rovster
New member
It definitely hurts my pride to have to ask for help here, but I'm all out of ideas. I've been keeping SPS for a couple years now and I've had some great success and consider myself to be at least somewhat knowledgeable on the subject. Anyhow, my tank is in a really weird funk right now and its time to ask for some help. I appreciate any help and suggestions I can get as I am starting to really get frustrated. I apologize in advance for the long post, but I figure the more info I can give, the better the advice I might get.
Some current stats:
-Tank is about 130 gallons total volume, SPS frag dominant
-Fuge with rock and chaeto (chaeto growing well)
-Using RO with Chloramine kit, 0 TDS ( I test with a hand held meter when I start and just before I finish making water.
-3 Radion Pros
-SRO XP2000 Skimmer
-3 MP40s
-Apex and BRS dosers
-SG 35PPT, digital and handheld refractometers, pinpoint solution
-Cal 450 (Salifert)
-Alk 7.7 (Hanna)
-Mag 1390ish (Salifert)
-Phos 0.07 (Hanna ULR) (More to come on this later)
-NO3 0 (Salifert)
-K+ >400 (Red Sea)
OK so a little history. I set up the tank about 6 months ago. I used mostly Dry rock that was cleaned and cured for over a year (long story)and added rock from my other tank and a friends tank to seed. I slowly started adding frags from my other tank. As they did well I added more. When I felt things were going well I purchased a large online order of frags and "stocked" my tank. For 2-3 months things were going spectacular. Polyp extension was ridiculous and growth and color was good to great. I did have some cyano and some snot looking algae (mild form of dino?) but it never got out of control and I just attributed it to "new tank syndrome". It was slowly going away so I was not worried and did nothing to try and combat it.
My smaller tank experienced a crash via bacteria bloom (went cloudy) and I transfered a few corals from that tank to try and save them. Well, 2 weeks later my current tank crashed (went cloudy) and I lost 90% of my Acros over the span of one weekend. All montis, LPS, nem, and zoas survived. This was 3 months ago.
Anyway, I ramped up the the water changes and after 4-6 weeks things started to stabilize. The acros that survived were starting to color up again, polyp extension was almost back to ridiculous, and a buddy gave me a couple of tester frags. I also added some more fish so my feeding went up from where it was. The tester frags were doing great, basing out and getting better color than in my buddies tank so I took that as a sign that things were on the up and up.
So I got another large online order basically replacing a lot of the frags I had lost. 2 weeks before I got my order I started to notice a few things not looking as good as they were, but it was not bad so I just made a mental note and kept an eye on things. The week before I got my frags a couple of corals started looking a little too much like they did before the last crash. To be safe, and anticipating another bacterial problem I decided to start Prodibio to counteract any bacterial imbalance and some of the corals were darkening. When I got my order of frags they came in a little bleached so I turned down my lights from 65% to 45% so I wouldn't shock them. Over the next few weeks, the new frags that came in started to regain some color and my existing corals continued to decline. Some look OK, most look like crap. Nothing has died to this day, but they look like they are on their way.
When I started Prodibio, they warn against GFO use so cut back on it but did not eliminate it. As my corals started to decline my Alk started to increase so I started to play with my dosers to get it dialed in. It never fluctuated more than 0.3-0.5. A few weeks into Prodibio, I did notice that the cyano and snot was improving. At the time my Alk was at 8.5. I started to notice a lot of burnt tips. Although Prodibio use is not associated with Alk burn, I am familear with Alk burn from previous experience with carbon dosing so I thought it would be safe to bring my Alk down slowly to where its at now.
I did have one day where I accidentally left my Cal doser on and I did get a huge cal spike to 500+. That was 3 weeks ago and Cal normalized within a few days and for 2 weeks Alk and Cal have been stable. I also noticed that my Phos has increased from 0.04 to about 0.08, but not I've got it down to around 0.06-0.07 by incresing my GFO.
Below are a few of my general observations.
-Zoas look amazing, something I have not experienced in a long time.
-Favias look very good
-Hammer is retracted, looks irritated, and looks slightly bleached
-Birds nest have STN, and look irritated
-Cyphastreas look good
-Setosa has a deep rich color
-Encrusting montis have polyps retracted and overall look bad. Base color is mostly gone
-Most acros have lost their luster. Most have lost most if not all polyp extension. They have darkened substantially and overall look irritated, like something in the water is aggravating them. They look like there is either too many nutrients in the water or they are not getting enough light. I'm up to about 60% on my lights which is almost where I was when things looked amazing. Acros have almost a bluish greyish sheen to them, and they have lost most if not all their "glow". They do not glow under the blue LEDs at all or the ones that still do have suffered significantly. This has been going on for weeks. Some are showing STN, but almost all of it is from the tips. I am not really seeing base recession at all.
When I got the high (for my tank) phos reading I did cut back on the feeding and put the tank on a diet. Nitrate never read anything, always 0.
I am running carbon but not much. I change it every 2-3 weeks and its in a bag. The sump has a good but of slime and some cyano, but every sump I've seen looks like that. I have to clean the glass maybe 1-2 times per week. I have noticed that since starting the Prodibio, my skimmate has gone from a deep dark green to more of a blackish green but its still watery.
Another thing worth noting that I did switch from RSCP to IO after the crash because I was ramping up the water changes, the RSCP just has too much stuff in it and I didn't want to drive up my levels too much. It is worth mentioning that did go through a month long period after I had been on the IO for a while where things were looking good and improving.
I am planning a huge water change for tomorrow, 40% or so. I normally do 10-15% weekly. My thinking is to try and "reset" things a bit. That said today I'm seeing even more tip burn. Its subtle but there.
I apologize for the long post but I am at a loss. My corals look like my tank is a nutrient sink, my test kits tell me otherwise, film algae is minimal and there is not a spec of hair algae. Brown snot is there but minimal. I don't know what to do. Part of me just wants to ignore the tank and just let things go and run their course. The other part of me tells me that my corals are not happy and are asking for a postive change so they can recover. I have stopped all supplemets as of 1-2 weeks ago (Pohls, AcroPower, CoralVit).
I'm lost....:sad2:
Some current stats:
-Tank is about 130 gallons total volume, SPS frag dominant
-Fuge with rock and chaeto (chaeto growing well)
-Using RO with Chloramine kit, 0 TDS ( I test with a hand held meter when I start and just before I finish making water.
-3 Radion Pros
-SRO XP2000 Skimmer
-3 MP40s
-Apex and BRS dosers
-SG 35PPT, digital and handheld refractometers, pinpoint solution
-Cal 450 (Salifert)
-Alk 7.7 (Hanna)
-Mag 1390ish (Salifert)
-Phos 0.07 (Hanna ULR) (More to come on this later)
-NO3 0 (Salifert)
-K+ >400 (Red Sea)
OK so a little history. I set up the tank about 6 months ago. I used mostly Dry rock that was cleaned and cured for over a year (long story)and added rock from my other tank and a friends tank to seed. I slowly started adding frags from my other tank. As they did well I added more. When I felt things were going well I purchased a large online order of frags and "stocked" my tank. For 2-3 months things were going spectacular. Polyp extension was ridiculous and growth and color was good to great. I did have some cyano and some snot looking algae (mild form of dino?) but it never got out of control and I just attributed it to "new tank syndrome". It was slowly going away so I was not worried and did nothing to try and combat it.
My smaller tank experienced a crash via bacteria bloom (went cloudy) and I transfered a few corals from that tank to try and save them. Well, 2 weeks later my current tank crashed (went cloudy) and I lost 90% of my Acros over the span of one weekend. All montis, LPS, nem, and zoas survived. This was 3 months ago.
Anyway, I ramped up the the water changes and after 4-6 weeks things started to stabilize. The acros that survived were starting to color up again, polyp extension was almost back to ridiculous, and a buddy gave me a couple of tester frags. I also added some more fish so my feeding went up from where it was. The tester frags were doing great, basing out and getting better color than in my buddies tank so I took that as a sign that things were on the up and up.
So I got another large online order basically replacing a lot of the frags I had lost. 2 weeks before I got my order I started to notice a few things not looking as good as they were, but it was not bad so I just made a mental note and kept an eye on things. The week before I got my frags a couple of corals started looking a little too much like they did before the last crash. To be safe, and anticipating another bacterial problem I decided to start Prodibio to counteract any bacterial imbalance and some of the corals were darkening. When I got my order of frags they came in a little bleached so I turned down my lights from 65% to 45% so I wouldn't shock them. Over the next few weeks, the new frags that came in started to regain some color and my existing corals continued to decline. Some look OK, most look like crap. Nothing has died to this day, but they look like they are on their way.
When I started Prodibio, they warn against GFO use so cut back on it but did not eliminate it. As my corals started to decline my Alk started to increase so I started to play with my dosers to get it dialed in. It never fluctuated more than 0.3-0.5. A few weeks into Prodibio, I did notice that the cyano and snot was improving. At the time my Alk was at 8.5. I started to notice a lot of burnt tips. Although Prodibio use is not associated with Alk burn, I am familear with Alk burn from previous experience with carbon dosing so I thought it would be safe to bring my Alk down slowly to where its at now.
I did have one day where I accidentally left my Cal doser on and I did get a huge cal spike to 500+. That was 3 weeks ago and Cal normalized within a few days and for 2 weeks Alk and Cal have been stable. I also noticed that my Phos has increased from 0.04 to about 0.08, but not I've got it down to around 0.06-0.07 by incresing my GFO.
Below are a few of my general observations.
-Zoas look amazing, something I have not experienced in a long time.
-Favias look very good
-Hammer is retracted, looks irritated, and looks slightly bleached
-Birds nest have STN, and look irritated
-Cyphastreas look good
-Setosa has a deep rich color
-Encrusting montis have polyps retracted and overall look bad. Base color is mostly gone
-Most acros have lost their luster. Most have lost most if not all polyp extension. They have darkened substantially and overall look irritated, like something in the water is aggravating them. They look like there is either too many nutrients in the water or they are not getting enough light. I'm up to about 60% on my lights which is almost where I was when things looked amazing. Acros have almost a bluish greyish sheen to them, and they have lost most if not all their "glow". They do not glow under the blue LEDs at all or the ones that still do have suffered significantly. This has been going on for weeks. Some are showing STN, but almost all of it is from the tips. I am not really seeing base recession at all.
When I got the high (for my tank) phos reading I did cut back on the feeding and put the tank on a diet. Nitrate never read anything, always 0.
I am running carbon but not much. I change it every 2-3 weeks and its in a bag. The sump has a good but of slime and some cyano, but every sump I've seen looks like that. I have to clean the glass maybe 1-2 times per week. I have noticed that since starting the Prodibio, my skimmate has gone from a deep dark green to more of a blackish green but its still watery.
Another thing worth noting that I did switch from RSCP to IO after the crash because I was ramping up the water changes, the RSCP just has too much stuff in it and I didn't want to drive up my levels too much. It is worth mentioning that did go through a month long period after I had been on the IO for a while where things were looking good and improving.
I am planning a huge water change for tomorrow, 40% or so. I normally do 10-15% weekly. My thinking is to try and "reset" things a bit. That said today I'm seeing even more tip burn. Its subtle but there.
I apologize for the long post but I am at a loss. My corals look like my tank is a nutrient sink, my test kits tell me otherwise, film algae is minimal and there is not a spec of hair algae. Brown snot is there but minimal. I don't know what to do. Part of me just wants to ignore the tank and just let things go and run their course. The other part of me tells me that my corals are not happy and are asking for a postive change so they can recover. I have stopped all supplemets as of 1-2 weeks ago (Pohls, AcroPower, CoralVit).
I'm lost....:sad2:
