Why can't I keep acros?

R

rags111875

New member
My tank has been established for almost 2 years and I've never had any luck in keeping acropora. However, all my montipora- caps and digitatas- have always grown well. why do i keep killing acropora? I suppose I should say that all my params are within acceptable range, with my calcium being a little low (consistently around 360-380). I've mostly positioned them high in the tank and with moderate flow. i do not have a wave maker and the flow tends to be constant- could this be a contributing cause?
 
i should also note the following:
i have a euroreef skimmer
ro/di topoff water
kalkwasser drip at night
feed the tank 2x a day (target feed corals)
lighting: 10am 2x110 actinics on
11am 1x 250W MH on (over center of tank)
12noon 2x400W MH on (over left and right side of tank)
 
Have you gotten wild Acropora, frags from other reefers, ??

How did you acclimate them?
How fast did they go? What happened?

What softies/other corals do you have in the tank?
 
other corals- pom pom xenia, 7 montipora caps and digitata, many zoa's, hydophora, blasto, brain, toadstool. i tend to keep the zo's and toadstools, brain low in tank and monti's relatively high.
i got some frags from a local 'fragger' that provided me most of my livestock. he lives nearby and also drips kalk and uses the same salt mix as me(just fyi)
i acclimate them to temp first for about 20 min with lights off
then i slow drip for about 1-2 hours.
the majority of acro have died within a couple weeks. the latest one to die was looking great until i had a temp spike for a day where my temp dropped from 79 to 73. normally, i have an approximate +/- 3 degree swing, anywhere from 78-81.
 
water flow-
2 return pumps (both iwaki's), one on a closed loop. 3 eductors attached. i also have a spray bar on one to agitate the water surface. i also have 2 hydor powerhead attachments that swirl the water in a circular motion, aimed at my sps corals.
 
trates, trites, phates= undetectable for quite some time. In addition to a few different test kits, i brought it to tropiquarium to have them confirm.
ph a little high right now at 8.4 (since i just added some homemade rock to the tank). normally, however, it is 8.2. Note*I have not attempted to keep an acro in a few months, nor do i intend to add any more until i can figure this out.
Specific Gravity 1.026(refractometer)
alk= Honestly, I dont know the numbers. My alk test kit shows colors and it is within the acceptable range, towards the higher end. When I got my pom poms awhile back, they were not opening up. Once i realized it was b/c alk was too low, i raised it and they been great ever since. more or less, i used the pom poms to tell me when things might be off; otherwise, i dont test my params too often. i just stick to my normal dosing schedule.
calc tends to be on the low side- i just took a reading at it is currently at 360.
 
2 things pop out:

#1 - Too much time per day on the metal halides - I stepped down to 6 hours per day for the metal halides (2x250 HQI 10K AB's plus 2x110 VHO Super Actinics)

#2 - I never, ever, target feed my SPS...never ever. Acros fully etend their polyps in the middle of the night with all lights off - when you target feed in the day it is like someone waking you at 2:50 am and shoving an entire pepperoni pizza into your mouth at once...stop tagret feeding acros, they are not really eating the food, and also your water quality will improve.

Here is an example of a coral I've had for 14 months, never fed once:

A. valida
49365mini-tri_color_macro.jpg
 
hah- the pepperoni pizza made me laugh. it wasnt good enough to say an entire pizza. you had to throw on the pepperoni!
ok, in a couple weeks (when my ph stabilizes again due to the new rocks) i will reattempt this. i will reduce my lighting period (and save on electric) and stop target feedings. also, i saw the 2 movies in the 'keeping sps- FAQ' and i will change my water circulation as my circulation did not resemble that in the movies.
 
Wow!

Keep in mind we both have 120 displays...

I just noticed that you have 9,700 watts of metal halide light DAILY...I use 3,000 watts of metal halides daily....whoa Sir Likes Light A Lot!

I have been keeping all sorts of SPS. acros, montis, staghorns, elkhorns, torts, etc. for several years with great coloration and growth. IMHO, you are frying your corals in waaay too much light.

In the tropics, corals get blasted by midday sun for only a few hours, the rest is gentler light.
 
Pitstop-
How did you determine 9,700 watts of MH?
I have 2x 400W MH and 1x 250MH.
Isnt that 1,050watts?
How did you calculate?
 
Whoa....I didn't notice the amount of light either. That's waaaaay extreme on lighting. In my old 120, I ran 2x250's and it was the healthiest growing sps tank I've ever had. I would turn off either the 400's or the 250's for a could months and see how things do.

editsorry...I thought it was 2x250's and 2x400's. still think overall it's too much though.
 
I agree that's alot of light, but I dunno - IME, most Montis will succumb (pale/bleach/burn) to over-intense light before most Acros show anything negative.
 
my guess is somewhere around here...

"feed the tank 2x a day (target feed corals"

and

"My tank has been established for almost 2 years"

Thats alotta phosphates i would think.
 
One thing caught my eye. You don't measure alk consistently. If you are getting big alk swings that can cause exactly what you are seeing. Looking at your xenia is not a good enough measure.
 
Philwd that jumped out at me first and formost. ALK is SUPER IMPORTANT. You need to have a constant level of alk in an SPS tank. Swings of over 1 dkh a day can be bad. You really should keep it within natural sea water levels if you can which are between 6.5 - 8.0 dkh. Some run it a bit higher like 9.0 - 10, I think mainly so its not lower than NSW. Definatly start there.

I also agree you have WAY too much lighting man. 2x250 would be plenty. Having 2x400 + another 250 is just super over kill. With that many halides you should only run them tops 5-6 hours, hell you might even want to consider cutting them back to 4 hours. If you insist on running that much light, I would also change out those 10ks for 20ks. The added blue will help color and also wont be blasting your corals with so much unneeded PAR.

So my advice would be to get your Alk at about 7dkh+ and get your calcium at 400+ all the time. If this means test more often then thats what you gotta do :p

Then get some higher kalvin bulbs...I would bet you will like the added flourescense of them as well :p
 
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