RichardinMa
New member
I have been having issues for the past couple months and I am banging my head against a wall trying to figure out the cause. I am going to try to keep this shorter than a novel but there has been a lot of history on this system and I think it should be mentioned. First the stats:
*Volume- Two 80g Frag tanks- 48 x 24 x 16 deep- Side by side
The plan was to have an LPS/Soft side and an SPS side (total vol 160g)
*Shared Sump with Coralife 125 skimmer, 18w UV sterilizer, Fluval FX running GAC, Chemipure Ultra and Purigen.
*<1" Aragonite gravel covering tank bottoms
*Some live rock in one side of the system
*LPS/Soft side lit by 8 x 54w T5 HO (4 act/4 10K) ~9hrs
* Aqueon 950 circulation pump
*SPS side lit by 2 x 90w UFO LED fixtures ~9hrs
* Aqueon 2400 circulation pump
*Reef Crystals is the salt mix used
Inhabitants- 1 sm 6-Line Wrasse, 2 sm Skunk Clowns, 1 ORA Green Mandarin, 3 rock urchins handful of blue-led hermits and turbo snails. These are fed 2-3 times per week.
Water source- Tap (I know, I know- please read on)
There is no trace of algae in the system- at all. No diatoms, no cyano, nothing. I have to supply seaweed sheets to feed the herbivores. I clean the inside of the glass perhaps once a week or so and there is very little difference seen afterward.
Parameters:
Sal 1.025
T- 79-80
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- ~2
Phosphate- 0
pH- 7.9 AM, 8.1 Afternoon
Calcium 400
Alk 12.5
Magnesium 1300
The first problem, a couple months ago, was outright bleaching of SPS within 48 hrs of putting them in the system. There was no tissue loss but a red planet went from deep red to pale turqoise white and a plum crazy did the same. Some caps did the same exact thing. At that time I was running a 400w MH about 15" above the tank and I am pretty sure that is what nuked them. That light was pulled off and replaced with the LEDs. Over the past two months the red planet and plum crazy started to slowly get some color back. They were still very pastel, but some color was returning. There was no PE to speak of. During this time I added a few other Acropora from a different source and experienced RTN with most of them. Sometimes this happened a couple days after being in the system, sometimes it took a couple weeks to happen...but it did happen.
Hyacinth Seriatopora do fine in this tank although PE is not as great as other tanks. I did have some tissue necrosis when I had a micro-bubble issue and they were settling on the underside of the branches. I improved the flow, eliminated the bubbles, and the necrosis stopped on the bird nests but the acros went into RTN and were dead within 24 hrs.
About a week ago I decided to try the red planet in a different tank to see what would happen. I placed it high up in my 14g biocube running stock light with the addition of a single 4 LED Truelumen strip. Within a day I had PE and the color has improved even more over the past week. That tank also does very well with Seriatopora and I get very fast growth from them in there. The plum crazy was left in the big system.
On Saturday, the plum crazy looked fine. Monday morning it looked like this:
What is interesting is that the necrotic side is the side the current hits. I have a few theories:
#1 Salinity fluctuation- I manually top off and typically go through ~2 gallons a day. I was not going to be around on Sunday so I added extra water (~2 gallons). When I got back Sunday night the level had dropped to where there were again micro-bubble being blown into the tank.
#2 Microbubble erosion- This is what often started the STN in the past.
I do realize that tap water is far from ideal and I do plan to switch within the month however I am also using the same tap on 4 other tanks that I have excellent success with. Additionally, I am in a very rural part of Massachusetts and our tap water is very "good", they do not even chlorinate it.
I am very concerned about my alkalinity and cannot figure out why it is so high in this system. All of my other tanks run about 7-9. I use the same water and salt mix in those. I do not add supplements as water changes have always taken care of any levels.
At this point I am very afraid to put any more Acros in that system. I do have a few Montipora digitata in there that seem fine and the Seriatopora also are still okay. I am not getting as much growth or PE on them as I do in my other "dirtier" systems but I figured that is due to lack of nutrients and higher flow (pe). I am installing an ATO tomorrow and am anxious to see if keeping the salinity stable will help. On the other hand, I wonder if 2-3 gal of fluctuation out of 160g is really that potentially damaging. I wondered of the microbubbles were more of a problem than the volume change. I am really confused as to what the issue(s) might be. I don't know if it is salinity, alkalinity, lighting, nutrient or what but it seems like the water is almost caustic to these guys and they just don't want to come out.
The LPS/Soft side is nearly problem free. The only real issue is with a Galaxea I have had over there for about two months. It was fine for that entire time and then started necrotizing about a week ago. It is not quite RTN but faster than STN. That one caught me completely off guard as I was not suspecting it at all. Acans are not happy there either but I am assuming that could be due to the brighter light.
I hope this was not too long-winded and I appreciate any thoughts an where to focus my energy.
*Volume- Two 80g Frag tanks- 48 x 24 x 16 deep- Side by side
The plan was to have an LPS/Soft side and an SPS side (total vol 160g)
*Shared Sump with Coralife 125 skimmer, 18w UV sterilizer, Fluval FX running GAC, Chemipure Ultra and Purigen.
*<1" Aragonite gravel covering tank bottoms
*Some live rock in one side of the system
*LPS/Soft side lit by 8 x 54w T5 HO (4 act/4 10K) ~9hrs
* Aqueon 950 circulation pump
*SPS side lit by 2 x 90w UFO LED fixtures ~9hrs
* Aqueon 2400 circulation pump
*Reef Crystals is the salt mix used
Inhabitants- 1 sm 6-Line Wrasse, 2 sm Skunk Clowns, 1 ORA Green Mandarin, 3 rock urchins handful of blue-led hermits and turbo snails. These are fed 2-3 times per week.
Water source- Tap (I know, I know- please read on)
There is no trace of algae in the system- at all. No diatoms, no cyano, nothing. I have to supply seaweed sheets to feed the herbivores. I clean the inside of the glass perhaps once a week or so and there is very little difference seen afterward.
Parameters:
Sal 1.025
T- 79-80
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- ~2
Phosphate- 0
pH- 7.9 AM, 8.1 Afternoon
Calcium 400
Alk 12.5
Magnesium 1300
The first problem, a couple months ago, was outright bleaching of SPS within 48 hrs of putting them in the system. There was no tissue loss but a red planet went from deep red to pale turqoise white and a plum crazy did the same. Some caps did the same exact thing. At that time I was running a 400w MH about 15" above the tank and I am pretty sure that is what nuked them. That light was pulled off and replaced with the LEDs. Over the past two months the red planet and plum crazy started to slowly get some color back. They were still very pastel, but some color was returning. There was no PE to speak of. During this time I added a few other Acropora from a different source and experienced RTN with most of them. Sometimes this happened a couple days after being in the system, sometimes it took a couple weeks to happen...but it did happen.
Hyacinth Seriatopora do fine in this tank although PE is not as great as other tanks. I did have some tissue necrosis when I had a micro-bubble issue and they were settling on the underside of the branches. I improved the flow, eliminated the bubbles, and the necrosis stopped on the bird nests but the acros went into RTN and were dead within 24 hrs.
About a week ago I decided to try the red planet in a different tank to see what would happen. I placed it high up in my 14g biocube running stock light with the addition of a single 4 LED Truelumen strip. Within a day I had PE and the color has improved even more over the past week. That tank also does very well with Seriatopora and I get very fast growth from them in there. The plum crazy was left in the big system.
On Saturday, the plum crazy looked fine. Monday morning it looked like this:
What is interesting is that the necrotic side is the side the current hits. I have a few theories:
#1 Salinity fluctuation- I manually top off and typically go through ~2 gallons a day. I was not going to be around on Sunday so I added extra water (~2 gallons). When I got back Sunday night the level had dropped to where there were again micro-bubble being blown into the tank.
#2 Microbubble erosion- This is what often started the STN in the past.
I do realize that tap water is far from ideal and I do plan to switch within the month however I am also using the same tap on 4 other tanks that I have excellent success with. Additionally, I am in a very rural part of Massachusetts and our tap water is very "good", they do not even chlorinate it.
I am very concerned about my alkalinity and cannot figure out why it is so high in this system. All of my other tanks run about 7-9. I use the same water and salt mix in those. I do not add supplements as water changes have always taken care of any levels.
At this point I am very afraid to put any more Acros in that system. I do have a few Montipora digitata in there that seem fine and the Seriatopora also are still okay. I am not getting as much growth or PE on them as I do in my other "dirtier" systems but I figured that is due to lack of nutrients and higher flow (pe). I am installing an ATO tomorrow and am anxious to see if keeping the salinity stable will help. On the other hand, I wonder if 2-3 gal of fluctuation out of 160g is really that potentially damaging. I wondered of the microbubbles were more of a problem than the volume change. I am really confused as to what the issue(s) might be. I don't know if it is salinity, alkalinity, lighting, nutrient or what but it seems like the water is almost caustic to these guys and they just don't want to come out.
The LPS/Soft side is nearly problem free. The only real issue is with a Galaxea I have had over there for about two months. It was fine for that entire time and then started necrotizing about a week ago. It is not quite RTN but faster than STN. That one caught me completely off guard as I was not suspecting it at all. Acans are not happy there either but I am assuming that could be due to the brighter light.
I hope this was not too long-winded and I appreciate any thoughts an where to focus my energy.
