Let's revisit the angry sinularia

[Bent]

Well, I’m going to post this again. I looked for my old thread about it, but I can’t find it.

Here’s the scoop in case you don’t know.

I bought a sinularia about oh 4-5 years ago. For about 6 months it was extended, polyps out and looked, normal.

After 6 months it closed up and has been an eye sore ever since. It’s growing, adding fingers and increasing the base width over the years, but it just doesn’t extend. Given the size of it now it should be taking up half the tank but it just sits there, shriveled up.

A pic from today is attached. Yes I know there is some turf algae, I’m slowly fighting it back.

Here’s the details of the tank currently

Lightning:
Two older reefbreeder fixtures. Ramp up from 6am to 12 every half hour to a max 80% blue and 20% white then back down shutting off at 8pm. I checked the par and posted it a year or so ago and posted it, I’d have to check my logs but I don’t really recall the par he’s sitting at. I’ll do some digging in the archives and see if I can find the numbers.

Flow:
Left side of tank has a RW-15 and right side has a RW-8. You can see the exact locations in the attached FTS. They are very close to the top directly in the center. 30 second ramp up and ramp down, 2 minute hold and an alternating power. Left comes on then turns off right comes on, then turns off, repeat.. Left side max speed is 70% right side max speed is 90%.

Parameters:
Alk 8.48 salifert
Salinity 35 refract
Calcium 538 Hanna
Mag 1470 nyos
Po4 0.03 Hanna ulr
Nitrate 3.5 salifert

Maintenance schedule:
Changing out about 20-30% every week. Sometimes I’ll pump in and out a few gallons at the same time every couple days or so if I get the wild hair to do it.
Changing 1/2 cup gfo a month
Changing 1 cup gac a month


What I’ve tried so far:
I’ve turned all the pumps off the lights off and slowly ramped them over the course of a couple weeks.

I’ve got fed up and let the tank go for about a year lol


No matter what happens, it sits there, shriveled up and angry. Any ideas here?

 

[slief]

You are changing out a ridiculous amount of water each month. Softies like higher nutrients. If I had to guess, your system has too low of nutrient for that particular coral. While your Po4 and No3 are in balance, .03 Po4 is on the low side IMO. I'd slow down on water changes and let the No3 and Po4 come up a bit. 7ppm No3 and .07 Po4 might help. Also, your calcium levels are pretty high.

My tank has everything from softies, LPS and SPS. All thriving and growing like weeds. It's 700 gallons total volume. I change out 5 gallons a day. My Po4 is reugularly around .20 and nitrates around 20ppm. I have absolutely no algae issues and like I said, my corals all thrive.

I don't see your photo.

 

[Bent]

You are changing out a ridiculous amount of water each month. Softies like higher nutrients. If I had to guess, your system has too low of nutrient for that particular coral. While your Po4 and No3 are in balance, .03 Po4 is on the low side IMO. I’d slow down on water changes and let the No3 and Po4 come up a bit. 7ppm No3 and .07 Po4 might help. Also, your calcium levels are pretty high.

My tank has everything from softies, LPS and SPS. All thriving and growing like weeds. It’s 700 gallons total volume. I change out 5 gallons a day. My Po4 is reugularly around .20 and nitrates around 20ppm. I have absolutely no algae issues and like I said, my corals all thrive.

I don’t see your photo.

I can’t get it to upload for some reason. I’ll try the desktop when I get home.

See, I don’t understand how some people can have numbers like that and no algae. When my po4 starts creeping over .08 the sand starts turning brown and I start getting turf algae. If I ran those numbers it would be a kelp forest in there. Lol.

Even when I started slacking on the water changes and started growing algae in the display, he still looked angry.

 

[slief]

You might consider having an ICP water test done. One thing about certain soft corals is that they like iodine and other trace elements. An ICP test would tell you a lot more about your water than your conventional tests will reveal.

 

[slief]

I can't get it to upload for some reason. I'll try the desktop when I get home.

See, I don't understand how some people can have numbers like that and no algae. When my po4 starts creeping over .08 the sand starts turning brown and I start getting turf algae. If I ran those numbers it would be a kelp forest in there. Lol.

It's all about balance. If your Po4 climbs but your nitrates stay low, things get out of balance. Read up on Redfield ratio While there has been some debate as to it's merits, there is debating having balanced nutrients. Then there is system maturity. My system has been up for 20 years at this house. What most people who chase Po4 levels don't realize is that Po4 levels on many very healthy natural reefs are in excess of .10 ppm.

 

[Bent]

Edit:

Finally huge picture fixed. Sorry.

 

[Bent]

It’s all about balance. If your Po4 climbs but your nitrates stay low, things get out of balance. Read up on Redfield ratio While there has been some debate as to it’s merits, there is debating having balanced nutrients. Then there is system maturity. My system has been up for 20 years at this house. What most people who chase Po4 levels don’t realize is that Po4 levels on many very healthy natural reefs are in excess of .10 ppm.

You know, on more than one occasion I’ve considered sending a sample to triton.

As far as chasing numbers goes, I try not to. In fact I hadn’t tested my water in probably 6 months before I tested them this time. Like I said I neglected it for a while and I’m trying to bring it back a little.

I think my neglect came from a lot of mysteries like this.

So you think I should back off and change like 10% every two weeks? Monitor levels and see what that does?

I’m not sure why but it seems like I’ve had an especially difficult time with mortality rates in this system. It’s also odd that I have a few corals like a acan and a hammer that are doing just fine. But my torch is slowly dying after years and every piece of SPS I’ve tried just kicks the bucket.

I’m close to just tearing it down. If it wasn’t for my rescue fish making me feel bad about it I probably would have already done it.

 

[Bent]

Here’s more pics:

Acan (about the size of my palm)

Hammer (little bigger than the acan, probably 6 or 8 heads.)

FTS of a 5 year old reef :eyeroll:

 

[DRLUCAS]

Here's more pics:

Acan (about the size of my palm)

Hammer (little bigger than the acan, probably 6 or 8 heads.)

FTS of a 5 year old reef :eyeroll:

Further to "it's all about balance", do you happen to have a lawnmower blenny, in the correct cleanup crew, just to assist in keeping things in balance ?
My next challenge is to find that right balance of nutrient levels, as I add more corals. My current mindset is to keep an extremely spotless tank, but that may not be the right answer.


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[Cliving1]

I have 2, 1 was given to me by my brother. For about a month it did excellent, and now looks like yours. My original one has always looked lile yours. I cant seem to find the sweetspot of flow, lighting, and chemistry to make it improve. Following..

 

[Bent]

I have 2, 1 was given to me by my brother. For about a month it did excellent, and now looks like yours. My original one has always looked lile yours. I cant seem to find the sweetspot of flow, lighting, and chemistry to make it improve. Following..

Thank god I thought I was the only one.

 

[Bent]

Ok I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do...

I think I’m going to move the entire rock it’s sitting on and place it somewhere else.

Or I could frag it and move it.

Any opinions where I should move it? Should I move the entire rock or frag it? I was thinking about moving it more to the center toward the back...

 

[DesertReefT4r]

That coral tends to do best in a low flow and lower light area and likes a bit more nutrients in the water. As said they also suck up a lot of iodine. Its growing and thats a good sign. Try to remember if anything about the tank changed around the same time as the decreased PE. Anything from a change in water flow, lighting, salt mix, dosing, new fish could have effected the coral. What conditions was the coral in when you got it and wss it doing well then?

 

[ramseynb]

Check for pests too. Even though it's growing, there could be something bothering it and preventing it from extending.

 

[Bent]

Well I moved everything around and changed the scape completely on the right side.

It puts the sinularia right under the center brace and out of most of the flow. We’ll see, probably just wasted two hours and upset everything for no reason.

 

[ezell_tonya]

Well I moved everything around and changed the scape completely on the right side.

It puts the sinularia right under the center brace and out of most of the flow. We'll see, probably just wasted two hours and upset everything for no reason.

[MENTION=77067]Bent[/MENTION] any update on the Sinularia? I bought one last week and the polyps were extended day one and after that there had been very little polyp extension visible.


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[Bent]

[MENTION=77067]Bent[/MENTION] any update on the Sinularia? I bought one last week and the polyps were extended day one and after that there had been very little polyp extension visible.


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Sorry, nope.

It still the exact same way.

 

[reefgeezer]

Sometimes a particular coral just doesn't do well in a system. I wouldn't continue to make changes trying to get it to respond. You may end up harming everything else. Trade it for something that will do better in your system.

I have a tank that won't grow Zoas or Mushrooms for crap but Leathers do well in certain places. Smooth skin SPS corals just fade away but others SPS corals do great.

If you still want to try something, you might reduce your water changes and stop the GAC to see if maybe a little extra dissolved organic material might help.

 

[ezell_tonya]

Sorry, nope.



It still the exact same way.

I just put some radions on my 90 gal and the Sinularia responded to the change in lighting and extended its polyps. They aren't out consistently but a lot more then previously.


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[ezell_tonya]

Sometimes a particular coral just doesn't do well in a system. I wouldn't continue to make changes trying to get it to respond. You may end up harming everything else. Trade it for something that will do better in your system.



I have a tank that won't grow Zoas or Mushrooms for crap but Leathers do well in certain places. Smooth skin SPS corals just fade away but others SPS corals do great.



If you still want to try something, you might reduce your water changes and stop the GAC to see if maybe a little extra dissolved organic material might help.

Same with me. I can't grow zoas in my tank. I've had three different kinds and they all die so I'm giving up on them.


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