After several years of frustration - I'm out of ideas

[Sculpin]

I’m reaching out to the forum because I really need help. I’ve had my current tank for two and a half years and I’ve never had it in a stable “happy” state. It’s a 180g cube (4’ x 3’) with a 40 gallon sump, with a Super Reef internal skimmer 3000sss (rated to 300g). I’m running two Vortech MP40s and for lighting I have two EcoTech Radion LEDs with 4 T5 (ATI Blue Plus & Purple Plus) to fill in the gap created from the cube shape. I used to have a sand bottom, but back in June I decided to try and get rid of a really bad case of cyanobacteria by slowly removing my sand bed (assuming that was the problem). Around mid July I completed the removal of my sand and also added a refugium to my sump. I also have a phosban reactor (that is probably overdue to be changed).



Tank Parameters:
Nitrate – 0
Nitrite – 0
Ammonia – 0
Phosphates - 0
PH – 8.41
ORP - 485
CA – 400 (use a calcium reactor)
KH - 161
MG – 1300
Salt – 1.025
Temp – 75 (have a chiller, but it was around 79 for most of the summer)

For about a year I was battling the cyanobateria, that was so bad at times it was killing my corals, so about every week I would get in there with a toothbrush and try to clean off as much of my rockwork as possible before a water change, letting the cyanobateria mats that were knocked loose to collect in spots and then hose them out. Because I wasn’t making any progress on removing the cyano, I thought the problem might have been too little flow in the tank, possibly due to the cube shape and rock arrangement creating dead spots. My rocks are also very porous, so it tends to collect detritus over time. Once all the sand was gone I added a couple Koralia 3250 pumps on a wavemaker near the bottom of the tank that would turn on every 15 min. in an effort to keep the detritus off the rocks and suspended in the water.



I’ve been told my fish load isn’t heavy:
Purple Tang
Hippo Tang
Flame Wrasse
Anthia
2 clownfhish
2 dartfish
Some Astraea snails
2 emerald crabs
1 Shrimp

I used to feed my fish flake and frozen food, but I now only feed them half a cube of mysis or spirulina a day, and give my tangs a sheet of seaweed a little larger than a deck of cards every other day.

Even with all of this, I still have some cyanobateria in my tank, but significantly less than a few months ago. The bigger problem I’m dealing with now is some of my SPS corals are dying. Specifically all different varieties of birdsnest that were thriving months ago are dying as well as my stylophora. I also have an orange acan and some chalices that are receding.





Surprisingly, a few of my montipora are finally starting to take off after doing nothing for 2 years, and my pocillopora also looks healthier than it ever has. I also have several types of branched motipora that are doing quite well.



As far as recent changes to the tank, the most noteworthy changes are (1) removal of the sand (2) addition of the koralia pumps (3) lowering of the food amount (4) more regular & stronger dosing of MG for the past 3 months and (5) addition of the refugium.
Regarding the refugium, I don’t know how it’s supposed to behave, but it seems like it might be dying. Another reefer gave me some trimmings from his refugium, and there seemed to be a significant die-off when I first started it. Since then there seems to be a lot of root growth with very small leaves, but not the big leaves that I received. Seems strange that it would be limping along with cyanobaeria still in my tank, but with almost no experience with a refugium, I’m not sure what to think.

The part that is most frustrating about this is I started with a 125g tank, and for 5 years I made mistakes and slowly figured things out. Once I got everything growing well in my tank, I decided to upgrade to a bigger tank with much nicer equipment, and a lot of the corals from my old tank are doing terrible, especially all the LPS.

Regarding the corals that are dying, should I try and salvage what I can by trimming off the healthy pieces from the parts that are dying?

Any other thoughts or advice on what I may be doing wrong or need to change, I would love to hear your ideas because I’m out of idea. I’m fine with the possibility that I won’t be able to grow as wide a range of corals as I currently have in my tank. I’d just be happy to get a certain type of coral to grow strong and healthy

Thanks for reading this very long post. With so many moving parts, I thought it best to describe as much as possible to provide a more complete picture. Let me know if you need any additional info or pictures of my tank.

-Sculpin

 

[Chichas01]

that's a tough battle. Are you sure its' cyano and not dinoflagellates? they look very similar.

 

[myindoorocean]

I got rid of my Cyano with Dr. Tim's refresh. 2 doses and it was gone.

 

[elmexotics]

I noticed on measurement missing, What is your alk currently at? And, How often are you doing water changes?

 

[tike]

I noticed on measurement missing, What is your alk currently at? And, How often are you doing water changes?

I agree with this. I always have problems with sps if the alk goes to 7 dKH, the sps start to bleach much like yours are now. I also ran a calcium reactor for many years and had a problem keeping my ALK up so i ditched it and just do BRS 2(3) part dosing, haven't had a problem since I starting using 2 part a year ago. The algae problem is a puzzler! With trate and phos at 0 there really shouldn't be one! I would try a hand full of blue leg hermits to see if that would help. I have also found that the smaller emerald crabs do a good job at keeping the rocks clean. Another issue with the sps could be the LED's. When I first started with them i had to run them at 20-30% for a whole month before i could ramp them up. I bleached a few when i first started by having them up too high.

HTH!!

 

[trido]

I noticed on measurement missing, What is your alk currently at? And, How often are you doing water changes?

NOt missing but listed as Kh 161. I dont understand that reading either. For us to easily understand we need to see it as a Dkh of ranging from 7-11 or Meq/l ranging from (i forget) 2-5.

Looks like you have a quality system with great equipment. The thing that caught my eye the most however was your temperature. 75 is very low for a reef tank and IMO 76 is the very minimum temperature your tank should ever be at even during a power outage. 78-80 is ideal. Most reefers will set their controller for a low of 77 and a high of 79. I currently have mine set from 78-81 but the tank sits from 78-79 except on our hot summer days.

Corals metabolize nutrients faster in higher temps (ie. growth) as well as other things we don't want happening (ich and such). This is why most reefers keep thier temps below 80. Corals can handle temps up to about 84 before they start expelling zooxanthella. Corals are known to stop metabolizing at temps below 76. With your temp of 75 its not surprising to me that your corals aren't doing well. Like I said most reefers shoot for 78 as the mid temp. Some like 77 and a few like things closer to 80. Look around and you'll find that no one keeps their tank below 76.

 

[NanaReefer]

Lots going on. Here's a couple ideas. LPS-new tank water to clean, higher lighting, higher flow.
Algae in fuge not growing/dying? Water to clean. Needs nutrients & PO4's & light to grow. Low iron.
SPS-I'm no expert but balance & stability is key. From all I've read especially with alkalinity.
As for removing dead parts of coral, I would.


Sent from my iPhone 4s via Tapatalk.

 

[Sculpin]

Thanks for the advice on testing Alkalinty. I'll go get a test kit today and pick up a few more emerald crabs.

I do water changes every 2 weeks and use Brightwell NeoMarine salt.

I’ve had the LEDs for a year and half now and I was very careful to slowly ramp up the light. I actually turned down the light (slowly) from 100% to 80% at the suggestion of Tim from Barrier Reef.

Regarding whether it's dinoflagellates, I posted a picture (2nd link) of what it looks like now, black with bubbles on top. I've also had thick carpets of grayish stuff in the past, so this may be two different problems. Regardless, I'm assuming the cause and solution would be the same, so I'm curious if the amount I'm feeding my fish is appropriate? Any risk that I may be feeding my fish too little, esp. the algae sheets for the tangs?

Regarding salvaging the corals that are dying, is it best to clip the healthy remaining pieces from the dying pieces? In the past it seems like one a coral starts to die, it will extend to all branches.

Again, thanks for all the advice!

 

[tike]

so I'm curious if the amount I'm feeding my fish is appropriate? Any risk that I may be feeding my fish too little, esp. the algae sheets for the tangs?

With your phosphate and nitrate numbers at 0, you can increase feeding. With your water change schedule you can feed as much as you like!

 

[N1Husker]

Also when you do your testing, take samples of water for testing from the bottom of the tank and compare them to what the readings are from the top of the tank to see if your nutrients are congregating around the live rock.

 

[trido]

I'm kind of surprised no one else has mentioned the water temperature of 75 degrees. :noidea:

 

[mojoreef]

Yea the temp is a little lower then I like to see on a reef, it doesnt leave a lot of wiggle room if something goes wrong and not really what corals are used to in the wild. To see it around 78 to 80 is where I like a reef.

On the cyano vs no readings on your tests, thats pretty easy to figure out, you have nutrients leaching out of something, most likely the sand at one time and the rock as both of them are producers on both N and P. Once they leach it out then the bacterial portion of the cyno is johnny on the spot and then its symbiant partner (the algae part of cyno) creates the canopy and locks down the area). cyano is actually the best form of nutrient removal you can get its just ugly and indiscriminate.

So a couple of things. one is where you have the cyano you have nutrients so you need to deal with that, if on the rocks you need to power head off the detritus and remove it in the sump with a sock filter, two is because you are a bare bottom you need to do cleaning in real time, with a sand bed it sinks your problems for later but gives you that buffer, with out it you need to be a little more active in removing the detritus you see.

On the coral it looks like you have some rtn going on and a little zoo expulsion it would frag in both instances and if its a colony you can glue over the dead spots and just slightly onto the living tissue to try and stop it. I am going up to Redmond in the early afternoon if you want I can come up and take a peek?? If your up for it shoot me a pm and we can arrange it.


Mike

 

[N1Husker]

Yea the temp is a little lower then I like to see on a reef, it doesnt leave a lot of wiggle room if something goes wrong and not really what corals are used to in the wild. To see it around 78 to 80 is where I like a reef.

On the cyano vs no readings on your tests, thats pretty easy to figure out, you have nutrients leaching out of something, most likely the sand at one time and the rock as both of them are producers on both N and P. Once they leach it out then the bacterial portion of the cyno is johnny on the spot and then its symbiant partner (the algae part of cyno) creates the canopy and locks down the area). cyano is actually the best form of nutrient removal you can get its just ugly and indiscriminate.

So a couple of things. one is where you have the cyano you have nutrients so you need to deal with that, if on the rocks you need to power head off the detritus and remove it in the sump with a sock filter, two is because you are a bare bottom you need to do cleaning in real time, with a sand bed it sinks your problems for later but gives you that buffer, with out it you need to be a little more active in removing the detritus you see.

On the coral it looks like you have some rtn going on and a little zoo expulsion it would frag in both instances and if its a colony you can glue over the dead spots and just slightly onto the living tissue to try and stop it. I am going up to Redmond in the early afternoon if you want I can come up and take a peek?? If your up for it shoot me a pm and we can arrange it.


Mike

I checked my water readings at the top of my tank and then at the bottom. what a difference. I blew off the rocks as Mike suggested to me and then checked my readings again and the reading got better, I was amazed and I added a sock that I bought from OBD. Much cleaner tank and no more cyano.

 

[Sculpin]

I tested the alkalinty level and it registered at 7.5, so I started dosing to get it higher.

Regarding the temperature, I actually thought 75 was ideal, so I'll definately slowly bump that up to 78.

Never thought about testing the water at the bottom of the tank. I'll run a full set of tests with water from the bottom to see if there is a diffrence.

Again, thanks for all the help!

 

[Sculpin]

Agh, I must not be refreshing my browser when I post because I'm seeing posts above my responses that I didn't at the time of the post. Apologies for the confusion.

Regarding KH, I didn’t realize that was Alkalinity because my REEF test kit says Carbonate Hardness. So now I have two test kits, one from ELOS that just gave me a reading of 7.5 and one from REEF that says it’s 9 KDH or 161.1 ppm. So I guess Alkalinity is in or close to the ballpark, depending on which test you trust.

Regarding the flow, I’m really hoping I can knock out the algae and lower the flow enough in my tank to return sand and have keep the LPS happy. It seems like the water quality is very clean, which is why the LPS aren’t doing well, so I’ve been trying to feed them directly. In my old tank I had a lot of flow, but water quality was pretty poor, which the LPS seemed to love. With such clean water, it’s maddening that I still have algae.

Regarding the cyanobacteria, I bought some Chemiclean from Barrier today to try and treat it. The advice they gave me was to try the Chemiclean and if it doesn’t make a dent in the algae, it’s probably dinoflagellates.

Hopefully with a little chemical assistance, I can nip this problem in the bud and keep it gone with good water quality.

I’ll also make sure to clip some healthy pieces of SPS coral in case the colony completely crashes.

 

[Vastdavidson]

I've been down this road with my 60 Gallon. Started with a phosban reactor which didn't help. I read an article discussing raising the mg with Kent's mg to 1500. While slowly raising the mg the algae started to disappear. After two years I was just about to throw in the towel. I haven't used the toothbrush for over a month.

 

[trido]

If all else fails your fellow reefers can set you up with some frags.

I fought chemiclean for years until one day out of desperation I tried it and was impressed. I havent used any in a while but I keep it on hand as part of my "ready to use" reefkeeping arsenal

 

[Chichas01]

I'm leaning towards dinoflagellates. I had them and it was really a tough battle. I solved it by taking all my live rock out and putting into blackout out (tank with a cover over it and no light) for like 6-8 weeks. I also tossed my sand bed as well.

 

[Mark2]

Have you tried a gfo reactor? Start off slow so as not to shock the system. Will take a couple months but the leaching from your rocks will eventually go away as long as you control your nutrient input by small feedings, rodi water top offs, water changes, etc. It's almost like trying to fight off a big debt with high interest rate lol

 

[N1Husker]

I have found Chemiclean works well, never bothers anything, except my protein skimmer. It likes to go crazy for awhile.