New to reef tank, keep facing problems.

[Roellers117]

Hi everyone,

I own a 100gallon cichlid tank for over 7 years. 8-august 2017 I started my salt water aquarium. I chose to go with a small aquarium with the itensions to change my 100gallon to salt in the future. My Story:

After 9 weeks my aquarium was cycled and bought a couple of frags to start. Zoanthids and torch coral. (I allwais check my parameters at my fish store before buying any coral or fish)I quickly noteced that my Zoanthids coral where not opening at all and dissapairing after a couple of days the rest of the corals. Becouse of this I changed the light to blue marine maxled 85 watt. And changed my proteinskimmer to aquamedic 250 becouse the old one broke. Picture of my setup:

<a href="https://ibb.co/jm08E6"><img src="https://preview.ibb.co/dNwgZ6/aquarium_1.jpg" alt="aquarium_1" border="0"></a>

Unfortunally this didn't make a huge diffrence, I start reading about dosing and how it would keep parameters more stable. So I bought ATI 1/2/3 and dosed it as the instructions say. My parameters stayed a lot more stable! And my corals did great!

<a href="https://ibb.co/hmo61m"><img src="https://preview.ibb.co/f5Vau6/c1.jpg" alt="c1" border="0"></a>
<a href="https://ibb.co/bDEPnR"><img src="https://preview.ibb.co/bMxMZ6/c2.jpg" alt="c2" border="0"></a>
<a href="https://ibb.co/eaHYgm"><img src="https://preview.ibb.co/fsSASR/c3.jpg" alt="c3" border="0"></a>

I was able to keep this for about 20 days without doing anything extra for the aquarium. I tought I got it all right.....

- Nitrite (NO2) spike 19-10-2017. Started dosing extra bacteria and NO2 went back to 0(undetectable).
- My salinity dropped 5-1-2018 (europe date)
- A lot more green algae but only on the glass.

The rest of my parameters where normal during that time.

My corals start to fade away and I dont know what to do, exept waterchange!
Here are some pictures::uhoh2:

<a href="https://ibb.co/jWpX7R"><img src="https://preview.ibb.co/c3Jg1m/d1.jpg" alt="d1" border="0"></a>
<a href="https://ibb.co/cGL5SR"><img src="https://preview.ibb.co/kNSkSR/d2.jpg" alt="d2" border="0"></a>
<a href="https://ibb.co/nN7KnR"><img src="https://preview.ibb.co/mxFiE6/d3.jpg" alt="d3" border="0"></a><br /><a target='_blank' href='https://nl.imgbb.com/'>upload photo</a><br />

So I went to my fish store and chose to go with Aquaforest Probiotic reef salt(ATI salt was to hard and expensive to get here). It was the closest to the dKH my aquarium was used to and it would help the bacteria in the aquarium preventing NO2 spike and perhaps the green algae on the glass.(have to clean it 3 times a day:fun5

I did a 10% waterchange and ofcorse nothing happend.

I have 2 anemonefish, 3 Yellowtail Damselfish, 1 bleu hermit crab, 3 Rhynchocinetes durbanensis, 1 Trochus Snail, 5 Nassarius Snail.

I use aquarimate to store parameters at 24,5celcius (76.1 degrees) :

<iframe width="700" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://onedrive.live.com/embed?resid=F64C4342F6CC27AA%212725&authkey=%21ADr-7JltdwVHzI4&em=2&wdAllowInteractivity=False&wdHideHeaders=True&wdDownloadButton=True&wdInConfigurator=True"></iframe>

- Sould I try keep up with the parameters in the salt? SG: 1.0264 (35ppt) dKH: 8 Ca:450 Mg: 1390
- Should I consistantly feed my corals? (maby becouse I have low N03)

Is there any one who could give me help me get it back up and running?:wave:

If there is a problem with pictures ore excel parameters I would be happy to send it in a PM.

Greetings,

Roel

 

[RobZilla04]

Sounds like a case of too much too soon. Especially SPS corals. Generally tanks should be around a year mature before those go in with success. Zoas are hardy and should have been fine. Torches on the other hand are hit or miss.

My advice is to not add any livestock at this point. You should have a small clean up crew of about 6 snail and 6 crabs.

Algae phases are going to continue throughout the first year and in many cases beyond.

Dosing is only necessary when routine water changes cannot keep up with consumption. With corals deteriorating consumption of Alk Cal and Mag is low if at all. You cannot dose per instructions on the package without knowing your tank's consumption rate. The ratios will surely get outta whack.

Feding of corals is also not necessary. Thus all of the product you are putting in the tank is contributing to some of the problems. When feeding corals you should pay particular attention to nuisance nutrient levels for the next few days. This will ensure you don't over feed or create an environment for algae to thrive.

 

[homer1475]

Biggest issue I see, your wild changes. You have no stability in the tank. For instance your ALK goes from 7DKH to 10, back to 8 in a couple days. The fact one of your last readings was 12.5 could cause the coral issues your now seeing. Also your salinity keeps going from 1.026 to 1.023 to 1.025, back to 1.026......

That is far from stable and not something your corals will like.

 

[Rover88]

How is your salinity swinging that much?

Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank. (Repeat ten times).

As was said by others above, stability is the most important thing. Thats why I'm wondering about your salinity. Typically once you set it to where you want, the only thing that lowers it is evaporating water (Get an auto top off to stop that) and then the only thing that lowers it is gradually removing water from the skimmer. My Salinity went from 1.026 to 1.025 over the course of two weeks, because of either salt creep or skimmer emptying.


Great job on the consistent testing, by the way. Keep that up, monitor, but the only ones you should be ACTIVELY trying to keep in check (In my opinion) is ammonia and salinity. Most will fall in line from water changes until you get super coral-heavy, and I don't think you are...? I don't have SPS though. You need to give it a few more months to mature.

Best of luck!

 

[ReeferNoob4ever]

Yes, stability is key. I will tell you that I have a tank, less than a year old that grows SPS (birdsnest and monti) no problem and my LPS go crazy (I feed them also). My salinity goes from 1.025 to 1.026 everyday. As the water evaporates the salinity goes up to 1.026 and then the ATO comes on and it goes down to 1.025. That's not a big deal IME. My Nitrates have been as high as 20ppm and phosphate .25ppm (added a chaeto reactor and they have gone down). The nitrates and phosphates never affected my corals, if anything my candy cane and duncan doubled during that time. Obviously you don't want any ammonia (use Seachem stability if you find ammonia) So...I think your main issue here is clearly the instability in your water chemistry. You need to get your ALK to 8-9dkh solid, CA++ 420 solid, and MG 1290 solid. Use only salt and water changes to maintain those levels. That means roughly 20% per week. Once you notice that the water changes alone aren't keeping up with the demand of your growing corals and coralline, then add kalk to your top off water (up 2 tsp per gallon max) until the levels stay at where they should be.

water change water change water change!!

 

[Roellers117]

Thanks for all the reactions,

For the salinity swings I have a Hydro smartlevel control. (bought it to fit later on my big tank) The problem is that I have to fit it directly in the display tank, therefore it needs a lot of evaporation before it kicks in. It will swing usually 0.001 to 0.002 points.

<a href="https://imgbb.com/"><img src="https://image.ibb.co/frTJXR/s28_image_resize.jpg" alt="s28_image_resize" border="0"></a><br /><a target='_blank' href='https://nl.imgbb.com/'>upload pictures</a><br />

Can I mount the sensor askew? to change the diffrence in hight between the sensors bit?
Or other tips to help me control the salinity better? ( I would like to keep the hydro becouse it doesn't disturb the look of the tank)

I will focus on weekly watherchanges. I have got Aquaforest Probiotic reef salt, it reads to do one +- 10% watherchange once a week. (20% will also be fine)

Is it a good thing to add more (easy and hardy corals) to the system? And witch one would you advice?



Sorry english is not my first language,

Thanks for all the fast reactions!!

 

[lyall12]

As above, getting things to stay consistent will be your best friend.

The probiotic salt may not be helping you right now. It's designed for ultra low nutrient systems and requires making sure you have enough food going in to keep things happy. Too much of it in water changes can create issues as well.

I tried the probiotic and had better luck with just the Aquaforest Reef Salt.

You want to target getting your alkalinity stable with balling (ATI Essentials). You manually dose extra calcium/magnesium to bring those in line.

With your tank, you shouldn't be dosing much at all (if any).

How much are you dosing, and when?

 

[Roellers117]

How much are you dosing, and when?

I mix 500ml in 10L of ATI Essentials.
Right now I am dosing 4 ml/day, spread out over a couple of hours so:
6:00 1ml
9:00 1ml etc..
and keep 1 hour between each supplement.

today I stop dosing dKH because it went up to mutch, CA and MG stayed spot on with this dosige.

 

[ReeferNoob4ever]

With that ATO you can make custom brackets that allow you to mount the sensors wherever you want. I have a 20 gallon and I use a Tunze nano. I mounted it upside down so that the water level never gets bellow the black border (my pet peeve). Also mine goes from 1.025pptx up to 1.026pptx in one day and there are no ill effects.