Tank going down hill real fast!!

J

jedi31

Member
I been a in this hobby for 10 years but just got into sps 8 months ago. Little by little I sold off my LPS and started to add frags. Things started off good but recently I'm having a tough time. I added a few things to the tank a about a month ago and things have went down hill since then. My frags are are slowy RTNing one by one. It's a very slow process but it's not stopping. I frag most of the bases off but but the frags are starting to RTN slowly once again. Also my tank has some Cyano and it seems to be getting worse. Here is my tank Pars
90 gallon tank
Alk. 7.7 -8.0 Lamotte
Cal- 440 Elos
Mag 1200 Elos
PH- 82.- 8.3

They are real steady I use a litermeter for automatic dosing. I dose 190 ml per Calcium and Alk per day. I use 2 part B ionic.

Phosphates .03 on a Hanna
nitrates- under 1 on Sailfert kit
Temperature 79-80 controlled on Rk lite
2 250 watt radium bulbs.
Carbon running in a reactor
H20 salt I changed 5 gallons per week

I have a lot of Fish including a Regal Angel who is doing real well and never touches a coral or a clam. Wrasses. Purple tang and some Anthias.

Changes to the tank over the last two months are new Octopus Skimmer rated for a 200 gallon tank to keep up with a huge fish load.
I dosed Prodibio and that's when the Sps started to RTN so I stopped about a month ago and corals are still showing Rtn and Cyano is getting worse and now My maxima clam just died overnight. He looked good last night and completely dead this morning....:mad2: I'm lost right now because my Pars are really good and steady. My test kits are new and I been testing ALK , Cal and Mag every day. The only thing that is concerning is my nitrates are less than 1, but I wouldn't think that would cause RTN and a dead clam? One other wierd thing I have noticed is my snails that were covered in coralline are started to lose the coralline it almost looks like the shells are bleaching and Rtning like my sps. I will mention that all my fish my LPS (torch, acans) and montis are doing well at the bottom of my tank. It's just the sps, clam and cyano that is driving me insane. Also I checked for Bugs and the corals look clean, there is no bite marks just small tissue lost on the base. Can some experts give me some direction or feedback? I took off work today to watch some March Madness but right now I'm real worried about my reef and it seems I'm out of answers but i dont' want to quit.



Thanks for reading

Mike
 
In a fragment tank I have I've always had a small calcium reactor. It was a homemade model that would have various operational issues. Since I had a dosing pump with two heads I figured I'd try dosing a two-part solution (Randy's) using the pump on a digital timer (come on and off several times during the day). Within a very short time things in this tank started to go south (lost a lot of frags to RTN), despite testing regularly to make sure calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium were in the right ranges. This frag tank has few fish and I don't add any other snake oils (maybe I should have). In any case, when I turned the calcium reactor back on things started to improve significantly. I think there's a good chance that SPS need various elements that are not necessarily provided when using a two-part solution.

I don't know of anyone out there that has had long term (years) success with SPS using only two-part solutions for calcium and alkalinity, but maybe they are out there.
 
>One other wierd thing I have noticed is my snails that were covered in coralline are started to lose the coralline it almost looks like the shells are bleaching and Rtning like my sps.<

Hmmm...didn't see this before. Are you sure you are getting accurate results from your test kits? Are you sure that magnesium is not low? I know your kits are expensive ones, but I've no info on whether they are any good.
 
Greg Hiller said:
>One other wierd thing I have noticed is my snails that were covered in coralline are started to lose the coralline it almost looks like the shells are bleaching and Rtning like my sps.<

Hmmm...didn't see this before. Are you sure you are getting accurate results from your test kits? Are you sure that magnesium is not low? I know your kits are expensive ones, but I've no info on whether they are any good.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what i'm thinking there has to be something off out of the big three. Alk, Cal and Mag. i went out and bought some cheaper test kits to match against the ones I'm using.

As for flow i have two vortechs working together on reef crest mode so there is good random flow in the tank.

One other thing I need to add is all the sps including the ones that are showing Rtn are showing great polyp extension both during the day and night, so this is another thing that is confusing me. As for dipping I used revive when I first introduced the frags and i dipped again when the stn starting showing. I don't see any red bugs are AEFW .

I always used the two part. In the beginning I manual dosed twice a day and now I use the litermeter. I thought many reefers use two part successfully, but I guess i can be wrong.
 
everything looks good in your description. Might want to consider raising the mag a little. I have good luck in the range of 1300-1400. Maybe double check you alk with another Kit to make sure its correct. Do you have sufficent flow?
 
I don't know of anyone out there that has had long term (years) success with SPS using only two-part solutions for calcium and alkalinity, but maybe they are out there.[/QUOTE]


There are many successful long term reefs using a 2-part solution. Infact a lot of TOTM uses 2-part. I actually had the opposite happen to me. I had a horrible time using a calcium reactor and switched to 2-part solution. Life is so much easier now. My tank is the best its ever been.
 
Gills 619 said:
I see you use prodibio... are you using Vodka for carbon.
Click to expand...

Yes I started this like month ago. I followed the bottle directions and after I dosed the corals started to Rtn and the Cyano started to appear. I dosed bio-digest which is the bacteria and used Bioptim which is the carbon source like Vodka. I dosed for 2 weeks and stopped. Like I said pe in the acros is great but they still are receding from the base. Very confused!!
 
jedi31 said:
Yes I started this like month ago. I followed the bottle directions and after I dosed the corals started to Rtn and the Cyano started to appear. I dosed bio-digest which is the bacteria and used Bioptim which is the carbon source like Vodka. I dosed for 2 weeks and stopped. Like I said pe in the acros is great but they still are receding from the base. Very confused!!
Click to expand...

I will not slate this product as Im currently using it but I have been told that it does or may cause cyno outbreaks... not sure about the stn. It may be linked to another problem in the tank as often there is more than just one problem. I would stop all additives and only do weekly water changes and that is only my opinion.
 
By no means an expert here but 190ml per day in a 90gal seems like a lot, though without a FTS can't tell how packed your tank is with consumers. Especially if you only started with SPS 8 months ago.
 
Merfin70 said:
By no means an expert here but 190ml per day in a 90gal seems like a lot, though without a FTS can't tell how packed your tank is with consumers. Especially if you only started with SPS 8 months ago.
Click to expand...

Yes it is a lot and it hurts the pocket as well. But I do have some big monti's growing well, two caps, a sponges that grows like a weed and a monti undata which is the size of a small dinner plate. I have about 15 acro frags that were doing well until just recently. I have two clams, well just one now after I just lost this last one. So I have to dose that much to keep my Alk at 8 and Cal around 430-440. When I say I started doing SPS 8 months ago I meant that I started adding acros around that time. The tank was a LPS/ Monti tank and it was doing well so I wanted to buy a few acros and then I got hooked and got rid of most of the LPS. Now I'm paying for it because I'm loosing a lot of the acros. But I did order new test kits so I can match against what I'm using now. This hobby is unbelievable I have to spend more money on kits to match the results I'm getting on my current test kits that I already spent a tons of money on because there the top brands. wow

Thanks for everyone's help

Mike
 
jedi31 said:
They are real steady I use a litermeter for automatic dosing. I dose 190 ml per Calcium and Alk per day. I use 2 part B ionic.
Mike
Click to expand...

190 ML of ALK and 190 ML of CAL!!?? That's insane. Usually, it's 5 ML for every 50g or 10g, i forgot. With bulk reef 2 parts, it's .2-1.0ml(.s is for LPS and 1.0 is with heavily sps tank)/gallon. from what you're saying, it sounds like you need .4 ML/gallon at most. With is about 30-40 ML/day. You're dosing way too much. either your test is wrong or you're saying the wrong amount.

First thing, do water change if something seems out of place.
 
I would be pulling a couple of those acros out and dipping them to see what comes off. You might have a pest and parameter issue at the same time.
 
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