I Just Suck With SPS, Part II

[Felixc395]

For those of you that missed it and need a little filler, here it is for a little background info:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2062382

:lol:

So here's what's new:

First or all I went to MACNA last week or whenever it was. Picked up 11 corals because I had found relative success in my tank with the two SPS I already had. So here's what I got:

Corals:
- yellow spongotie
- purple tip valida
- tabling blue/purple
- blue tip staghorn
- blue tort
- blue fuzzy acro
- Hawkins echinata
- pink lemonade
- Steve alias stag
- mari milli
- blue milli

So all in all a list I was happy with. Brought them home, acclimated them for 3 or so hours and plopped them in the tank. After about 5 or so days my Steve alias frag was the first one to STN. It completely lost its tissue in two days. I was ultimately very upset because it was a great piece!!! So I thought maybe my AI's were too bright. I reduced them to 40% max and went from there. Next day, the Hawkins echinata STNed too and died in two days. So today I tried to investigate. I thought of all my parameters.

Here they are:
Alk: 11.5
Mag: 1400
Cal: 500
Phosphate: 0 (Hannah checker)
Salinity: 1.027, pretty consistent, usually 1.026

So at first I thought that my phosphates were too low and the corals were starving, so I fed some seachem fuel and reef snow, still not sure of the results yet.

Also I spilled about 1/50 a cup of carbon into the water, it's Rox 0.8 I think. Could this be a problem.

Finally, I realized today my temperature was 72*!! I'm going to slowly raise it to about 78-80 and see how things go.

So I need everyone's help, is my problem:
- too little nutrients
- carbon spill into tank
- low temp, causing STN

Or other things?

All advice is greatly appreciated and tank info is in my signature.

 

[Asureef]

Is you Alk stable? If so, maybe try bringing it lower to 7-8dkh and see how the SPS fare. And, how did your temp drop to 72F?


Maybe you just acclimated them too long... I just dip and throw sps in the tank, never had any problems.

 

[msp307]

Is you Alk stable? If so, maybe try bringing it lower to 7-8dkh and see how the SPS fare. And, how did your temp drop to 72F?


Maybe you just acclimated them too long... I just dip and throw sps in the tank, never had any problems.

I just dip also acclimating 3 hrs is stressful on sps

 

[Reef Bass]

If the frags came from a low alk environment, putting them in with an alk of 11.5 and a temp of 72 would probably take out more sensitive ones (like the Hawkins) right there.

 

[Felixc395]

Is you Alk stable? If so, maybe try bringing it lower to 7-8dkh and see how the SPS fare. And, how did your temp drop to 72F?


Maybe you just acclimated them too long... I just dip and throw sps in the tank, never had any problems.

Wow! Never heard of that before! Quite interesting and thanks for the advice! I just don't know how to lower my alk, any suggestions?

I just dip also acclim
ating 3 hrs is stressful on sps

Dang, my mistake then :\

If the frags came from a low alk environment, putting them in with an alk of 11.5 and a temp of 72 would probably take out more sensitive ones (like the Hawkins) right there.

Yeah, it really was ignorant of me! I just really can't get my alk down! It's so crazy! And my temp is at 76.5 right now so that problem has been addressed.

 

[lolgranny]

What are you testing your alk with?
What are you testing your salinity with? Swing arm / refractometer?

Try lowering your salinity to 1.025, ocean water is 1.026 and i think most of us on here keep it at 1.025. Seems to work like a charm for my sps.

I dont see you having too low of nutrients. I have a bare bottom tank and a skimmer rated at 3x's my bioload. It cant pull anything out of the water so i feed like crazy to put nutrients into the water.

Did you dip the hawkins? Its very sensitive to dips imo, alot of people on here have bad luck with dipping it and it RTN / STN the next day.

 

[Felixc395]

What are you testing your alk with?
What are you testing your salinity with? Swing arm / refractometer?

Try lowering your salinity to 1.025, ocean water is 1.026 and i think most of us on here keep it at 1.025. Seems to work like a charm for my sps.

I dont see you having too low of nutrients. I have a bare bottom tank and a skimmer rated at 3x's my bioload. It cant pull anything out of the water so i feed like crazy to put nutrients into the water.

Did you dip the hawkins? Its very sensitive to dips imo, alot of people on here have bad luck with dipping it and it RTN / STN the next day.

I test my alk with a simple API kit and test my salinity with a refractometer. And I did dip the Hawkins. That may be a problem! But it was just with coral RX...

 

[lolgranny]

I test my alk with a simple API kit and test my salinity with a refractometer. And I did dip the Hawkins. That may be a problem! But it was just with coral RX...

I had a issue with my alk for a bit where i thought it was higher then it was, i swapped my api Alk kit for a salifert one and it was a world of difference. I would try getting another kit so you can cross check

Note, i am not by any means saying you shouldnt dip your corals. Just saying its a very sensitive coral so its possible that had a hand in helping it die

 

[Felixc395]

Alright, how was the test kit different? Was one higher than the other? I've been using reef crystals before I switched to tropic Marin and I think that reef crystals mixed with a much higher alk than tropic Marin. I believe the tropic Marin bio actif mixes at around 6.5, so maybe it will drop with water changes?

 

[Mr.leee]

did the corals came from tank with LED?

 

[Felixc395]

At MACNA, three of the four vendors I bought from ran LED's, so the shift shouldn't have been a huge problem.

 

[Arkayology]

Did you place the frags low so they could acclimate to your lighting? That, along with a low tank temp and high alk would be the likely reason. You need to work on keeping your params stable imo. Sorry about the corals. Hawkins is one of my favorite pieces.

 

[Felixc395]

I turned down my lighting by 20% on blue, royal blue, and white. If my corals had too much light, wouldn't bleaching be the first symptom, not full STN?

I just feel like a moron! But I guess that comes with the hobby... Hopefully things will turn around soon. :\

 

[Arkayology]

You can shock them into STN. I have done it with Monti Setosa before. Placed it too high after introduction and it STNd in a couple days.

I turned down my lighting by 20% on blue, royal blue, and white. If my corals had too much light, wouldn't bleaching be the first symptom, not full STN?

I just feel like a moron! But I guess that comes with the hobby... Hopefully things will turn around soon. :\

 

[redhanded77]

Keeping SPS isnt really a hard thing to do, just as long as you have your basics down. From my experience, Ive learned that they are pretty hardy and can live in a bunch of different conditions....just as long as its somewhat stable (like others have said).

ALK - I would try to bring it down to around 8ish and keep it around there. My sps arent too happy with anything over 10. (I guess my corals are used to the 7-8 mark already).

Salinity - Just as long as its stable, I think you should be fine. Ive seen sps tanks as low as 1.022 and high as 1.030 and everything was fine. I guess the owners stopped checking their salinity levels and was surprised to see what it was at after checking.

acclimation - Personally I just float the bag to acclimate temp, dip and then place in tank. I figure the corals have already been in enough stress and dripping them for another few hours is making it worse. Works for me, and apparatently works for others.

Another thing I may have over looked, how if your flow? I wouldnt get down on yourself about not being able to keep sps. I think after you get a few things nailed down, you should be good to go.

 

[redhanded77]

another thing I forgot to add was temperature. My tank goes through a daily swing from 78-82 and all is well.

 

[Felixc395]

You can shock them into STN. I have done it with Monti Setosa before. Placed it too high after introduction and it STNd in a couple days.

Keeping SPS isnt really a hard thing to do, just as long as you have your basics down. From my experience, Ive learned that they are pretty hardy and can live in a bunch of different conditions....just as long as its somewhat stable (like others have said).

ALK - I would try to bring it down to around 8ish and keep it around there. My sps arent too happy with anything over 10. (I guess my corals are used to the 7-8 mark already).

Salinity - Just as long as its stable, I think you should be fine. Ive seen sps tanks as low as 1.022 and high as 1.030 and everything was fine. I guess the owners stopped checking their salinity levels and was surprised to see what it was at after checking.

acclimation - Personally I just float the bag to acclimate temp, dip and then place in tank. I figure the corals have already been in enough stress and dripping them for another few hours is making it worse. Works for me, and apparatently works for others.

Another thing I may have over looked, how if your flow? I wouldnt get down on yourself about not being able to keep sps. I think after you get a few things nailed down, you should be good to go.

another thing I forgot to add was temperature. My tank goes through a daily swing from 78-82 and all is well.

Thanks all for the advice! Well things seem to be going well! I'll post pics of a couple corals as soon as possible.

 

[Felixc395]

Here's are some corals! Needed pics eventually!

Idaho Grape Monti

Blue Tort: camera washed out the blue!

Purple Valida???

Maricultured Milli, actually pinkish with yellow tips! (have to get color down on my camera...)

Light blue Efflo

Crappy pic of a red/light blue tabbling acro

Another crappy pic of a yellow spongode, and a blue tip staghorn

All comments are welcome! Sorry about the bad pics!