My reef has now been running for a little bit more than 2,5 years and it's my first reef. All my reefer friend's are sps nerds with a keen fetish for acropora.
I never had a problem with nitrates or phosphates except it sometimes being to low and I've kept my parameters stabile since a half year after start but it was just recently i managed to keep acropora for some reason. My guessing is that it was many small reasons that finally did it for me. I started dosing alot more coral food, trace elements, amino acids and also feeding my fish more.
To stop caring about my phosphate is probably the best thing I've done.
When my acropora luck finally did turn and things started to grow I also realized that I had a major AEFW infestation. Shaked off worms around 1-1,5 cm long.
Thankfully I only had smaller frags that were easy to take out and dip. So that's what I did. Took out all frags and dipped them for 12 weeks (was going to be 7 but found new AEFW on a new frag at week 6)
Eggs on a acropora formossa. The dead tissue has been cut off to be able to throw away the eggs.
Bite marks on an acropora tenuis
And the little buggers
Most acros managed to handle that many dips and some even thrived under those conditions. Probably the infestation was alot worse than the dips.
I did however mess up big time with one of the dips. Tried Revive for the first time and then forgot to turn on the streamers after a water change so my corals stood there all night with revive still in their tissues. HOwever the only acropora that took damage from this was my acropora formossa which was my only acropora that was bigger than a frag. I thought i was going to lose this one but after half a year it is finally fully recovered as you can see in the images below.
This is however how it looked when i messed up
After the AEFW dips were finally over i instantly saw a growth spur in the affected corals and today I'm starting to see really nice colorations.
This is what I'm dosing at the moment on regular basis.
About my setup:
My tank is a 120x60x60cm optiwhite tank with an overflow and a sump. Im using a 5,5" pipe down to the sump with a durso. In the sump I'm using a ATI PowerCone skimmer, a AutoAqua Smart ATO and a reactor with active carbon and GFO. My circulation is managed by a MaxSpect Gyre and my lightning is a ATI Powermodule LED/T5 hybrid.
Pictures incoming...
I never had a problem with nitrates or phosphates except it sometimes being to low and I've kept my parameters stabile since a half year after start but it was just recently i managed to keep acropora for some reason. My guessing is that it was many small reasons that finally did it for me. I started dosing alot more coral food, trace elements, amino acids and also feeding my fish more.
To stop caring about my phosphate is probably the best thing I've done.
When my acropora luck finally did turn and things started to grow I also realized that I had a major AEFW infestation. Shaked off worms around 1-1,5 cm long.
Thankfully I only had smaller frags that were easy to take out and dip. So that's what I did. Took out all frags and dipped them for 12 weeks (was going to be 7 but found new AEFW on a new frag at week 6)
Eggs on a acropora formossa. The dead tissue has been cut off to be able to throw away the eggs.
Bite marks on an acropora tenuis
And the little buggers
Most acros managed to handle that many dips and some even thrived under those conditions. Probably the infestation was alot worse than the dips.
I did however mess up big time with one of the dips. Tried Revive for the first time and then forgot to turn on the streamers after a water change so my corals stood there all night with revive still in their tissues. HOwever the only acropora that took damage from this was my acropora formossa which was my only acropora that was bigger than a frag. I thought i was going to lose this one but after half a year it is finally fully recovered as you can see in the images below.
This is however how it looked when i messed up
After the AEFW dips were finally over i instantly saw a growth spur in the affected corals and today I'm starting to see really nice colorations.
This is what I'm dosing at the moment on regular basis.
- Fauna Marin balling salts
- fauna marins' color elements
- fauna marin amino acids (Min-S)
- fauna marin ultra organic
- KZ iodine complex
- KZ coral vitalizer
About my setup:
My tank is a 120x60x60cm optiwhite tank with an overflow and a sump. Im using a 5,5" pipe down to the sump with a durso. In the sump I'm using a ATI PowerCone skimmer, a AutoAqua Smart ATO and a reactor with active carbon and GFO. My circulation is managed by a MaxSpect Gyre and my lightning is a ATI Powermodule LED/T5 hybrid.
Pictures incoming...
. The unspecied blue/green acro though isn't growing much
