Need Help Please with my SPS Tank - Losing Some Corals

[Patrick Cox]

Hi,
First let me apologize for the long post...

I started a 75G SPS system back in January. I cured my rock from Oct-Jan to remove phosphates / develop bio filter, then I started my tank in January, started adding SPS in late Feb/early March, added dosing pumps in April, and now here I am.

My setup is...

75G display
20G sump
90-160G rated Reef Octopus Skimmer
I run GAC/GFO (more on GFO in a minute)
Filter sock
ATI 6x39 Watt Dimmable fixture - 7" above water surface
photoperiod:
4 bulbs - 10-noon (25%-100% evenly over period)
6 bulbs Noon-6PM - 100%
4 bulbs - 6PM - 8PM - (100%-25% evenly over period)
Par at 100% for SPS ranges from 250 - 415
Alk/Ca Dosing pumps
Apex Controller

Parameters
SG - 1.026 - very consistent
Temp - 77.5-78.5 - controlled by Apex
PH - 8.15 - 8.35 (morning - end of day) (calibrated probe)
Alk - 8.3-8.6 (Salifert)
Ca - 440
Mg - 1320
NO3 - 0.2 (Salifert)
PO4 - 0.0 (Hanna Checker)

Maintenance:
Change filter sock twice per week
5G water change each week

Livestock:
Various Acros, Montis & a few LPS
6 small fish

Feeding:
-I feed the fish 2 times per day. Mainly pellets and flakes but I do feed frozen some.
-Back in April, I started feeding Oyster feast 2-3 times per week because my colors were not great and I thought my nutrients were too low.
-I also started Pohls Xtra in early May but that didn't seem to do anything so I stopped a couple weeks ago. (Not sure if stopping may have something to do with recent coral losses.)

So as I mentioned, I have not been happy with the colors of some of my corals and I have tried a number of different things with really no success. Some of my corals seem happy, and some don't look that great. Recently I lost a "Pearlberry" - it lasted about 2 months and then turned white and died pretty quickly. Now I have a Bali Green Slimer that I added in early April that is not doing well. It was losing color and turning brown and the guy at the shop where I purchased it told me to lower it in the tank to get less light and now it is looking worse. The brown is turning to white in spots. Not sure I got very good advice on that. I don't think this one will make it.

From what I have read, there are likely two possible culprits - Nutrients and Light....

Nutrients:
Amazingly, I turned my GFO reactor off one month ago and my PO4 is still 0.0. Not sure how that is happening because I feed regularly. I am still running GAC so maybe I should turn that off as well?

Lights:
I know I have a good fixture and it is capable of sustaining SPS but I am wondering if I have an issue with placement of certain corals in the tank. I have a Par meter and the par in my tank ranges from 250-415. Most of the Acros are in the 350-400 range at full power. I think this is adequate to grow and color up acros but maybe I have issues with placement of specific corals?

Lastly maybe my tank is still too young for some SPS?

Sorry for the long post but I want to stay on the right path with my tank so any advice you can provide on improving my journey would be appreciated...

Here is a before and after of my Bali Green Slimer:

Slimer As new:

Slimer today:

Here is a coral that seems to be doing well...

Strawberry Shortcake as new:

Strawberry Shortcake Today:

Current FTS:

 

[LoJack]

What is your bulb combination?

I doubt it's your light ... 6 bulb ATI is a great fixture with a ton of par, depending on the bulbs you're using.

But based on the fact that nothing looks bleached, rather, it looks pale ... it points to lack of nutrients in the tank starving the corals.

 

[Patrick Cox]

What is your bulb combination?

I doubt it's your light ... 6 bulb ATI is a great fixture with a ton of par, depending on the bulbs you're using.

But based on the fact that nothing looks bleached, rather, it looks pale ... it points to lack of nutrients in the tank starving the corals.

Bulbs are F to B... (all ATI)

B+
B+
P+
B+
C+
B+

Am I running them long enough? (see above for schedule.)

On the nutrients, this has been my thinking as well. But I can seem to get my nutrients up. I don't want to increase too much but I can't seem to get above 0.0 PO4. As I mentioned, I have stopped running GFO (it's been two weeks since I turned GFO off.) I don't think I should turn off skimmer. And then there is the filter sock. Those are the main 3 things that are removing nutrients I believe. And I am down to only filter sock and skimmer.

Thanks again for your thoughts!

Pat

 

[Arkayology]

Your corals are starving. Even though you took your GFO offline, it may take several weeks for the corals to get used to having the nutrients back in the system before they start to recover.

 

[Patrick Cox]

Your corals are starving. Even though you took your GFO offline, it may take several weeks for the corals to get used to having the nutrients back in the system before they start to recover.

Nutrients are still low 2 weeks after shutting off GFO. What should I be doing going forward to get the correct nutrient levels? Thanks.

 

[Arkayology]

Nutrients are still low 2 weeks after shutting off GFO. What should I be doing going forward to get the correct nutrient levels? Thanks.

How much oyster feast are you feeding? I would maybe double it for awhile and see where it gets you.

 

[LoJack]

Yeah I'd lean towards nutrients with that bulb combo and photo period. It isn't your lighting causing the issues. Plus, your corals are growing ... they just aren't thriving.

You may just need to slowly increase feedings until your nutrients catch up.

 

[Patrick Cox]

How much oyster feast are you feeding? I would maybe double it for awhile and see where it gets you.

2 teaspoons every 2-3 days. Maybe I should try 2 teaspoons daily for a week? Should I try some direct feeding? I have never done that. I just squirt into a high flow area of the tank.

Thanks.

 

[Patrick Cox]

I've been doing some reading on this subject and I am wondering if my Alk is too high for the nutrient level I am running. Should I consider lowering my Alk just a bit? Maybe like 8? Thanks!

 

[biggles]

You and i share similar setups Pat and both our tanks have been running about the same time. All my SPS are wild and less forgiving than the aquacultured corals most stock their tanks with and despite being slagged on this forum if i dare to post a FTS of my reef by those who have no idea what it takes to keep wild SPS as opposed to hardy proven corals i'll give you an opinion as to what's wrong with your corals mate.
I always run zero measurable phos and zero nitrates because that's what my wild SPS are used to. I have one clown fish and one shrimp in my 40x24x18 and i feed the fish twice a day with as much pellet food as he can fit in his gob. Before the lights come on every morning i put a good pinch of reef roids in the tank and and hour after lights out i do the same. I also add a 1/4 tsp of cyclopeeze powder every night when i'm going to bed. Every third night i pulverize a frozen mysis cube to paste and feed that to the corals as well.
I run a good skimmer in the sump and that's it, no other fancy gear or stuff other than a bag of GFO or carbon thrown in the sump for a week or two if i have a stuff up such as recently occurred with an unexpected hospital stay resulting in alk bottoming out and tap water being put in the tank by a friend.
I keep alk below 8.5 as higher levels result in sulky slower growing corals with my clean water but other than that we are doing similar things except you aren't feeding your corals lots of food like i am every day. I keep my alk very stable by dosing at different rates during lights on and off as i have found great success doing this compared to friends dosing with pumps at the same rate over a 24 hr period. I would start feeding your corals a whole lot more - not the bloody fish, either way you need to get a lot more food in your tank for your corals imo.

At the risk of another 'anyone can do this' reply to a FTS i post i think i know what i'm doing when it comes to keeping wild SPS so anyone who wants to pipe up and tell me different again - you better have a tank full of wild SPS to back up your claim, not easier to keep aquacultured SPS. Tank shot yesterday still recovering from my alk drop to 4. I haven't cleaned the back glass in 2 months - i have next to no coralline algae growth as you can see and that's just the way my tanks have always run. Took the pic with all the lights on and haven't done anything except to crop and resize the image, if i remove some of the blue color cast you would really see some color lol.
I really think a slight alk drop and lots more coral food will see a big improvement in your system mate but that's just my opinion. :thumbsup:

 

[dg3147]

I don't think I can diagnose the problem, and u are about to get a lot of opinions on lighing and corals starving. I will share my experience (for what it's worth).

It looks like you started with dry macrorocks or some equivelent; therefore , u have a very nutrient poor and undiverse tank.

With my tank --the same set up as yours --I had the same issue (my tank is ultra low nutrient). I noticed that after 5 gal water chabges (100 g system), STN seemed to slow and reverse. I then experimented by doing a 20 gallon water change. This really improved things a lot with explosion of coralline etc. I was able to reproduce it in a very predicatable manner over several months. The improvement woul dlast about 7days after each water change; though, each time it seemed to last a bit longer.

It has now been about 6 months on this routine and I do large changes once a month for last 2 months.

I suspect there is some trace element being absorbed by the dry rock or some component of the ecosystem missing that the salt mix is providing. I hope with maturity the tank wikl stabilize further.

Experiment and do a 20% water chage. It should be safe to do so.

 

[Patrick Cox]

You and i share similar setups Pat and both our tanks have been running about the same time. All my SPS are wild and less forgiving than the aquacultured corals most stock their tanks with and despite being slagged on this forum if i dare to post a FTS of my reef by those who have no idea what it takes to keep wild SPS as opposed to hardy proven corals i'll give you an opinion as to what's wrong with your corals mate.
I always run zero measurable phos and zero nitrates because that's what my wild SPS are used to. I have one clown fish and one shrimp in my 40x24x18 and i feed the fish twice a day with as much pellet food as he can fit in his gob. Before the lights come on every morning i put a good pinch of reef roids in the tank and and hour after lights out i do the same. I also add a 1/4 tsp of cyclopeeze powder every night when i'm going to bed. Every third night i pulverize a frozen mysis cube to paste and feed that to the corals as well.
I run a good skimmer in the sump and that's it, no other fancy gear or stuff other than a bag of GFO or carbon thrown in the sump for a week or two if i have a stuff up such as recently occurred with an unexpected hospital stay resulting in alk bottoming out and tap water being put in the tank by a friend.
I keep alk below 8.5 as higher levels result in sulky slower growing corals with my clean water but other than that we are doing similar things except you aren't feeding your corals lots of food like i am every day. I keep my alk very stable by dosing at different rates during lights on and off as i have found great success doing this compared to friends dosing with pumps at the same rate over a 24 hr period. I would start feeding your corals a whole lot more - not the bloody fish, either way you need to get a lot more food in your tank for your corals imo.

At the risk of another 'anyone can do this' reply to a FTS i post i think i know what i'm doing when it comes to keeping wild SPS so anyone who wants to pipe up and tell me different again - you better have a tank full of wild SPS to back up your claim, not easier to keep aquacultured SPS. Tank shot yesterday still recovering from my alk drop to 4. I haven't cleaned the back glass in 2 months - i have next to no coralline algae growth as you can see and that's just the way my tanks have always run. Took the pic with all the lights on and haven't done anything except to crop and resize the image, if i remove some of the blue color cast you would really see some color lol.
I really think a slight alk drop and lots more coral food will see a big improvement in your system mate but that's just my opinion. :thumbsup:

Thanks so much for your reply. It is much appreciated and your diagnosis and suggestions make a lot of sense. I will increase my feeding and carefully observe my tank and monitor my levels and I will report back over the next few weeks. I will also drop my Alk down just a bit so I am running closer to 8 instead of 8.5.

And on feeding, do you ever directly/target feed your corals or do you simply place the food into a high flow area of the tank?

Thanks again!

 

[Patrick Cox]

I don't think I can diagnose the problem, and u are about to get a lot of opinions on lighing and corals starving. I will share my experience (for what it's worth).

It looks like you started with dry macrorocks or some equivelent; therefore , u have a very nutrient poor and undiverse tank.

With my tank --the same set up as yours --I had the same issue (my tank is ultra low nutrient). I noticed that after 5 gal water chabges (100 g system), STN seemed to slow and reverse. I then experimented by doing a 20 gallon water change. This really improved things a lot with explosion of coralline etc. I was able to reproduce it in a very predicatable manner over several months. The improvement woul dlast about 7days after each water change; though, each time it seemed to last a bit longer.

It has now been about 6 months on this routine and I do large changes once a month for last 2 months.

I suspect there is some trace element being absorbed by the dry rock or some component of the ecosystem missing that the salt mix is providing. I hope with maturity the tank wikl stabilize further.

Experiment and do a 20% water chage. It should be safe to do so.

Hi,
Thanks for your response. You are correct that I started my tank with 100% dry rock. It was Pukani rock from BRS. I had not thought of or read about the impacts of using dry rock that you are describing but it does make sense. My current water change schedule is about 4-5 Gallons per week (5-6%.) That is probably on the low side of recommended changes so it is probably a good idea for me to increase my water changes.

Thanks again for your reply.

Pat

 

[biggles]

Hi mate, you can either feed your corals only as i do or feed the you know what out of your fish and try running with measurable phos and nitrates as most seem to have success with that method on aquacultured SPS. Either way i'm sure feeding coral specific foods will see an improvement in your corals.
When i had about 10 SPS i used to turn off the pumps and use a turkey baster to target feed them once every second night but now i have about 35 diff pieces and have increased feedings a lot i basically can't be stuffed doing that. I don't use socks unless i want to run one for 24hrs and stir up the crud in the sump and sand bed so only the skimmer is mechanically filtering the water - i used to turn that off at feed time for an hour but that also fell victim to my 'can't be stuffed' affliction......
I forgot to mention that i add a pinch of amino acids to the shrimp slurry along with an extra pinch of roids and put the lot into half a cup of tank water which floats in the sump for an hour, then i turn off the return only and dump the lot in the tank - the coral polyps go nuts on 'shrimp night' so i'm going to make it every 2nd night soon.
Really important is to increase the feedings slowly so you don't overwhelm the biological filtration present in your system. Remember i have all fresh live rock so i have a big head start on you with my natural filtering capacity even though the tank is only 6 months old.
I would target feed the sick corals if you can and just run a small amount of GFO at the first sign of algae. Once that algae cycle is wiped out i remove the GFO and increase the food a bit until the same thing is repeated, over time i have built up my tanks ability to handle a larger amount of waste but i think there will come a time when i will have to stop increasing the feedings as my tank contains only so much rock and sand etc for bacteria to colonize.
I hope to see things turn around for you mate and don't just take my advice but i can't see anything else you're doing being the cause. Btw i ran zero with 9.0 alk for a couple of months without probs so i don't think that's the issue. I was running at 7.5 with good results but have settled on 8.0-8.2 as i have a larger safety net if the corals increase uptake before i next test levels - has happened a few times so far lol. Sorry to go on but i want you to avoid all my mistakes along the way

 

[LoJack]

I don't think I can diagnose the problem, and u are about to get a lot of opinions on lighing and corals starving. I will share my experience (for what it's worth).

It looks like you started with dry macrorocks or some equivelent; therefore , u have a very nutrient poor and undiverse tank.

With my tank --the same set up as yours --I had the same issue (my tank is ultra low nutrient). I noticed that after 5 gal water chabges (100 g system), STN seemed to slow and reverse. I then experimented by doing a 20 gallon water change. This really improved things a lot with explosion of coralline etc. I was able to reproduce it in a very predicatable manner over several months. The improvement woul dlast about 7days after each water change; though, each time it seemed to last a bit longer.

It has now been about 6 months on this routine and I do large changes once a month for last 2 months.

I suspect there is some trace element being absorbed by the dry rock or some component of the ecosystem missing that the salt mix is providing. I hope with maturity the tank wikl stabilize further.

Experiment and do a 20% water chage. It should be safe to do so.

I really like this take on things. I had never really put into perspective what dry rock could be lacking, all I saw was the benefits of dry rock and the lack of hitch hikers and unwanted pests.

I went through the same thing though ... I would see polyps that would no longer extend, and tissue recession a week to ten days after a water change. Meanwhile, I have a great skimmer, that was pulling gunk, and undetectable nitrates. I couldn't figure out what the problem was. One day I was ticked right off and did a 50 gallon water change (about 35%) and low and behold within 24 hours polyps were back out and everything looked great again.

This went on for almost the first year of the tank ... with longer periods after each water change before noticing issues with the coral (a Pocillipora Damicornis was my indicator coral) It has such long polyps that you could easily see when it wasn't happy, and was always the first to show signs.

Now, 18 months after the tank start up ... I can easily go 2 weeks without anything looking like its suffering. The skimmer is pulling no more and no less, salt hasn't changed, dosing hasn't changed.

I have no scientific evidence to support what you have assessed, and what I have also found in my tank ... but they seem to go hand in hand with your hypothesis

 

[dkeller_nc]

A few thoughts based on your comments and pictures.

IMO, your photoperiod seems very short. It seems your tank is lit for a maximum of only 10 hours, and only 6 hours at full intensity. There's a lot of debate about photoperiods vs. intensity vs. spectral content, but there are quite a lot of us that run a 12-14 hour photoperiod with about 8-10 hours of the total at full intensity.

However, I rather doubt a short photoperiod is causing the issues with the specific fragments you've photographed. I would agree with others on the thread that it seems that nutrients are lacking, perhaps exacerbated by starting the tank with only dry rock (actual live rock has an awful lot of critters, which is part of the point of using LR).

That said, one to two teaspoons of Oyster Feast nightly is a ton of the stuff in only a 70 gallon tank. I would not personally go anywhere near this high of a dose.

What I would do instead is diversify your coral feedings. There's generally no one product that has a complete nutritional and particle size profile to keep all corals. That is why I feed live rotifers, phytoplankton, oysterfeast, reef nutrition's R.O.E. in addition to fish food. The bulk of my feeding is phytoplankton, the others are added in much smaller amounts and/or a less frequent schedule.

Another thought about feeding - consider turning your protein skimmer off for at least a couple of hours after you add liquid coral foods. There's no reason to add coral food only to have your skimmer strip it out of the water 10 minutes later.

For the same reason, consider getting rid of your sock filtration, or at least use it on an occasional basis instead of 24/7. It's possible to run a reef tank with very clear water without using any mechanical filtration of any kind.

I would suggest that you do your liquid feeding after lights-out. Coral is pre-programmed to be feeding most actively at night because that is when the water around a reef is filled with zoo plankton. If you've ever been night diving you'll know what I mean - the water just explodes with all sorts of micro critters after sundown.

 

[Patrick Cox]

A few thoughts based on your comments and pictures.

IMO, your photoperiod seems very short. It seems your tank is lit for a maximum of only 10 hours, and only 6 hours at full intensity. There's a lot of debate about photoperiods vs. intensity vs. spectral content, but there are quite a lot of us that run a 12-14 hour photoperiod with about 8-10 hours of the total at full intensity.

However, I rather doubt a short photoperiod is causing the issues with the specific fragments you've photographed. I would agree with others on the thread that it seems that nutrients are lacking, perhaps exacerbated by starting the tank with only dry rock (actual live rock has an awful lot of critters, which is part of the point of using LR).

That said, one to two teaspoons of Oyster Feast nightly is a ton of the stuff in only a 70 gallon tank. I would not personally go anywhere near this high of a dose.

What I would do instead is diversify your coral feedings. There's generally no one product that has a complete nutritional and particle size profile to keep all corals. That is why I feed live rotifers, phytoplankton, oysterfeast, reef nutrition's R.O.E. in addition to fish food. The bulk of my feeding is phytoplankton, the others are added in much smaller amounts and/or a less frequent schedule.

Another thought about feeding - consider turning your protein skimmer off for at least a couple of hours after you add liquid coral foods. There's no reason to add coral food only to have your skimmer strip it out of the water 10 minutes later.

For the same reason, consider getting rid of your sock filtration, or at least use it on an occasional basis instead of 24/7. It's possible to run a reef tank with very clear water without using any mechanical filtration of any kind.

I would suggest that you do your liquid feeding after lights-out. Coral is pre-programmed to be feeding most actively at night because that is when the water around a reef is filled with zoo plankton. If you've ever been night diving you'll know what I mean - the water just explodes with all sorts of micro critters after sundown.

Thanks for your reply. This is excellent information. Let me follow up on a few of your points for clarification.

Lighting - I have considered my photo period in the past but thought I was about right - but maybe not. I get confused at times when I read about photo period but I am happy to increase my photo period if that will help my tank thrive. I will increase my full intensity photo period by 30 minutes and then in another week, I will add another 30 minutes and then see how that goes. That will put me at 7 hours full intensity, with a 2 hour ramp before and after. How does that sound? Is my ramp too long?

Food choices - You say you mainly feed phytoplankton. What specifically are you feeding to deliver phytoplankton to your tank? (what product?) I didn't mention this but I also have roti feast in my fridge and Reef Chili dry mix from BRF. Would these 3 food choices be good or is there something else I should add and if so, can you give me some specific options?

Feeding intervals - If I read the Oyster feast bottle, the recommended feeding rate is 1 to 2 teaspoons per 100 gallons per day. What would you recommend? Do you feed every day or less frequently? I feel like I need to feed more often because after two weeks of feeding every 2-3 days, my PO4 is still 0.0 and my Nitrates are barely detectable at roughly 0.2.

Filtration - I have been running the filter sock, aggressive skimming, GAC and GFO in order to keep clean water because my understanding was that SPS don't do well in high nutrient water. But now the low nutrient water is actually killing some of my corals. So to be honest, this is all a bit confusing. It is not clear to me how I know the right filtration actions and the right nutrient levels to keep my corals happy. More of a rhetorical question as I suspect there is not one single answer but just putting this out there.

Thanks again for your thoughts and observations! I appreciate reading everyone's input.

Pat

 

[dkeller_nc]

Regarding the lighting, your plan seems good. Every tank is different, and what is an optimum photoperiod in some tanks would produce a huge algae bloom in others, so increasing the PP 30 minutes per week and observing the effects should tell you what's ideal for your tank. There's a poll in the Reef Discussion section on PP by the way - you can take a look at it to see what other reefers are running.

In a similar vein, "enough" food in one tank may be "way too much" in another. Some factors that would influence this judgment would be the number and types of corals, biomechanical filtration capacity, state of algae growth, etc...

In my case, I use Reef Nutrition PhytoFeast Live. It's made by Reed Mariculture, and I prefer it over PhycoPure's Reef Blend mainly because Reed's product is a lot more concentrated and therefore a good bit cheaper.

From the standpoint of what to feed, I'd start with what you have on hand. It seems that the mix that you have is mainly zooplankton substitutes, hence the thought about adding in some phytoplankton substitute for balance.

How clean one's water in a reef tank with SPS corals needs/should be is hotly debated. There's an article in Aquarium USA's annual issue on the newsstands now that has an excellent article on copepods. In this article, the author makes a good point: the dissolved mineral nutrients (NO3, PO4, etc...) may be very, very low, but there are a lot of nutrients present in biological form: zooplankton and phytoplankton.

In an aquarium, we can certainly achieve very low dissolved mineral nutrients with modern technology (like the use of GFO, denitrators, carbon dosing, zeolites, etc...). But it's difficult to replicate the high concentrations of plankton that would be present on a natural reef. I think that's why the ZeoVit ULNS system needs nutrients added back in the form of amino acids, foods, etc... after the zeolite/bacterial colonies strip it back out.

In your aquarium, if you've some genuine live rock in the system, you will likely have all of the small feather dusters, sponges and other critters necessary to clear the water within a couple of hours after food addition, so you probably don't need the filter sock.

If you wish, you can simply run an experiment - take your filter sock out of the system (and any other mechanical filtration) and shut off the skimmer. Add the oyster feast (personally, I'd start out with 1/5th of the dose listed on the bottle), RotiFeast and/or phytoplankton. Then observe the clarity of the water just after addition and a couple of hours later. That should tell you whether you really need the filter socks/mechanical filtration.

 

[ridetheducati]

Target nitrates at 2 - 5 ppm and phosphates at .03 ppm.

 

[dowtish]

Get some more fish! Add a shrimp or 2, add some pods and feed feed feed.