

Under full LED blues and no whites you should certainly be seeing that fluorescent color you purchased it for within the first few hours.

Odd.

 

[kdx7214]

Are you able to keep any other corals?
I don’t see much of anything in the tank other than the gsp on the back wall and some macro.

Have you tried easier corals like soft corals or lps? Can you keep those alive?

I have some zoanthids doing well on the bottom left hand corner. It's a very small colony and where I placed it means it may not be able to spread. I have a gorgonian on the lower right side of the tank that has spread over the rock and has grown two new upright stalks(?).

I've not tried an LPS. I've worried that in a 75 there won't be enough room for the chemical warfare that they're known for as well as distance for the streamers(?) they send out. I'd try another soft coral but the only ones I can afford are brown, and I really want to avoid a dull brown looking tank. I was hoping to do a zoa garden, but even frags of the nice looking ones are $100+ in this area, and sometimes more online. I'm open to more softies, just have to find some that don't break the bank as well as aren't brown.

 

[Manpeckz]

A lot of lps dont have sweepers!

I have a branching frogspawn, a couple acans and chalices that do not have any.

 

[Lavey29]

I posted the last results of testing I did. PO4 is normal per @Randy Holmes-Farley from other threads. An alkalinity of 8.07 is too low? I wonder if part of the problem is that there are a hundred different ideas what it's supposed to be. I've always gone by Randy's threads because he seems to be fully educated in the area. That doesn't mean his numbers are right though.

I have no idea how much light is too little/much. I don't have access to a PAR meter. The LFS doesn't have one and the nearest one that might is 2+ hours away by car. BRS offers them, but I don't have the cash for the "deposit" required to get one.

If I can come up with the funds somewhere I'll get an ICP test, if I can figure out which ones give reliable data and have decent procedures. From what I've read on here there are a lot of them that may or may not be reliable.

Try the free photone app with your phone. It gives a good ballpark par figure for you at the water surface.

 

[kdx7214]

Under full LED blues and no whites you should certainly be seeing that fluorescent color you purchased it for within the first few hours.

Odd.

That's exactly what I thought. I was very careful when I got. I dipped it in Coral RX, and started it at the bottom of the tank and over the course of a few days I moved it back up.

This has to be something I'm doing wrong, I just can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

 

[MoshJosh]

I would definitely

I need to run them again. I usually do them on Sunday but ran out of the calcium reagent for my Hannah and am waiting for that to arrive.

I have no idea what munched this one. Previous ones have not been picked on at all, but still had the white area appear just before they died.

Current stocking is a bunch of various types of snails from a CUC package I bought. There are some hermit crabs included although I have no idea what types they are (again from the CUC package). Fish wise I have a firefish goby, lawnmower blenny, yellow sleeperhead goby, an unknown goby or blenny, and a yellow coris wrasse.

The gyre is set to directly flow onto the coral. In the past when I tried them I didn't have the gyre and had an older, much lower flow pump, with the same results.

I have watched a bi-color blenny eat polyps off montiporas, so I tend not to trust blennies. I believe bi-colors and lawnmowers are both combtooth so maybe he is the culprit. . . kind of a long shot but would still watch haha.

I get you on not ICP testing. . . I haven't done it either. . . that said, I do run carbon and metal removing media (the later only if something weird is going on and I want to cover my bases). I would definitely run carbon, and it wouldn't hurt to run something like cuprasorb if you truly believe everything else is on point. .

Just some initial thoughts.

I will agree with some of the other posts that your parameters aren't perfect, but I will concede that SPS corals can grow in tanks without perfect parameters.

 

[kdx7214]

A lot of lps dont have sweepers!

I have a branching frogspawn, a couple acans and chalices that do not have any.

I love the look of frogspawn. A friend had some he kept for years until it outgrew his 75. Acans and chalices are usually really expensive. If I can find some that aren't crazy I'll give them a try. I'm truly open to dang near anything at this point. I've tried to keep them for almost 30 years without success. If I had hair I'd have pulled it out by now lol

 

[kdx7214]

I would definitely

I have watched a bi-color blenny eat polyps off montiporas, so I tend not to trust blennies. I believe bi-colors and lawnmowers are both combtooth so maybe he is the culprit. . . kind of a long shot but would still watch haha.

I get you on not ICP testing. . . I haven't done it either. . . that said, I do run carbon and metal removing media (the later only if something weird is going on and I want to cover my bases). I would definitely run carbon, and it wouldn't hurt to run something like cuprasorb if you truly believe everything else is on point. .

Just some initial thoughts.

I will agree with some of the other posts that your parameters aren't perfect, but I will concede that SPS corals can grow in tanks without perfect parameters.

Which parameters do you consider off? I've found so many "right" parameters that I no longer have any idea. All of them seem to vary in what they recommend. I've normally gone by @Randy Holmes-Farley but when I check others (some youtubers, BRS, etc...) they all vary quite a lot in some areas.

I do not run carbon right now. I have some and a CO2 scrubber that I could easily repurpose for it though. I use RO/DI that is fed from a water softener for the water. I also run kalk in the ATO.

 

[MoshJosh]

I spent the first few months killing birdsnest left and right. They were definitely not indestructible in my hands that’s for sure.

I can’t tell you the one single thing that might be wrong unfortunately and it may a combination of a couple of things. Things turned around for me when I started carbon dosing and using bacteria as a food source for my corals and now I can definitely keep SPS including Acropora.

It’s hard to tell from the picture but is that bleaching or is it STN? Is the coral losing tissue or color?

I personally don't think birdsnests are as hardy as they get credit for haha I have killed a birdsnest sitting next to an acro that was doing fine.

 

[kdx7214]

I personally don't think birdsnests are as hardy as they get credit for haha I have killed a birdsnest sitting next to an acro that was doing fine.

Glad to know I wasn't the only one

 

[BOYERZ]

Stylo flow, this is on the low side of acceptable.

Not talking acropora.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I posted the last results of testing I did. PO4 is normal per @Randy Holmes-Farley from other threads. An alkalinity of 8.07 is too low? I wonder if part of the problem is that there are a hundred different ideas what it's supposed to be. I've always gone by Randy's threads because he seems to be fully educated in the area. That doesn't mean his numbers are right though.

I have no idea how much light is too little/much. I don't have access to a PAR meter. The LFS doesn't have one and the nearest one that might is 2+ hours away by car. BRS offers them, but I don't have the cash for the "deposit" required to get one.

If I can come up with the funds somewhere I'll get an ICP test, if I can figure out which ones give reliable data and have decent procedures. From what I've read on here there are a lot of them that may or may not be reliable.

Alk is at low end of scale. I meant to say, check these again but take a water sample to a store that does NOT use Api kits and have them test your ammonia and nitrates and compare readings- then you'll know where your levels truly are at

 

[GlassMunky]

I have some zoanthids doing well on the bottom left hand corner. It's a very small colony and where I placed it means it may not be able to spread. I have a gorgonian on the lower right side of the tank that has spread over the rock and has grown two new upright stalks(?).

I've not tried an LPS. I've worried that in a 75 there won't be enough room for the chemical warfare that they're known for as well as distance for the streamers(?) they send out. I'd try another soft coral but the only ones I can afford are brown, and I really want to avoid a dull brown looking tank. I was hoping to do a zoa garden, but even frags of the nice looking ones are $100+ in this area, and sometimes more online. I'm open to more softies, just have to find some that don't break the bank as well as aren't brown.

this is a little bit backwards. Soft corals are more known for chemical warfare, not LPS. Not all LPS have long sweepers either, some dont have any at all and arerent even aggressive like duncans (I love my duncans). others def can be tho like acan echinata or lobos.

But as a generality, SPS tend to be the most sensitive and hardest to keep happy (not always, but for sure most acros)
Id try and get some easier to keep corals that you like and see how they do over time before trying to jump right into the deep end so to speak.
These types of corals will also tend to be cheaper priced as well.

 

[kdx7214]

Try the free photone app with your phone. It gives a good ballpark par figure for you at the water surface.

I can't seem to get the app to show par, but it shows a DLI of 12.6.

 

[kdx7214]

Alk is at low end of scale. I meant to say, check these again but take a water sample to a store that does NOT use Api kits and have them test your ammonia and nitrates and compare readings- then you'll know where your levels truly are at

Thanks for the clarification. I run kalk in the ATO but apparently that's not doing enough. The LFS mostly sells plants with a few reef fish and coral frags and don't do any testing. I'm a good two hour drive from the nearest decent LFS though. I use Hannah checkers for everything, but had some API strips laying around and just compared them to see if things looked like they were in the right ballpark.

 

[GlassMunky]

I can't seem to get the app to show par, but it shows a DLI of 12.6.

if you are using the photone app on your phone swipe to the left/right in the middle of the square to change from PAR to DLI and back

 

[kdx7214]

this is a little bit backwards. Soft corals are more known for chemical warfare, not LPS. Not all LPS have long sweepers either, some dont have any at all and arerent even aggressive like duncans (I love my duncans). others def can be tho like acan echinata or lobos.

But as a generality, SPS tend to be the most sensitive and hardest to keep happy (not always, but for sure most acros)
Id try and get some easier to keep corals that you like and see how they do over time before trying to jump right into the deep end so to speak.
These types of corals will also tend to be cheaper priced as well.

I'm definitely fine with softies and LPS. My dream is to someday keep some goniopora, but with the failures at sps I didn't want try something that complex.

I'll look the next time I'm in St. Louis and see if they have any lps or softies that aren't brown. At this point I'm just going to assume that this coral will die too. dang it.

 

[BOYERZ]

You definitely don't need to be adding kalk right now.