cant keep sps corals help

carlosngloria

carlosngloria

Active member
I have a 210g tank. I have fish that are hard to keep. but i cannot keep coral. My parms are
Nitrate: 5-10
Nitrite: 0
Amonia: 0
Phosphate: 0
PH: 8.0-8.2
Calcium: 450
Alk: 8
MG: 1250
Sg:1.024

I have 3x250w mh and 2x56 t5. Barracuda pump for return, koralia 3 and modded maxijet 1200. Etss 800 skimmer.

I cannot keep an sps coral. Is there something wrong with the setup?

i posted in reef chemistry but i would like to get some more input.
 
Just to clarify, is your only flow provided from the Koralia 3 and a modified MJ? I have a 75 w/ 3 K 3's and a sea swirl on my return and I think I need more. I don't know if this is your only issue, but for sps most people say you need at least 40 to 50x flow in the tank. Also, not a big deal, but you may want to move your sg up to 1.025. Wait, I just read your signature. If you are just starting up this tank you need to let it cycle and then settle down for at least 4 to 6 months before you try any sps. They are difficult under any conditions and virtually impossible in a new tank, don't waste your time and money killing more animals until your tank is much more established.
 
it looks like the tank is a year old? Thats plenty mature to grow sps. I definitly agree with the flow issue.
 
the tank has just past the year mark. i have flow from a barracuda return pump aswell, but if i need more pumps in my tank i guess ill look into getting another pump.
 
What kind of corals have you tried / lost? Recently imported colonies? Well established frags of known aquarium friendly varieties? What kind of fish do you have? Could one / some of them be nipping at the corals? Are you keeping LPS / soft corals succesfully?
 
it was an orange cap. I bought one it lasted 2 weeks. I thought one of my angels was picking on it, so i made a box out of egg crate and bought another cap and it died in 2 1/2 weeks. So i dont think it was my fish. Ive kept rics, and zoas, and i have a rbta for over a yr that i had from my old tank. the only other thing i can think of is i placed the coral too high up in the tank to start off with?
 
Did they turn light / white and then die? Too much light too quickly will do that. Angels and SPS aren't a good combo usually either. And you indicated that you have several...

Your water seems fine. Your nem would tell you if it wasn't, I think.

Go get yourself a Green Slimer frag from someone. Put it near the bottom and see how it does. A $10 experiment before you start blowing big wad on the expensive stuff.
 
yea the caps turned light and then white. the millepora started bleaching over night. yea i thought it was the angels thats why i built the egg crate box so they couldnt get in and pick on them. im going to make a trap and remove the angels i have a regal and emperor. thanks for your help
 
i would have t say perhaps improper light acclimation?

but definately lack of flow...i have close the same amount of flow in my 20gallon tank as you have in a tank ten times bigger..

i would certainly be looking into a couple tunze 6100's or of the like...and a wave timer/ multi controller would also be a good idea for them...i cant imagine that the 2000 gph generated by the maxi and K3 would be even felt half way across your tank.. i would be aiming for atleast 30x display volume turnover rate...that would be different if you get a wave box though...then you can aim a little lower 20x or so...
 
what water do you use in your tank? RO or tap water? I've had trouble with my sps when I used tap water, as soon as I got my RO filter they got better quick
 
I have a 70g, and was only running about 8X flow rate until just recently. While I was able to keep several SPS-LPS-Softies, nothing really flourished, and I did have some pretty sad looking softies in the mix.

Then I put in another 5.5X water movement, and things started to look a bit better. I have 2 koralia #2's on order, and look forward to seeing the difference they make.

The other issue may be lighting. It may be worth slow light acclimation. Since the flow rate is pretty low, a secondary stressor like light shock may just me doing them in.
 
also to add.. whats your light sched?? i didnt see that posted.. how long are you running Full Spectrum ? that plays a big role.. too much and youll bleach emm.
 
are your lights old? Could be your parameters are NOT stable and are bouncing around too much . More flow like said above would help but it shouldnt kill your sps so quickly. Whats your temp? bleaching is usually caused by lighting issues, swings in alk, and temp. I had a bad thermometer recently and my temp was at 87 for 3 weeks or more and I lost half my sps
 
I would also look at how you acclimatize a new coral to your tank. SPS don't take change well and too quick a move from the LFS water to your water could be causing the death. I generally spend a couple hours getting a coral ready for my tank. I don't have a perfect record but the times that I head an early death were generally related to impatience.
 
Just to throw it out there - we started with sps in ours a few months back, and have seen good growth with purple acropora, orange digitata, etc. Our flow for the first month with SPS was ONLY 8x our tank size, supplied entirely by return pumps of that time. A month after starting we added a couple Koralia 4s to get the flow closer to 20x, but not nearly as high flow as some are suggesting here ...
 
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