LPS is not happy

[kevin21]

Hey everyone

7 month old 28g nano. Tunze skimmer and tunze nano ATO. About 25lbs of live rock. Have hammer, frogspawn, candy cane, blasto, acan, open brain, some GSP and Kenya tree.

Kenya tree, GSP, and the brain are ok. All the others are closed and looking pretty awful.

My readings about a week ago weren't great. Mg was low, around 1200. I have steadily raised my mg to 1320 as of this morning. My Alk has been surprisingly ok. It is sitting at 8.2. My calcium is 400, a little on the low side, and just dosed this morning. My salinity is 1.025, temp is 78 degrees. It's a barebottom tank with a six line wrasse and flame hawkish. Fish doing great.

My concern is that my levels really are not awful. I'm pretty close to the perfect Sk8r sig line. Shouldn't I be seeing some improvement from
these corals? There is zero nitrite or ammonia. Nitrate around 5ppm. My past two water changes the past month I changed from plain instant ocean to instant ocean reef crystals. Could the different salt be making chaos?

I was almost positive bringing my levels to that Sk8r sig line would work. Not looking good still.

Thanks for any input!

 

[whosurcaddie]

What are your phos levels. Also what type of flow do you have in the tank. Lighting info would help as well.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Pictures would help. You have to remember that most LPS like med light and med to low flow for the most part. What do you have for lights and what are their settings? How long do you run your lights a day, and how often do you feed them and what do you feed them.

 

[kevin21]

Thanks guys, sorry I left that out. I have a Kessil a-150 over the tank. Lights run from 12 noon to 9pm. I have my standard jbj returns that don't have much power. And have 2 koralia nano 425s in the tank as well. One in the back and one in the front. I have recently had a hair algae/small cyano issue the past week. Figured that was a new tank routine like I've had in the past. I feed the tank mysis, brine, and spirulina brine. I spot feed a couple times per week. But haven't in the past couple weeks due to there diminishing health. Will try to get up a before and after picture from the past month or so.

 

[kevin21]

Having trouble uploading pictures with my iPhone. You guys have any suggestions

 

[kevin21]

Hopefully this works

 

[Sk8r]

There's one other ingredient---a stable condition. It may take a little time for it to pick up. Do keep phosphate and nitrate way down, but not totally absent.

 

[kevin21]

Thanks, will keep up with bi weekly 5 gallon water changes. Should I be concerned with this hair algae break out? I was expecting it sooner or later but didn't think it would come with a 7 month old tank. I use only Ro/di as well.

Just crazy to see this difference of about a month there. Everything thriving to everything closed up with hair algae everywhere. Can't think of anything negligent I have done to cause this.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

WOW, I don't know where to begin. I'll start with those power heads can't be moving much if any water. Take them out, pull them apart and soak in white vinegar and water 50/50 mix for about 30 mins to an hour the put back together and start them back up. You can't be getting much flow with them covered in GHA. The GHA is more than likely causing a lot of your problems, but those corals just look like they're starving. What do you have for a CUC? What do you have to consume the GHA?

 

[kevin21]

Will do. I cleaned them 4 days ago during last water change. Gets covered quick. I have about 8 Ceriths, 12-15 dwarf ceriths, couple nerites, an an emerald crab.

 

[kevin21]

Not sure what to do about starving coral. They will not eat in this condition. Best I can do is water quality and lighting obviously. Unless there's something I'm missing.

 

[Drewl117]

Did the gha start after you were spot feeding?

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Will do. I cleaned them 4 days ago during last water change. Gets covered quick. I have about 8 Ceriths, 12-15 dwarf ceriths, couple nerites, an an emerald crab.

Get rid of the Emerald crab it will go rogue on you eventually and get two Mexican Turbo snails. They will eat the snot out of the GHA.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Not sure what to do about starving coral. They will not eat in this condition. Best I can do is water quality and lighting obviously. Unless there's something I'm missing.

Understand. Pretty much the GHA is eating up all of your nitrates and phosphates which are what the corals feed off of in the water. I would get something like Coral Frenzy, Kent Microvert or similar products so they can take in some kind of nutrition. And get those Mexican Turbos. I would say get 3 or 4 but they will only die once you don't have anything else for them to eat. There are fish that eat GHA but I think that's a bad idea too for the same reason as too many snails.

 

[kevin21]

Yeah too small for fish. And no the algae didn't start from
Spot feeding.

Will get the Mexican turbos. Think I'll go with 2 due to the small tank. And I believe my Lfs carries coral frenzy. Was thinking about that before. Guess I will keep my levels as stable as possible, get some turbos and hope for the best. Hoping that will
Solve this and it's not something we aren't seeing.

 

[anthonys51]

what intensity do you have your lights set for and at what duration. hopefully you arent full blasting those lights all day

 

[Dkuhlmann]

That's a step in the right direction and please keep this thread updated on your progress or failures. We'll be here to help you along the way to overcome this.

 

[kevin21]

Thank you! Really appreciate it and I will.

As for the lights, yes they are on full blast all day as there is no setting on the a-150 to adjust the intensity. 1 setting on those lights. The On button

 

[kevin21]

Just a quick update. Levels are now at 1350 mg, 8.2 alk, and 420 calcium. Nitrate shows 10. Going to be doing a water change this weekend which should knock that down. I havent gotten to the LFS yet to grab a couple of mexican turbos, but will as soon as possible. Levels have been stable for 3 days. Still no signs of the corals being happier. Brain, gsp, kenya tree still looking fine.

 

[kevin21]

Stable parameters for about a week now. Still no improvement.

A couple of notes: Even my stray pests of aiptasia don't look happy! Also, I normally used instant ocean salt. I have done 2 water changes so far with instant ocean reef crystals. I feel like its doubtful, but things were looking better when I was just using IO. Any chance the switch of salt caused these issues?

None of the corals are dead...yet. I was hoping a week of stable params would slowly bring them back. I just don't see any improvement. The hair algae is still bad. Picked up a couple turbos, waiting from them to mow some of it.