SPS frustration

[evoIX_Reefer]

Anyone else having issues keeping SPS no matter how much you do with the tank?

I do 33% water changes in a month - 5/10 gallons respectively every other week on a 80~ gallon system.

I use seachem matrix, rowaphos at 1/2 doseage, chaeto with fuge light on reverse DT schedule, BM Curve 5, LRS reef frenzy, etc

NO3 5ppm
PO4 .02-0.04 on hanna egg not ULR
ALK - 8.5-9.3dkh 1 week swing - nightly dose of 10mL of b-ionic part1
CA stays stable at 420-440
Mag stays around 1350-1385

Flow is currently generated by return 600gph and 2 Jebao RW8. I am adding another one tomorrow to add a little bit more flow.

Salt is Red Sea Coral Pro salt.

I know my tank is not as mature as I'd like but it's nearing 2 months old and using bacteria from special blend at 30ml every 2-3weeks and Prodibio Biodigest every 2 weeks. I do not dose during the same week.

WTH can't I keep SPS happy at my levels and husbandry? Experiencing STN or RTN. I purchase my corals from LFS. Both frags I purchased fresh cut died out and right now a purchase about 1 month ago is experiencing RTN. It had great PE until RTN kicked in.

 

[mbg75]

Are they Maricultured frags? Do you have any Aquacultured frags, such as ORA? If so how do they do?

Numbers look ok.

What are you lighting with?

 

[duke62]

Things that I've noticed with you so far. Red Sea coral pro is very high in alk so I guarantee when you do water changes your alk is swinging. I can't see you getting a low reading of 8.5 if your dosing and using Red Sea coral pro salt. You don't have colonies to suck that alk up.i would switch to a salt with alk of 7.5 to 8.5 something in that range. Second if your changing your rowa without testing first your stripping po4. I only change my rowa if I'm near 1.0. I use 3/4 what's recommended. If it's at .4 and your changing the rowa you will get rtn or STN. Also your tank is only 2 months old which can also be your issue for keeping sps. Stop using the prodibio for now as well. If you notice your nitrates going up do water changes right now.

 

[piranhapat]

I think you should wait awhile so the tank matures. In the beginning your Alk and Cal won't drop so fast especially with a few frags. Your other water pars need to settle down. Ammonia, nitrates, nitrites. You have fish in this tank? Has your tank fully cycle.? All the other waters par you mention will be in check because your SPS not absorb Alk. First two months your phosphate should be close to zero and adding GFO can be doing more harm than good. Never buy fresh cuts especially in new system. Also Mariculture won't do good either. Wait another two months and start with Monti or birdnest. . Best get SPS from someone that's fragging them from they tank. Are you using RO water. Go slow and don't rush. Read and ask question. Ever by my way I can give you some frags when your ready. So my first advise let the tank mature. Take small steps first.

 

[knutez24]

start with a couple easy hardy pieces that are from someone's tank. Just add 1 or 2. Then take it real slow. Stability is the key for sps. A 33% water change is a lot at 1 time. Especially on a new system. Just like duke said no way to control an alk swing unless numbers are identicle.

I personally would keep using the prodibio, or row as others suggested. Both together are kind of overkill especially on a new system.

You're only 2 months in. Just pump the brakes a bit and start slow with a few hardy pieces that you want long term. Once you get those growing for a few months add a few more so that way you can dial in your dosing and keep everything nice and stable

 

[evoIX_Reefer]

BTW, not everything is dying but 3 coral died within a month that were once thriving.

Wild bonsai was as purple as can be with no signs of issues and wham STN. I tried to keep my husbandry up and pay attention to levels...today still shows STN marks but alive for now with PE but coloration is almost gone.

Fresh cut frag died from placing too high too quickly.

A wild mini colony - beautiful green body with blue tips. Had for 1 month with nice PE went from bad to go in a matter of 2 days. It is still dying out but shows PE in the area where it is still good.

PE on my Green slimer has been amazing, I can see PE in my red mille and red table. My 2 deep water mini colonies are still great color and see PE from time to time. Garf Bonsai is still growing without issues.

So I have some success but have had a few set backs that worry me.

I have some zoas left and zero loss, all growth.

 

[evoIX_Reefer]

All great comments and I can see logic behind each piece of advice so thank you very much.

To add I am using a hybrid fixture LED w 4ATI bulbs. I have not done a PAR test so I will not guess my par.

I believe all the mini-cultures that I have been getting are maricultured because they are on that rock ruble with the plastic tag associated with other corals I have received that were maricultured. I know others say they are less hardy but that's what LFSs have been bringing in and they have nice color. I was hoping with everything that I am doing to try to do it right would help my success.

I decided to use prodibio Biodigest as soon as possible because of recommendation from all those that have used it.

My 33% is over the course of a month. I do 30 gallons a month.

I wait 24 hours after a water change to check my alk and that's when it jumps to 9.3-9.4 (salifert) then I check the following 2 days then another day before the next water change. I have been at that stable range for about a month so I haven't really switched it up. I have tested on 2 refractometers at 1.026.

piranhapat and duke - I have been doing gfo changes probably 3 weeks apart when I notice algae on the glass begin to increase or become more reoccurring. I haven't been checking before I swap it. I may be swapping it too fast so I will test before I decide to change out the current batch.

 

[SteveZ15]

I had the same problem when I stopped gfo the stn stopped. I had algae after I stopped gfo I dealt with it and added turbos, the algae is slowly going away. I listened to the advice I got and waited out the algae stage and not let phos get way high and it got better over time. If your willing to deal with some algae try cutting out the gfo and see if the stn stops. IM my tank gfo causes problems ,I probably don't feed enough to keep gfo running all the time.

 

[mbg75]

You shouldn't need to run prodibio and chaeto/GFO at the same time. They will compete with each other once levels get low.

Test your alk daily and log it to see what your daily drop is and dose accordingly.
Also, Red Sea coral pro mixes with high numbers. If your not consuming alot of alk. It will mess with stability.

 

[fredro]

To me it seems like an overall lack of stability.
Alk is what I find most important to monitor and regulate. If you can get a dosing pump to spread your doses out a few times over the whole day, it will decrease your swings. Also, I have an 80g and I cannot imagine doing 33% changes. That is a big change in water chemistry at once. I personally do a 5 gallon water change every week to ten days. The key to maturity in my experience is leaving the tank be. If your tank is unable to sustain itself within reasonable parameters for a couple weeks without a water change, then in my opinion, the tank isn't mature enough and needs to be left to balance itself out. The more you do to it, like dosing and running different medias prior to maturity, is just prolonging the process.

I would suggest not adding anymore bacteria, coral, fish or rock and sticking to 5-10 gallon water changes every week or two at the most. Any phosphate remover, I would use sparingly. As stated earlier, stuck with a salt that has a lower Alk content, Red Sea Salt would likely be fine, I would just steer clear of the Coral Pro for now. Remember, the last part of the cycle is the nitrate spike, I would think from the age of the tank, that it never completed that spike FULLY and found its balance. Every fish or rock changes the balance and requires a period of time after that for the tank to rebalance itself.

Patience is key... and waiting gets really old, but it's nowhere near as frustrating as losing your animals. Keep it simple, feed lightly and wait for the tank to become steadily balanced... How long is never an answerable question, but you will see it when it happens in your test readings and overall tank. GOOD LUCK!

 

[evoIX_Reefer]

Thank you fredro. I thought I was doing my tank a service by doing 33% water change at 5-10 water change every week. 30 gallons a month to keep nitrates in check while feeding my tank everyday to keep it well fed.

My feeding has been every 2 days with LRS Reef Frenzy and sometimes mix in some rods food.

Dose ReefEnergy the opposite day to dose some aminos and food. 4ml of each A&B

My fish list is as followed:

Pair of Black Ice clowns almost 2 years old almost ~.5" when I bought them. Now female is about 2.5" and smaller one is at 2~"
Flame Angel - 2.5"
Sixline Wrasse - 2.5"
2 Randall's Anthias - male and female
1 Desjardian Sailfin Tang - ~6" Nice size to give that extra POOP


Is there really any reason why several SPS pieces would do well while others would do great then randomly fade STN/RTN?

My first guess was tank is not yet mature to handle them but there have been plenty of people in tank threads show getting a TON of sps frags at an early stage to watch them grow into full fledge sps display. I also asked on a previous thread on when others decided to jump into sps (at what stage of their tank) and didn't really get an answer so I jumped in head first.


So far I will test my po4 levels and make sure I am not getting zero levels. If I am I'll slowly reduce my rowaphos or let it fade out and remove until a few more months.

I would like more info on those who have used prodibio biodigest and would recommend stopping the doses.

I will reduce my water changes to every other week at 10gallons to help prolong bacteria stability.

Again, thanks everyone for your advices! I'll put it to the test and see how it goes!

 

[Mattl22]

For what ever reason most systems struggle with sps in beginning give it time grow the easy stuff for now and when that stuff starts doing really well try some acros goodluck took me over a yr on my latest system to see any decent sps growth /color

 

[knutez24]

With the bacteria and carbon source I have found a lower alk helps with sps. I know others have success but most that do prodibio or carbon etc seem to do better 8 and a bit below.

Just some food for thought. Doesn't work in all systems and sure a few on here have great sps at 9. Just know in my tank and others, getting alk a bit lower helps. Find what works for you and then keep it in that range.

I would figure what you want to use between bacteria, carbon, rowa, etc....To much trying to control the same stuff. then with your water volume I would cut it down to 5 gallons every 7-10 so 15-20 gals spread out over a month.

 

[jackson6745]

My first guess was tank is not yet mature to handle them but there have been plenty of people in tank threads show getting a TON of sps frags at an early stage to watch them grow into full fledge sps display. I also asked on a previous thread on when others decided to jump into sps (at what stage of their tank) and didn't really get an answer so I jumped in head first.

Evo, I think I have ben a bad influence on you . There is one major difference you're overlooking.... live rock. Your tank was all dead or mostly dead rock to start? You need to be extra patient because it will take several months for the rock to colonize enough bacteria to help keep a stable system (my speculation). Quality live rock is key to jumpstarting a new system and the key to quick stability.
I was able to put a bunch of frags in immediately because I treated my new system like a tank transfer rather than starting a new reef. My current tank has established rock from a few different tanks and cured branch. All of this rock was run in a brute for 2 months to remove excess nutrient that may leech. There never was a cycle in the tank.

For now I would just let the tank mature, don't stress . Keep water clean, params stable and it will all fall into place. The bottled bacterias help but they can't turn white rock into established rock so quickly
HTH :givebeer:

 

[JonnyJ]

RSCP salt gave me trouble in the past on my sps system. I even wrote Red Sea about it. Not saying this is the case but I was complaining about cloudiness after mixing and off the chart alk readings. Here was my email reply - concerning stratification

Start testing fresh salt and dry mixing the salt.

 

[evoIX_Reefer]

I was running into issues with Reef Crystals Alk being in the lower range closer to 7dkh when I had my 70 cube running and residue all over my buckets and equipment so I wanted to switch out of it.

I know everyone raves about ESV but I like to keep it simple and roll the bucket then dump in the mix to 1.026 then call it a day.

RedSea has given me the best "stable" parameters everytime I check with each element that I check but Alk is a little higher than others are suggesting but doable.

Rich - My LR is about 50# dead with 15#established from my old tank about 1.5years. So the dead rock is probably not established as you noted. Would you reduce or suggest stopping the use of Prodibio? I remember in your thread you noted how much you have fallen in love with use of good bacteria strains like Prodibio to help with your tank. Other threads on RC, etc stated how their tank flourished after the use.

I may be reducing PO4 - NO3 too rapidly or stripping the tank of enough of the bad stuff? Utilizing skimmer, chaeto, rowaphos, carbon and a bacteria source probably would be overkill for a newly established tank.

JonnyJ - I'll check my next fresh batch of mix. I just did a 10gal change this past weekend so I'll wait 2 weeks.

 

[mbg75]

I would continue prodibio and pull the GFO and Chaeto off. Maybe small amount of GFO if po4 creeps over .1 then pull it off once it drops. But not continuous use.
The tank needs time to stabilize.
Also back off on the additives.
I wouldn't push the heavy feeding until the tank is mature and stable
Find salt with an alk close to where you keep yours normally.

 

[evoIX_Reefer]

The chaeto is more for pods and the eventual want of a Mandarin. I know chaeto on it's own do not consume a significant amount of no3/po4, as I tested this on a previous tank running strictly chaeto only without skimmer or carbon/gfo. From personal experience I prefer it for refugium use not as an exporter.

I took down my gfo last night and will cut off the additives until the tank matures a little more.

The down side to recommendations is I dislike birdsnest, the growth pattern of stags, etc.

I have 2 chalices bubble gum and watermelon chalice from Rob that are doing well with new growth. All the zoas left from a sale off are still doing well with new growth and beautiful coloration, especially my WB fairy farts.

So my tank is good for those coral but the SPS problem continues....for now.

 

[mbg75]

Start by testing alk daily before you dose to see if it's stable.

 

[salpet]

your tank is still too new wait 6 months