The next level! 65g SPS
- Thread starter Greentree
- Start date
ClownReef®
Bubbletrousing
Do you QT your fish?
Greentree
New member
Things are still going downhill. Still slowly losing everything except birdsnests and LPS, and big blue fuzzy SPS that I forget the name of.
Alk is dropping slowly, I'm at about 8. I ordered a triton kit to send a water sample in.
Also, I've been reading up on Aquaforest and I like what I see. I'm thinking that when this levels out (if it ever does), before I add anything more, I will convert fully to Aquaforest. This way if I happen to have any swings during the transition, I won't have any new coral to lose and risk is minimal. Thoughts?
Alk is dropping slowly, I'm at about 8. I ordered a triton kit to send a water sample in.
Also, I've been reading up on Aquaforest and I like what I see. I'm thinking that when this levels out (if it ever does), before I add anything more, I will convert fully to Aquaforest. This way if I happen to have any swings during the transition, I won't have any new coral to lose and risk is minimal. Thoughts?
Last edited:
Nanighan
New member
If hope is almost lost for the sps, try this. Take a 10g tank and put about 80% new saltwater and 10-20% old tank water. Put all dying sps in there with indirect flow. Add light but lower in strength than the main tank light. Also add some rock from the main tank. This is effectively a massive water change. Do not dose at all just evap top off. I have done this, and woks pretty well, but the sps was not really on its last legs though.
Not sure if you do this or not, but make sure you roll around the bucket or bag your salt comes in as to get a even mixture all the time. Good Luck!
Not sure if you do this or not, but make sure you roll around the bucket or bag your salt comes in as to get a even mixture all the time. Good Luck!
Greentree
New member
Thank you for that tip! I was considering something like this, but wanted feedback from someone who had tried it. I might go ahead with it... Hmm...
reefmutt
Active member
Man o man, your tank is sooo unstable right now, it is not a surprise that you are having troubles.
Last month, you had no nutrients and a kh of 10, now you have nutrients- even slightly elevated p and a lower kh.
You've changed lighting as well...
I don't believe there is anything wrong with your water..
You are playing the reaction game. Whatever happens in the tank gets an adjustment.. this keeps you one step behind the tank and lets the problems dictate your actions... it's a tough position to be in.
I suggest stop worrying and fussing about the sick corals.. they are sick because of instability.
Sps can react immediately to stress and they can react very slowly to stress. You can never tell for sure if an sps is sick because of a stress that happened yesterday or last month and for you, you've had stressors recently and also not so recently.
I have done exactly what you are doing and completely wiped out a full sps system.
I sincerely feel that you need to step back and take a figurative deep breath and begin to concentrate on the basics. Stop worrying about the state of the corals. It is what it is right now. Concentrate on stability in the tank. Your kh is now in a good range, keep it there. Keep calcium stable and don't manipulate your nutrients anymore. Let them stay where they are.
Now, don't change the lights or anything for 2 months. You may still lose some corals but it won't be because of your current situation, it'll be from what has already happened..
Keep doing a 10 or 20% waterchange with a good salt and wait it out..
It is said over and over that bad things in a reef happen overnight and the good things take months. Truer words were never spoken.
You are in it for the long haul so take it a bit more slowly...
Hang in there and be patient..
Last month, you had no nutrients and a kh of 10, now you have nutrients- even slightly elevated p and a lower kh.
You've changed lighting as well...
I don't believe there is anything wrong with your water..
You are playing the reaction game. Whatever happens in the tank gets an adjustment.. this keeps you one step behind the tank and lets the problems dictate your actions... it's a tough position to be in.
I suggest stop worrying and fussing about the sick corals.. they are sick because of instability.
Sps can react immediately to stress and they can react very slowly to stress. You can never tell for sure if an sps is sick because of a stress that happened yesterday or last month and for you, you've had stressors recently and also not so recently.
I have done exactly what you are doing and completely wiped out a full sps system.
I sincerely feel that you need to step back and take a figurative deep breath and begin to concentrate on the basics. Stop worrying about the state of the corals. It is what it is right now. Concentrate on stability in the tank. Your kh is now in a good range, keep it there. Keep calcium stable and don't manipulate your nutrients anymore. Let them stay where they are.
Now, don't change the lights or anything for 2 months. You may still lose some corals but it won't be because of your current situation, it'll be from what has already happened..
Keep doing a 10 or 20% waterchange with a good salt and wait it out..
It is said over and over that bad things in a reef happen overnight and the good things take months. Truer words were never spoken.
You are in it for the long haul so take it a bit more slowly...
Hang in there and be patient..
Greentree
New member
Man o man, your tank is sooo unstable right now, it is not a surprise that you are having troubles.
Last month, you had no nutrients and a kh of 10, now you have nutrients- even slightly elevated p and a lower kh.
You've changed lighting as well...
I don't believe there is anything wrong with your water..
You are playing the reaction game. Whatever happens in the tank gets an adjustment.. this keeps you one step behind the tank and lets the problems dictate your actions... it's a tough position to be in.
I suggest stop worrying and fussing about the sick corals.. they are sick because of instability.
Sps can react immediately to stress and they can react very slowly to stress. You can never tell for sure if an sps is sick because of a stress that happened yesterday or last month and for you, you've had stressors recently and also not so recently.
I have done exactly what you are doing and completely wiped out a full sps system.
I sincerely feel that you need to step back and take a figurative deep breath and begin to concentrate on the basics. Stop worrying about the state of the corals. It is what it is right now. Concentrate on stability in the tank. Your kh is now in a good range, keep it there. Keep calcium stable and don't manipulate your nutrients anymore. Let them stay where they are.
Now, don't change the lights or anything for 2 months. You may still lose some corals but it won't be because of your current situation, it'll be from what has already happened..
Keep doing a 10 or 20% waterchange with a good salt and wait it out..
It is said over and over that bad things in a reef happen overnight and the good things take months. Truer words were never spoken.
You are in it for the long haul so take it a bit more slowly...
Hang in there and be patient..
Aaaargh! I know you're right! I keep telling myself that this is what I'm going to do, and then I'm like... but maybe if I do this ONE more thing...
I'm going to let it be. I won't take the corals out. Thank you for the pep talk, I needed this. It's so hard!
Greentree
New member
Hi! I'm still plugging along, not changing much, struggling with high phosphates and a new issue - algae (hair and slime). Corals are still not consuming alk so it's steady at 7. I'm going to start running GFO again.
Last time I ran GFO my tank really took off and looked great for quite awhile - long enough to see a lot of great growth, but I went too far with it and depleted too much of the nutrients. Coral stopped using alk, huge alk swing, and subsequent rtn'ing of all of my large colonies.
I bought the complete aquaforest line and I plan to keep up with the coral's needs through the addition of their three part method, along with the trace nutrients. Hopefully I've learned enough to have more success this time around [emoji4]
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
HuskerBioProf
New member
I had a lot of these same troubles when I first started my first SPS tank (which is less than a year old, now). Alk was fluctuating all over trying to find a "sweet spot" that worked with my low nutrients and I was constantly fiddling with my LED lights to try to get enough but not too much light for the low nutrients. I couldn't ever detect any nitrate or phosphate, but still had algae popping up and my corals were paling out, if not completely bleaching.
Eventually, I swapped to ATI T5 lights and got Alk stable at ~7.5dKH by slowly adjusting the amount of Kalk in the ATO (which worked well for the undetectable nitrates). I tested for a few weeks at a rate of 3 times per week and it stayed steady at 7.4-7.6dKH. Now, I only test alkalinity every few weeks (horrible, I Know), but it is right at 7.5 when I check. I do water changes only every couple of weeks or so, and I never test for nitrate/phosphate/etc. Everything is really coloring up and growing well. Just some thoughts from my experiences.
Eventually, I swapped to ATI T5 lights and got Alk stable at ~7.5dKH by slowly adjusting the amount of Kalk in the ATO (which worked well for the undetectable nitrates). I tested for a few weeks at a rate of 3 times per week and it stayed steady at 7.4-7.6dKH. Now, I only test alkalinity every few weeks (horrible, I Know), but it is right at 7.5 when I check. I do water changes only every couple of weeks or so, and I never test for nitrate/phosphate/etc. Everything is really coloring up and growing well. Just some thoughts from my experiences.
HuskerBioProf
New member
(I also took out my GFO reactor, added a kole tang to munch algae, and added a small clump of cheato to a chamber of my sump. I realized I like keeping things as simple as possible with fewer things to screw up- chaeto seems to take care of everything on its own without the spike/depletion cycles I had with GFO).
Similar threads
