what to keep Acros?!?!

hawk fish

hawk fish

Member
I have a 90 gallon tank with 2x150 watt hqi bulbs with 2x96 watt pc's and 2x32 watt pc's
I have bought 3 acros and one plate type sps coral all of the acros are now dead or dieing...just the plate like sps is growing like CRAZZY... I was just wondering if im not suppose to have sps with the type of lights or am i not adding things to keep them alive i have no idea!!! Please help i need all the suggestions I can get.... thank you
 
fishieness

fishieness

Active Member
that lighting is fine assuming that the sps are close to the light.
we need to know much more about your system.
water changes, levels, maitinence, what you add to the tank, what you have in it, how long it took for them to die, any parasites or pests on them such as "red bugs" or AEFW (id search aroudn for info on those two, they are very hard to spot). what fish/inverts you have. how are they dieing? jsut bleaching? what is the color like when you first add them to the tank? any die off? how old is the tank?
tell us everything you can about your system and the corals.
 
hawk fish

hawk fish

Member
had the system up for about 2 years
calc-320(was the only test that was alittle too low
water changes every 3 weeks about 20 gallons
they bleached off then turned all white...they were the closest to the light i could get them....
red circle- is the only sps that did good in my tank
pink circle- is one of the acros that are now dieing..it is green in this pic and now it is more white and light yellow
 
promisetbg

promisetbg

Active Member
What are all your other parameters? Especially PO4 & Alkalinity? How close are they to your stinging corals?{they have sweepers} Do you have leathers? How long did you have the corals before they died? What is your flow rate?
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
If everything else is going fine and you are having problems with acros it sounds like a flow problem, they like a lot of turbulent flow, the way i have put it so many times is that you litterally blast the polyps out of the skeleton with the flow. Not direct flow, but ever changing indirect flow and lots of it. Your lights are fine, I have all of my sps under 150 watt halides, Make sure your water is perfect and lots and lots of flow. I currently house about 4 types of acro and 6 other types of sps
 
teen

teen

Active Member
the one circled in red is a montipora capricornis. there usually pretty hardy in an established tank and dont require as much attention as the acros do.
you said the acros were greeen and now they are white to brown. my guess is they were wild caught or maricultured, meaning they came directly from the ocean. if this is the case then its not a problem with your tank because most wild caught acros brown out and some stay that way.
do the acros still have polyp extension? what light were they under in the tank you got them from?
 
cannonman

cannonman

Member
You're not alone- I bought three big acros and one is doing fantastic, bright color, polyps out all the way, second one looks "good" but not fantastic..two small bottom branches have bleached white over the last two weeks but the rest of it still has color and polyps are out, third one looks like junk..lost most of the color and I don't believe it will make it. Scroll coral looks good...softies are good... had low alk so I dosed to raise but didn't do it right and had a Ca drop... now I'm just doing five gal water changes every couple of days and topping off with kalwasser and hope they make it...I hope the frequent water changes are enough to keep the water perameters where they should be... using IO salt.. bucket is almost gone and I'm going to switch to reef crystals..
 
teen

teen

Active Member
i dont think flow would cause this.
im thinking lights/water parameters, or it was just a wild caught colony.
 
hawk fish

hawk fish

Member
alk- 3.5-4
didnt have it in that much flow but it would get a good amount...at the store had alot of mh on the look down tank it was in...also wat do you mean by light aclimation??do i need to add calcium(mine is at 320)
 
teen

teen

Active Member
Originally Posted by hawk fish
alk- 3.5-4
didnt have it in that much flow but it would get a good amount...at the store had alot of mh on the look down tank it was in...also wat do you mean by light aclimation??do i need to add calcium(mine is at 320)
you have to slowly bump the calcium up to mid 400s.
light acclimation means that say the lfs tank had 175w mh on the tank, you have 250s. your lighting would be stronger so you have to start the corals at the top so they arenbt stunned by the more intense lighting. if you just put them directly under the light, you could shock them and kill them, or just bleahc a part of them.
that situation is just hypothetical, i dont know what yuor lrfs has for ligts and you said you had a 150w mh.
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
I agree could be because of acclimation to lighting....Doubt it's a flow issue......Caps are usually easy and do grow quickly.......Do agree with bumping Ca and Alk, but feel pushing Mag to max 1400 is iffy.
 
hawk fish

hawk fish

Member
how do i bump up alk?..i know how do dose calc. but how long should it take??...i prob shouldnt over do it...
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
I use the Kent SuperBuffer DKH....., but again it will toy with the PH, but if done slowly will b ok.
 
murph145

murph145

Active Member
get some mag addatives thats low IMO and can make it hard for sps corals to bind the calcium they need to form there skeletons
 
dejaco

dejaco

Member
Hey sounds like everyone else agrees with Calcium and alkalinity needing to be raised. I concur there. But on reading about light acclimatization - KISS
(keep it simple stupid) is a great motto. Place your corals where you want them (hopefully will have researched needs). Place 2 pcs of eggcrate over them to diffuse the light. After about 4 days remove one pc. Wait about another week and remove second piece. It really works well at light acclimatization and means less handling of the specimen by repeatly moving it. Good luck
 
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