Certain Corals Seem to Struggle in my Tank

[Patrick Cox]

I would add like 5 lbs at most. Not a big fan of TBSW rock for sps. Its very dense and we(I was born and raised in Tampa) dont have sps corals. Lots of sponges that would die off quickly and cause too much of a spike. Get some Fiji,Tonga, Vanuatu, Marshal Islands, Indo...natural reef rock.

Do you know of a good mail order place to do so? I am worried about the "live rock" that I would get locally. Thanks.

 

[DaddyJax]

Most of the mail order places require a minimum amount and in can get very expensive with shipping. You can look at places like live aquaria.com

 

[trueblackpercula]

I think that all that you are missing is good bacteria and nutrients as your tank looks to be to nutrient poor.

 

[Patrick Cox]

I think that all that you are missing is good bacteria and nutrients as your tank looks to be to nutrient poor.

When you say "good bacteria", does that come from Live Rock? Thanks.

 

[rovster]

Corals are starving. Nothing to do with bacteria, live rock or any of that. More fish or more food or both. Any kind of supplement here should give you improvement. May try some KZ Pohls Xtra, Fuel, Acropower, or something along those lines. Do it slowly and re-evaluate every 2 weeks.

 

[triggreef]

I feel strongly that when starting up a system that uncured is the best way. In your case, I feel the same. The uncured rock will have a plethora of life on it to seed your base rock and thrive along with some life that will die off and add nutrients for the water column and food for the inhabitants you just added and currently have. The reason for the increase WC's for the first few weeks or month is to prevent too much ammonia and NO4 build up.

This is a matter of opinion. Many share DaddyJax's thoughts and I agree to an extent, but if I ever start a new system it will be with completely dry rock. You can bring in more harmful things than good things. With dry rock I can pick things I want to have like micro brittles and pods and stomatella etc. I could do without many of the little buggers that came in on my rock. If you want to add bacteria biodiversity to your tank, try a weekly dosing regimen of MB7 or DRtims.

I also think your corals are starving. Other than the recomendations above, I would look into the Red Sea Coral colors product line. I've had great results as far as polyp extension and growth. I tried acropower for about 3 months prior to Red Sea and noticed zero difference with acropower. A few days after starting Red Sea I had PE like never before and several (newer) corals colored up great (But I pretty much always had good acro colors so I can't say that was Red Sea).

Also I only dose red sea at about a 3rd the recommended dosing level, since I run without a skimmer, I like to be careful that way. When I used acro power it was at about half the recommended dosage level.

 

[trueblackpercula]

When you say "good bacteria", does that come from Live Rock? Thanks.

Yes and also pridibio or mb7 or VSV and yes live rock

 

[Patrick Cox]

Corals are starving. Nothing to do with bacteria, live rock or any of that. More fish or more food or both. Any kind of supplement here should give you improvement. May try some KZ Pohls Xtra, Fuel, Acropower, or something along those lines. Do it slowly and re-evaluate every 2 weeks.

Hi,
Thanks for your reply. This made sense to me when I had little to no algae growing in my tank but as you can see from the FTS above I now have quite a bit of algae growing so does this mean that there are nutrients in the tank but they are not making it to the corals? Just this week I am starting to target feed so maybe that will help?

Thanks.

 

[rovster]

That looks more like diatoms than true algae. Check your RO filters. Have you added any of those pieces of rock recently? Your lps has a similar starved look. Feed more and reduce photoperiod and or intensity. I've had to do this in the past. Don't expect to see any improvement for at least 2 weeks.

 

[Patrick Cox]

That looks more like diatoms than true algae. Check your RO filters. Have you added any of those pieces of rock recently? Your lps has a similar starved look. Feed more and reduce photoperiod and or intensity. I've had to do this in the past. Don't expect to see any improvement for at least 2 weeks.

Thanks. I am pretty sure this is algae and not diatoms. It is mainly green and also the clowns will sometimes eat it when I am scraping the tank or blowing off of rocks. And yes, I agree the LPS look light as well. The frogspawn was darker in my old tank. I will continue to feed more. Also, I have my lights turned down pretty low so I hope that is not the issue. Otherwise I didn't need an ATI fixture!

Thanks for your help. I will report back in a couple of weeks.