Tank just does not look healthy

gilweb

gilweb

Member
Looking for some help. I have been in the hobby for quite a few years now and never had this issue. My current tank, a 90 gallon just does not look healthy and no corals grow and no coraline grows at all.

Specs:
Tank is up a year now this month
Phosphate is usually around .03 today tested 0.00 - hanna meter
DKH - usually 9.3 today 9.8 - Hanna meter
Calcium - 420 tested today - salifert
Mg - 1410 tested today - salifert
PH - stable around 8.05 most of the time. May drop to 7.9 overnight - Apex probe
Salinity 35.0 - Apex probe\refractometer
Temp 78
Ammonia - ordered new test kit
Nitrate - ordered new test kit
I have a Bubble king dual cone 150 Skimmer - barely get any skimmate
2 MP10 vortechs for flow
2 radion pro 15 for lights - I have never used LED before. I run the radiance program at 60% intensity. Lights are 6" above the water

I was using Tropic Marin pro for salt for the first 6 months (always used this before with no issues). I switch to Aquaforest because it seemed the Tropic Marin specs were all over the place batch to batch. The aquaforest specs seem to be pretty stable. I see not difference in growth\health of tank.

I do a 20 gallon water change every 2 weeks. 2 Filter socks swapped out at this time.

Dosing:
I have an Apex DOS that I dose .12 of alk\calc over a 24 hour period.
Bulk reef supply canisters for GFO\Carbon. - Replaced once PO4 goes over .05

There are 11 small fish none over 2". All are very healthy
I do not feed the corals (maybe I need to but never had to in the past)
When I started the tank I went with very easy corals to start:
GSP - does not grow
Xenia - does not grow ( I figure this may be because tank is clean)
Zoas - all open but no growth - some in the tank over 6 months(no die off)
I tried Torch coral - died after a month
I am currently trying a small birds nest and it seems like its starting to recede
Corals that were doing great, just seem to recede over time.
All snails never have an issue
I have 2 cleaner shrimp that have been in there for 7 months that are healthy

The tank overall just does not look like it is doing well. Any advice is appreciated. I tried to include as much info as possible Let me know if more is needed.

Thanks in advance.
 
Forgot to add, I have no algae with the exception of some bubble algae that was on a rock when I got it. I barely have to clean the glass.
 
I would double check your Alk with another test kit. You really shouldn't have to dose with what you have in your tank.
 
Choramines seem to becoming more and more common. If you haven't already done so, you may want to check with your county to see if they have begun adding it to the water.
 
Alk has been tested several times with a Salifert test and Hanna Checker is right inline with those results. Before the DOS my Alk would drop to 8 and I would keep having to boost it. With the DOS my alk stays pretty stable in the low 9's.

I never knew that about the Choramines. I will look into that. I had a 220 up to about 2 years ago and had no issues. Maybe something has changed since then.
 
A couple of questions:

When did you change to LED?
How long have the corals been in there? Were they growing before? If so, how much? If and when they were growing, what were the parameters at that time?

I found that my corals grew best at lower dkh. 8-8.5 is where I had mine and I grew all the ones you described. No torches, but frogspawn grew like crazy.

I've heard the LED need to be placed higher over the water line for better light spread.

I agree w the chloramine possibility. Let us know how it goes. Whatever you do don't try to rapidly correct it!
 
Tank was setup with these lights from day 1. I have GSP that has been in there for 6 months, no growth. I have tried a few variations of light intensity, color combos ect.

I would not know what to correct to change it fast. Everything appears to be correct :)
 
Everything in my tank is made out of acrylic.

Something clicked when Goubli said his tank did better with a lower ALK. I have a feeling I have a Nitrate issue. When my new test kit gets here I will test the Nitrates,
 
I'd say water changes. Aggressive ones. A 30%, wait two days, do a 20%, two more days, another 20%...
While we say that coralline depends on mg and cal, there may be (for this and other problems) a lack of trace elements that water changes would help. Also, look at your salt brand and compare. I used Oceanic for years, but it began to run my mg through the roof, so I switched to Instant Ocean as more manageable: the habit of years can kind of dig a rut...and I was in it.
 
Changing 20 gallons every two weeks on a 90gal seems excessive and may be causing instability issues.

LED's put out very intense light. Might want to back them down a bit and see how the corals respond over a few weeks.
 
Are you getting enough flow from the 2 mp10s? I have a 75 and have 2 mp40s...it is overkill, but 2 mp10s wouldn't be quite enough.
 
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