Losing some corals & water quality

[darkdrako]

I am running out of ideas and suggestions on how to keep some corals. In the last few weeks I have lost some lps and sps and cannot pinpoint what the problem is. Overcrowding? Overfeeding? Poor food? I have no idea and hopefully someone can help.

Tank specs:
75 gallon DT w/ 30 gallon Sump/refuge & approx 100lbs of rock
Temp: 77
Salinity: 1.024
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20ppm (salifert)
Phosphate: 0-.25
Alk: 8
Calcium: 450 (salifert)
(rock has been in tank for 6+ months & was purchased from established tanks)

Octopus EXT-200 skimmer
Mangroves/chaeto in refuge (Mangroves are growing roots but the chaeto doesn't seem to grow as fast)

Inhabitants:
Pair of maroon clowns w/ rbta
lawnmower blenny
christmas wrasse
rusty angelfish
potter's angelfish
snowflake eel

Feed 1/2 cube of mysis and flake every other day and 1.5-2 silversides to eel every other day until full. Forumula 1 pellets and cyclops once a week. All food is consumed in about 5 minutes.

T5HO 6X54w
Koralia 3 & 4 in dt
GFO/Carbon reactor (started running 2 weeks ago)
20% water change weekly

I have been fighting off some cyano/green hair algae which is why I think my NO3 and PO4 is coming up a little higher. Did 3 days lights out, large water change with manual removal and still have more showing up. Was thinking of trying another macro algae, perhaps some caulerpa, to compete with the cyano.

Any ideas?

 

[skimmerman100]

are ur angels picking at them? or maybe the clown can be tearing the lps up cuz its to near the rbta? thats all i can think of? unless ur making homemade calcium with driveway rock salt. i have seen 2 tanks go down hill cuz of that. what are u dosing? hows the magnesium? are u using anything home made as far as chemicals?

 

[darkdrako]

I am not dosing anything or using anything home made chemicals, food or rocks. Not sure on the magnesium as I do not have a test kit available.

From what I have seen, the angels have been model citizens and have not picked on anything.

I had two small-medium sized acan ech. slowly recede away without showing any brown. Also lost a frag of birdsnest and an encrusting monti slowly die. Now my toadstool has not opened in 3 or 4 days but it has done it before so i'm not sure if its just unhappy.

 

[NYreefNoob]

nitrates a little high and phos for sps, but wouldnt kill them, take some of the color away, what test kit are you using ? stop with flake and pellets, high in phos. the gfo will take a little while to get it further down, flow could be a problem also, is the cyano in a low flow area ? and good chance angels are picking corals when ur not looking

 

[darkdrako]

I am using Salifert kits for nitrates and calcium. Still using API for Alk, phosphate. I need to buy either a meter or better kit for the phospate but from what I understand, cyano needs both nitrates and phosphates (as does my mangroves). Some of the cyano is showing up in a pretty high area of flow (the sand stirs a little and you can see the sheet of cyano shaking a little). Its possible the angels are picking but I lost the acan before the angles were in the tank and the acans added afterwards are looking great and seem very happy. On the birdsnest, it slowly lost its polyps from left to right without any patches missing. It seemed pretty consistant.

I will cut out the flakes and pellets but would like to give a little variety other than just feeding mysis and the occasional sheet of nori for the blenny. Should I go with krill or any other prepared foods?

 

[jrobbins]

eels poop a lot. how big is it?

 

[chinatown]

not using RODI?

 

[knugenx]

maybe it's no cyno/algae...but dino

 

[darkdrako]

jrobbins: the eel is approx 9" long and 3/4" wide

chinatown: sorry I did not mention. I am using RO/DI water with 0TDS. the water in my area is only 100TDS has no nitrates or phosphates before and after the filters.

 

[darkdrako]

does dino come in the really dark reds/purples as well? I thought it was more of a light brownish color

 

[bizarrecorals]

you introduce anything new in the tank?

 

[ellebelle]

The eel may be your problem. An eel adds a lot to your bioload. How often and howuch are you changing your water? If salifert is reading any color then your posphate is probably much higher than your think it is.


Sent from my iPhone using Reefs

 

[jackson6745]

If salifert is reading any color then your posphate is probably much higher than your think it is.


Sent from my iPhone using Reefs

I agree 100%. If you're using an API kit for phosphate and can actually see a low level, most likely your phosphate is through the roof. I am not aware of any conventional phosphate testkits that are actually useful for reefkeeping. It's amazing how these kits can still be sold as an accurate tool. It should say "for amusement purposes only"

How fast do you see diatom growth on your glass?

I would run fresh phosban in a reactor, cut feeding, and increase water changes.

 

[darkdrako]

I do 20% weekly water changes and have fresh GFO running in a reactor for less than 2 weeks. There have been no additions since the frag swap.

 

[tosiek]

What ive noticed in the past with pest algae is that it tends to grow over dying areas of your acro's and coral or around the heads on the skeletons of frogspawns and stuff, fish and hermits tend to pick at it stressing out the coral and they tend to fade away kind of like what your seeing with your slow recession on your coral.

And as far as the angels, Ive had a few sorta reef safe fish in my tank in the past. Ive never "seen" then pick or eat at a coral although they were the problem mainly because they were too busy trying to either dodge me, or get my attention to feed them. I had a vid cam set at my tank a while ago after i thought my angel was killing off some acans and sure enough you seen him picking at them.

 

[NYreefNoob]

alot of different frozen foods can feed alo need to rinse frozen foods
i feed mysis, brine, spirula brine, krill, blood worms, hikari mega marine, mega marine algea, cycoplez and a few others, try to mix it up each day, also how old are your bulbs ?

 

[darkdrako]

I will have to pick up some other frozen foods. The mysis are defrosted and rinsed twice in RODI water before feeding.

The oldest bulbs are the two actinics at just about 6 months. Everything else is 3 months old or less.

 

[darkdrako]

Well I just got my Martini Phosphate Photometer and the results are in.

Tap water - 0.56
After RO/DI - 0.07
Tank - 0.07
GFO/Carbon reactor - 0.01

I just replaced the RO filter in the middle of December and have new DI resin coming in the mail. Hopefully it will bring the phospates down from the filter and the reactor can take care of the rest.

 

[xvinny631x]

Temperature swings????

 

[darkdrako]

No temperature swings throughout the day. Had my wife go every hour and it stays a consistant 77