Hello, I'm hoping for experienced advice on my situation.
Pics:
https://goo.gl/photos/eRojPFfTZYJQ3Lz86
Problem: soft coral (star polyp, pulsing xenia, kenya tree) are not full extending anymore and appear to be suffering. Sand keeps turning brown/red with what I believe is cyano within only a week of a 20% water change. Water changes temporarily improve look of coral each time.
Tank: 75 gallon corner, 4 years old,
flow is 2500 GPH mostly from one powerhead.
Skimmer is bubble magus curve A5
light is one AI Hydra 26hd led unit, planning to get another when I can afford. On 6 hours a day
Open top (no lid)
NO auto top off, so skimmer often not running at most efficient
NO reactors or anything, just carbon and RowaPhos in sump and filter pads
7 fish, feeding small amount of nori daily and 1/2 to 1 cube of spirulina frozen brine shrimp and pellets once in a while for variety
Cleaners: Down to about 5 snails (haven't bought more in about a year), two tiger tail cucumbers (1 that split into 2) I know this is really low..
Water: Use RODI, 20% water changes every two weeks lately to combat problem. Temp hovers around 26C (78.8f), salinity 1.025. From my nutrafin chemical test kit, the only parameter that stands out is minimal phosphate ~.25mg/L. Every other test I have is "optimal"
Other possibly useful info:
When we inherited the tank 4 years ago it had a BAD hair algae problem. We fought it for 3 years and made progress and last year decided to flip all the rocks - This worked, no hair algae since. I suspect though the rocks may still be leaching something. When we got the new LED light 9 months ago, all coral was happy and reacted very well to it for many months. We've also been fighting the brown/red stuff to some extent since as long as I can remember, but it seems to be getting worse now. The effect on the coral has only been for about 2 months and seemed to come out of nowhere as nothing had changed for about 7 months before that. I've started sucking up the red stuff off the sand which comes up in carpety chunks. In about a week full sand bed is mostly red. The pics below are about 4 days since last water change.
I'm by no means good at this, just slowly improving over the years so any advice helps. I'm considering at this point:
- more snails
- more flow (another powerhead)
- auto top off (keep skimmer working better)
- UV filter (possibly kill cyano?)
- replacing sand bed with new clean sand
- another LED Hydra light (hopefully help corals not stretch so much)
thoughts? thank you so much for reading :spin1:
Pics:
https://goo.gl/photos/eRojPFfTZYJQ3Lz86
Problem: soft coral (star polyp, pulsing xenia, kenya tree) are not full extending anymore and appear to be suffering. Sand keeps turning brown/red with what I believe is cyano within only a week of a 20% water change. Water changes temporarily improve look of coral each time.
Tank: 75 gallon corner, 4 years old,
flow is 2500 GPH mostly from one powerhead.
Skimmer is bubble magus curve A5
light is one AI Hydra 26hd led unit, planning to get another when I can afford. On 6 hours a day
Open top (no lid)
NO auto top off, so skimmer often not running at most efficient
NO reactors or anything, just carbon and RowaPhos in sump and filter pads
7 fish, feeding small amount of nori daily and 1/2 to 1 cube of spirulina frozen brine shrimp and pellets once in a while for variety
Cleaners: Down to about 5 snails (haven't bought more in about a year), two tiger tail cucumbers (1 that split into 2) I know this is really low..
Water: Use RODI, 20% water changes every two weeks lately to combat problem. Temp hovers around 26C (78.8f), salinity 1.025. From my nutrafin chemical test kit, the only parameter that stands out is minimal phosphate ~.25mg/L. Every other test I have is "optimal"
Other possibly useful info:
When we inherited the tank 4 years ago it had a BAD hair algae problem. We fought it for 3 years and made progress and last year decided to flip all the rocks - This worked, no hair algae since. I suspect though the rocks may still be leaching something. When we got the new LED light 9 months ago, all coral was happy and reacted very well to it for many months. We've also been fighting the brown/red stuff to some extent since as long as I can remember, but it seems to be getting worse now. The effect on the coral has only been for about 2 months and seemed to come out of nowhere as nothing had changed for about 7 months before that. I've started sucking up the red stuff off the sand which comes up in carpety chunks. In about a week full sand bed is mostly red. The pics below are about 4 days since last water change.
I'm by no means good at this, just slowly improving over the years so any advice helps. I'm considering at this point:
- more snails
- more flow (another powerhead)
- auto top off (keep skimmer working better)
- UV filter (possibly kill cyano?)
- replacing sand bed with new clean sand
- another LED Hydra light (hopefully help corals not stretch so much)
thoughts? thank you so much for reading :spin1: