Officially throwing in the towel

[WaReefer458]

So after battling the never ending struggle with why for some unknown reason I can't keep sps alive, I think I'm officially done. I've tried anything and everything. I have a 40b with very healthy fish, acans, hammers, blasto's and favia. Water conditions are right on the money but I've tried it all. Raised and lowered salinity, alk, light, temp, bioload and flow with no success. I had a single a360we on it and thinking it wasn't enough I bought a 2nd one. All my sps have receded polyps about a week after I put them in the tank then browned out. Stayed that way for weeks until I added the 2nd light a few days ago and now all but 1 of my frags are dead and gone. Stags, monti's, milleporas, and tricolors... All dead and gone. Really puts a sour taste in your mouth when you dump over 3k into that small of tank to have the best of everything just for it to spit in your face.

 

[Fiver]

Sorry to hear about the frustrations, man. It sounds like you've had success with fish and other types of corals, though, right? I totally get the desire to meet and exceed a challenge, but maybe it's just worth enjoying those things that are doing well and not stressing out about those things that aren't doing well.

Good luck.

 

[markalot]

So after battling the never ending struggle with why for some unknown reason I can't keep sps alive, I think I'm officially done. I've tried anything and everything. I have a 40b with very healthy fish, acans, hammers, blasto's and favia. Water conditions are right on the money but I've tried it all. Raised and lowered salinity, alk, light, temp, bioload and flow with no success. I had a single a360we on it and thinking it wasn't enough I bought a 2nd one. All my sps have receded polyps about a week after I put them in the tank then browned out. Stayed that way for weeks until I added the 2nd light a few days ago and now all but 1 of my frags are dead and gone. Stags, monti's, milleporas, and tricolors... All dead and gone. Really puts a sour taste in your mouth when you dump over 3k into that small of tank to have the best of everything just for it to spit in your face.

Really throwing in the towel or a cry for help?

Turn your LED's to blue heavy for a while.

Stop all media and all methods of export other than a skimmer.

Feed heavily, either get more fish or use a coral food like Reef Roids or Reef Chili.

See if you can grow ugly brown SPS, which may be brown from elevated nutrients but AREN'T DEAD. This was the big first step for me, see if I could grow some turds (brown acros). Not only did it work, I actually got some decent colors on some of the SPS.

For me, personally, I entered into SPS land thinking light feeding, heavy export, and super clean water was what I needed. That's not the complete picture.

Stability. You rarely want to change anything unless it's documented to be bad, and then change it slowly to correct.

While I think LED can work just fine they are hard to dial in, especially if you don't have a PAR meter to really know how much light the corals are getting. Heavy blue with a little white might look dim to the eyes and be too much for the acros. MH and T5 have tiny peaks in the green light that make the bulbs appear brighter to our eyes. LED's tend to be missing this peak so to our eyes, which are most sensitive in the green area, they can look dimer than they are.

Good luck!

 

[WaReefer458]

It just ****es me off... I put the first batch of frags in and when they started losing color and browning out I was told just give it time... its a new tank.... then it changed to maybe your not getting enough light... then went to maybe a bit more flow... then it was your overthinking things, just leave them alone and let it happen. after strapping about 2500$ worth of equipment to it and nothing is working im just kinda at the end of the rope. I had a 75 up and going for years with no problems and I had 2nd rate gear and rarely did a water change out of being lazy about it... this tank has the best of everything and all it grows is algae. I run rowaphos and an oversized skimmer with 2 kessil a360WE's and an mp40.

alk 9.0
ph 8.0
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
phos 0
calcium 550 ( cant seem to get it down )
temp 78
salinity 1.026

The only thing I can come up with is that my LFS uses kent salt that I used to set the tank up with and did my first 5 or so water changes with and after getting my ro unit going with new filters I bought a bucket of red sea coral pro. the kent has lower alk and high cal vs the red sea is more where I want the tank. I also started using Bionic 2 part to get the alk up and cal down but it literally done nothing for me but confuse me even more about why the tank is doing so crappy. I am running the lights at 50% peak and feed once a day. A cube of mysis and a cube of rotifers with a little squirt of oyster feast. I just dont know what to do at this point. none of my livestock are picking at them as all that is in the tank is a pair of clowns and 3 wrasses.

 

[Logzor]

I think you will have more success with SPS if you run T5's. I've heard numerous issues where people are unsuccessful keeping SPS with the Kessils. I'm sure there are plenty of success cases as well but switching your lights might be something to consider.

I noticed that your PO4 and NO3 are a 0. This could be a problem, many SPS will die off in cases of ultra-low nutrient conditions. Using ROWAphos can also cause SPS death and necrosis, especially if your running this product and you're already at low P04 values.

 

[joshky]

nitrate 0
phos 0

Could be your problem, pics of your tank definitely help paint a clearer image of what's going on. I wouldn't give up, it sounds like you've tried throwing money at your issue and you should have come here first. We can help you if you want to take the time to figure it out.

 

[WaReefer458]

I think you will have more success with SPS if you run T5's. I've heard numerous issues where people are unsuccessful keeping SPS with the Kessils. I'm sure there are plenty of success cases as well but switching your lights might be something to consider.

I noticed that your PO4 and NO3 are a 0. This could be a problem, many SPS will die off in cases of ultra-low nutrient conditions. Using ROWAphos can also cause SPS death and necrosis, especially if your running this product and you're already at low P04 values.

unfortunately as I have invested over a grand into my lighting I don't think I am at the point of taking a step backwards. The grand plan was to upgrade to a 200dd next year and add a t5 ATI fixture to supplement with the led's but I would like to stay with led as I really dont want the heat and extra cost involved with the bulbs, chillers, ect.

I was also intrigued by the fact my phos and nitrate is at 0 yet I still grow algae like crazy. My rocks are brownish green and slimy, the glass gets a thick brown film after 2 or 3 days, and I am about 5 months into this tank with no coraline growth yet.... Like I said, Everything points to my water parameters are good but I am just left so confused.

 

[twon8]

Officially throwing in the towel

Get more fish and feed more.

Take the rowaphos off for a while


You have too much light for the amount of nutrients you have

 

[WaReefer458]

How? I can feed more but I can't get anymore fish in the tank. I already have 7.

 

[twon8]

Officially throwing in the towel

You said two clowns and three wrasses?

I feed five times a day.

 

[WaReefer458]

This was a couple days after they went in

 

[WaReefer458]

Another week later a couple of them started receeding the polyps and getting white patches on the sides that didn't really spread

 

[WaReefer458]

What's left of a green slimer

Birds of paradise hung on the longest but you see the white on the back and almost no polyps

Mille browned out but not dead yet

This one still has its color but it's growing algae on it and I haven't seen the polyps in a couple weeks

 

[WaReefer458]

as far as the bioload goes I left a couple out. I have a pair of small clowns, mccoskers wrasse, solon wrasse, long fin fairy wrasse, diamond goby, bicolor blenny, conch, sand sifting star, and 10 hermits and snails.... I feed 1 cube of mysis and rotifers a day with a squirt of oyster feast and toss in a small pinch of new life spectrum pellets once of twice a day.

 

[1MP3R1AL]

Sell the kessils, invest in a t5 unit. Feed more to get your nitrate and phosphate up, and or add more fish.

 

[twon8]

If you are only five months into this tank you are still early for sps

 

[WaReefer458]

And that's what I meant by my rocks being green/brownish. Never had that problem with my old tank.

 

[markalot]

Lots of issues with what you are saying.

the red sea is more where I want the tank.

I completely disagree. Red Sea Coral Pro is a salt for non SPS tanks or for those tanks where water changes can be used to keep Alk and Calcium reasonably stable (like a nano tank with numerous small water changes). In these cases RSCP is used almost like dosing.

I think I described what you might be doing wrong, you confirmed it, time to hit the reset. It's hard, but all that equipment WILL come to good use later, just not now.

You have a new tank, new tanks get ugly, your response was to strip it of nutrients. SPS need some nutrients so you have a choice ... living sps with algae or no sps with no algae. When you put an acro in a new tank with GFO stripping it of PO4 the coral will pale and die every time.

You can counteract this by feeding EXTREMELY heavily, there are plenty of success stories that do this, but when I say heavy I mean you can hardly see into the tank there is so much food. A big skimmer should clear this out readily but you will have to feed on a regular basis

Also keep that Alk as stable as you can (less than .25 KH change a day or better IMO). The older the tank the more tolerant it will be of parameter swings but Alk is the big one. You may find running Alk at 8 is better and easier than running it higher. I like to run mine at 7.5.

Kent Reef salt as 550 Calcium so high calcium is fairly normal, let it equalize on its own. I happen to like Kent Reef salt.

Sounds like you are making your own RO/DI, good, also make sure you are measuring salinity with a calibrated refractometer, calibrated using 35ppt fluid. Do not use distilled or RO/DI even if the instructions say it is ok.

First step is to keep SPS alive, next step is better colors ... I'm still on that step.

 

[markalot]

Picture above looks good, though I would move the blasto down, they prefer lower light. Rocks look good and healthy, they will brown, then green, then grow some fuzz, and then get some coraline.

All my opinion, of course.

 

[WaReefer458]

the game plan was to do a 5 gal water change every week to avoid dosing until the tank was heavily stocked. seems to be a double edged sword. If I do water changes then my nutrients are too low, If I dont then my alk/cal will be too low requiring dosing. The whole reason I got back into this hobby after taking a 5 year break was to build an sps tank. I have a 75 gallon tank in my garage from when I was last in the hobby which has 2 96 watt vho's and 2x 250 halides in the hood. I would have set that back up and just renovated it but I didnt want to have to move it in the spring so I set this 40 up as a small tank for now until I get my big tank. My current tank would then be a quarantine tank/ frag tank. unfortunately I am not hitting the "reset" button on equipment this early in so if I cant make this work somehow, I'm probably going to bow out of the hobby all together. This can be done, Ive seen all these builds on this site using kessils on nano tanks that are sps dominant and they have great success only like a month of two in.