Hey guys, so Ive been on here for about 6 months now just lurking. I did not want to post another newbie thread with question after question of the repetitive stuff so I did as much research as I could and bothered some buddies first. I am however right now at a high level of frustration.
Problem: Corals dying and GHA
Tank age: 6 months
Size: 20L Rimmed
Water: Instant Ocean Reef Crystals, weekly changes, Salinity: 1.026
Original Setup:
Light: Current Orbit LED (Set at about 70% W/B for 9hrs)
Heater: Aqueon 100 Watt - 77 degrees
Water Movements: 1x Hydor 240gph - water circling
HOB: Aquaclear 50 with sponge, Activated carbon, and biomax media
Current Setup: as of 1 week ago - HOB was replaced with another hydor powerhead ( the skimmer was added 6 weeks ago)
Light: Current Orbit LED (Set at about 70% W/B for 9hrs)
Heater: Aqueon 100 Watt - 77 degrees
Water Movements: 2x Hydor 240gph - water colliding in middle
Skimmer: Aquatic Life 115 Mini
Current Fish: Disbar Anthias, Wathcman Goby, 2 Oscellaris Clowns
Aquascape: Started with 12lbs of dry rock and 20lbs of live sand. Some zoos and scattered small lps frags.
CuC: About 12 Astrea Snails, 1 turbo snail, 1 cerith, 2 nassarius, 12 blue leg hermits, 1 zebra hermit
Tank Notes and Progress from day 1:
-I started the tank cycle with some household ammonia, instant ocean bio spira and seachem stability. I realized I put liek 100x too much ammonia as I used oz instead of mL. :facepalm: I basically did like 5x 20% water changes till I realized I had to do a 70% and another 50% to get ammonia at a workable level for the bacteria. In went another bottle of biospira. Great start! lol
-Inverts in at about day 10.
-Went slowly with fish over the next couple weeks.
-Week 6 (I now realize this was massive overload) we had a 2 shrimp and 2 fish (Disbar and watchman goby) some zoas and 1 torch. Zoas had to get moved lower since they were always closed and turning black. At least I now knew the light was effectively strong
- Week 7 - added one more fish (benghai cardinal)
- Week 8 - our LFS finally got some clowns so we picked too and we figured that would be our final setup. (5 fish and 2 shrimp... I know a lot, but atm they were all tiny so I figured by the time they grew we might upgrade the tank.
-Week 9 - In the past week one clown and the benghai die. Neither seemed healthy from the store. I panicked there was soemthing up with the tank
-Week 10 - We get a slightly larger clown to hopefully pair with the remaining.
-Week 11- original remaining clown died from getting beat up by bigger clown.
-Week 12- we already had random amounts of detritus but nothign bad. Cyano starting to come up now. (I thought it was coraline lol) More LPS corals added, all look amazing and juicy, zoos are dividing. Gave away the other clown.
-Week 14 - come back from vacation (10 days). One of the shrimp(fire shrimp is missing) I ghetto rigged an ATO and got an automatic feeder. All other fish are fine. Massive Cyano bloom. Corals closed.
-Week 15 - Corals not recover after big water change and deep clean. First sandbed vacuum.
-Added more to Cuc included sandsifting starfish. Long tentacle anemone added at some point.
Week 16 - 2 of the sexiest torches I had died. Brown all over. Wasnt sure if slime. Worried it may have gone all over tank as I left them in there for a while. GHAis starting to spread. Tiny bubble tip anemone added at some point.
Week 17 - had to go out of town for a week.
Week 18 - Come back, GHA is everywhere, huge cleaning, sandbed vacuuming of course. LTA dead. Added more to CuC. 2 turbo snails. Noticed them gobbling algae.
Week 19 - Tank recovered a bit. Gave away shrimp as it ate the starfish. Got pair of clowns. (currently have original goby, disbar, and now 2 clowns)
Week 20 - Got soem LPS corals to replace the ones that died. Added protein skimmer. Tank looking like its gettign better. Corals all open.
Week 21 - Got some more corals
Week 22 - Everything looks pretty good, CuC looked liek it woudl continue to clear all algae except it almost seems liek its coming back
Week 23 - Ton of algae back. Took rocks out and scrubbed them. Deep bed vacuum. I threw out the HOB filter. Added another powerhead. Cloudy water for 2 days then back to clean.
Week 24- All corals are pretty close up. Noticed 3 blue leg hermits on a dying coral. One was eating stuff from it. I couldn't tell if it was eating live or dead matter, if it came later or actually helped kill it.
Week 25 - today. I am 6 months deep and was expecting to be further along than just fighting back algae for a good part. I know I started with more fish than ideal but there have been much less for months, feedings have been veyr closely regulated and there is a skimmer and still coral heads are dying, lpss are hiding and GHA is still prevalent.
*Water testing done: Usually perfect water based on API water standards. Most recent test about 1 week ago was (and they are almost all identical to this):
Salinity: 1.027
pH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10-20 (although testing at fish store told me it was 3ppm before when it said 20 throguh the API kit, idk what to trust now)
Calcium: 460
KH: 179
Phosphate: 0-0.25 (almost always 0)
Questions and concerns:
- I am worried about taking the HOB on the back. Logically I feel like a mechanical filtration trap for floating food/debris is needed but unfortunately the sponge system seems it can do more harm then good even if cleaned weekly. I am also worried a sudden removal of the biomax which holds the bacteria could be bad. However its been gone 1 week and no significant changes have happened.
- How can I finally get rid of this GHA?? I was thinking of doing a reactor but is it necessary? Fighting conch is too big for my tank and thats sand only anyways. What else can I do? I could do a fuge with some chaeto but is that ideal? Since there would be no mechanical filtration all the debris would get stuck in the chaeto. vodka dosing?
- Why are my coral heads dying? Is it possible the hermits actually eat them? Seems rare from my readings. Light?
-Should I remove the bigger hermits? I feel like they kill the smaller ones? I am missing many smaller ones and occasionally see dead legs and bodies on the sand bed. More so I am worried about them killign corals.
- I noted most of the bad stuff start to happen when I switched to reef crystals...I doubt its from that though as the timing for the stuff was aligned with normal maturation. Its not completely out of question though...I am however on a 3rd bag of the stuff so its not bag specific if it is the problem.
- Is the current setup pretty good?
- What do you think of lighting? Seems to be fine of the LPS opened up great at different times right?
Here are some current pics:
Problem: Corals dying and GHA
Tank age: 6 months
Size: 20L Rimmed
Water: Instant Ocean Reef Crystals, weekly changes, Salinity: 1.026
Original Setup:
Light: Current Orbit LED (Set at about 70% W/B for 9hrs)
Heater: Aqueon 100 Watt - 77 degrees
Water Movements: 1x Hydor 240gph - water circling
HOB: Aquaclear 50 with sponge, Activated carbon, and biomax media
Current Setup: as of 1 week ago - HOB was replaced with another hydor powerhead ( the skimmer was added 6 weeks ago)
Light: Current Orbit LED (Set at about 70% W/B for 9hrs)
Heater: Aqueon 100 Watt - 77 degrees
Water Movements: 2x Hydor 240gph - water colliding in middle
Skimmer: Aquatic Life 115 Mini
Current Fish: Disbar Anthias, Wathcman Goby, 2 Oscellaris Clowns
Aquascape: Started with 12lbs of dry rock and 20lbs of live sand. Some zoos and scattered small lps frags.
CuC: About 12 Astrea Snails, 1 turbo snail, 1 cerith, 2 nassarius, 12 blue leg hermits, 1 zebra hermit
Tank Notes and Progress from day 1:
-I started the tank cycle with some household ammonia, instant ocean bio spira and seachem stability. I realized I put liek 100x too much ammonia as I used oz instead of mL. :facepalm: I basically did like 5x 20% water changes till I realized I had to do a 70% and another 50% to get ammonia at a workable level for the bacteria. In went another bottle of biospira. Great start! lol
-Inverts in at about day 10.
-Went slowly with fish over the next couple weeks.
-Week 6 (I now realize this was massive overload) we had a 2 shrimp and 2 fish (Disbar and watchman goby) some zoas and 1 torch. Zoas had to get moved lower since they were always closed and turning black. At least I now knew the light was effectively strong
- Week 7 - added one more fish (benghai cardinal)
- Week 8 - our LFS finally got some clowns so we picked too and we figured that would be our final setup. (5 fish and 2 shrimp... I know a lot, but atm they were all tiny so I figured by the time they grew we might upgrade the tank.
-Week 9 - In the past week one clown and the benghai die. Neither seemed healthy from the store. I panicked there was soemthing up with the tank
-Week 10 - We get a slightly larger clown to hopefully pair with the remaining.
-Week 11- original remaining clown died from getting beat up by bigger clown.
-Week 12- we already had random amounts of detritus but nothign bad. Cyano starting to come up now. (I thought it was coraline lol) More LPS corals added, all look amazing and juicy, zoos are dividing. Gave away the other clown.
-Week 14 - come back from vacation (10 days). One of the shrimp(fire shrimp is missing) I ghetto rigged an ATO and got an automatic feeder. All other fish are fine. Massive Cyano bloom. Corals closed.
-Week 15 - Corals not recover after big water change and deep clean. First sandbed vacuum.
-Added more to Cuc included sandsifting starfish. Long tentacle anemone added at some point.
Week 16 - 2 of the sexiest torches I had died. Brown all over. Wasnt sure if slime. Worried it may have gone all over tank as I left them in there for a while. GHAis starting to spread. Tiny bubble tip anemone added at some point.
Week 17 - had to go out of town for a week.
Week 18 - Come back, GHA is everywhere, huge cleaning, sandbed vacuuming of course. LTA dead. Added more to CuC. 2 turbo snails. Noticed them gobbling algae.
Week 19 - Tank recovered a bit. Gave away shrimp as it ate the starfish. Got pair of clowns. (currently have original goby, disbar, and now 2 clowns)
Week 20 - Got soem LPS corals to replace the ones that died. Added protein skimmer. Tank looking like its gettign better. Corals all open.
Week 21 - Got some more corals
Week 22 - Everything looks pretty good, CuC looked liek it woudl continue to clear all algae except it almost seems liek its coming back
Week 23 - Ton of algae back. Took rocks out and scrubbed them. Deep bed vacuum. I threw out the HOB filter. Added another powerhead. Cloudy water for 2 days then back to clean.
Week 24- All corals are pretty close up. Noticed 3 blue leg hermits on a dying coral. One was eating stuff from it. I couldn't tell if it was eating live or dead matter, if it came later or actually helped kill it.
Week 25 - today. I am 6 months deep and was expecting to be further along than just fighting back algae for a good part. I know I started with more fish than ideal but there have been much less for months, feedings have been veyr closely regulated and there is a skimmer and still coral heads are dying, lpss are hiding and GHA is still prevalent.
*Water testing done: Usually perfect water based on API water standards. Most recent test about 1 week ago was (and they are almost all identical to this):
Salinity: 1.027
pH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10-20 (although testing at fish store told me it was 3ppm before when it said 20 throguh the API kit, idk what to trust now)
Calcium: 460
KH: 179
Phosphate: 0-0.25 (almost always 0)
Questions and concerns:
- I am worried about taking the HOB on the back. Logically I feel like a mechanical filtration trap for floating food/debris is needed but unfortunately the sponge system seems it can do more harm then good even if cleaned weekly. I am also worried a sudden removal of the biomax which holds the bacteria could be bad. However its been gone 1 week and no significant changes have happened.
- How can I finally get rid of this GHA?? I was thinking of doing a reactor but is it necessary? Fighting conch is too big for my tank and thats sand only anyways. What else can I do? I could do a fuge with some chaeto but is that ideal? Since there would be no mechanical filtration all the debris would get stuck in the chaeto. vodka dosing?
- Why are my coral heads dying? Is it possible the hermits actually eat them? Seems rare from my readings. Light?
-Should I remove the bigger hermits? I feel like they kill the smaller ones? I am missing many smaller ones and occasionally see dead legs and bodies on the sand bed. More so I am worried about them killign corals.
- I noted most of the bad stuff start to happen when I switched to reef crystals...I doubt its from that though as the timing for the stuff was aligned with normal maturation. Its not completely out of question though...I am however on a 3rd bag of the stuff so its not bag specific if it is the problem.
- Is the current setup pretty good?
- What do you think of lighting? Seems to be fine of the LPS opened up great at different times right?
Here are some current pics:
