I just need help with my coral health

[cam78]

So here is my case. I don't know what the deal is but my coral just doesn't thrive in my tank. Its a great set up with amazing flow, equipment, large refuge, live rock tank and anything else you could imagine. Only coral that really seems to be taking off is a Monti and a clam that is growing like crazy.
My Rics seem to fall off a lot and not fully opened, could never keep acros for long, blastos recead along with Acans that suddenly recead away to nothing within 2 weeks of receading.
My parimteres are good other than PH little low around 8 and calicum around 380-400. They are low right now because I sent my ProCal out to be fixed. I just don't know why my coral start to recead and what else to test for. I test for everything which always have positive results. PLESE HELP. Phos 0 trates 0. Iodine is low last I tested but can't be the reason
What could cause this receading?

 

[btldreef]

Iodine and even more importantly: Magnesium. Especially acans, they love mag and iodine.
How is your alk? Is it consistent?
What lighting do you have?
Do you feed your corals?

 

[cam78]

Whats up BTL? I have Aquaillumination SOL blue LED lighting. My Alk is usually pretty stabile because of my calcium reactor. Usually is around 10 DKH I feed rotifers and amino acid I think its called. Not too often but I think enough. How often you feed? My Mag should also be stabile with the reactor.

 

[1guydude]

wats ur temp? Constant?
wats ur light schedule?
A Ph of 8 imo isnt that low....just needs to stay at 8! Have u checked ur Ph during the night hrs....it may be droping during the night.... fresh air and a set light schedule, help keep Ph stable.... sometimes people run their fuge lights opposite the DT lights to keep Ph up.
Just some thoughts off the top of my head...

 

[snakeblitz33]

List of equipment, please...
How old are your test kits?
What top off water are you using?
What fish and inverts do you have?
Do you have any unidentified hitchhikers?
Have you tested your tank for stray voltage?
How often do you do water changes?
What is your salinity and what do you measure it with?
What is your magnesium level?
What exactly are you dosing and what brand?
What exactly is a "good flow" rate to you... list powerheads and flow rates
pictures would be helpful.

 

[cam78]

Snake: 120 gallon display, 50 gallon sump, 30 gallon live rock tank, and 55 gallon refuge. Fuge has Mangroves, chaeto and about a 4inch sand bed. Bullet II skimmer from Precision Marine, Tru Temp heater, MTC Pro Cal reactor.
Display tank has 2 MP40W's and the water pumped from my sump is pumped with a Reeflo Barracuda pump (4500 GPH)
Test kits Im using are Salifert and some of the new Redsea pro test kits. All new.
Top off water is just R/O water
Fish: Yellow tang, six line, two clown, and another wrasse, forget the name
Never see hitchhikers which I don't recognize
Never tested for stray voltage but there is no electricity in my display
Water changes about once a month and about 50 gallons at a time
salinity is measured with a refractometer
forget what Mag is at because I haven't tested in a while. Used to be around 1200 if Im not mistaken
Only reason Im dosing right now is because my procal is getting fixed which I'll be picking up tomorrow. Im using Kent super buffer DKH and Turbo Calcium. My calcium is low right now because I don't have the reactor going. it was at about 300 tonight!!! I know really low. I gotta get that running right away

 

[snakeblitz33]

How high are your two MP40s cranked up? Reason is, I think your beating your corals to death with water flow. I bet the monti and clam are in a medium to low flow area of the tank, aren't they?
What's your pH in morning and evening?
How old are your lights?
what is your top off water pH?
What do you store your top off water in?
Do you have any non-aquarium-equipment plastic that touches your tank water or RO water?
How often do you maintain that deep sand bed in your fuge?
How often do you stick your hands in the tank to adjust things?
Do you light scented candles or smoke around your aquarium?
When was the last time you calibrated your refractometer with a 35ppt solution?

 

[1guydude]

Quote:
When was the last time you calibrated your refractometer with a 35ppt solution?
or with ro or ro/di water?!?!

 

[btldreef]

Bump up your mag, and keep an eye on it. Acans, more than any coral I've dealt with, really like mag around 1250+, we keep ours at 1300-1350. We also lowered our dKH down to 9 and have had much better luck. They're finicky about higher alk and any swings in alk.
One thing about your lights:
I have seen quite a number of people cook their corals under the AI LEDs. It's very easy to do, especially if where you purchased them from is not using LEDs. A friend of ours had to raise his fixture 18" above his water column because everything was just frying and bleaching. He still needs to be careful about where lower lighting LPS such as acans get placed. You might need to acclimate your corals slower and raise your light.
I have cooked a few acans under my LEDs, but my blastos don't seem to care where they are placed. However, they also don't like alk and mag swings. Found that LPS as a whole is happier with a consistent dKH of 9, when it creeps up to 10, they all suck in.
Do you dip your corals? Do you do any sort of acclimation to them?
For most of my LPS, I feed mysis shrimp after the lights go out and the feeding tentacles come out. Sometimes I use Oyster Feast to get the tentacles to come out. Each acan, blasto, etc head gets 1 PE Mysis shrimp at least once a week, sometimes twice. All corals get the Oyster Feast 1x a week and Cyclop-eez shrimp 1x a week.
Personally, I'm not a fan of only doing water changes once a month. You might want to try bi weekly.

 

[snakeblitz33]

bi-weekly means every two weeks, right? I don't know about doing a water change twice a week. That would seem a bit excessive.
I agree with most of what BTLD said.

 

[cam78]

My Lights are less than a year old. I store my RO water in a rubbermaid container. My PH is always at 8. I don't do maintainance on my refuge. I have a large cucumber in there that stirs the sand up. I don't put anything in my RO water and have not tested it. Do I have to use freshwater test kits for that or can I use my test kits?

 

[cam78]

Oh I forgot. My MP40's are not turned up that high. Maybe midway. Nothing is getting blasted but I do think I have a lot of flow in my tank.

 

[snakeblitz33]

Check the number on your RO container. Sometimes chemicals leach into the water from the plastic. Get that number and then look it up online and see if it's food grade plastic. The number will be inside a triangle... It's the recycle number. If its not food grade, I would say that is part of the problem.

 

[btldreef]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CAM78 http:///t/389530/i-just-need-help-with-my-coral-health#post_3443493
My Lights are less than a year old. I store my RO water in a rubbermaid container. My PH is always at 8. I don't do maintainance on my refuge. I have a large cucumber in there that stirs the sand up. I don't put anything in my RO water and have not tested it. Do I have to use freshwater test kits for that or can I use my test kits?
A pH of 8 is fine as long as its consistent. My tank is 8.12 constant. Some claim that's low, but it does not fluctuate, and that's key. Consistency is what corals need.
Honestly, I don't test my plain RO, not even for top off. I do test my saltwater every now and then before it goes in the tank just to see if the numbers are where I want them. I don't have issues with my readings, nor should you if you're using a quality salt. It is good to know what the readings are before it enters your tank.
Snake, you don't know what monthly water changes are! Lol I think to help get things back in line, twice a month would be helpful. If you really want to go excessive, I always did weekly, now that my husband made the auto water change system, we are doing 4G daily.
What media do you run in your reactor?
I still think your main issue is mag/alk related and intense lighting. What a lot of people don't realize is that with the LEDs, even if you dim the whites, the PAR is still just as intense. You have to physically create more space between the corals and the light to lower the PAR intensity. It's a known issue. If you're purchasing corals that have been under T5's, they'll fry under your lights if you don't acclimate.
I don't maintenance my DSB in my fuge other than some Nassarius snails, for what it's worth. And my water is all stored in Rubbermaid blue storage bins.
One other thing, how's your temp?

 

[cam78]

The other thing I feel is that this is not something that happens weeks after putting a new piece in. This is something that happens to my coral after sometimes 6 months. I almost feel that there is something eatting the stuff. Does that help anything?

 

[snakeblitz33]

Well, you could check your tank for pests and see if you have any bristle worms that have overgrown. You could hyper salinity your rocks and see what kind of critters evacuate. Watch out for temp and alkalinity swings.
Do you have any kind of magnets in the tank? Magnetic holders for pumps or powerheads? Check to see if anything is rusting. Put a polyfilter in your sump and see if any heavy metals show up on the pad.

 

[cam78]

My temp and Alk is definitely two of the most stabile things in my tank. Oh and someone asked earlier, the media in my reactor is ARM from Caribsea. Im thinking of running the Magnesium media from Brightwell aquatics this time too.

 

[snakeblitz33]

I would still suggest getting a polyfilter pad.

 

[cam78]

My sump has two filters socks that are pretty thick. Would this remove the same stuff as these poly pads? What are you thinking this pad is gonna remove? Plus where do you put this pad? Would I just stuff it into my sump somewhere?

 

[snakeblitz33]

No. A polyfilter pad is not the same thing as a filter sock. A polyfilter is a cuttable pad that you put in between baffles or in direct water flow in your sump. The pad will change colors depending on what heavy metals are in the tank. It also turns various shades of brown and black by removing nitrate and phosphate. It will turn blue if there is copper present in the tank. It will turn green and other colors - and will give you a good idea if something is off and what to do about it. At the same time removing it from your system.
It's worth a shot - to get a diagnosis.