still confused to why i cant keep some sps

[murphreef]

ok heres the deal i wrote about this before but nothing is getting better

i have a valida, a green acro frag of some kind a wild colony a red milli colony some blue milli frags and those are all doing great! i also have different lps and softies which seem to be doing great also

but heres my dilema...

i cant keep montis of any kind alive.... now i know someones guna ask if i have the monti nudis and no ive done much inspection and nothing .... they just slowly fade away turning a plaer color then all together dying... ive seen nudis before and i dont have them

ive lost my encrusting montis my branching digitatas and my cap.... they last for about a month or more and slowly fade away ive tried all positions and no luck

my water is the following

Ph8.1-8.2
am,na,ni,po4 all undetectable using salifer test kits
ca 420-430
alk 8-8.3 dkh
mg1300-1400
temp 79-80
Sg 35
flow about 40x's turnover

so what do u guys think?

are they bleaching out or are they just not liking my tank for some reason i dont know of

im runing 20K DE Helios HQI's 8 hours a day

thanks for any suggestions

 

[salt-rookie]

Specific Gravity could come up a smidge.....This is very strange...You can keep wild colony acros and not Montiporas? Montis are the easiest things for me to keep! Try taking some good macro shots, upload to your computer and zoom in a look for very small nudibranches.

 

[818]

Hey Justin hows it going.

Try and browse around your tank after lights go out for a good time, say 4-5 hours after lights out, get a powerfull flashlight and point at your acros,montis and you may find what you are looking for.

Same thing happened to me with my 60g.

Though in this 110 Im skimmerless, without a CA reactor and my SPS are kicking 4ss.

 

[murphreef]

ive taken them out and looked at them ive loked at them at night with a flash light and i dont see anything

the whole coral as a whole deteriorates and bleaches and dies... it doesnt happen in patches and spread its just the whole darn coral

they slowly bleach and die off

im confused about it all!

i thought 1.025 @ 35ppm was the desired range no?

im just wondering if the bleaching is due to light or other factors...

i dont think 250W 20Ks on a 180 is too much

thanks for the help

 

[murphreef]

hey sam so what did u find in ur 60g?

the pieces will hang on for a long time but just bleach away they dont appear to be eatin or anything like that

so hows your tank doin sam??

 

[Sk8r]

I have good monti growth, but I run a 250 w 10000k. I wonder if it is the lighting. Is anybody else running 20000k?

 

[salt-rookie]

Natural Seawater has a Specific Gravity of 1.0265. I have 3 X 250 Watt MH (XM 10K) over my 180....My caps do great!

 

[murphreef]

so u think i should bump it up a lil huh??

anyone else think this as well??

thanks for the input

does anyone else think 20K's are too dim??

i run helios 20K HQI 250W i heard these were good bulbs with a really good PAR

 

[818]

20k's!!! Thats deep blue sea stuff!

SPS definatley need their white lighting. 10k's Awesome for coral growth, 14k's are probably the lowest Id reccomened.

20ks are kick @*** if you have some white PC supplementation.

Thats why its best to go 10k MH with blue PC supplementation, but Im sure people have done it other ways.

Heres my tank @ 3 months. Pic taken this morning after water change skimmerless...

Justin I know it cant be your water params. Your tank looks so good with awesome coral growth from all your other corals.

Im really the ghetto/DIY reefer taking the easy way out.

Your system is perfect. The only thing I can jump on to really is the lighting then.....

Sam

 

[murphreef]

hmmm im not sure then im getting anotehr pendant this week and i think im guna switch to 14K hamilton 250DE's i wonder if these should be ok?

thanks sam

and BTW ur tanks coming along looks really nice

 

[818]

Sorry for cheap quality, my camera isnt really good for macros.

bleached acro frag saved from reefers tank...Literally looked like a rice crispie.

After:1 month later, its a drak orange/brown with 2 studs..Coco puff eventually becoming longer branches.

 

[murphreef]

very good sam!

hey ok i just checked my tanks PH and its actually lower then i expected....

my lights have been on for about 6 hours now and its only at 8.03

im thinking my PH is staying too low

how can i go about raising it and keeping it there without a Ph buffer??

im guna unplug the reator for a few days to get my Ca back at like 400-410 and dose some alk to get that up around 9dkh then start the reactor up again and see how that holds my PH

what do u guys think??

seems like my Ph might be the cause of some of my issues with acros and montis>?

thanks

 

[salt-rookie]

If you have your house closed up and the Air conditioning on...this will cause pH to drop a full point or better. Try venting some outdoor air into the canopy at night. pH will stabalize during the summer.

 

[murphreef]

yeah thats what i did my tanks next to the window so in the evening i open the window and the fan blows the air across the tank it raised it up over a point tonight within 30 mins

 

[The DOC]

My 2 cents on lighting...just my humble experienced opinion...

I've tried all kinds of lighting..K temps etc.

Pc's- good refugium lighting, and for softies...but WILL brown out the color of most sps...(increases some though, like a rose digitata)....

T-5's- havn't used the blue pluses everybody says are good, with pics to prove it...but my experience shows T-5's to be very powerful...bleached a ton of my frags...but like I said havn't used all the T-5 bulbs...I still have x2 T-5 blues on my 180 acro tank and do like them....

VHO's- AWSOME lighting!!!!! URI best brand! I got these babies over many tanks...love em! Aquasuns, and Super actinic (50/50 ratio)

Metal halides- great lighting as well....electronic ballasts with fans running on the bulbs and ballasts keeping them cool...are absolutly NO hotter than vho, or pcs....even cooler than the hot T-5 bulbs....and use no more electricity than other lighting...now the cap and coil ballasts, or HQI ballasts thats a different story

But hamiltons has caused me trouble ( 14K 250's SE's), lost color, burned several colonies of acros, not to mention inconsistant bulb visual color...used other bulbs, coralvue isn't a bad "cheapo bulb"...will stand by the 20K Radiums, with aquasuns, and super actinic!

Doc

 

[murphreef]

well i havent ran the hamilton bulbs yet

im running the Helios 20K's 250hqis right now using PFO pendants and HQI ballast

they seem pretty bright for 20K a nice crisp white with a tint of blue

ive only got 2 of them over my 180 now but i keep the sps in the center and the softies and lps towards the edges ive got a valida on the sand bed thats doing awesome with deep purple colors so i know the lights can penetrate to the bottom easily

otherwise i just dont know y i cant keep montis

im wondering if my colt coral or my large fiji yellow finger leather are relasing any toxins but i would think the other acros would be affected to right??

also imthinking its the alk its hovering around 7.6 to 8

thanks for any info u can share

 

[818]

175w 14K Hamilton SE bulbs are completely different to 250w 14k DE i was told from someone deep in the game

 

[clkwrk]

Move them up sounds like they need more light

 

[murphreef]

will they bleach if not enough light ??

im just kinda confused cuz i had them up high in the rocks where some of my other sps are doing fine and they bleached out slowly and died away...

are montis that light demanding? i heard some people run them under T-5's

 

[clkwrk]

Have you tried them low also ? I know when my phx 14k reached their 9 month mark I started to lose color in most all of my montis changed out my bulbs and they came back.