Why are my acros dying!!!

T

twabatman2004

New member
I can't keep a acro alive for nothing! A little background. Tank is a 75 gallon with refugium, skimmer, calcium reactor, several Korali's for plenty of flow.

Lights:
2 175 watt 14k SPS halides
4 4ft t5 actinics
Photo period 7 hours actinics, 5 hours halides

parameters that I know of:
Calcium - 420-440
KH 8-9
PH - 8.2ish
nitrate, nitrite and ammonia all in check
Temp 78-79
Using RO water from a wellwater source

No redbugs (actually treated for them to make sure there were none)
Nothing is picking at them
All oh my LPS (frogspawn, hammer, blasto, acans), zoo's and yumas are doing awesome and growing. The fish look perfect and thriving.

The problem:
I can't keep a acro alive for longer than 2-3 weeks to save my life. I can't figure it out! They lose color in a week and then RTN on me. Acros are my passion but they are really ****ing me off. Ok, I feel a little better now but I still for the life of me can't figure out why they die. I had about 30 frags over the last year or so and all are completely gone as of a week ago. Am I missing something?
 
Tested for copper? What about stray voltage? What's your TDS reading? Is it RO/DI water?

Any problem keeping crustaceans alive?
 
sminker said:
Tested for copper? What about stray voltage? What's your TDS reading? Is it RO/DI water?

Any problem keeping crustaceans alive?
Click to expand...

I have not tested for copper. Not any stray voltage I know of but how would I know if I did? It is just a 3 stage RO unit on a well. I get my water from a buddy that has no problem keeping SPS if that helps. I also have montiporas and stloporas and they are doing awesome too. Just the acros hate me! Crustaceans seem to be doing fine. I loose the occasional crab or snail but thats normal.
 
sminker said:
Have you checked phosphates or magnesium levels?
Click to expand...

Sorry, yes. Phosphates checked a few months ago and were none. Not positive on MG. Don't believe I have checked that. If I have, its been awhile. Other SPS such as Montis and sytlos are doing awesome though so i wouldn't think they would be out of line.
 
I think a lot of people that have problems with SPS seem to have zero po4 and don't feed very often. Since I started feeding my reef like 3-4 times a day from once colors have gotten so much better its amazing. No pro here but, seems like a correlation to me.
 
Corals do like some nutrients. The bigger the corals, the more you need to feed. Its a fine line though, over feeding can backfire on you.

Nitrates should be less than 5-10 and PO4 should be .04 and less. If you start seeing more than usual algae growth they you are feeding too much.
 
When you say lose color do you mean turn white? or brown?
white usually light shock, brown/dk green high nutrients.
Depending on how much of the other corals you have there might be some chem warfare going on.
Odds are if you have fish you are not starving the acros, so maybe high nutrients.
po4 needs to be under .1 preferably .05 tested with a good tester. Any hair algae growing?
The real key to sps is stability, and I mean stable parameters that are barley moving all day
auto top off so salinity doesn't drift
alk/ca dosing regime so alk doesnt drift
good heater and fans/chiller so temp doesn't drift more than 3 degrees

If you are doing regular water changes I wouldn't worry about anything else.
 
Few things come to mind. Salinity(if a floating hydrometer, get it double checked with a reefractometer)? Stray voltage which you can either just ground the tank which I would do anyway to save your life, stray metals(run poly filter). Also can you provide us with some pictures? Also another suggestion would be to get a second opinion on your water tests. Sometimes an old test can give you odd results. Also make sure at night that your ph isn't going through the floor since you are running a calcium reactor.
 
RickMartin said:
When you say lose color do you mean turn white? or brown?
white usually light shock, brown/dk green high nutrients.
Depending on how much of the other corals you have there might be some chem warfare going on.
Odds are if you have fish you are not starving the acros, so maybe high nutrients.
po4 needs to be under .1 preferably .05 tested with a good tester. Any hair algae growing?
The real key to sps is stability, and I mean stable parameters that are barley moving all day
auto top off so salinity doesn't drift
alk/ca dosing regime so alk doesnt drift
good heater and fans/chiller so temp doesn't drift more than 3 degrees

If you are doing regular water changes I wouldn't worry about anything else.
Click to expand...

No hair algae that I see. Really not much algae at all. The acros would lose color and turn brown after a week or two. I'm not sure if it was chemical warfare as all I had in there other than acros was a few zoo frags, a small frogspawn, and two yumas. I could be wrong though. I try to top off my water daily and the salinity has been verified at 1.024-1.025 with refractometer. I have a reactor so ca/kh doesn't drift and temp never drifts more than one degree.
 
clowndude said:
Few things come to mind. Salinity(if a floating hydrometer, get it double checked with a reefractometer)? Stray voltage which you can either just ground the tank which I would do anyway to save your life, stray metals(run poly filter). Also can you provide us with some pictures? Also another suggestion would be to get a second opinion on your water tests. Sometimes an old test can give you odd results. Also make sure at night that your ph isn't going through the floor since you are running a calcium reactor.
Click to expand...

What is the best way to ground the tank? That is a good idea. I have lost all my acros so I don't have a way to get pics of anything. I will check the ph tonight a while after the lights go out the make sure of the ph. I do have the effluent dumping into my skimmer to try to drive off any passing co2 and also have the refugium lights on a reverse light schedule as the tank. I will try to get another test opinion in my water as well. Thanks for all the help!
 
corals need some nutrients to grow. zeo tanks run very low nutrients but they still add back some supplements to help the corals grow. I would try feeding more and slowly allow your po4/no3 levels to rise.
 
When my Sps were browned out I thought I was doing everything right. Turns out I was starving the corals. I started feeding and within a week I noticed better PE and color. Now brown colors are behind me. The best way to ground a tank is get a titimium grounding pride which u can order on just about any pet goods site or most likely your lfs will have. They are like an insurance policy for your tank, never know the day it might save it. Good luck and hope u get this problem figured out.
 
Thanks for the input guys. I wasn't feeding my fish very much and made sure they ate all of it every time. I will up my feeding and get a grounding probe. I'm going to give the tank z few months and then try my hand at acros again I recon. Thanks again!
 
Lighting photo periods could be increased. I prefer 11 hours actinic and 7.5 hours with 250 halides over a 24 inch deep tank.
You can't really test for copper in a low enough range(ppb) to help but it would kill other inverts; not just acros.
Tds from a well water source could be an issue.
Sg could be higher ,1.026 =/- .001 is my prefence.
As noted keeping things stable particularly aklinity is important.
 
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