HWDylan
New member
I apologize in advance because this is going to be long but I am at my wits end here and dont know what else to do.
I have a tank that has been up and running for about 4 years now. Things have been ok but I have never really had great success. Sure in the begninning I made my share of mistakes and much of my problems I had early on were easily diagnosed. Here I am 4 years later though and I would like to believe that I know what I am doing to some degree. I am by no means an expert but I understand the ins and outs of reef keeping to some degree.
So here is my problem: 4 years in and I cant seem to get coral to color up at all. Infact quite the opposite, stuff that was once beautiful and vibrant at the LFS turns washed out and pale in my tank very quickly or outright dies. I have had this problem for a long long time and now I feel like I am always chasing the solution. If I just do this or that things will improve. Things never really seem to imporve though. The coral I do have is more or less "surviving" rather than thriving.
Now lets check off the list off the things I know everyone is thinking right now.
Tank: 75 gallon display with a 55 gallon sump.
Lighting: Originally started with a Rapid LED DIY kit I built myself. Ran that for about 3 years and then last year I switched to a ReefBreeders Photon48. I thought the new light would fix my issue because I blamed my problems on my ineptitude in building an LED fixture. "I must have screwed something up building it" or "maybe it just isnt powerful enough". Regardless, I upgraded to a light I KNOW people have success with and saw no change at all.
Water Quality: My system is run by an APEX with BRS dosers. I test weekly for Cal, Alk, Mag, NO3, and PO4 as well as check salinity every once and a while just to be sure.
I keep a very close eye on things and my Alk has never been out of the 8-12dkh range and actually hovers right around 10.5dkh 90% of the time. Cal was real high for a while (~500ppm) earlier this year but other than that its always been pretty solid as long as I have had the tank floating somewhere in the 420ish range. Any changes coming slow. Mag is usually right around 1400. I use the standard 2-part dosing method and it seems to work great and I have never had an issue with over or under dosing really. NO3 has been undetectable pretty much since right after my cycle completed 4 years ago. I never seem to see any change in it. PO4 is similar. I have seen it creep up a bit a few times but nothing crazy. I have off and on run GFO in a reactor when I felt it was needed. As of right now my PO4 is reading 0 via Hannah ULR. Salinity is much the same, I have never seen much change in it as I am very careful when mixing water. 1.024-1.025. Never seen it out of this range. My pH has always been low ~7.8ish but I have read over and over not to chase a pH number so i have always just let it be.
Flow: I have 2 MP40ES that run on a schedule that mixes the modes up throughout the day ranging from 70% to 100% power. Also I have an old Koralia EVO that blows down the back of the tank at 20sec intervals. My return pump is a Jeabo DC8000. Needless to say I have plenty of flow and I have never had an issue with coral getting stripped from being too close to a powerhead.
Live Stock: 2 Clowns, 1 Foxface, 1 Flasher Wrasse, 1 Watchman Goby, 1 Pistol Shrimp, 1 Porcelin Crab, and a ton of snails of various kinds. I had 2 Emerald Crabs but they live in the sump because I was afraid that they might be stressing my corals. Again, looking for anything to blame my issues on at this point.
That narrows my possible problems down a bit. The only thing I can think to do is to break the whole thing down and bleach everything thinking that maybe there is some pest in there or something that is stressing/killing my corals. Something that does concern me is that in the 4 years I have had this tank I have never once seen ANY coraline algae. None. The rocks in the tank are actually still fairly white... even after 4 years. I get algae gorwing on them when I let the PO4 go up a bit but thats about it. There have been times when I purposely over fed just to see some change in the tank hoping that maybe I was just keeping it too clean and that some PO4 would maybe help the coral but again, other than algae blooms, no change to anything. I cant even get Cheato to grow in the sump it does exactly the same, exists but slowly dwindles away.
I used the BRS Dry Pukani rock as my start. I treated it with muriatic acid, then bleach, and then soaked it in RO/DI water with a decholornator for a few weeks (changing the water every few days) just to be sure it was as clean as it could be. The tank cycled fine and even when I bought my first coral (some green zoas) they grew and spread and I thought everything was great. Now my zoas are shrunken to tiny little polyps and are melting away very very slowly (been going on for the last 3 years) and any new zoas I put in never open up right and just melt. I have had the same problems with everything from Softies to SPS. They get pale and colorless and then just ... bearly survive for years until they finally give it up.
There has to be something wrong somewhere. Something that even further drives me crazy is that I work at a zoo and just started a small 15gallon nano for our building and everything in that tank is doing perfectly. So I can keep a reef tank, I am not completely inept there is just something terribly wrong with the home tank.
I guess I am just looking for advice on what to do next. I was thinking about stripping everything. Buying all new sand and bleaching the tank and rock and starting over. Maybe even buy all new rock but... damn... thats expensive. I will do what I need to though to get things right.
I have a tank that has been up and running for about 4 years now. Things have been ok but I have never really had great success. Sure in the begninning I made my share of mistakes and much of my problems I had early on were easily diagnosed. Here I am 4 years later though and I would like to believe that I know what I am doing to some degree. I am by no means an expert but I understand the ins and outs of reef keeping to some degree.
So here is my problem: 4 years in and I cant seem to get coral to color up at all. Infact quite the opposite, stuff that was once beautiful and vibrant at the LFS turns washed out and pale in my tank very quickly or outright dies. I have had this problem for a long long time and now I feel like I am always chasing the solution. If I just do this or that things will improve. Things never really seem to imporve though. The coral I do have is more or less "surviving" rather than thriving.
Now lets check off the list off the things I know everyone is thinking right now.
Tank: 75 gallon display with a 55 gallon sump.
Lighting: Originally started with a Rapid LED DIY kit I built myself. Ran that for about 3 years and then last year I switched to a ReefBreeders Photon48. I thought the new light would fix my issue because I blamed my problems on my ineptitude in building an LED fixture. "I must have screwed something up building it" or "maybe it just isnt powerful enough". Regardless, I upgraded to a light I KNOW people have success with and saw no change at all.
Water Quality: My system is run by an APEX with BRS dosers. I test weekly for Cal, Alk, Mag, NO3, and PO4 as well as check salinity every once and a while just to be sure.
I keep a very close eye on things and my Alk has never been out of the 8-12dkh range and actually hovers right around 10.5dkh 90% of the time. Cal was real high for a while (~500ppm) earlier this year but other than that its always been pretty solid as long as I have had the tank floating somewhere in the 420ish range. Any changes coming slow. Mag is usually right around 1400. I use the standard 2-part dosing method and it seems to work great and I have never had an issue with over or under dosing really. NO3 has been undetectable pretty much since right after my cycle completed 4 years ago. I never seem to see any change in it. PO4 is similar. I have seen it creep up a bit a few times but nothing crazy. I have off and on run GFO in a reactor when I felt it was needed. As of right now my PO4 is reading 0 via Hannah ULR. Salinity is much the same, I have never seen much change in it as I am very careful when mixing water. 1.024-1.025. Never seen it out of this range. My pH has always been low ~7.8ish but I have read over and over not to chase a pH number so i have always just let it be.
Flow: I have 2 MP40ES that run on a schedule that mixes the modes up throughout the day ranging from 70% to 100% power. Also I have an old Koralia EVO that blows down the back of the tank at 20sec intervals. My return pump is a Jeabo DC8000. Needless to say I have plenty of flow and I have never had an issue with coral getting stripped from being too close to a powerhead.
Live Stock: 2 Clowns, 1 Foxface, 1 Flasher Wrasse, 1 Watchman Goby, 1 Pistol Shrimp, 1 Porcelin Crab, and a ton of snails of various kinds. I had 2 Emerald Crabs but they live in the sump because I was afraid that they might be stressing my corals. Again, looking for anything to blame my issues on at this point.
That narrows my possible problems down a bit. The only thing I can think to do is to break the whole thing down and bleach everything thinking that maybe there is some pest in there or something that is stressing/killing my corals. Something that does concern me is that in the 4 years I have had this tank I have never once seen ANY coraline algae. None. The rocks in the tank are actually still fairly white... even after 4 years. I get algae gorwing on them when I let the PO4 go up a bit but thats about it. There have been times when I purposely over fed just to see some change in the tank hoping that maybe I was just keeping it too clean and that some PO4 would maybe help the coral but again, other than algae blooms, no change to anything. I cant even get Cheato to grow in the sump it does exactly the same, exists but slowly dwindles away.
I used the BRS Dry Pukani rock as my start. I treated it with muriatic acid, then bleach, and then soaked it in RO/DI water with a decholornator for a few weeks (changing the water every few days) just to be sure it was as clean as it could be. The tank cycled fine and even when I bought my first coral (some green zoas) they grew and spread and I thought everything was great. Now my zoas are shrunken to tiny little polyps and are melting away very very slowly (been going on for the last 3 years) and any new zoas I put in never open up right and just melt. I have had the same problems with everything from Softies to SPS. They get pale and colorless and then just ... bearly survive for years until they finally give it up.
There has to be something wrong somewhere. Something that even further drives me crazy is that I work at a zoo and just started a small 15gallon nano for our building and everything in that tank is doing perfectly. So I can keep a reef tank, I am not completely inept there is just something terribly wrong with the home tank.
I guess I am just looking for advice on what to do next. I was thinking about stripping everything. Buying all new sand and bleaching the tank and rock and starting over. Maybe even buy all new rock but... damn... thats expensive. I will do what I need to though to get things right.
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