Please help, LPS dying slowly
- Thread starter MellowReefer
- Start date
I should probably say... I definitely feed my LPS. It is a well fed tank, but I try to keep the nitrates as low as possible. I don't have any real schedule for feeding the corals, but when I'm feeding frozen (Mysis or Rod's), if the fish don't seem hungry, I spot feed the left overs to the Duncan and Acans. That probably happens once a week, at the most. I feed the fish directly over the Lobo (with pumps off), so it gets whatever the fish don't eat. I used to feed the Platygyra, but stopped several years ago. It didn't seem to care, as it's on its way to taking over that rock.
So yeah... spot feeding of the LPS can never hurt. But I wouldn't go about trying to get poorer quality water.
I don't have any experience with those Ecoexotic strips, but I know when I was researching what LEDs to get I looked at them. It didn't seem like they really had the oomph to even do LPS at any depth of the tank. That and the lack of a broader spectrum made me rule those out early. I wonder if you just don't have enough light with those. You might have enough to keep them just barely hanging on, but not enough for them to thrive. Do you have access to a PAR meter, or have you talked to anyone else that runs those lights?
So yeah... spot feeding of the LPS can never hurt. But I wouldn't go about trying to get poorer quality water.
I don't have any experience with those Ecoexotic strips, but I know when I was researching what LEDs to get I looked at them. It didn't seem like they really had the oomph to even do LPS at any depth of the tank. That and the lack of a broader spectrum made me rule those out early. I wonder if you just don't have enough light with those. You might have enough to keep them just barely hanging on, but not enough for them to thrive. Do you have access to a PAR meter, or have you talked to anyone else that runs those lights?
MellowReefer
New member
Thanks for sharing Kurt, you have a beautiful tank. That's what I want, your corals look awesome and you have nice coralline algee. I don't know if it's my lights or something else missing, but I can only seem to grow coralline on the walls (where I have to scrape it off) 
I was hoping by getting my phosphates down the green algae on the rocks would be gone and coralline could grow.
I'm not going to try to make my water dirty, I think for now I will keep running the carbon and gfo and just start feeding the corals a few times a week with the new coral food I just got. Maybe not strive for 0.00 phosphate by using less gfo and waiting longer to change it out. I have never gotten a nitrate reading in this tank, and I think it's because I used this stuff a few years ago called "natural nitrate reducer" (an IO product) and it gets stuck in your rocks and apparently works forever at consuming the nitrate. Not sure if it's that or the seachem matrix rocks (biomedia) I have that are supposed to lower nitrates. But I've tried several nitrate tests and always get 0.
When I bought the Ecoxotic lights, I didn't know how much I didn't know about lighting. I just read the reviews online, but probably the people posting reviews are only giving their initial impression of how they look and short term results, not long term health of corals. No, I don't know anyone with a par meter. I am going to do more research on the Hydra lights before I pull the trigger, but so far from what I've read they sound great, and I like the idea of having the programmable lights (with sunrise, sunset, etc). I'm sick of all the wires and timers that I have with this hodgepodge of lights.
I was hoping by getting my phosphates down the green algae on the rocks would be gone and coralline could grow.I'm not going to try to make my water dirty, I think for now I will keep running the carbon and gfo and just start feeding the corals a few times a week with the new coral food I just got. Maybe not strive for 0.00 phosphate by using less gfo and waiting longer to change it out. I have never gotten a nitrate reading in this tank, and I think it's because I used this stuff a few years ago called "natural nitrate reducer" (an IO product) and it gets stuck in your rocks and apparently works forever at consuming the nitrate. Not sure if it's that or the seachem matrix rocks (biomedia) I have that are supposed to lower nitrates. But I've tried several nitrate tests and always get 0.
When I bought the Ecoxotic lights, I didn't know how much I didn't know about lighting. I just read the reviews online, but probably the people posting reviews are only giving their initial impression of how they look and short term results, not long term health of corals. No, I don't know anyone with a par meter. I am going to do more research on the Hydra lights before I pull the trigger, but so far from what I've read they sound great, and I like the idea of having the programmable lights (with sunrise, sunset, etc). I'm sick of all the wires and timers that I have with this hodgepodge of lights.
MellowReefer
New member
Here's a video of my tank when everything was doing well. Makes me so sad to watch. This was about 10 months ago. Haven't taken any videos lately You can see the corals that died, a really nice torch, frogspawn, hammer and LT plate.
You can see the corals that died, a really nice torch, frogspawn, hammer and LT plate. 
EnderTurtle
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Duno if this is related but my hammer coral seems to not be doing well anymore after i got the chaeto algae from you.
Hes not dead but hes not inflated. Going to keep him in the shade.
Hes not dead but hes not inflated. Going to keep him in the shade.
justthewife
New member
Are all your fish reef safe that you have in there? Someone may be nipping at the corals (just a thought). Also what came to mind is flow. What kind of flow do you have in the tank? From the hammers I have, the flow needs to be random flow.
MellowReefer
New member
Hi there! No, whatever my problem is, I don't think it's contagious from some chaeto. Plus remember my corals only start to die after looking great for at least a year.
I hope yours gets better.
MellowReefer
New member
No I don't have any fish that are questionable at all. Well, some people say foxface, but they are usually going after zoas, but anyway mine has never been seen nipping any corals.
I have low-moderate flow, just gently moving them, but I don't have the type of powerheads with random setting, just the cheap regular koralias.
MellowReefer
New member
you know I run leds on my tank my lps started losing some color than I started reading about feeding pellets to your lps and I tried the expirement 2 weeks go by and my polyp extension got rediculous on my acansmy fish and my corals love spectrum pellets lol
Thanks for the tip, I just started with coral frenzy today and since I have spectrum pellets I'm going to try those a few times a week also.
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