I have a 54 gallon tank with about 60 lbs of live rock. I use a canister filter (with only live rock in it), a wave maker and an in tank skimmer (tiny little thing). I have 5 fish, Halloween crab, cleaner shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp (I haven't seen them in a few weeks), BTA and a cuc. Tank has been running for almost 2 years (but all live rock was taken from an existing system if that matters). I dose about a teaspoon of reef builder a week (and at water changes) and feed the tank a teaspoon of reef roids weekly. Fish feeding is a bit heavy but not ridiculous.
For coral, I have only zoas and mushrooms which until recently have been growing like crazy. I think my tank is a bit dirty but will admit I'm not great at testing on a regular basis. Recently one of my zoas (probably 40 heads) closed up. Everything else seems to be thriving...I even have a few new frags sitting on the sand which seem to be good-small but open most of the time (they've only been in the tank for a week). The closed zoa is bordered by another zoa (which I've read can be a problem)
Unfortunately I made a few changes to the tank all at once so I am not 100% sure what has caused this zoa to close up. The changes I made around the same time are:
-added 6 blue leg hermit crabs
-removed some live rock which changed the flow over said zoas-about 4 days ago I put a rock to reduce the water flow over the zoa (which makes the flow closer to the way it was previously.
-removed foam around the wavemaker (which I added due to the addition of the BTA about 6 weeks ago). I feel the wavemaker is at the same setting as it was prior to the foam and still moves as much water as it did with the foam as I turned it up when the foam was on.
I did a 10% water change two nights ago and a few of the zoas in question opened. I use Fritz RPM (blue) for salt.
So, I assumed that over time, my tank used up one type of mineral or such and that I needed to dose something. I did a lot of reading and I feel like my research says that zoa tanks don't need dosing (and I am dosing the reef buffer).
Any insight R2R? I appreciate any help you can offer.
For coral, I have only zoas and mushrooms which until recently have been growing like crazy. I think my tank is a bit dirty but will admit I'm not great at testing on a regular basis. Recently one of my zoas (probably 40 heads) closed up. Everything else seems to be thriving...I even have a few new frags sitting on the sand which seem to be good-small but open most of the time (they've only been in the tank for a week). The closed zoa is bordered by another zoa (which I've read can be a problem)
Unfortunately I made a few changes to the tank all at once so I am not 100% sure what has caused this zoa to close up. The changes I made around the same time are:
-added 6 blue leg hermit crabs
-removed some live rock which changed the flow over said zoas-about 4 days ago I put a rock to reduce the water flow over the zoa (which makes the flow closer to the way it was previously.
-removed foam around the wavemaker (which I added due to the addition of the BTA about 6 weeks ago). I feel the wavemaker is at the same setting as it was prior to the foam and still moves as much water as it did with the foam as I turned it up when the foam was on.
I did a 10% water change two nights ago and a few of the zoas in question opened. I use Fritz RPM (blue) for salt.
So, I assumed that over time, my tank used up one type of mineral or such and that I needed to dose something. I did a lot of reading and I feel like my research says that zoa tanks don't need dosing (and I am dosing the reef buffer).
Any insight R2R? I appreciate any help you can offer.
