Help with coral compatibility

[bethzb]

Hi folks. Haven't posted for a while but was busy getting married and then having surgery. I am now recovered enough to continue with my mission of having a happy, healthy, thriving (and preferably gorgeous) reef tank. Here is the problem:

I have managed to successfully keep and grow euphylia species (hammer and frogspawn; hammer started with 6 heads, up to 20+ (over two years), frogspawn started with 2 heads, up to 6 (around 8 months or so)), I have a happy and thriving galaxea coral that I have had to cut back twice over the last year, Happy and huge wellsophyllia, along with myriad mushroom and palythoas. So far seems pretty good however, all of the colors in the tank are browns and greens and purples. Add purple, green and a deep maroon coraline algea and it is kind of boring and very dark. I also have a bubble tip anenome that decided to split and become two bubble tip anenomes.

I have been unsuccessful with the following species:
Any type of zoanthid melts away within a few months. Xenia thrives for 4 or 5 months and then, over a day or two, disappears. Capinelli does about the same. I cannot even keep a simple toad stool (sarcophyton) alive for more than 6 months or so. I tried some acropora frags with the same results. All of these go into the system, thrive and grow, then suddenly die off.

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong or what else I should try to add color would be greatly appreciated.

BTW: Only 4 fish, 1 tomato clown, one dottyback, one pj cardinal, and one blue damsel that is many years old. Tank is 120 gallons with CF lighting. 2 Eheim wet dry filters below and 2 rotating powerheads in the tank for counter current flow.

Please help as I am totally out of ideas :irked:

 

[KathyC]

Welcome back

Can you post all of your parameters, that would be most helpful.
A full tank pic might also help us.

CF lighting..how old are the bulbs? Assuming your 120 is 24 x 24 x 48, the lighting is on the weaker side at those depths.

Assuming you are aware many of the corals you keep have long sweeper tentacles, so placement is important so that they aren't killing off the other corals you have tried adding

Also, please tell us if you are dosing anything into the tank?

 

[bethzb]

Tank Specs are as follow:
Nitrate = less than 5ppm
SG = 1.024
Nitrite = 0
Ammonia = 0
Calcium = avg 400 to 500 ppm
Alk = between 8 and 10 dkh

PC bulbs replaced every 6 to 8 months.

Dosing = Reef Plus and Reef Complete roughly once a week. I sometimes vary with Kent products since I do not think any one product has it all. Alkalinity is maintained with Kent Superbuffer. Water change monthly, 30 gallons. Salt is Instant Ocean.

Spacing is significant. Frogspawn and hammer are close but compatible species. Located towards top of tank. Galaxea is on bottom with frags higher up. Nothing within a foot of them except for vertically. (Sweepers only go horizontal from what I've seen). Open brain on far side of tank from these rather toxic critters along with some rather plain gorgonians. Anenomes are moving around a bit and may be the culprit but cannot be proven. Mushrooms are in center along with palythoas and range from the bottom of the tank to the upper levels.

All species I have tried I usually place on the opposite side of the tank from the evil ones. (Euphylia and galaxy are all on the left side of the tank. Attempts are always on the right side of the tank.)

Hope this helps. I'll post a pic when the camera is charged.

 

[wayne]

maybe you need stronger lighting whats the temp of the tank temperature spikes might be reason y they're dying off just an idea.....

 

[wayne]

http://www.ehow.com/way_5325574_care-zoanthids.html

 

[wayne]

Tank Specs are as follow:
Nitrate = less than 5ppm
SG = 1.024
Nitrite = 0
Ammonia = 0
Calcium = avg 400 to 500 ppm
Alk = between 8 and 10 dkh

PC bulbs replaced every 6 to 8 months.

Dosing = Reef Plus and Reef Complete roughly once a week. I sometimes vary with Kent products since I do not think any one product has it all. Alkalinity is maintained with Kent Superbuffer. Water change monthly, 30 gallons. Salt is Instant Ocean.

​

Spacing is significant. Frogspawn and hammer are close but compatible species. Located towards top of tank. Galaxea is on bottom with frags higher up. Nothing within a foot of them except for vertically. (Sweepers only go horizontal from what I've seen). Open brain on far side of tank from these rather toxic critters along with some rather plain gorgonians. Anenomes are moving around a bit and may be the culprit but cannot be proven. Mushrooms are in center along with palythoas and range from the bottom of the tank to the upper levels.

All species I have tried I usually place on the opposite side of the tank from the evil ones. (Euphylia and galaxy are all on the left side of the tank. Attempts are always on the right side of the tank.)

Hope this helps. I'll post a pic when the camera is charged.

whats your ph reading..........

 

[bethzb]

Temp is maintained at around 75 although it can sometimes spike (during summer) to low 80's. I am forbidden to have a chiller by my husband though and have not noticed specific losses during any time of the year.

 

[bethzb]

PH is 8.3 but can go as low as 8.1. I try to test once a week and maintain a graph in the hopes of identifying trends but frankly, haven't enough data collected yet to really point to anything.

 

[bethzb]

AM Picture

Here is a picture of the left side of the tank where the happy euphylia live. This is before the main lights come on but you get a good feel for how dark the tank is with all of the purple, maroon, and green stuff growing. There is nothing placed near the euphylia and nothing near the galaxea. Neither one of them would be able to sting anything that is located on the oposite end of a 72" long tank. If it wasn't for all of the tube worms, sponges, worms and assorted other critters growing on all of the rock I might just break it down and re-cure the rock but, there really is too much life.

 

[basiab]

Evidently there is a chemical war going on. Anemones are usually problamatic when it comes to mixing corals. You might try some acans. There are many reds and they are pretty hardy.

 

[bethzb]

Having done some research I have come to the conclusion that the corals that do well in this system are generally from lagoon reefs rather than any of the other zones. Based upon this, I am going to try acans as suggested. I am also going to try favia or faviites species. Since saltcritters.com is having a nice sale on frags right now, I have ordered three single head acan frags, 1 babies breath favia, and one war coral (faviites). While most of these corals have a rather nasty sting (comparatively speaking), I also have quite a bit of real estate available for them. If anyone thinks I am totally nuts for trying these species, feel free to rant. Meanwhile, I'll let you all know how it goes.

 

[Dre]

Your tank looks dark ,keep in mind some of these corals require very small foods of some sort.
So here is what i think, stronge light 65,000K- 10,000K good water quality and Planktonic foods.

 

[Dre]

Your tank looks dark ,keep in mind some of these corals require very small foods of some sort.
So here is what i think, stronge light 65,000K- 10,000K good water quality and Planktonic foods.

I like the Red Goniapora, Blasto ,Red Chilli and the open Brain corals to name a few. Special care is required, adequate water flow and feeding.

 

[bethzb]

Your tank looks dark ,keep in mind some of these corals require very small foods of some sort.
So here is what i think, stronge light 65,000K- 10,000K good water quality and Planktonic foods.

While it is true that the tank looks dark, the picture supplied was with only the actinics on. 2 more 96 watt power compacts come on about an hour later that are 10000 k output. The tank does still generally appear dark though because there is a ton of dark purple, burgandy, and dark green coraline algea. I have a few small patches of lime green on the other end of the tank but the overall impression is rather dark.

My goal is to find corals that will live in the same conditions that the euphylia, gorgonians, palythoas, etc... enjoy. I would prefer if those corals were something other than green or purple or brown since those colors dominate the system. Revamping the light system may happen in the future but, I will then have to revamp the corals I have since these have adapted quite well to the power compacts.

 

[E.intheC]

That's great insight to read up and stick with corals that are from lagoons in nature.

In terms of offering advice... It's tough to tell from your pictures alone, but it looks like your flow is on the low side (due to Cyano on the back wall?).. Are you changing/cleaning the filtration out often? Even though your tests aren't really showing, wet-dry filters are notorious for raising nitrates.

 

[bethzb]

That's great insight to read up and stick with corals that are from lagoons in nature.

In terms of offering advice... It's tough to tell from your pictures alone, but it looks like your flow is on the low side (due to Cyano on the back wall?).. Are you changing/cleaning the filtration out often? Even though your tests aren't really showing, wet-dry filters are notorious for raising nitrates.

I alternate the canisters every 4 to 6 months. I do not run much chemical filtration at all (1 Chemi Pure for the entire system) and pretty much have the Eheims for the alternate wave action of the return flow. Most of the biological action is in the sand bed and rockwork. I do have a concern regarding the plenum underneath the sand bed but, since I cannot come up with an easy way of checking, cleaning, or removing, have chosen to avoid the issue and just increase water changes. I'm thinking if I go to 30 gallons every two weeks I can keep the organic load down. This is also why there are only a few fish in the system. As for the growth on the back wall, it keeps the asterina starfish fed. As long as they eat that, I do not worry about them bothering anything else too much.

From a balance perspective, with the bacterial and algea growth, it is probably utilizing all of the available nitrate which would explain the low readings I get. I suppose I could experiment and wipe it all out, then check the nitrates a few days later but I had a similar issue with green hair algea once. I kept it off of the corals and let it grow. Within a few weeks, it starved itself out. Did a big water change, syphoned all of the algea out, and wah lah, no more algea.