My minimalistic 180g SPS tank

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Stolireef

That's really cool. What color(s) work best?

it really all depends on your light, how much blue you have etc but when i have all my lights on t5s and the reefbrites the very light orange ones work the best

[codydemmel4]

still really seeing the signs of the alk burn more and more everyday, this definitely is the worst thing that has happened in my reefing experience.

I honestly thought about just shutting it down and going flowr for awhile but I decided to stick it out. Since I have not had the success since moving the tank, I just order a triton test to make sure it was just the alk swing and not something else in the water.

I also ordered some cost effective frags since I have had everything stable for 2 weeks now to confirm it is the alk swing that caused everything and not the water. There are only about 5 of my 70 corals that were not effected by this alk swing and seem to be doing great and showing great PE at night.

Everything else is still declining slowly but I am hoping soon it will stop. I cut a lot of the burnt tips off the sps and hoping that will slow the decline.

Just sent my water off to triton, so I am hoping to get it back sometime next week.

[reefmutt]

Gotta wait it out. The corals will either recover or not.. it can take months in my experience..
It's not fun, I know..
Test frags are a good idea. If they don't do well, maybe check the whole system for other potential irritants like bad magnets or impellers etc..

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Gotta wait it out. The corals will either recover or not.. it can take months in my experience..
It's not fun, I know..
Test frags are a good idea. If they don't do well, maybe check the whole system for other potential irritants like bad magnets or impellers etc..

yup exactly what I am doing, plus I am hoping I can at least focus my eyes on some good points when the rest if doing horrible.

I have a feeling that I am going to lose 80-90% of the corals, and the ones that survive I may keep 50% of them. This is so much worse then anything I thought I would experience. Damn. All I can do is just tell myself is this is just a hobby and its for fun, but its hard because right now it is anything but fun hahaha

[codydemmel4]

Update which hopefully will turn into a good update:

I got 13 new frags this morning, cut them from the base, dipped them and now theyre in the tank. All of them have great PE already so we will see what happens in the next week or 2.

Right now my levels are stable at:
alk 8-8.5
Calc 420-440
Mag 1350-1400
Phosphates are always less then 0.05, only once did it ever read 0.08 (2 months ago)
Nitrate is always less then 10, try to keep it between 2-5

[Stolireef]

Very exciting. What do you dip in?

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[Pife]

Originally Posted by codydemmel4

Update which hopefully will turn into a good update:

I got 13 new frags this morning, cut them from the base, dipped them and now theyre in the tank. All of them have great PE already so we will see what happens in the next week or 2.

Right now my levels are stable at:
alk 8-8.5
Calc 420-440
Mag 1350-1400
Phosphates are always less then 0.05, only once did it ever read 0.08 (2 months ago)
Nitrate is always less then 10, try to keep it between 2-5

What lights and how high are they off the water?
How long are they on?

[Higher Thinking]

Digging the corals, but man, those plugs really detract from everything. Have you considered getting rid of them? I think that would definitely strengthen your overall presentation.

Hoping for a positive outcome on the new pieces!

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Pife

What lights and how high are they off the water?
How long are they on?

8x80w sunpower going with BigE recommendation on bulbs 4 coral+ and 4 blue+ along with a reefbrite on the front and back.

I cant remember off the top of my head how far off, but I think around 10 inches.

The T5's are on for 9 hours a day and the reefbrites are on 11 hours, 1 hour before and after T5's just for my enjoyment of the coral pop haha

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Higher Thinking

Digging the corals, but man, those plugs really detract from everything. Have you considered getting rid of them? I think that would definitely strengthen your overall presentation.

Hoping for a positive outcome on the new pieces!

Thank you!

Well now all those corals are pretty much dead haha, the plugs will always be there if I want to move a coral if it doesnt respond well over a couple weeks of the spot it is. Eventually they will easily cover the base of the plug so I am not really worried about it right now. I know it does look ugly now though haha.

[Pife]

Maybe cut your t5s to eight hours? It just seems off that your corals are responding so poorly to such a small swing.


How are the new pieces looking?

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Pife

Maybe cut your t5s to eight hours? It just seems off that your corals are responding so poorly to such a small swing.


How are the new pieces looking?

Yeah I was thinking about doing that too.

The new pieces are looking great, especially their PE at night

[Hentz]

Big E's combo is amazing. I used it on my previous tank. I thought it was a touch too blue for my taste at first but I quickly was acquired too it. My acropora sure did seem to love it also, excellent bulb choice!

Glad to see you're getting some awesome polyp extension as well, sir.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Hentz

Big E's combo is amazing. I used it on my previous tank. I thought it was a touch too blue for my taste at first but I quickly was acquired too it. My acropora sure did seem to love it also, excellent bulb choice!

Glad to see you're getting some awesome polyp extension as well, sir.

It definitely was doing great for my previous tank before the move and then well it seemed like everything has gone down hill fo rmutliple different reasons. I am throwing out pretty much every single acro that got hit and just starting new as the old ones just continue to get worse and worse. I am probably keeping around 5-10% of the old ones.

The new corals I got last week that I am using as a test are doing great. which is promising to me as I thought maybe the decline was something other then the alk swing. thought it was maybe something in the water at my new house that somehow the RO/DI wasnt pulling out. Time will tell though

[Geeray]

I'm glad to here things are looking up!

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Geeray

I'm glad to here things are looking up!

Thanks! Last night I was kind of tired of looking at any coral that was STN or had algae spots so I fragged them all and threw any out that were pretty bad. So all in all, right now I probably have around 20-30 frags left in the tank.

So I am pretty much starting from fresh and going to just let things go by themselves and not make any changes from what I have done in the past 2 weeks.

---Which is keeping alk as stable as possible, testing everyday.
---Dosing flatworm stop everyday (have seen increased PE and color on stable corals, which is about 4 but still promising signs haha)
---Dosing coral booster every other day, good mixed with FWS
---Reduced T5 photo period to 8 hours a day
---Took GFO offline
---Feeding fish at least 3 times a day to try to get some phosphates and nitrates for the corals


We will see how the healthy frags do with this going forward. Time to keep my hands out of the tank and let things go.

[Geeray]

Originally Posted by codydemmel4

Thanks! Last night I was kind of tired of looking at any coral that was STN or had algae spots so I fragged them all and threw any out that were pretty bad. So all in all, right now I probably have around 20-30 frags left in the tank.

So I am pretty much starting from fresh and going to just let things go by themselves and not make any changes from what I have done in the past 2 weeks.

---Which is keeping alk as stable as possible, testing everyday.
---Dosing flatworm stop everyday (have seen increased PE and color on stable corals, which is about 4 but still promising signs haha)
---Dosing coral booster every other day, good mixed with FWS
---Reduced T5 photo period to 8 hours a day
---Took GFO offline
---Feeding fish at least 3 times a day to try to get some phosphates and nitrates for the corals


We will see how the healthy frags do with this going forward. Time to keep my hands out of the tank and let things go.

I have seen others dosing flatworm stop on a continuous basis what is the thinking behind this?

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Geeray

I have seen others dosing flatworm stop on a continuous basis what is the thinking behind this?

I first started using because I thought I had flatworms and was hoping this would stop the spread of them along with basting my corals with wrasses. However I shortly realized after the struggles of my sps was due to alk swings (small ones like 8-9 overnight or something like that) and realized that once they swung from 8 to over 10 when I was on vacation. I was being lazy with the reef and wasnt testing alk a lot, maybe once a week. well I learned my lesson there, till I know I have it dialed in for over a week, I will be testing everyday.

There also has been a lot of people who just dose flatworm stop and coral booster as they said it promotes stronger growth and healthier colors. Not sure why they said it but since I have the bottles already and I have enough to last over 3 months still, I will continue to dose them and see if I see anything great compared to how the coral growth was for me before I moved and got lazy with the reef. So I will let the next 3 months decide if I will buy more after that or not.

[Hentz]

I just finished my Flatworm Stop. I'll buy some more here soon.
I never had AEFW when using it (aside from my small outbreak a few weeks ago).
The reason I doses it was because I also heard the Acropora produce more slime and it gives them a stronger structure. My corals definitely were a bit more slimey than normal and I also saw quicker growth from them. So I'm sure using it in combination of CB, Acropora would go nuts lol.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Hentz

I just finished my Flatworm Stop. I'll buy some more here soon.
I never had AEFW when using it (aside from my small outbreak a few weeks ago).
The reason I doses it was because I also heard the Acropora produce more slime and it gives them a stronger structure. My corals definitely were a bit more slimey than normal and I also saw quicker growth from them. So I'm sure using it in combination of CB, Acropora would go nuts lol.

Yup exactly, hopefully I will find out in the near future once everything gets growing so I can see how they react. I am going to be picking up some new pieces tomorrow so we will see how they do once in the tank too.

[slin1977]

Hope to see you back on track soon mate, hang in there buddy, it's nice to share our enthusiasm with fellow hobbiests even the good and bad times.
Recently I have managed to change twice my system volume of water and slowly cycle through my lighting T5 tube changes all this over a period of three months. I'll be upfront and say I have stopped tinckering with dosing anything and chasing numbers, no feedings other than fish food. My tank is responding favourably as a result.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by slin1977

Hope to see you back on track soon mate, hang in there buddy, it's nice to share our enthusiasm with fellow hobbiests even the good and bad times.
Recently I have managed to change twice my system volume of water and slowly cycle through my lighting T5 tube changes all this over a period of three months. I'll be upfront and say I have stopped tinckering with dosing anything and chasing numbers, no feedings other than fish food. My tank is responding favourably as a result.

Thanks mate. it is hard sometimes to just sit there and watch majority of the pieces decline because of one mishap but I am realizing that I have to go back to the basics of how my last tank was before the move when I didn't have time to go over and look at it all the time and all i did was feed the fish and check on it once a day (was in the basement and obviously had a doser and ato) but they corals were the best I have seen and now I am trying too hard to get growth and corals and messing everything up.

Just gotta slow everything down haha. Hard but most important thing.

[codydemmel4]

Here are the good frags with good PE but I still have one new one that turned bad and has me worried a little bit. Alk is at 8.5, but I am going to lower it and keep it between 7.5-8

[codydemmel4]

Then here is the bad one. Not sure what's going on

[codydemmel4]

So I am hoping that my tank is starting to go in the right direction, by the look of the corals it sure looks like it and the fact I see new coralline growth everyday I think is a good sign too, I had it before but it was kind of just there now I noticed it growing all over the tank everyday.