Travis
SPS Obsessed
I made a lot of changes to my tank recently and my corals are starting to show the effects. I would appreciate any advice or suggestions on helping the zooxanthellae populations recover in the affected corals.
Here are some of the STUPID things I've done over the past few months:
1)About 5 months ago I changed from the RC salt I was running for the past year to Seachem. Went through 450 gallons of the Seachem. Then had to use a 200 gallon bucket of Oceanic during a time when I needed salt but didn't have money and had credit at the LFS but Oceanic is all they had. Then I had to use 2 160 gallon buckets of IO to correct the high magnesium levels I had after using the bucket of Oceanic (Oceanic tested at 1606 Mg). Then, Seachem sent me 450 gallons of salt to rectify the issues I had with their inconsistent batches (I posted about that in this thread). So now I'm back to the Seachem and have gone through about 400 gallons of it since I had to use the IO. So that is about 4 different salts that have gone through my tank in the past 6 months.
2)Increased my MH photoperiod 1 hour per week to 11 hours from 8. After a lot of brainstorming, I think this may be the main culprit.
3)Accidetally added too much of a DIY Mg additive a few months ago. I was running at around 1120 and ended up around 1560 which took several weeks of 30% weekly WC's to get down.
4)I was going to start ZEOvit and then backed out. In preparation for ZEOvit, I had lowered my alk from 9.5 to 7.5 over a couple weeks.
I think that sums up the major changes I've made over the past few months. I know, I know, it was stupid and I'm paying the price now. I've kept sps for several years now and know they need stability but just got the urge to push things to the next level and changed a few too much in a short period of time. Now I'm paying for it with several pieces headed downhill.
Here is what I did/have done/am doing:
1)Cut each MH bulb down to 4 hours from 8 (has been brought down to 8 from 11 over the past few weeks). Cut actinics down from 12 hours to 10.
2)Slowly raised dKH to 10.0 from 7.5 over the past few weeks.
3)I always skim wet. Not wet skimmate, but truly "wet skimming". This is where no foam is able to form. The bubbles pop at the top of the riser tube throwing water droplets and solid matter into the collection cup. I dialed the skimmer back to dry for a couple weeks thinking I may have been overskimming but it didn't help.
4)I have been feeding more than usual lately. Actually, for probably the past 4-6 weeks. I have been mixing in a lot of GP's with the fish food to help directly feed the corals and add some nutrients to the water. I haven't really noticed any positive changes in the corals. What I did notice was that the PO4 went up to .20 (Hanna colorimeter) from around .06 and I was only able to keep it at .20 with 100 gallon (30%) weekly water changes. I currently have 20 blue/green chromis in quarantine, which will soon be added to the tank to increase the fish load and allow me to feed more fish food without having to feed other junk like GP's to get more food to the corals. Since I could not get the PO4 down I thought the recently elevated levels may have caused some negative changes in the corals so I started running some ROWAphos a few days ago to bring the levels back down. The ROWAphos truly is remarkable at doing what it is supposed to. In the first 24 hours alone, my PO4 went from .20 to .08. I am now on day 3 of the ROWAphos and PO4 is hovering around .03.
The bleaching events have been strange. They started about 4 weeks ago and always happen at different times on different corals. Some would happen overnight and some would slowly happen over a weeks time. Some of the corals then start getting really dangerously thin tissue. After a few weeks the tissue gets so thin that the coral eventually dies. Some of the bleached corals continue to exhibit normal polyp extension while others, the PE slowly gets less and less. With most of the corals, the bleaching could easily be taken the wrong way. In most of them, it is the zooxanthellae that was expelled but the photoprotective pigments remain. The end result is a coral that is really "popping" with color. But this is one of those cases where the excellent coloration is not indicitave of good health. A couple of the bleached corals do look really awesome, like they would glow in the dark... if only they would look like this and also be healthy. Also, the location in the tank has nothing to do with anything. Some of the bleached corals have been at the top in direct light, at the bottom in inderect light, and one was even positioned in a spot where it was shaded by rock and coral above it and still bleached. The bleaching has occurred in spots across the whole length of the tank, which eliminates a bad bulb being a possible factor.
So that is where things are now. Now that I have my Ca, alk, and Mg back where I want them, I am just going to leave things stable until the tank stabilizes and hopefully starts to turn around. I will leave the bulbs at 4 hours until some of the bleached corals start getting some decent zooxanthellae populations going again. If they don't start getting darker after another week or so I may even cut the bulbs down to 2 or even less hours.
How does cutting my photoperiod sound? Is 4 hours too little? What else can I do?
Here are some of the STUPID things I've done over the past few months:
1)About 5 months ago I changed from the RC salt I was running for the past year to Seachem. Went through 450 gallons of the Seachem. Then had to use a 200 gallon bucket of Oceanic during a time when I needed salt but didn't have money and had credit at the LFS but Oceanic is all they had. Then I had to use 2 160 gallon buckets of IO to correct the high magnesium levels I had after using the bucket of Oceanic (Oceanic tested at 1606 Mg). Then, Seachem sent me 450 gallons of salt to rectify the issues I had with their inconsistent batches (I posted about that in this thread). So now I'm back to the Seachem and have gone through about 400 gallons of it since I had to use the IO. So that is about 4 different salts that have gone through my tank in the past 6 months.
2)Increased my MH photoperiod 1 hour per week to 11 hours from 8. After a lot of brainstorming, I think this may be the main culprit.
3)Accidetally added too much of a DIY Mg additive a few months ago. I was running at around 1120 and ended up around 1560 which took several weeks of 30% weekly WC's to get down.
4)I was going to start ZEOvit and then backed out. In preparation for ZEOvit, I had lowered my alk from 9.5 to 7.5 over a couple weeks.
I think that sums up the major changes I've made over the past few months. I know, I know, it was stupid and I'm paying the price now. I've kept sps for several years now and know they need stability but just got the urge to push things to the next level and changed a few too much in a short period of time. Now I'm paying for it with several pieces headed downhill.
Here is what I did/have done/am doing:
1)Cut each MH bulb down to 4 hours from 8 (has been brought down to 8 from 11 over the past few weeks). Cut actinics down from 12 hours to 10.
2)Slowly raised dKH to 10.0 from 7.5 over the past few weeks.
3)I always skim wet. Not wet skimmate, but truly "wet skimming". This is where no foam is able to form. The bubbles pop at the top of the riser tube throwing water droplets and solid matter into the collection cup. I dialed the skimmer back to dry for a couple weeks thinking I may have been overskimming but it didn't help.
4)I have been feeding more than usual lately. Actually, for probably the past 4-6 weeks. I have been mixing in a lot of GP's with the fish food to help directly feed the corals and add some nutrients to the water. I haven't really noticed any positive changes in the corals. What I did notice was that the PO4 went up to .20 (Hanna colorimeter) from around .06 and I was only able to keep it at .20 with 100 gallon (30%) weekly water changes. I currently have 20 blue/green chromis in quarantine, which will soon be added to the tank to increase the fish load and allow me to feed more fish food without having to feed other junk like GP's to get more food to the corals. Since I could not get the PO4 down I thought the recently elevated levels may have caused some negative changes in the corals so I started running some ROWAphos a few days ago to bring the levels back down. The ROWAphos truly is remarkable at doing what it is supposed to. In the first 24 hours alone, my PO4 went from .20 to .08. I am now on day 3 of the ROWAphos and PO4 is hovering around .03.
The bleaching events have been strange. They started about 4 weeks ago and always happen at different times on different corals. Some would happen overnight and some would slowly happen over a weeks time. Some of the corals then start getting really dangerously thin tissue. After a few weeks the tissue gets so thin that the coral eventually dies. Some of the bleached corals continue to exhibit normal polyp extension while others, the PE slowly gets less and less. With most of the corals, the bleaching could easily be taken the wrong way. In most of them, it is the zooxanthellae that was expelled but the photoprotective pigments remain. The end result is a coral that is really "popping" with color. But this is one of those cases where the excellent coloration is not indicitave of good health. A couple of the bleached corals do look really awesome, like they would glow in the dark... if only they would look like this and also be healthy. Also, the location in the tank has nothing to do with anything. Some of the bleached corals have been at the top in direct light, at the bottom in inderect light, and one was even positioned in a spot where it was shaded by rock and coral above it and still bleached. The bleaching has occurred in spots across the whole length of the tank, which eliminates a bad bulb being a possible factor.
So that is where things are now. Now that I have my Ca, alk, and Mg back where I want them, I am just going to leave things stable until the tank stabilizes and hopefully starts to turn around. I will leave the bulbs at 4 hours until some of the bleached corals start getting some decent zooxanthellae populations going again. If they don't start getting darker after another week or so I may even cut the bulbs down to 2 or even less hours.
How does cutting my photoperiod sound? Is 4 hours too little? What else can I do?
