SPS graveyard, aka my tank.

[topjimmy]

OK all I am in need of some advice. Every piece of sps that I put in the tank looks good for a few days. After that it all goes down hill. They all start to lose color, lack pe even at night, and then stn from the base for about a month until they eventually rtn one night. They never show any growth in that time.

I have tried multiple times and types, from Monti to stylo, acros, you name it. LPS seem to do OK. And strange enough a red dragon that is pale but seems to be ok.



I just received my icp test results from ATI and nothing stands out other than low alk. They have it at 6dkh and my Hannah ppm is pretty steady at 135 ppm, so around 7.5.

The tank is a standard 65, 36x24x18. Currently running a 20k Hamilton mh, with two ati blue plus. The blues are on about 10 hours and the mh 6.

Sump is a new emerald 26, skimmer is a seaside 5.5

I dose diy nopox, and two part

It is 13 years old with no real algae problems, a couple of inches of sand.
Livestock includes :
A pair of perc clowns and their gbta.
Diamond goby
High fin goby and pistol
African flameback
Melanurus wrasse
Carpenter wrasse
Tribal blenny.
Snails and hermits.


Water parameters:
Temp 77-78
PH 7.9-8.2
Sg 1.026
Alk is 6 according to ATI
Calcium is 500
No3 8
Po4. 03
Magnesium 1350

Makup is 0 tds rodi, IO salt, though I just bought some Dr's f&s to try.

I'm at a loss.

Attached is the icp test http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5a26b9f4...nalyse9970.pdf

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[blackthunda77]

I feel you. I'm in the same boat. Following.

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[ColonelCoral]

I run my tank at 9.3 alk and 440 for cal. My SPS are doing great.

What’s your flow like and do you start your frags lower then slowly move them up? Usually when the lose color the light is too much for them.


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[topjimmy]

Originally Posted by ColonelCoral

I run my tank at 9.3 alk and 440 for cal. My SPS are doing great.

What’s your flow like and do you start your frags lower then slowly move them up? Usually when the lose color the light is too much for them.


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In tank flow is a Gyre 130, and two mp10. All turned up pretty high.
Return pump is a mag7.

I start them on a movable frag rack near the bottom of the tank.

I am wondering if perhaps it's something bacterial. I should pull some of the digi that are just barely holding on to my qt tank.

I never dip them but I don't think it's a predator problem. I check the tank all the time during the day and after the lights are off for a while and I have never seen anything on them.

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[ColonelCoral]

Originally Posted by topjimmy

In tank flow is a Gyre 130, and two mp10. All turned up pretty high.
Return pump is a mag7.

I start them on a movable frag rack near the bottom of the tank.

I am wondering if perhaps it's something bacterial. I should pull some of the digi that are just barely holding on to my qt tank.

I never dip them but I don't think it's a predator problem. I check the tank all the time during the day and after the lights are off for a while and I have never seen anything on them.

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I think I can really think of is that your alk is too low. Try raising it up to about 8.5-9 to see if that helps. Seems like you’re doing everything else right.


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[DesertReefT4r]

Yeah alk too is low I try to keep mine stable at 8dkh when keeping sps. How old is the setup? Any leather corals in there? How high are you running the light? Might be a bit much flow, 2 mp10 should be good along with sump return.

[bearpeidog]

Agreed with Alk being too low. Early on I had the same thing happening. Alk was consistent just low -every sps died - birds nest especially fragile with alk levels. Like others said - raise the alk to 8.5 or 9 and keep it steady even if you have to test everyday. You’ll see a big difference!


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[topjimmy]

Originally Posted by DesertReefT4r

Yeah alk too is low I try to keep mine stable at 8dkh when keeping sps. How old is the setup? Any leather corals in there? How high are you running the light? Might be a bit much flow, 2 mp10 should be good along with sump return.

The light is about 10 inches from the surface of the water. No soft coral, a couple of chalice that were doing well until either the angel or the blenny decided to make a snack out of them. The Miami hurricane is recovering, but the pink floyd is just hanging on.

I don't see any fish damage to the acros. I have increased the alkalinity dosage, and lowered the calcium.

Good news is that a yellow smooth skin acro that I thought was a goner is turning yellow again and has a little white growth tip. I have a sneaking suspicion that my Hannah meter is way off. I need to order a new alk kit to test against it.

I wonder if frags from higher alk tanks going into my obviously low alk tank was too much stress and they just couldn't recover?

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[awais98]

My main thing would be to rule out alk swings....
the icp and Hanna came back way diff.
Verify what your real numbers are.
Do you dose alk?
How do you dose it?


Water change? How do you do it?



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[topjimmy]

Originally Posted by awais98

My main thing would be to rule out alk swings....
the icp and Hanna came back way diff.
Verify what your real numbers are.
Do you dose alk?
How do you dose it?


Water change? How do you do it?



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I currently dose 100 ml of diy 2 part recipe 1, via my ghl 2 in 10 separate doses. I think that the problem with the checker is that I was measuring the reagent wrong, adding too much. I will try it tonight and see if I can get a good reading using the correct amount of reagent.

Coraline algae grows like mad, I also do 10% water changes every week with IO.

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[awais98]

A: I would check the Alk daily for few days same time.... to see the trend shift if any
B: if actually low alk.... bring it up slowly... from 6 to 8 over4-5 days. and then maintain it there..

Go slow and rule out one thing after another.


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[awais98]

You could hold the water change for some time too and see how it is goibg


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[topjimmy]

OK I checked the alkalinity last night using the correct amount of reagent and I was at 135 ppm. That was after I upped the dosages when I got the icp test results. I am going to push it up a little bit more so that I can stay out of the bottom.

Hopefully this was the problem all the time.

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[ROlympia]

My experience with Hannah was that when the vial gets old, it starts reading higher dkh, even though I would have expected the blank check to have accounted for the hazy glass (I use the same vials for blank check and measurement). Salifert test showed almost 2dkh difference; lower than Hannah.

[reefmutt]

I’ve kept my alk below 6 for months at a time with no issues to sps.. currently still below 7..
Having said that, if your raising yours is helping then the advice your getting sounds good to me.. but I wouldn’t go into the 9s
My first reaction, even though your tests are pretty normal, is plain old old tank syndrome..
I would have suggested several large water changes (like 60%) just to completely rejuvenate the ionic balance in the tank..
The high ca and low (ish) alk - in relation to each other and the age of your system are telling me that a solid flush of newly mixed salt water may just fix the problem..
What two part do you use?

[ruiny]

I would change about half of your sand. I do this yearly and it always helps with everything. Including ph.

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by ruiny

I would change about half of your sand. I do this yearly and it always helps with everything. Including ph.

Yeah.. good point.. 10yr plus sandbed.. removing it completely and just going with a thin layer may negate or dramatically reduce the need for nopox.. would certainly remove a huge amount of accumulated detritus.. acros don’t like accumulated detritus.. many Corals don’t mind it at all but acros can be sensitive to that waste sitting in the system...
No to mention (as ruiny mentioned) the potential ph reduction..

[reefmutt]

Originally Posted by ruiny

I would change about half of your sand. I do this yearly and it always helps with everything. Including ph.

Ya know... any other year, I’d try to come back with ah go Habs go! But I think I’ll keep it to myself this year...

[drawman]

Or go barebottom. I tend to agree with Matt there are plenty of tanks doing well with Alk in the 6s but I wouldn't want to go lower than that. 7-8 may put you in a better place.

A couple of questions?
1. What are you using to test PO4 with and are you using any phosphate reducing media such as GFO or lanthanum chloride? If you are bottoming out on PO4 for some reason this could be very bad for SPS.

2. Do you routinely replace your DI media and other filters on your RODI unit? For instance, I have one RODI unit for a tank that burns through media extremely fast due to my high CO2. Adding a second DI cartridge greatly improved my water quality and success with acros. This may not be your issue but always good to make sure your RODI unit is in tip top shape.

3. Have you disassembled all pumps and other magnets to check for rust, etc? This is general acro paranoia 101.

Just throwing these out there as possible things to check

[topjimmy]

Thanks for the help all.

As far as the sand goes I think my goby does a pretty good job of keeping it stirred up but I could probably do it.

I degass my ro before I put it through the di and I use dual canisters with an inline tds meter.

I am using baked baking soda and calcium chloride for pool hardness for dosing.

I can definitely do a huge water change, maybe that could help. I really expected some heavy metal problems or something like that but the test didn't really show any problems other than low alk.

I had been using gfo and carbon but I removed it also. Just added some chaeto to the sump, and it is growing fast. I bet it doubled in a week.

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[Mr.Fishtank]

If you decide to remove the sand, I would change a few cups a day till it is gone so you don't run the risk of cycling the tank. I would also suggest getting a different type of 2 part. Like Bulk reef supply or ESV.

[Daddi0]

Perhaps the corals you get are raised in high alk and get shocked going into your low alk system?

[topjimmy]

Originally Posted by Daddi0

Perhaps the corals you get are raised in high alk and get shocked going into your low alk system?

That's what I am beginning to think too.

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