I took this shot last night.
So here is the problem... Despite that picture, I have a small pile of coral skeletons slowly growing on my porch. Almost every other day I am looking at my tank and seeing a new coral with burnt tips or STN starting at the base.
My tank is over 2 years old and up until this past Sunday I was running Zeovit.
Why did I stop Zeovit? I dunno, I'm so out of options, I don't know what else to do. My parameters have been stable all year...
CA: 450
ALK: 7.5 - 7.8
MG: 1370
NO3 - 5ppm
PO4 - .02
I typically test with Salifert kits, I even tossed out less than 6 month old kits for new ones. Everything read the same. I sent my water to Triton Labs to see if there was some kind of metal in the tank and everything cameback where it was expected to be aside from elevated levels of Vanadium and slightly low levels of Bromide.
I haven't changed my bulbs since the last week of January and my lightning schedule doesn't change. I run an ATI 8 bulb unit w/ 2 Reefbrites with the same bulb combination and lightning schedule as Cherry Corals. My ALK / CA is dialed in by a combination of a Litermeter III dosing 1 gallon of kalk water daily and my Apex DOS.
The tank is 120 gallons and every week I do a 25 - 30 gallon water change. The salt is always premixed for 2-3 days using the same salt Tropic Marin Pro and heated to the tank's temp. I even test new buckets to make sure parameters are where they should be.
I use only brand new filter socks changed out weekly (3 total) and I use a shop vac to clean my sump during water changes to ensure nothing builds up in the tank.
Despite this, despite the stability, my corals have lost a ton of color over the last few months and I keep having stuff dying. I've checked for pests on dying corals etc and AEFW is not present in my system.
The only X-factor in this is that my tank usually runs a steady 78.5 degrees. My tank is in a room surrounded buy 9 windows that receives the brunt of the sun while it sets in the spring / summer months. This will cause my tank to go from 78.5 at 3pm to 81.5 by 7pm and back down again. The tank also receives alot of natural sunlight in addition to the T5 unit I run on the tank. So from the end of April - mid October the tank will experience these conditions.
Now I know somebody is going to tell me, it sounds like your water is too clean, feed your fish. Yes, maybe my water is too clean and that is something I am not taking off the table. However, I have been testing my NO3 daily for the last 3 weeks and it says 5ppm. I've done this test with two different kits for redundancy. My Triton Labs test cameback last week saying PO4 is .02 so according to tests my water is not stripped.
Now what boggles me a little bit is that I did three, 30 gallon water changes last week in an attempt to help reset any potential chemical imbalance in my tank and my NO3 still reads 5ppm even after those huge water changes.
What else makes me wonder, I used to dose Amino Acid concentrate and I'd be at 5ppm NO3 and even after I stopped dosing it, I still sit at 5ppm NO3. Weird?
I ordered the Red Sea test kit today to see if using something other than Salifert will show a different results.
Despite the corals growing a tolerance to changes in temp is it really that possible that 3 degree swings can cause so much havoc? As you can see in the picture, my entire tank is not doom and gloom but I'd say 50% of the tank looks great and 50% of the tank doesn't. My issues is that when one coral dies, another of the good looking corals starts to take its place.
I'm at my wits end here with this, anyone advice or something I should look at that maybe I have not?
Since I couldn't find it anywhere else... The Triton Labs test reports back PO4 levels but I didn't see NO3 levels.. Just Nitrogen levels.
Also is it possible this can be a trace elements issues? I thought using Tropic Marin Pro, there shouldn't be any need to dose trace elements especially since I do fairly generous weekly water changes.
Thanks.
So here is the problem... Despite that picture, I have a small pile of coral skeletons slowly growing on my porch. Almost every other day I am looking at my tank and seeing a new coral with burnt tips or STN starting at the base.
My tank is over 2 years old and up until this past Sunday I was running Zeovit.
Why did I stop Zeovit? I dunno, I'm so out of options, I don't know what else to do. My parameters have been stable all year...
CA: 450
ALK: 7.5 - 7.8
MG: 1370
NO3 - 5ppm
PO4 - .02
I typically test with Salifert kits, I even tossed out less than 6 month old kits for new ones. Everything read the same. I sent my water to Triton Labs to see if there was some kind of metal in the tank and everything cameback where it was expected to be aside from elevated levels of Vanadium and slightly low levels of Bromide.
I haven't changed my bulbs since the last week of January and my lightning schedule doesn't change. I run an ATI 8 bulb unit w/ 2 Reefbrites with the same bulb combination and lightning schedule as Cherry Corals. My ALK / CA is dialed in by a combination of a Litermeter III dosing 1 gallon of kalk water daily and my Apex DOS.
The tank is 120 gallons and every week I do a 25 - 30 gallon water change. The salt is always premixed for 2-3 days using the same salt Tropic Marin Pro and heated to the tank's temp. I even test new buckets to make sure parameters are where they should be.
I use only brand new filter socks changed out weekly (3 total) and I use a shop vac to clean my sump during water changes to ensure nothing builds up in the tank.
Despite this, despite the stability, my corals have lost a ton of color over the last few months and I keep having stuff dying. I've checked for pests on dying corals etc and AEFW is not present in my system.
The only X-factor in this is that my tank usually runs a steady 78.5 degrees. My tank is in a room surrounded buy 9 windows that receives the brunt of the sun while it sets in the spring / summer months. This will cause my tank to go from 78.5 at 3pm to 81.5 by 7pm and back down again. The tank also receives alot of natural sunlight in addition to the T5 unit I run on the tank. So from the end of April - mid October the tank will experience these conditions.
Now I know somebody is going to tell me, it sounds like your water is too clean, feed your fish. Yes, maybe my water is too clean and that is something I am not taking off the table. However, I have been testing my NO3 daily for the last 3 weeks and it says 5ppm. I've done this test with two different kits for redundancy. My Triton Labs test cameback last week saying PO4 is .02 so according to tests my water is not stripped.
Now what boggles me a little bit is that I did three, 30 gallon water changes last week in an attempt to help reset any potential chemical imbalance in my tank and my NO3 still reads 5ppm even after those huge water changes.
What else makes me wonder, I used to dose Amino Acid concentrate and I'd be at 5ppm NO3 and even after I stopped dosing it, I still sit at 5ppm NO3. Weird?
I ordered the Red Sea test kit today to see if using something other than Salifert will show a different results.
Despite the corals growing a tolerance to changes in temp is it really that possible that 3 degree swings can cause so much havoc? As you can see in the picture, my entire tank is not doom and gloom but I'd say 50% of the tank looks great and 50% of the tank doesn't. My issues is that when one coral dies, another of the good looking corals starts to take its place.
I'm at my wits end here with this, anyone advice or something I should look at that maybe I have not?
Since I couldn't find it anywhere else... The Triton Labs test reports back PO4 levels but I didn't see NO3 levels.. Just Nitrogen levels.
Also is it possible this can be a trace elements issues? I thought using Tropic Marin Pro, there shouldn't be any need to dose trace elements especially since I do fairly generous weekly water changes.
Thanks.