Problem Keeping SPS

[Notquiterite]

Hi guys,

I've been reading around the forums for quite some time and I decided to personally ask for you guys' help. I started out my 29g tank with an aqueon model 3 sump (forgot the capacity). I am assume that minus all of the liverock and equipment, I probably have a net total of about 25g of water in the tank and sump. Here are my specs and params:

Lighting: Kessil 360we on for about 9 hours a day
Flow: 2 ecotech mp10w
Salt mix: Instant Ocean Reef Crystals

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: close to 0, almost undetectable
Phosphate: 0.03-0.10
Calcium: 440
Magnesium: 1400
Alkalinity: 8.1-8.4 dkh
Water Temp: 75-78 F

Feeding Schedule: Flakes in the morning and mysis/brine shrimp in the evening

So I've been making the switch over to an SPS dominated tank as I've gotten rid of the majority of my LPS corals. I've been getting SPS frags back to back and have literally no success keeping them. I notice that my alkalinity drops from 8.4 to 8.1 dkh daily so I bring it back up using BRS 2 sodium bicarbonate. I do notice however, my calcium and mag levels really don't drop at all. The last time I've had to dose calc and mag is probably about 3 weeks to a month ago, and it was to only bring it from about 420-440.

Currently, I have my sps frags sitting on a frag rack I made out of eggcrate that sits towards the bottom of the tank. I rented an apogee par meter to get the readings, and it is about 140 at the bottom and 350 at the highest rock and 500 right below the surface.

I have gone around in circles trying to figure out what my issue is, as my SPS all show the same trend that leads to their death. They start out healthy looking, good polyp extension for the first week or two, then in the end they start to retract, to very minimal extension, and then tissue loss (looks like alk burns) at the tips, algae on tips, and eventually stn/rtn.

So I'll give you guys some info about what I've been doing to try to correct and isolate my problem. I thought that I might be light shocking them as I've heard LEDs can be quite strong, so I tried light acclimating them on the frag rack and moving them up slowly throughout the next few weeks from date of bringing them home. They still showed the same trend to their death.

Next, I started to assume that my alk was swinging, causing the alk burns. I started to monitor my alk using the hanna checker as well as red sea kit for backup. I began to keep my alk between the ranges of 8.1-8.4 dkh without it ever going below or above that range. The best I can notice is that the SPS survives longer in my tank, but still a slow decline in health and eventually lead to their death as well.

I've been reading around and I see that a lot of SPS keepers tend to keep their alk in the 8-10 dkh range with success. At the moment, I am stumped and I don't know what I should do. I am still suspecting that something is wrong with my alk, and I am leaning towards it being a little on the low side as my calc and mag levels are not really decreasing, so I'm assuming my alk may not be in the correct ratio with my calcium and mag levels.

I've been dumping a lot of money trying to fix things, and I am at this very moment purchasing a dosing pump to further stabilize and spread out my dosing throughout the day. Please help with any thoughts or comments as I really want to figure out what's going on with my tank.

Thank you so much.

 

[Nanook]

Just a couple questions. What is your salinity and how are you measuring it? Also, which brand of test kits are you using to determine your levels? Are your kits expired? Crappy test kits and/or expired test kits aren't worth the time.

 

[Notquiterite]

Just a couple questions. What is your salinity and how are you measuring it? Also, which brand of test kits are you using to determine your levels? Are your kits expired? Crappy test kits and/or expired test kits aren't worth the time.

My salinity is kept at mostly 1.026, and I'm using a refractometer from BRS. I use the hanna checker for alkalinity. I also use Red Sea test kits for calcium and magnesium and I use Salifert for phosphates. They're all pretty new so they're not expired, I checked and they have at least another year on them.

 

[Art13]

Whats the manufacture date on the bucket of salt? and are you dipping the corals into anything before putting them in your tank?

 

[Notquiterite]

I dip all of my corals into coral rx before introducing them into my tank. As far as expired salt, where would I find the date exactly? I took a look around the bucket and I couldn't see anything other than 04/09 by the barcode, which looks closest to a date. Not sure if it really is a date though.

 

[tofucube]

My salinity is kept at mostly 1.026, and I'm using a refractometer from BRS. I use the hanna checker for alkalinity. I also use Red Sea test kits for calcium and magnesium and I use Salifert for phosphates. They're all pretty new so they're not expired, I checked and they have at least another year on them.

Staying on the salinity topic, yours can swing a lot because of the smaller tank volume depending on evaporation and how you are topping off.

I also use Kessil for lighting but I blast them pretty high 90% at full ramp up via the Apex. Also there are two over a 24" cube. Have not measured par but my sticks seem like they're happy.

 

[Notquiterite]

Staying on the salinity topic, yours can swing a lot because of the smaller tank volume depending on evaporation and how you are topping off.

I also use Kessil for lighting but I blast them pretty high 90% at full ramp up via the Apex. Also there are two over a 24" cube. Have not measured par but my sticks seem like they're happy.

I have considered the change of salinity, but I think I keep it pretty much in check as I top off manually about twice a day at most if it's hot. Usually I only top off once, and I have also measured the salinity at the end of the day before top off to see how much as changed, and according to the refractometer, it's still 1.026. I will probably invest in an auto top off sometime in the future anyways.

My Kessil is about 90% as well, the par readings I mentioned was with the kessil at a 100% but currently I don't have it at max setting.

 

[Notquiterite]

Just an update: I went out today and bought a salifert strontium test kit (took about 30 min to perform!), and guess what? It tested to be pretty much zero! I began to dose brightwell's strontium additive and I'm splitting up the dosage across four days, so hopefully this will have a positive effect.

 

[lynchmob3000]

all systems are different but when you say burnt tips I think too much phosphate with too much light. when sps get too much phosphate inside there tissue it usually leaches out of the tips. Or you have crazy alk swings but I doubt it. When do the tips begin to burn? A few weeks after a water change or right after the wc? And how often and how many gallons are your wc's?

 

[lynchmob3000]

The reason I ask is bc you use reef crystals which I use, but if you mix it up at 1.026 sg will have an alk reading of 10-11 which can shock a little system if you do say a 5 gallon wc on a 25 gallon total system.

 

[Notquiterite]

all systems are different but when you say burnt tips I think too much phosphate with too much light. when sps get too much phosphate inside there tissue it usually leaches out of the tips. Or you have crazy alk swings but I doubt it. When do the tips begin to burn? A few weeks after a water change or right after the wc? And how often and how many gallons are your wc's?

I only change about 5 gallons a month. I try not to alter with new salt too much as reef crystal's salt has a pretty high alk in the fresh batch of salt. I'm afraid that it might spike the alk too much if I change too much at a time. I would say that the burnt tips have happened consistently several weeks after introduction to the tank. So far, it seems to have slowed down in terms of the rate of degredation, but there is also no signs of growth.

 

[Notquiterite]

The reason I ask is bc you use reef crystals which I use, but if you mix it up at 1.026 sg will have an alk reading of 10-11 which can shock a little system if you do say a 5 gallon wc on a 25 gallon total system.

Exactly hit my point lol

 

[Notquiterite]

I'll also add that I'm running GFO to lower phosphates. I thought I was starving my system as phosphates and nitrates were almost undetectable before so I recently increased my feedings to bring up the levels a little bit to see if I saw any improvement.

 

[lynchmob3000]

to keep sps happy you have to do regular water changes. especially a small system like that. I would say start at 2 gallons a week mainly so you keep the system balanced. but when I have issues I do a large wc say for you a 5 gallon and then next week do another 5 gallon. Turn your lighting down to say 50 60 percent and I dunno how many fish your feeding but I would probably feed them once a day for awhile to see where I was at. You may find that your lighting is too strong either way and you will start to see pe. your system may need some nitrates also...

The only tanks that can do monthly waterchanges are huge tanks. I did weekly and bi weekly wc on my 29 biocube at 4 gallons each time. keep your alk higher so its not so much of a shock to the system

 

[Notquiterite]

to keep sps happy you have to do regular water changes. especially a small system like that. I would say start at 2 gallons a week mainly so you keep the system balanced. but when I have issues I do a large wc say for you a 5 gallon and then next week do another 5 gallon. Turn your lighting down to say 50 60 percent and I dunno how many fish your feeding but I would probably feed them once a day for awhile to see where I was at. You may find that your lighting is too strong either way and you will start to see pe. your system may need some nitrates also...

The only tanks that can do monthly waterchanges are huge tanks. I did weekly and bi weekly wc on my 29 biocube at 4 gallons each time. keep your alk higher so its not so much of a shock to the system

Should I really turn down the lights that low? I mean the par readings were really low if I had them down that low. The frags I get are mostly from vivid aquariums and they keep their frags under really bright MH. I light acclimate them in my tank for a few weeks before gradually moving them up higher in the tank. As far as the phosphate issues, I'll definitely cut down the feeding a little as I haven't really noticed any improvement in the slightly elevated levels. I agree with your comment about nitrates, with the increased feeding I could slightly see an increase of nitrates but still very close to zero.

About the water changes, is it really necessary to change the water that often even though I don't see the tank parameters fluctuating that much throughout the day? The consumption levels haven't been too great as the sps aren't too happy but I've been stabilizing the levels through manual dosing and calculating it through the BRS calculator. I'm trying to avoid any drastic changes in the tank params that might cause swings in the tank. I'll probably aim to get my alk up to 9.0 dkh to help with stability. My dosing pump should be coming in on Monday so I'll get that set up as well to further stability.

 

[lynchmob3000]

A wc restores the ionic balance of the water. so when you dose alk thru the week that throws that balance off. Sps especially acros are very sensitive to these changes. so after 3 to 4 weeks of dosing and feeding, your parameters are so much different and that is how for years i killed any and every acro i ever owned. now i have 3 sps dominate tanks.

 

[lynchmob3000]

i dont test for nitrate and phosphate i just look at the corals and if the colors are spot on i know i have a lot of nutrient. if they are faded out i normally do a 20-25% wc if they look beautiful and i dont have an algae issue i do a 10-15% wc biweekly. if something seems wrong. do a wc and then test your sg and alk to make sure they are where they need to be and wait.

what dose your dosing consist of every day? how much alk ca? you can also add alk to you top off water instead of dosing.

 

[john90009]

any chance we can get a pick of the tank or clear pictures of the coral?

 

[Notquiterite]

i dont test for nitrate and phosphate i just look at the corals and if the colors are spot on i know i have a lot of nutrient. if they are faded out i normally do a 20-25% wc if they look beautiful and i dont have an algae issue i do a 10-15% wc biweekly. if something seems wrong. do a wc and then test your sg and alk to make sure they are where they need to be and wait.

what dose your dosing consist of every day? how much alk ca? you can also add alk to you top off water instead of dosing.

That sure is a lot of water, but you're right it's the best way of restoring balance. Thing is, I know that something is out of balance because my CA hasn't been dropping and has stayed relatively consistent so I know that's a problem. The only thing I see being used up daily is alk, it drops from 8.4 to 8.1 dkh in a day so I dose it back up to 8.4 by spreading it out between two hours totalling about 10-15 ml of sodium bicarbonate. My doser comes in Monday so I'm going to set that up very soon.

any chance we can get a pick of the tank or clear pictures of the coral?

Most definitely. I'm at work right now but I'll take a pic later tonight and post.

 

[GroktheCube]

Alk is always consumed way more rapidly than Ca. Given the precision of Ca tests (usually 10 or 20ppm), it's not uncommon for a day of Ca consumption to not show up on tests. .3 dKH isn't much at all, so it could take well over a week before a Ca test kit reliably showed a difference (with zero supplementation) .

Edit: To be more clear, you're using just about 2ppm of cal per day. It could easily be 10 days before that would be measurable.