rs2208
Member
Hello everyone. I posted just over a year ago about me getting back into the hobby after a long break and then went silent for the past year. Owning my own business plus 3 kids have kept my SLASH time to a minimum.
Well over the last year my plan of having a simple mixed reef quickly changed to my old habits of an SPS only reef. Everything was doing awesome until a month or so ago. Lets rewind. I bought some cheap frags from various LFS around christmas to see if I was SPS ready and like an idiot did not dip or quarantine. However everything did fine for months. SPS looked great for months. I realized I was running too nutrient free and too high of lighting / Alk causing faded colors. I dropped my Alk to around 8.5 and added 5 anthias and feed frozen mysis / reef food 3 times a day. A few months ago I got some crazy cool frags / colony from mpcart for a steal and was on my way to having my dream of a full blown SPS tank back up and running again. His frags / colony grew like nothing I have seen before. 100% completely pest free. I did dip them in bayer as I read up on it and it seemed pretty foolproof.
So my mpcart frags are growing at a super fast rate and the colors are amazing. So I order a few colonies from DFS Divers Den. I dip them in Bayer and they do great for a few months. Also got 15 frags from a local reefer and Bayer dipped them as well. Then I start messing with the KZ little blue bottle supplements and Acro Power. Wow looking awesome. Then I get a few Alk swings. Get it back in check but then think I possibly overdose potassium. Burnt Tips. Going to order a Potassium test kit. Lost a few DFS DD wild colonies. Milli's don't seem at all effected by it.
So my tank has basically almost stopped consuming Alk and Ca. My remaining SPS are on stand-by mode. This is what partially caused the swings. I have a controller and am trying to reset values to compensate for this. Testing Alk daily right now.
On to the pests: I have had red bugs and AEFW back in the day and know their traits. On my corals that are STN / RTN I have noticed little bugs like red bugs on them. The only difference from my memory of red bugs 10 years ago are these move fast like pods. My recollection of red bugs is that they are very slow. Could these just be small pods cleaning up dead tissue? I can't find them on any living SPS tissue. Either way I am planning on doing a whole tank Intercepter treatment soon. My clean up crew is bare and needs replacing so a few may have to be sacrificed.
A few tank stats:
Display: 185g
Sump: 80g
Small refugium with cheato / mangroves in sump
Return: Panworld 200PS on an actuated ball valve - rotates every 5 min
Closed Loop: Sequence ReeFlo HammerHead on an OM V2
Temp: 80 - 81.5
PH: 8.15 - 8.25
Calcium: 425 - 450
KH: 9ish
Nitrate: 0 - 0.3
Phosphate: 0
Salinity: 1.025
Magnesium: 1300 - 1400
Skimmer: Hydor Performer 3000 Recirc Protein Skimmer
Bulk Reef Supply doser for Ca/Alk
Controller: DA Reefkeeper
Here is a pic of what I am seeing.
Sorry for the long post. Any input would be great. Let me know what I missed. Thanks
R
Well over the last year my plan of having a simple mixed reef quickly changed to my old habits of an SPS only reef. Everything was doing awesome until a month or so ago. Lets rewind. I bought some cheap frags from various LFS around christmas to see if I was SPS ready and like an idiot did not dip or quarantine. However everything did fine for months. SPS looked great for months. I realized I was running too nutrient free and too high of lighting / Alk causing faded colors. I dropped my Alk to around 8.5 and added 5 anthias and feed frozen mysis / reef food 3 times a day. A few months ago I got some crazy cool frags / colony from mpcart for a steal and was on my way to having my dream of a full blown SPS tank back up and running again. His frags / colony grew like nothing I have seen before. 100% completely pest free. I did dip them in bayer as I read up on it and it seemed pretty foolproof.
So my mpcart frags are growing at a super fast rate and the colors are amazing. So I order a few colonies from DFS Divers Den. I dip them in Bayer and they do great for a few months. Also got 15 frags from a local reefer and Bayer dipped them as well. Then I start messing with the KZ little blue bottle supplements and Acro Power. Wow looking awesome. Then I get a few Alk swings. Get it back in check but then think I possibly overdose potassium. Burnt Tips. Going to order a Potassium test kit. Lost a few DFS DD wild colonies. Milli's don't seem at all effected by it.
So my tank has basically almost stopped consuming Alk and Ca. My remaining SPS are on stand-by mode. This is what partially caused the swings. I have a controller and am trying to reset values to compensate for this. Testing Alk daily right now.
On to the pests: I have had red bugs and AEFW back in the day and know their traits. On my corals that are STN / RTN I have noticed little bugs like red bugs on them. The only difference from my memory of red bugs 10 years ago are these move fast like pods. My recollection of red bugs is that they are very slow. Could these just be small pods cleaning up dead tissue? I can't find them on any living SPS tissue. Either way I am planning on doing a whole tank Intercepter treatment soon. My clean up crew is bare and needs replacing so a few may have to be sacrificed.
A few tank stats:
Display: 185g
Sump: 80g
Small refugium with cheato / mangroves in sump
Return: Panworld 200PS on an actuated ball valve - rotates every 5 min
Closed Loop: Sequence ReeFlo HammerHead on an OM V2
Temp: 80 - 81.5
PH: 8.15 - 8.25
Calcium: 425 - 450
KH: 9ish
Nitrate: 0 - 0.3
Phosphate: 0
Salinity: 1.025
Magnesium: 1300 - 1400
Skimmer: Hydor Performer 3000 Recirc Protein Skimmer
Bulk Reef Supply doser for Ca/Alk
Controller: DA Reefkeeper
Here is a pic of what I am seeing.
![pests.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Frandysmithdesign.com%2Faquarium%2Fpests.jpg&hash=b2a8682c1152aadbf7e22e107a45d5b7)
Sorry for the long post. Any input would be great. Let me know what I missed. Thanks
R