Looking for help and suggestions..Nuttin but problems

[wyattroa]

I am having nothing but issues...My tank is a 24 gallon nano cube with a single sol blue mounted 12 inches above the water. My lights are coming on at 11:30 in the morning and turning off at 11PM. It goes into just royals blues around 8pm..

I am hitting max intensity of 47% right now, I just turned it up yesterday from 42%. I have had the lights since January and have not seen any growth on my SPS corals. My zoas and mushroom have done great. My ricordias have pretty much died and my candy cane is not looking too hot on the sand bed. My sps are all 5-8inches from the top of the water. My birds nest are all looking horrible..They are not bleaching, but seem to be dying from the inside. My rainbow montipora also is losing polyp extension and looking splotchy.

All parameters in the tank have been spot on except for calcium, this was around 600, but is now at 480, the rest were perfect. I did add at the very end of March dry rock to the tank, 3 pieces. But, before I added them to the tank I had it in a bucket for 4-5 weeks with a piece of live rock, pump, and heater. I checked the water in the bucket and the ammonia read 0. Figured I was good to put it in, I think this is the cause of my problems. I checked for ammonia after putting the rocks in to see if any cycle started, but it always read 0. I have been doing bi/weekly water changes and was going to do another today but the TDS meter read 2 so I am going to toss the water since my new DI resin will be here tomorrow. Not sure if I should do a large water change, it is a 24 gallon tank holding around 21 gallons, I normally do a 4 gallon change every 2 weeks.

I Also got in January AI sol blue LED's and love the features, but I just can't figure them out or what intensity to have it on. I started them on 25% and got up to 60% with the lights 9 inches off the water.

My alkalinity does not move much, it has varied from 8.96 to 10. The levels are controlled via a doser.

Also on april 6 I think I had a GFO overdose on the tank. I went off of bulk reefsupply recommendation of 6 tablespoons in my reactor with rowaphos when I should have been around 2-3 tablespoons. I saw it hitting the base of the birdsnest within a day or two. So this combined with maybe the dry rock and lighting could be the cause of all my problems. Just want to get it back on track and figure out what to do..

To try and help the corals out a bit I started putting 2 drops of amino acid in the tank every other day from elos... I have also been using oyster feast in the tank more..

Here are some pictures these are almost exactly a month apart.
Rainbow monti on march 26

Rainbow monti April 24

Birdsnest coral bali Jan 28

Now

Bushy acropora Jan 28

Today

Green birds nest

Now

my monti cap went from this

to this.

and is now pretty pale and bad looking.

 

[wyattroa]

Full tank shot on march 8th

This was the full tank shot on the 26th of march to get an idea of placement once dry rock was added so I could attach corals..

 

[gskidmor]

You sound like you're assuming it's the lights - what are your other levels - CA, Ph, Salinity, Temp?

Did you just start the tank out in early march?

Have you checked for pests like red bugs or flatworms or nudis?

 

[cichlid9]

I would try to frag a couple of good tips from your bushy acro, looks like it is stn. I am not an expert but it seems like something else besides your lighting.

 

[wyattroa]

I have checked for bugs and there have been none. Tank has been up and running for almost 19 months now.

CA - was around 600 all of a sudden, but is now at 480
PH- 8.14
temp- 78
salinity- 1.026
mg- 1420
ammonia- 0
nitrates- 5
phosphates- .02

 

[therealshark]

what about ALK, i would try to bring your CA down abit more also.

 

[wyattroa]

Alk has been steady between 8.96-10 for the last 3 months according to my excel sheet.

I think its a combination of the too much GFO, maybe the new rocks even though the ammonia checked out at 0, and lighting.

For the water change I plan on doing thursday, how much would you do? I normally do 20% should I increase it this time to say 30-40%?

 

[Alex T.]

I have checked for bugs and there have been none. Tank has been up and running for almost 19 months now.

CA - was around 600 all of a sudden, but is now at 480
PH- 8.14
temp- 78
salinity- 1.026
mg- 1420
ammonia- 0
nitrates- 5
phosphates- .02

I'm not seeing alkalinity numbers. If it swung as wildly as your calcium did then I'd be inclined to list is as your culprit. IME, calcium and magnesium shifts don't affect SPS as much in the short term as alkalinity. A small swing once in a while is OK, but seeing that your calcium hit 600...

 

[gskidmor]

He had listed the alk as 8.7 - 10 in the first post. If you're talking about bringing it down from the 480, I would disagree - I think that's a good level.

His levels look pretty solid - assuming there wasn't anything that disturbed his sand bed and released a little ammonia (though it doesn't look that deep and 19 months isn't that old), I would tend to agree that there's a pretty strong chance his lights are causing it.

I don't know how much this can affect just SPS, but is your heater leaking stray voltage in the tank?

 

[wyattroa]

He had listed the alk as 8.7 - 10 in the first post. If you're talking about bringing it down from the 480, I would disagree - I think that's a good level.

His levels look pretty solid - assuming there wasn't anything that disturbed his sand bed and released a little ammonia (though it doesn't look that deep and 19 months isn't that old), I would tend to agree that there's a pretty strong chance his lights are causing it.

I don't know how much this can affect just SPS, but is your heater leaking stray voltage in the tank?

Yeah, I checked over the excel and alk has been good. I have not checked the tank for stray voltage.

Lights wise, I am really leaning to leave LED's and go to T5's.

 

[James404]

I had a single AI Sol over my 24g nano cube and had nothing but problems, similar to yours. Either the fixture was too low or too intense burning corals in the middle with little spread to the outside or I would raise it and there was too little light all over. I finally got fed up and threw a MH over it and called it good.

 

[Alex T.]

Sorry, didn't see the alkalinity. If you are getting stray voltage it could definitely cause stress. I had a heater a while back that did this.

 

[gskidmor]

Now I'm not familiar with the AI Sol, so I can't speak with any authority, but generally in my experience, if the lighting isn't enough, the SPS just brown out...

Now it looks like you have mostly have colonies - did these start as frags or did you buy mostly wild caught colonies? If they're mostly wild caught, I've heard in many past threads that these don't fare well.

 

[gskidmor]

The other thing I forgot the mention/ask - what test kits are you using? Are they old? maybe you should verify your results with a different manufacturer's kit or bring it to your LFS, most will test your water for free. I had a bad batch once and I kept trying to get the tank "calibrated" only to kill many of my colonies before I figured out the test kit for Alk was bad...

 

[wyattroa]

Now I'm not familiar with the AI Sol, so I can't speak with any authority, but generally in my experience, if the lighting isn't enough, the SPS just brown out...

Now it looks like you have mostly have colonies - did these start as frags or did you buy mostly wild caught colonies? If they're mostly wild caught, I've heard in many past threads that these don't fare well.

The bushy acropora and coral bali birdsnest, and purple rim monti were bought from diversden as a colony from my wife. I am not sure if it was wild caught.

The other thing I forgot the mention/ask - what test kits are you using? Are they old? maybe you should verify your results with a different manufacturer's kit or bring it to your LFS, most will test your water for free. I had a bad batch once and I kept trying to get the tank "calibrated" only to kill many of my colonies before I figured out the test kit for Alk was bad...

My kits are a salifert test kits which were bought in jan. For alk and phos I use hanna. Ph I use my probe from apex which is a month old.
Robert

 

[gskidmor]

It's tough - as long as the probes are calibrated, I would trust it. Salifert was the brand that failed on me, but that was a few years back.

If you don't have one yourself, post in your local forum and see if anyone has a PAR meter that you can borrow. Test the PAR levels at the various depths in you tank. The fact that the other corals are doing fine would indicate they're getting enough light...how has the non-sps growth been in the tank? I do see one of the SPS did brown out, so maybe they're not getting enough light... [I'm assuming it's not photo-shock since the softies and LPS didn't die, but I wouldn't totally rule that out either].

In addition to seeing if somone locally has a par-meter, see if anyone has the device to test for stray voltage - you'd be surprised how many people are willing to come over with their equipment and help you diagnose.

 

[wyattroa]

It's tough - as long as the probes are calibrated, I would trust it. Salifert was the brand that failed on me, but that was a few years back.

If you don't have one yourself, post in your local forum and see if anyone has a PAR meter that you can borrow. Test the PAR levels at the various depths in you tank. The fact that the other corals are doing fine would indicate they're getting enough light...how has the non-sps growth been in the tank? I do see one of the SPS did brown out, so maybe they're not getting enough light... [I'm assuming it's not photo-shock since the softies and LPS didn't die, but I wouldn't totally rule that out either].

In addition to seeing if somone locally has a par-meter, see if anyone has the device to test for stray voltage - you'd be surprised how many people are willing to come over with their equipment and help you diagnose.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I know the ric mushrooms all shriveled up. The zoas are growing and my candy cane split, but once I got higher with intensity they were not expanding as much or puffing out. I spoke with reefgeek about the lighting and he said to dial my lights down to 25-30%. But, this seems like it would be very low.
Robert

 

[rajkovich207]

I don't mean to jack your thread, but I'm having a similar problem, how do you check for stray voltage?