Problems with keeping sps

[hideaki]

Hi all

I have attempted to keep sps in my tank for the past 7 months without success. Any help and advice from any of you is much appreciate.

Below is some background info:

Original Tank Setup -

- Dimension - 4ft (L) x 1.5ft(W) x 2.5ft(H)

- Age - approx 2 years

- 2 x 120w razor maxpect

- 2 x Tunze wavemakers

- reef octopus calcium reactor

- bubble magus skimmer (C9)

- Nutrient export by refugium with chaetos

- Livestocks

:- 15 fishes, 5 clams, some snails, 3 urchins

:- 1 toadstool leather

:- 1 bubble coral

:- 1 acan

:- some mushrooms

:- some zoas

:- 1 baby hammer

:- green star polyps

:- skin polyps

Additions/changes over the past 7 months:

- added 1x wp40 and 1x rw15

- added 2 tubes t5 of ati blue plus

- added phosban reactor to run rowaphos

- changed saltmix brand from Blue Treasure to Red Sea Coral Pro

- increased the height of maxpect to 10inches above water surface

- changed fuge light from t5 tube to par38 red n blue

- set fuge light on reverse photo period for 17hrs a day

- started running carbon

Now, my water parameters are:

Salinity - 1.025

No3 - 2.5ppm

Cal - 380ppm

Mg - 1260ppm

Kh - 8.3dKH

PO4 - 0.00ppm

Ph - 8.3 to 8.4

Tank condition now:

- Fishes, lps, softies n clams are doing well in general

- the few sps frags i have are not doing well. Some bleached, some turn brown, some have algae growing on them.

- lots of green hair algae on rocks n parts of sps frags.

Any advice and/or suggestions to help me keep sps successfully please?

Thanks a lot!

[asg]

bro, i am just playing the elimination game here.

1) running on chiller?

2) what are the 15 fishes that you have, what do you feed them and how frequent?

[Angel Keeper]

You should probably increase your Ca and Mg...

[Angel Keeper]

So many guesses for now. Red Sea Coral Pro has much higher parameters than your current parameters with regards to Mg and Ca... Like what andtsg mentioned, it could also be your temperature and fish...

[hideaki]

1. Oh, yes, i forgot to mention chiller. Running hailea hs-66a. 1/4 hp. Set at 26 degrees c.

2. Fishes:

- 2 black clowns

- 2 dunno wat clowns (shd be common)

- 1 mandarin

- 1 blue damsel

- 1 royal gamma

- 1 swalse basslet

- 1 sixline wrasse

- 1 purple tang

- 1 dunno wat tang (looks brown)

- 1 white tiger goby (may be dead already. Haven't seen it for months)

So far only 12 fishes actually, assuming the goby is still alive. Intending to get a few more to make up to 15.

Feeding pellets once a day, only what they can finish eating within a few seconds.

[Angel Keeper]

Hmmmm... That seems to clear the doubts on temperature and fishes...

[Angel Keeper]

Did you put any form of medication recently?

[hideaki]

Dosed some phosbuster more than 3 months ago. Tat was when my po4 was at 0.55ppm, before i got my fluidize reactor to run rowaphos. Stopped using tat now.

Also dosed nualgi abt 2 months ago due to cyano outbreak. Stopped for a month also.

[hideaki]

For cal n mg, i m dosing magnesium chloride gradually now to raise mg. It was 1170ppm initially. Will raise it to 1300ppm. After that, i will dose calcium chloride to raise calcium. For now, my cr is able to maintain kh n cal.

[Angel Keeper]

I'm not some guru... But some wise man told me before that for sps, Ca, Mg, dKh and salinity is a 'must monitor and maintain' thingy...

[oqs]

keep a log of the parameters and identify which one is fluctuating and try to keep them constant. one reading is just a snapshot of the parameters at one single point of time. what i learnt about sps is that they do not like big swings and changes in parameters. If you want to raise Mg, raise it slowly. I prefer to do it with a dosing pump so that I won't forget to dose. Realise your calcium level is a bit low too.

[hideaki]

Yes, i m monitoring all the params very closely. The above params are quite stable for the past 2 mths. Except for no3, which used to be more than 10ppm. Only last week then i managed to bring it down.

Kh has been around 7.7 to 8.6 dkh for the past 1 mth at least. No big fluctuation. Changes r due to water changes and my deliberate attempt to bring down from 8.6dkh to closer to 7.5dkh.

Cal has been around 370ppm throughout. I am aware it is not the low side. Will bring it up soon. But would this calcium level be the reason why i can't keep sps?

[solasido]

what type of sps bro?

some acropora are really hard to keep even with established tank.

[hideaki]

I tried monti caps, digitatas, birdnest all cannot.

[Angel Keeper]

Whoa... BN and digi are the easiest kept but still cannot survive... Most likely water parameters... Up the Ca and Mg and monitor again first...

[Land2013]

Not expert but you mention there is a lot of green hair algae in ur tank mean there is phosphate and it promote algae grow. Sps need low po4 and wonder what test kit did you use.

[Angel Keeper]

Honestly, I had that thought as well... Physical removal of those algae is probably recommended as if you kill the algae, nitrate and phosphate will rise even further...

[hideaki]

yah, in the process of raising cal n mg now. Also doing intensive water change of 2 x 10% per week. Using distilled water.

I m using hanna po4 checker n salifert no4 test kit. For the past few months, po4 is usually 0.00ppm. Sometimes 0.02 or 0.03ppm. No3 used to be about 10 to 25 ppm for last few months. This week drop to 2.5ppm due to the intensive water change.

Thinking of getting a starry blenny to help eat off the algae.

[hideaki]

I am thinking there may be some remnant toxin or harmful elements so hope this intensive water change exercise can remove or at least dilute the harmful element. Whatever it may be...

In 2 weeks time, i estimate i would have changed approx. 70% of my tank water.

[hideaki]

I really hope someone here can help me identify the source of my problem so that a solution can be applied. Sigh...

[Land2013]

I still think ur phosphate level is still high. I was also get my tank ready to stock sps. During my tank with po4 0.5, there is algae on rock n wall but upon drop to 0.2, algae not seen in dt. Im using ats to export the excess nutrient out of tank. Ur rock with algae as the lr leeching out and you have not completely export out the nutrient and it remain inside ur tank and promote algae. Try look into effective nutrient export and keep stable kh.

[Angel Keeper]

I made a mistake of dosing medication into my DT... Man did I regret it... My skimmer was blowing bubbles and nitrate and phosphate shot up due to ineffective skimming... What I did was a 30% water change for 3 days consecutively... Although not recommended for you cos your parameters are pretty far off... The guideline is not more than 20 ppm calcium a day... If after a water change and the level is less than 20 ppm, you can actually change water the following day as well...

[kanegan]

Your tank para seems to be constantly changing. Get to stability first. With all the dosing and changes going on, cannot pinpoint anything.

[Angel Keeper]

I used Red Sea phosphate-nitrate remover... Works for me in pushing both elements down within a few days to almost unnoticeable levels before I allowed my skimmer and chaeto to do their job of maintaining those baddies...

[hideaki]

Thanks all for the advise. Will try to keep the params stable. But if nutrients are indeed leeching out from my live rocks, perhaps it will take a long time before i can get rid of them...