Can SPS's and Acan's co-exist

[knjolsen]

I just recently added a calcium reactor to increase my alk, cal and mg, started monitorying Alk, Ca and Mg closely, coincidentally after a few weeks of using the reactor and keeping my alk at 9.3, cal 500 and Mg 1400 I noticed my long standing collection of Acan's start to deterioriate to the point my tangs and one angle who have never bothered them started picking at them due to their tissue dying. I run 250w MH and PC actinics, 120 Gal and 40 gal sump with ASM Protien skimmer, UV. HELP!

 

[James404]

I've had no issues keeping acans in my SPS dominate tank.

 

[M007]

I just recently added a calcium reactor to increase my alk, cal and mg, started monitorying Alk, Ca and Mg closely, coincidentally after a few weeks of using the reactor and keeping my alk at 9.3, cal 500 and Mg 1400 I noticed my long standing collection of Acan's start to deterioriate to the point my tangs and one angle who have never bothered them started picking at them due to their tissue dying. I run 250w MH and PC actinics, 120 Gal and 40 gal sump with ASM Protien skimmer, UV. HELP!

looks like the answer is in your post. Ca and Mg a liitle high, no need to have them there. What were you perams before when you acans were smilin'? Also you don't need to run your dKH so high, plenty of SPS do just fine down at 7-8

 

[Tortuga78]

I agree. Calcium and alkalinity are high. Natural seawater is 8 dKH and Calcium 410 ppm. What was it before you started running your calcium reactor? You might have had a big swing.

 

[tqpolo]

Your parameter looks pretty normal to me.

 

[Kerreefer]

sounds like running nitrous to an engine ... sure running it like that will give better performance, but they die faster. same with this hobby. Everyone wants to run hotter temp, super-intense lighting, ungodly high params and it does nothing but burn up most corals... Acans btw are lagoonal and there req. are dif. than sps. of course you can putthem both in a tank together and keep params "standard"... they will both live... not to there best ability, but they wont croak. sps are in the prestine water condition range. acans dont like prestine water as much. its the same old debate as insain skimming and BB tank VS. dsb with Fuge and poo all over the place. Ea. has its own place.

 

[psykobowler]

Those parameters are normal to me too. I am betting that the ph on your tank is unstable since you added the reactor, probably on the low side. I learned from experience to dose kalkwasser first via doser then add the calcium reactor when the kalkwasser could not keep up with the demand. PH swings is bad for sps. Some lfs I know add ph buffer in their tanks to keep them stable. Kalk keeps the ph high and stable.

 

[knjolsen]

Thanks everyone, theses are all good suggestions. I was dosing two part for about 2 months prior to this as well, yes the PH in my tank is now vascilating between 7.9's and 8.25, was pretty constant at 8.2 - 8.4 prior. Really hoping I didn't have to dose kalk, pita in my opinion, also tried that before two part dosing. Have about 2 doz different SPS now and they are all growing very well, but appears at the expense of the acans. So has any of you gone the PH buffer route and is that very expensive?

 

[screamincamaro]

Pretty much what everyone else said your params look a little high but nothing crazy and agree on the ph most likely being the culprit. Add a secondary chamber to your reactor, run your skimmer airline outside, and dosing kalk will all help boost your ph.

 

[knjolsen]

I opened up some windows in the area around my tank and left them open last night and was glad to see the PH at 8:17 this morning, lately it has been in the 7.9 range. It has been to cold here to do this but has finally turned off warm enough this weekend and should probably stay that way to get me through the summer.

Screamingcamaro- When you say run airline tubing outside I presume you mean outside the house not just outside the cabinet under the tank, correct? That may be difficult but outside from under the cabinet is doable.

 

[gjk]

You may be able to go into the wall behind the tank and up into attic or dead space between roof and ceiling, then out to fresh air at some area of the soffit. The black 1/2" tube from the home improvement stores work well. These 50' rolls are sold for sprinkler installs for your yard. 90's are sold for turning corners and obviously you must securely anchor the new connections at your skimmer to some rigid fixed area of the stand or you risk breaking off a beckett or other air intake to skimmer with this somewhat stiff sprinkler line. I realized a decent improvement in swing tolerance and slightly higher ph.

 

[bobbychullo]

500 Ca is too high. you could stand to lower your Mg but its not hurting anything. 9.3 is on the verge of being high. people have been having better results recently running alk at 7 - 8 dKH, NSW.

a Ph of 8.0 - 8.3 is normal. ive read it can go as low as 7.8 and as high as 8.5 before anything bad begins to happen... as long as it doesn't swing more than 3 points in one day...

 

[screamincamaro]

Screamingcamaro- When you say run airline tubing outside I presume you mean outside the house not just outside the cabinet under the tank, correct? That may be difficult but outside from under the cabinet is doable.

Yes, outside the house.

 

[Logzor]

Mosts of the comments in this thread are way off base. 9.3 Dkh, 500 Ca, and 1400 Mg are excellent numbers and are not the reason for the death of your Acans. I regularly run very similar levels in my aquarium. Sure these are not NSW levels....but how does 500 Ca kill Acans? It doesn't.

However, if your test kits are off or there was a major swing in parameters, this could have definitely be the cause of your losses. This could have easily happened when you hooked up your calcium reactor. Definitely compare your kits with new ones off the shelf.

On the other hand it could be something sort of unrelated, such as salinity, some animals might be more sensitive, hence the death of acans but not your other corals. Definitely look into this too. A significant increase in Mg and Ca can boost your salinity faster than you think.

Edit: I would not recommend running airline tubing outside of your home. It's unlikely but I have seen posts where someone on reefcentral lost their entire sps tank due to pesticides getting sucked in from an outiside airline tubing.

If you pH is that big of an issue, run a CO2 scrubbing from BRS.