7 month old tank, Please help me keep SPS alive!

[shlap]

A couple of years ago I had a 90gal with very established liverock I got from someone on craigs list. I ran the tank for 3 years and was able to successfully keep every type of SPS with just a HOB filter and skimmer.

I moved a little over a year ago and ended up losing about everything so I decided to start fresh with a 150 gal and dry base rock. I'm using a sump w/refugium, Octopus skimmer, and Carbon and GFO rectors. The tank has been running since Dec 1st. I had the usual problems a brand new tank goes through, big-time cyano and algae outbreaks but everything finally cleared up about a month ago. I have green coraline completely covering my rock (and spots where purple is now starting to take over). I've tried 6 different acro frags from local reefers tanks and just can't keep them alive past a week!

Nitrates, ammonia, phosphates are all undectable. My temperate is very stable at 78 degrees and my Alk is always between 8-8.2. I'm using Oceanic salt.

Any ideas? Is my tank still just too new for SPS? I thought after this long I'd be set. Appreciate any and all feedback. Thanks!

 

[mkart]

My tank is the same age and the biggest difference in SPS growth came with a calcium reactor. Don't forget how important magnesium and calcium is to keeping SPS in addition to alkalinity. Lighting is important as well.

Also until I bought a Hanna phosphate tester I always thought I had no phosphates. Turns out I did. Had I not caught this I would have had issues.

I keep over 30 types of SPS frags right now and have only lost 2 since I filled my tank.

 

[MarcoPolo]

The other thing to keep in mind is accuracy and shelf life of test kits, and regular calibration of instruments. I have seen many cases of people convinced their paraments were all fine and could not understand why they were having issues with the tank...until they found out their test kits were not good anymore.

Keep also a good eye on salinity, which is another important parameter to check and verify.

 

[lostanime]

What lighting are you running? How old are the bulbs? How long is the light cycle?

How long are you waiting between frags? Are they bleaching/dying from the base up, from the tips down? Do they turn brown before dying?

 

[BigFeesh]

If you have the basic necessities like flow , lighting and what not. It's either phosphates and nitrates or the big3. I'd recommend dosers to keep keep the big 3 stable.