Losing Frogspawn and Acans

[JojoAZ]

I've been a long time reader here but this will be my first post as I've got a problem I hope someone here can help me solve.

The tank is a year old and almost all sps with a few zoas and LPS on the bottom, 3 days ago my frogspawn which has been in the tank 7 months and thriving has shrunken to 1/2 the size and looks sickly. As of today my acans look like theyre getting ready to melt away.

Things that have changed recently, is the recent growth of bryopsis, I'm going to start the Kent Mtech dosing tomorrow. I also added a Marine Pure block last week and started back on vodka a month ago (I stopped for about 3mo) along with microbacter7 when I saw the first signs of algae and some cyano, all of which have disappeared since except the bryopsis, I'm thinking maybe this could be causing oxygen depletion? I also changed salts from RSCP to Fritz RPM about 2 months ago. Everything else in the tank is thriving so I'm a little lost. Hopefully someone with more LPS experience can help me out here. I also have 2 hammers and a torch that seem to be unaffected.

Parameters
dKh=9.5
salinity=1.025
Mg=1350
CA=460
NO3=0
PO4=0
ph=7.9-8

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I have no clue on either of the salt mixes you're using but I'll assume they are premium grade mixes. That said your issue is actually pretty obvious to me that your water is actually "too clean". You don't have any nutrients for the LPS to thrive. LPS need more nitrates and phosphates which are the main nutrients they consume in your water. If they're not there then they suffer. SPS at some point will get the same way if you have none at all. They'll start to lose color and slowly fade away as your LPS are doing now.

So stop any additional export of nitrates and phosphates and see how they do. Your target for both should be nitrates of around 5 and phosphates of around .025. There is a thread in the Chemistry forum about one reefer actually adding nitrates and phosphates to his system and the actual chemistry behind it.

This is all too common of an occurrence and the actual reason is that part of the cycle of our tanks is the final part of nitrate consuming bacteria which also consume phosphates, this happens around the one year mark of the setup of your tank.

 

[JojoAZ]

Yeah I knew that having exceptionally low nutrients can have a negative effect on the sps which is a common misconception that they need ultra clean water, I guess I didn't think I could starve out the LPS beforehand. During the time I stopped using vodka I had an explosion of growth, probably for this reason, the problem in this case seems to be finding a medium where I can have a small presence of nitrate without encouraging nuisance algae. For now I guess the best thing to do is cut back on the vodka. If the bryopsis wasn't present I would just increase feeding, once I kill that off it will be easier to tell if this is the actual problem.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Yes it's a very hard thing to balance growing anything along with SPS. I've got a mixed reef and it's doing ok. My leathers aren't great but they do grow and most of the time look decent. My LPS are doing amazingly well and the few SPS that I have are some of the easier ones. I keep a few pocillipora's because my Cherub Angel loves to eat them. I figure this way he will leave my other stuff alone, and for the most part he does.

I also have a Matted file fish that is awesome to have. He eats all of my aiptasia and is for the most part a model citizen. I've seen him nip on a few things but nothing to hurt anything.

So have fun with your juggling act, it's a tough one especially if you keep a lot of acroporas

 

[Dkuhlmann]

You know, one thing that comes to mind is that in my system I allow GHA and all kinds of other nasty algae to grow and flourish. This keeps it out of my DT. I harvest the GHA every month but leave enough to allow it to keep on growing. I also run my sump lights 24/7. My GHA and Cheato are amazing looking :lmao: So let the nutrients do what they do and feed algae, only have it in your sump.

 

[JojoAZ]

Haha I've never seen someone use a coral strategically as food, especially sps. That's a gutsy move but if he isn't eating anything else then I think youre on to something. I would be interested to see how that works out long term and I wonder if some other angels would respond the same way. I would love an excuse to own one.

 

[JojoAZ]

I've got the same thing going on in the refugium, GHA and Cheato that I load with pods once a month.