Much trouble keeping SPS.

S

szl

New member
Hi everyone.

I love SPS but cannot figure out why I cannot keep them. Every single piece I buy starts dying from the tips inward a couple of weeks after being put in my tank. People say its alk, but I am certain it isnt.

I have been testing my alk daily at the same time for over 2 months and it is steady at 8.1
Calcium 425
Mag 1420
temp 77-78 through out the day
sg 1.026
ph 7.9 - 8.1
no3 8-10
po4 0.00

I have tested myself with 3 different kits, (Red Sea, Salifert and Hanna) and brought my water to other peoples homes to test and all results were similar.

I have tried multiple different salts (RSCP, AV Salinity, currently Aquaforest Probiotic).

My tank is 6ft x 2ft x 2ft and I am providing flow with 2 MP40 QDs and a Gyre 150. I am running a Nyos 160 skimmer.

My lights are ATI 5ft 8 bulb, and I have replaced bulbs to eliminate that. I also have 3 radion xr15s over the tank that run blues only (60%) and have tried lowering the intensity of the leds and still the same issues, sps that are lower down in the tank have the same problems. Plus everyone I buy corals off have almost the exact or more intense lighting than I do.

I run my leds only for 1 hr in the AM, then 5 hours of t5, then back to LED for the PM for another 6 hours, giving us a total of 12 hours light.

I only dose calcium and alk, as my mag is replaced by water changes.

My water change schedule is normally 10% a week, however I have been doing 20% a week thinking maybe it would help but it hasnt made a difference.

I have tested for stray voltage and I had none. Ive inspected at night for anything that might be bothering them, found a gorilla crab once but got rid of him months ago.

My livestock list includes....

Achillies Tang
Flame Angel
Small Hippo Tang
Small Blonde Naso
2 Osc Clowns
Royal Gramma
Med Fox Face

I feed them once a day in the AM, usually a mix of pellets, fish eggs and nori.

I have a bunch of Zoas, 2 Leathers a couple of acans and torches and have no issues with them.

I have scoured the darkest corners of the internet with no avail.

I am now down to the last thing I think it can be, GFO. Is it possible that my GFO has been stripping to much po4 out of the tank and there simply isnt enough for my sps to survive? I dont feed my corals anything, and my po4 has tested 0.00 on Red Sea, Hanna and Salifert kits for months now.

I have been running only 2 tbspns of gfo in the TLF reactor, on a low flow.

Besides GFO, I feel like I have been extremely thorough with my elimination of possible causes of the issues.

Does anyone else have any ideas or input that I may have missed? I am at the point where Aliens coming in and poisoning my tank when I am sleeping seems possible. :lmao:

Well thanks for reading my little novel and hopefully I will have sticks growing soon
 
Try lowering your mag to 1350 range and watch to see if the fish are bothering the corals. What corals are you starting with? How long has the tank been up and how many lps are you keeping? You might try with some Digitata or other really tough types of sps. That's all I can think of atm. GL
 
Grant W said:
Try lowering your mag to 1350 range and watch to see if the fish are bothering the corals. What corals are you starting with? How long has the tank been up and how many lps are you keeping? You might try with some Digitata or other really tough types of sps. That's all I can think of atm. GL
Click to expand...

Mag has been high because of my salt mix, I cant get it lower. In my old tank I had no issues with sps and mag was 1440..

Fish are not bothering them, ive watched for hours and hours and hours. I have very few LPS. maybe a total of 5 small ones.

I have tried all kinds of SPS including digi, with the same result.

Tank has been up 8 months, but again, I had my old tank for only 6 months total and kept SPS with out issues.

Thanks for the reply.
 
Hi thanks for the responses.

My water is RODI and reads at 000 tds on 2 different testers.

Ive got my po4 up to .02, and today I put in some carbon to see if it makes any difference. Did a 10% WC too, just maintenance

I am curious about the leathers now, I am taking both of them out of the tank tomorrow. I really appreciate that link to the leathers.
 
A lot of leathers and other lps release large amounts of terpinates into the system and sps do not like that at all
 
A few thoughts...I noticed that the more water changes I did, the more it jacked with my parameters. That irritated my SPS. But my tank is a lot smaller than yours. I'm one of those in the minority that thinks that WC's can actually harm an SPS tank if done too often. I know everyone thinks WC's are the end all-be all, but in my opinion they're not. If the end goal is stability, WCs actually prevent that by introducing completely new water with different levels of everything. When I do WCs, they are small (no more than 5%) and relatively infrequent, usually every 3 weeks or so.

I'll add that you should take my opinion (and everyone else's too) with a grain of salt. Much of the hobby is anecdotal and what works for me might not work for others. I do think excess water changes can be a plague on SPS tanks though. Not sure if it's the source of your problem or not, just remember "change" and SPS tanks don't mix well.
 
Hi guys/gals,

I'm back with a slight update.

I raised my whole lighting rig 20 inches, so now my lights are 22" from the surface of the water. I added some SPS frags for a test and had the same issue happen again. I also added some Zoas and had them melt over night. I then got more of the same Zoa frags (thank you to www.Fragbox.com for all the FREE tester frags) and put them in the shade and they were fine.

This lead me to believe that it was my T5s being to intense, so I took them offline.

I am thinking that perhaps my T5s are to strong due to how shallow my tank is or GFO is making water too clean and intensifing the lighting (I dunno if this is true, I read it on a couple of other threads.) Or my GFO is stripping my water of nutrients and my corals are starving thus making them more sensitive to light? (Again dont know if this is possible)

I have been running my radions only at 20-30% for almost 2 weeks after adding more (sigh) sps frags, so far so good. I also took my GFO offline and got rid of my leathers. Stuff still isnt looking amazing but its not dying.... yet.

I have also had almost no algae growth in my tank, I clean my glass maybe once every 2 weeks. I also have no coraline algae now, though I did before. I feel like this isnt normal, and what lead me to believe that perhaps my GFO is stripping my water.

I did some research into my light, ATI Powermodule (the old one, not the one with LED) 60" 8 bulb, and found another user who had similar issues as me, though he had a 10 bulb over a 21" high tank.

I am thinking of purchasing a sunpower instead because I read it is less powerful than the sunpower. Any advice on this?

I will be getting a PAR meter tomorrow night and will be testing my lighting, so I will have more info.
 
Sorry, I meant I raised my lights 10" inches, not 20" originally had them at 12 inches now they are 22 inches.
 
szl said:
Sorry, I meant I raised my lights 10" inches, not 20" originally had them at 12 inches now they are 22 inches.
Click to expand...

Personally I think your suspicions about gfo are correct. I would take it off line. 22" off the water line is far to high I would put your lights back at 12".
 
In my opinion you've already taken the first couple of correct steps.

Your light is fine, replace some bulbs with actinics if you want to lower output or take out one bulb which should disable another.

Running very low nutrients almost demands you run Alk below 8, more like 7 if possible. My tank has done best at 6.7 KH and it's not exactly low nutrients.

Keep the GFO out or leave it in but start feeding heavier. Your tank is a desert wasteland and acros die quick in this kind of environment. A little coral food multiple times a day can do wonders. Think of the thousands of hungry little mouths just wanting a small bite of food. :D
 
An 8 bulb ATI isn't too much light for a 24" wide and 24" deep tank. Your problems sound like there isn't enough nutrients in the water and you may be getting burnt tips from too high of ALK. I usually run my tanks in the 7dkh range.

What bulbs were you running with the T5s and what fan setting?
 
rtparty said:
An 8 bulb ATI isn't too much light for a 24" wide and 24" deep tank. Your problems sound like there isn't enough nutrients in the water and you may be getting burnt tips from too high of ALK. I usually run my tanks in the 7dkh range.

What bulbs were you running with the T5s and what fan setting?
Click to expand...

Sorry, my tank is only 18" deep, not 24, maybe I made a typo :s
 
szl said:
Sorry, my tank is only 18" deep, not 24, maybe I made a typo :s
Click to expand...
18" top to bottom right?

The 8 bulb might be a little much for that but a couple actinic bulbs and shorter photo period would help overcome too much intensity
 
A tad more information that may or may not help.

1. I took my frags out at one point and gave to a friend who has an established tank, it was about 50/50 recovery rate.

2. I sent my water into Triton Labs, to get it tested and it came back that I had high levels of Lithium (dosed tech M for bryopsis) which Triton and many other people said should not affect growth, along with slightly low CA and slightly elevated Barium levels.

Other than that everything was good.

I will try feeding heavier.
 
rtparty said:
18" top to bottom right?

The 8 bulb might be a little much for that but a couple actinic bulbs and shorter photo period would help overcome too much intensity
Click to expand...

Correct, 18" top to bottom, my friend has almost the same tank as I do, he is running an 8 bulb sunpower 10" off the water and has amazing growth and color, I actually modeled my tank after his, I only found out later that the powermodule is stronger than the sunpower. The only real difference is that his tank is 20" deep and mine is 18"

I had tried running 6 bulbs for 4 hours a day and still had troubles.

Ill try lowering my alk to 7.5 for a while.

Thanks for taking the time to help, I really appreciate it :)
 
My alk is at 11.5; ca is 460; MG is 1440. My SPS is flourishing.

You may want to bag some carbon and put it in the sump to rid of any chemical warfare subjected by the leather and zoos.

Tough to match levels when doing water changes. But, SPS don't much like Alk swings. How do you dose? Alk in AM when ph is low and CA in evening when PH is high?

Nothing cares for full grown bryopsis. However, dose 3% hydrogen peroxide at 1ml per 20 gal and it softens up bryopsis growth and tangs, sea hare, and snails will eat hardily.

Peroxide won't kill all the bryopsis but, have had luck in slowing growth so clean up crew can catch up.

What is your light cycle? New frags don't like a lot of light. They grow well with a photo period and plenty of dark period. I ramp 4 hours from 8am - 12pm then go to around 4:30 and ramp down in around an hour. I keep the blue and royal blue on till 6:30 and ramp down 40% in an hour and go to zero by 12:am.

My lights are at 70% of peak - acclimation. PAR at top of rocks is around 400. Bottom of tank is around 200.

Give corals time to acclimate. When I buy coral, depending on the species, it takes a bit of time to color up.

Good luck and happy reefing!
 
szl said:
Correct, 18" top to bottom, my friend has almost the same tank as I do, he is running an 8 bulb sunpower 10" off the water and has amazing growth and color, I actually modeled my tank after his, I only found out later that the powermodule is stronger than the sunpower. The only real difference is that his tank is 20" deep and mine is 18"

I had tried running 6 bulbs for 4 hours a day and still had troubles.

Ill try lowering my alk to 7.5 for a while.

Thanks for taking the time to help, I really appreciate it :)
Click to expand...

Last time I saw readings comparing a Powermodule and a Sunpower, it showed only a 5-10% difference in PAR between the two.

If you can, a couple pics showing your tank and setup might help people as well.
 
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