Sps problems

[i Tuna]

I'll start off with my equipment list and some details about my ecosystem.

Display: 24x24x27"H
Sump: 24x24x12"H
Protein Skimmer: Skimz SM 121
Return: Atman-107 via two 1" pvc pipes in the display
Chemical: HydroCarbon2 switched out once a month in a phosban150 reactor
Biopellets: TLF biopellets (45g worth) in a phosban150 reactor.
Heater: 250 watt oceanfree
Sandbed: about an inch of seachem aragonite
Lights: 2 Kessil A150w, 10k and 15k positioned in the middle of the aquarium, 4 inches off the surface, 5 inches away from each other. (Planning on switching them out for two A350's as quoted on an email by Kessil to keep acro's on the sand bed.
Water movement: Vortech mp40 on Reef Crest mode on about 30% power.
Live Rock: about 5 kg of Indonesian LR, and 10 kg of dried coral skeletons.


Livestock List:

Inverts:
1- blue legged hermit
7- turbo snails
5- Sexy Shrimp
Some other random snails that came with the LR, they dont seem to do dmg to the coral, however they do regularly spew what I'm guessing is sperm into the water column like once a month, which the corals do not react kindly to.
0 - flatworms, not coral eating ones though, these guys just sit on bare patches of rockwork that have intense light shining on top.
1- tiger pistol shrimp

Fish:
1- Flame Angel
1- Mystery Wrasse
3- Yellow Coris Wrasse
1- Yellow Watchman Goby
4- Blue/Green Chromis
1- Mandarin

I don't see any of my fish picking at the coral... The Flame im especially watchful for but alas, all he does is swim around the aquarium chasing fish or food, whichever the case may be.

Coral (unfortunatly i cant get it down to species due to the lack of information the staff at lfs's in Kuwait have):
Lps:
1- Blue Indonesian Goniopora (3" head)
1- Favia (personally collected, 7"x4"x5")
Sps:
1- Green Bali Slimer (saturated dirt brown now, 3" frag, never extends polyps, base of coral began to bleach 2 weeks ago, but that has pretty much stopped, no growth)
1- Acro, green base w/ brown polyps (browned out with a little green here and there, 2" frag, polyps are almost always extended, little encrusting growth and verticle)
1- tricolor acro mini colony (color has faded a little, doesn't look especially vibrant but polyp extention is a little held back, 3"x4"x7", was noticing slow growth)
1- purple (insert name) acro... This one has been showing lots of new growth but for the past 3 days some tips have hair algae growing on them. (4"x 3"x 5", polyps were always extended until ecently when hair algae took hold of my aquarium a few days ago)
1- purple tipped, white bodied table acro. ( this piece has been doing the best by far, polyps semi extend during daylight, and fully extemd at night, color has been getting more vibrant, with exception to when hair algae began to take hold)
2- Montipora capricornis, orange and green, (both are small frag... The color on them is not bright or vibrant though, showing some slow plating growth, about 2" frags)
1- poker star encrusting monti, (color went from a vibrant blue base to now a dull purple base, and dull green polyps, no growth noticed)
1- orange polyp blue base encrusting monti ( base has turned into a pale purple since i got it, very slow growth)

For the first month for cycling and such I started with purigen and some gac, month 2 i kept it up and added coral, however they didn't look like they were doing too well, color fading and such, nitrates were at around 10, ca 520, alk 8-9, phosphate <1 with ATI test kit.
Month 3 i decided to try vinegar dosing because I thought that i read somewhere that coral usually color up when dosing vinegar, only thing I noticed was that my acro's just browned faster, and I had a cyano outbreak. ca 500, alk 8-9, phosphate <1, nitrate 15mg/l (due to increased feeding regimen)
Month 4 (july), stopped vinegar dosing, started with biopellet reactor. Ca. 480, alk 6 (according to yesterday's test).

I'll continue this post once I'm home. I know that obviously the inconsistency with the water params are affecting the coral, however I also noticed at some points my ca was higher 20ppm hiher thren the last week I had checked it. Any idea how this can happen?

 

[kissman]

my guess is you are going way to fast, thats a lot of stuff in a tank a few months old. The tank ahs not had time to balance out. if you have cyano your phosphates and nitrates are higher than the tests show because teh algae is eating it up.

 

[stevedola]

When was this tank set up? when did you add fish? coral? did you test ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, ph while cycling the tank? 10-11 lbs of live rock isnt much to add to biological filtration but that amount should be ok if the tank was fully cycled and not overwhelmed with too many fish too quickly. Its a slower adjustment period for the established rock to colonize the dead coral skeleton.

Also 150w Mh bulbs wont penetrate to the bottom of that deep tank to grow sps well. If the corals are high up, youll be ok. IT could be a lack of lighting but also I think youre doing too many different dosing regiments. purigen to vinegar to biopellets. There is no reason why a good skimmer and water changes cant produce vibrant heallthy sps. Is there a problem besides lack of color on sps going on in the tank to make you start biopellets?

 

[i Tuna]

When was this tank set up? when did you add fish? coral? did you test ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, ph while cycling the tank? 10-11 lbs of live rock isnt much to add to biological filtration but that amount should be ok if the tank was fully cycled and not overwhelmed with too many fish too quickly. Its a slower adjustment period for the established rock to colonize the dead coral skeleton.

Also 150w Mh bulbs wont penetrate to the bottom of that deep tank to grow sps well. If the corals are high up, youll be ok. IT could be a lack of lighting but also I think youre doing too many different dosing regiments. purigen to vinegar to biopellets. There is no reason why a good skimmer and water changes cant produce vibrant heallthy sps. Is there a problem besides lack of color on sps going on in the tank to make you start biopellets?

I had the tank cycling at 1/2 capacity with all rockwork except 2 small pieces since midway through March. In April i filled the tank to full cap, however still had it running without the sump / skimmer. At this point I had 1 hermit, the goby, pistol shrimp and 1 sexy shrimp. End of April, I setup the sump + skimmer. I didn't test ammonia or nitrite, I dont see a point past the first initial break in period, however early in my setup after I had my initial diatom bloom I decided not to test it anymore. In May livestock wise, I only added some coral. June, towards the end I added more coral, and the coris wrasses + sexy shrimp and snails. July, first week, i added the mystery wrasse and chromis. 2nd week of July I added the flame angel.

As for lighting, i dont have MH's. They are Kessil A150w LED pendants. In relation to the acro placement, I have all my acro about 12 inches from the surface (highest placement on the rockwork). Lighting will be upgraded shortly to two A350 Tuna Blue's as per recommended by Kessil for my setup. i doubt lighting is my problem thoughh for say the coloration of the monti's. At the lfs who distributes these lights, he has two of these pendants over his DT, which is 15" tall. The light distribution from his pendants dont overlap like mine do though. His monti's are looking great though and flourese. Which leads me to believe that it's a water quality problem.

Another thing to note is that I never added any supplements to my tank, except for Brightwell Koralcolor. however on multiple occations I just found my Ca levels rising instead of decreasing :/

For example, my Ca started at 460... Climbed to 480 a week later... Two weeks later it was 500... i stopped dosing the koralcolor cuz as i read on the bottle it contains Ca and Mg, so i thought this was the cause of the rise. Yet two weeks after i stopped i tested my Ca again, and it turned out to be at 560 using tropicmarine test kits, and then using ATI it was 500.... Now it's at 480 using ATI.

 

[stevedola]

so you dont dose calcium or alkalinity? do you do water changes? what is your salinity?