150 Gallon Sps Tank Struggling HELP!

[parkavenuereef]

Hi, I have been battling with this tank for four years now. Here are my water specs to start off with:

Salinity - 1.027
temp - 78
Calcium 560ppm <---- will not go down at all not dosing either
Alk - 10.5-11Dkh
mag - 1500
nitrates - varies 20ppm-50ppm on any given day also will not drop
po4 - 0 ( undetectable )
ph- 8.2-8.3

I run a titanium grounding rod just as a precaution.


Here is the issue, this tank just will not come to life. Was fully stocked with LR, then I changed to minimalistic look about a year ago hoping to have better flow around rock and also more room for fish to swim. The tank seems to constantly go into a cycle mode with algae spikes and now red slime. plenty of water changes, addition of natural sea water as a preventative. does absolutely no change. LR gets covered in Red slime, sps have died off mostly, my moonshine chalice is great however, clams fine, lps totally fine.

coraline was growing, now totally stopped. just seems like a constant cycle..

I am thinking something is wrong with sand bed. would it be worth removing it and starting over?

what effects would a foul sand bed have on a 150Gallon tank?

 

[Flagswipe]

There is no easy answer to this.
From first hand experience I can tell you that it is a waiting game. I too tore down my sps tank. Had to get a nasty pair of fish out. Turns out I should have left him in there !

Have battled Cyano, nasty snot type of bacteria that was an absolute disaster then the real battle with Hair algae and some other kind of more coarse stuff as well.

Manual removal, manual removal then Peroxide treatments have worked for me. I am winning the battle at the moment but one never knows when it will come back

I have been at this weekly for approx two months. Just now starting to see a little bit of promise. Lost many colonies but now frags are growing again and retaining colour.

Wish I had better advice but this is what worked for me. Lesson learned, leave things alone !

Dwayne

 

[M007]

Hi, I have been battling with this tank for four years now. Here are my water specs to start off with:

Salinity - 1.027
temp - 78
Calcium 560ppm <---- will not go down at all not dosing either
Alk - 10.5-11Dkh
mag - 1500
nitrates - varies 20ppm-50ppm on any given day also will not drop
po4 - 0 ( undetectable )
ph- 8.2-8.3

I run a titanium grounding rod just as a precaution.


Here is the issue, this tank just will not come to life. Was fully stocked with LR, then I changed to minimalistic look about a year ago hoping to have better flow around rock and also more room for fish to swim. The tank seems to constantly go into a cycle mode with algae spikes and now red slime. plenty of water changes, addition of natural sea water as a preventative. does absolutely no change. LR gets covered in Red slime, sps have died off mostly, my moonshine chalice is great however, clams fine, lps totally fine.

coraline was growing, now totally stopped. just seems like a constant cycle..

I am thinking something is wrong with sand bed. would it be worth removing it and starting over?

what effects would a foul sand bed have on a 150Gallon tank?

Those perams need to be fixed before you try anymore SPS. If you suspect your sand bed is off, cut you losses, and pull it out. Just have plenty of aged new mix on hand as pulling a 5 year old sand bed will turn your tank into a sewer.

 

[DopeCantWin]

I had some similar parameters. That calcium needs to go down manually. Waterchange the hell out that sucker. The nitrates are unlikely to be solved that way. I'd recommend a good Refugium with Chaeto running under high quality lights. Someone here uses basically a 400 watt MH, but I use some LED lights.

 

[urbaneks]

What salt mix are you using? If you are not dosing and your cal/alk parameters are that high than it's most likely the salt you are using. I would recommend getting your salinity down to 1.025 and see where that brings your Cal and Alk down to. From there you need stability with your Alk if you hope to have any success with SPS. As for the Nitrates, I'm guessing you feed a lot of food. I would cut your feedings down to once per day with a good pellet food. This combined with good skimming and water changes and you should be able to get the Nitrates back down. I'm also assuming you are running GFO to get your phos to 0. You may consider reducing the amount of GFO to reduce your redfield ratio. A little bit of phosphates will help to pull down nitrates.

 

[DopeCantWin]

What salt mix are you using? If you are not dosing and your cal/alk parameters are that high than it's most likely the salt you are using. I would recommend getting your salinity down to 1.025 and see where that brings your Cal and Alk down to. From there you need stability with your Alk if you hope to have any success with SPS. As for the Nitrates, I'm guessing you feed a lot of food. I would cut your feedings down to once per day with a good pellet food. This combined with good skimming and water changes and you should be able to get the Nitrates back down. I'm also assuming you are running GFO to get your phos to 0. You may consider reducing the amount of GFO to reduce your redfield ratio. A little bit of phosphates will help to pull down nitrates.

For the Nitrates, I'm thinking they're leaking from the LR as opposed to overfeeding.

 

[parkavenuereef]

For the Nitrates, I'm thinking they're leaking from the LR as opposed to overfeeding.

well let me ask you this, can live rock go bad after a 5 year period? The rock I am using is rock from my 120 that was thriving for years till I moved and got a new system.

I may just check the sand bed as others are saying and start over. I feel like there is something in it that is causing issues. I just want to make absolutly sure that if I tackle this project of removing the sand bed, that there is no possible way that there could be any phosphates or nitrates leaching out of anything else.

 

[parkavenuereef]

Update:

I removed the sand bed last nite, trying not to cause much damage. Sand didnt really have a four oder but was extremely murky. There was alot of " bricks " of fused sand within the bed which I would figure may be why my calcium would not drop. Did a water change last nite, and will follow up with another tonight. I will then add some fresh live fiji pink to boost bacteria again... Any thoughts?

 

[elegance coral]

I would personally leave the tank BB for a while. Your tank has no shortage of bacteria, so there's no need to add more with live sand.
Pulling the sand bed was a huge step to cleaning up the whole system. The bacterial population in the rock will now drop, and shed lots of detritus. With the BB it will be easy to remove this abundance of detritus without it simply building up in the new sand, and putting you right back to where you were before you pulled the old sand. Once the tank stabilizes, all the animals are healthy and growing, and your numbers stay where you want them, then I would think about replacing the sand. Even then, I would go with clean dry sand. There's no need to add live sand with its added organic matter.

Just my 2 cents
HTH
EC

 

[parkavenuereef]

I would personally leave the tank BB for a while. Your tank has no shortage of bacteria, so there's no need to add more with live sand.
Pulling the sand bed was a huge step to cleaning up the whole system. The bacterial population in the rock will now drop, and shed lots of detritus. With the BB it will be easy to remove this abundance of detritus without it simply building up in the new sand, and putting you right back to where you were before you pulled the old sand. Once the tank stabilizes, all the animals are healthy and growing, and your numbers stay where you want them, then I would think about replacing the sand. Even then, I would go with clean dry sand. There's no need to add live sand with its added organic matter.

Just my 2 cents
HTH
EC

Interesting, makes sense, my only worry is my clams. I want to make sure they are happy. Other than that I would stay Bare bottom perminently.

 

[parkavenuereef]

12-11-10 24 hours after sand bed removed.

Current parameters

temp 78
alk - 10.5
calcium 440 -<---- down from 560 which would not go down in about a year
mag 1350
salinity - 1.025
p04 <--- still shows zero
nitrates <---- 40pmm down from around 60ppm


everything seems super happy, with some small PE that I have not seen in months. clam is fully extended fish seem happy. I think that the issue was truely the sand bed. The calcium drop alone shows me something was wrong with the bed. My main concern is now the nitrates. I am concerned the rock has suffered damage or has become stale.

 

[lopeolinda]

I too tore down my sps tank. Had to get a nasty pair of fish out.