Why can't I keep stony corals?

[weblance]

I have tried with Acropora, Montipora and Fungia. All lasted for about 1-2 months and then died.

My water values are as they should be. Calcium is 400-420 ppm. Strontium OK. Magnesium is a bit low, about 11-1200 ppm, I'm correcting this now.

Lighting is 2 X 150W MH and 2 X 54W T5. Water current is good.

All my leathers are doing great. I even have a Dendronephtya that is thriving very well and growing.

How can it be that I can't keep SPS and LPS alive?

 

[DJ88©]

[moved]

 

[simon.007]

What are your other parameters?

What are your other parameters?

What is your NO2, NO3 and NH3-NH4?

Simon

 

[weblance]

Re: What are your other parameters?

Re: What are your other parameters?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6983313#post6983313 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by simon.007
What is your NO2, NO3 and NH3-NH4?

Simon

They are all at 0 . . . or undetectable by my testset!

 

[Wiskey]

Do you run carbon? The leathers can releace chemicals that are really bad for most stony corals.

Whiskey

 

[Wiskey]

What is you P04?, that is bad for stonies too.

Whiskey

 

[Wiskey]

One last thing (I promice) I didn't see your alk listed, fill us in on that too please.


Whiskey

 

[weblance]

I run carbon.
The PO4 is 0 and alk is 10dKH

 

[Wiskey]

How specifically did the corals die? Did they bleach then die, go brown then die? Stay the same then RTN? Did you have good PE?

What salt do you use?

Whiskey

 

[raynist]

How long has the tank been setup?

I had problems with certain SPS corals until the tank was about 3 months old.

 

[weblance]

The corals went brown and then died. Not RTN. What is PE?

I use Sera salt

 

[weblance]

The tank is about 1 year old.

 

[beaver]

pe= polyp extention.....

 

[Wiskey]

Brown eh? How old are the MH bulbs, what K are they?

Where did you try to put the SPS? Top or bottom?

Whiskey

 

[cwegescheide]

How big is your tank and what kind of current do you have? Powerheads or??????

 

[weblance]

The bulbs were about 3 months old at the time, 10000 kelvin, and the SPS were placed at the bottom(fungia), middle(acropora) and top(montipora).

 

[weblance]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6985012#post6985012 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cwegescheide
How big is your tank and what kind of current do you have? Powerheads or??????

The tank i 450 litres. I have a Tunze Stream (12000 L/h) circulating in the tank and a Deltec return pump (6000 L/h) circulating from sump to tank.

 

[weblance]

By the way, I had good PE!

 

[toothman]

Thought I might chime in: Brown coral is often from nutrient rich water. You may consider that your nutrient levels are not 0 if they were most likely your coral would die. With this said coral does need some phosphate, we all know that. Like 0.03 or so. The problem is that most test kits really do not measure low range results. Point being that your kit reads 0 but it is not, I think it is really very difficult to have 000 everything.

To successfully keep sps it is best to have the following, although many other methods work.

Have a auto top off system.

Of course have ro/di water.

Ca reactor really helps as well as a kalk reactor attached to the top off system.

Good skimmer like deltec, asm, bubbleking.

As already stated bulbs should be less than a yr. old. the kelvin rating is very opinionated but any reef bulb 6500k and above should work. I prefer 10k but 14 is very popular, and 20.

Back to the nutrients deltec makes a nice accurate low range test kit, back ordered in us now. And yes softys do give off toxins, but I have seen very successful reef tanks with both.

I would start by doing a 50 % water change, each week for 3 weeks then back down to 20 % a week after. If you do not change much water now possibly start with 25 %. THIS IS THE BEST THING TO DO, sps like clean new water if you change a lot of water you can not go wrong with water chemistry, this is also the same old principle as with all fish, gold fish, Africans etc.

Ed R.

 

[Serioussnaps]

simple answer-------------leathers and possibly LPS are kiling of SPS-------if you really want a successful SPS tank----trade in the leathers and lps and dedicate it----at least get rid of the leathers, they are nasty to other invertebrates