New to reef and Corals are dying....

[robo100]

I have a fairly new reef tank (about 9 months old). The tank of course has fully cycled and I have the following equipment.

- 80 gallon reef tank with 3" of pure aragonite sand
- About 110 pounds of Fiji live rock
- Two 175 watt metal halides (14000K) Running 8 hours per day
- Two 65 Watt CF bulbs at 10000K running 10 hours per day
- Two 65 Watt CF bulbs (Atinic) running 10 hours per day
- Turbo Twist UV steralizer runnng 24/7 (3 watt)
- Wet dry filter running Rio 2500+ pump
- Dual 200 Watt heaters with Finex temp controller
- Remora Pro protein skimmer running 24/7, cleaned every other day

I have the following fish:
Yellow Tank (about 8" in diameter, largest I have seen)
Engineer goby (about 8" long)
Marron Clown (2")
Yellow Tail Damsel, 3 stripe damsel
Foxface lo (about 3" long)
Basic cleanup crew

All the fish are fine but the coral is not doing ok. I have some yellow polyps and Figi mushroom and both are doing bad but I am not sure why. I have the following stats

PH: 8.4
Temp: 76 degrees
KH: about 8
Calcium: 480
Nitrite and ammonia: 0
Nitrates: 20
Salt: 1.025 (measured with refractometer)
Medium flow using 4 power heads (maxijet 900)

I do have to drip in reef biocarbonate to get the KH to 8. without this setup the KH from the RO is only 3.

Any ideas? I am only doing water changes every month at about 10%. Is this enough? I have to add top off water every day because of the high evaporation.

 

[DonW]

You need to get those nitrates way down.

Don

 

[Krish]

I've never messed with Kalk before so I couldn't say what to do in that case. I'm sure someone else will be able to help in that department. As Don stated though, your ntrates are a bit high and by looking at your setup, I would say chances are they are coming from the wet/dry as the end product of a wet/dry is nitrates. They have no way of ridding the tank of nitrates through denitrification so you get an accumilation of it and basically your best defense against it in a setup using a wet/dry is water changes if you continue to run the wet/dry. Just a thought...Fish can handle a bit of nitrates no problem, but corals are more sensitive to it

 

[robo100]

Thanks for the help folks. Should I concider using another filter in conjunction with the wet dry? Such as a rena filstar? I use one of these units on my 125 freshwater tank. If I do add another filter should I just take the water from the wet/dry or from the main tank. What do you guys use for filtration? What are your typical Nitrate readings? I thought that canister/power filters were a bad idea in reef setups because they would add more problems (such as high nitrates).

 

[DonW]

Thanks for the help folks. Should I concider using another filter in conjunction with the wet dry? Such as a rena filstar? I use one of these units on my 125 freshwater tank. If I do add another filter should I just take the water from the wet/dry or from the main tank. What do you guys use for filtration? What are your typical Nitrate readings?

I think you missed what Krish is saying. Get rid of the wet dry all together or at least all the media it contains. It takes urine and detritus and converts it to nitrates. The skimmer is all you need the LR will do the rest.

Don

 

[dnjan]

Personally, I think that your tank is way overstocked to try to maintain as a reef tank. I really don't think that you will be able to keep a clean enough environment for corals (long-term) unless you are doing large weekly water changes.

You don't give any information about disolved organics, but I would guess that they are fairly high. More than your skimmer can keep up with. and with most of your flow coming from only 4 makijet 900's, you are probably accumulating detritus in your sandbed which will contribute to even higher nutrients in the future.

My suggestions (short-term)

25% waterchange
run carbon in a powerfilter

(long-term)
significantly reduce your bioload (fewer fish, and also smaller fish)
also, your sandbed is already probably starting to accumulate detritus. I would seriously consider removing it in parts and replacing with clean sand (if you want to keep a sandbed).

 

[DonW]

Although I do agree with the fish being to large. Your biological system is working just the way its supposed to. I believe getting rid of the filter media and doing some water changes will put you on the right track.

Don

 

[Krish]

I agree...A wet dry is so efficient at what it does (converting ammonia into nitrite and then into nitrate in a short amount of time) that the live rock cannot keep up with it in terms of denitrification. Wet/dry's cannot perform denitrification do to no anaerobic zones in it and so that's why the cycle ends there and nitrates accumilate.Your live rock will carry out all the biological filtration you will need (including denitrification) and with the aid of good husbandry (water changes etc) and skimming, you can keep a tank nitrate free. I had hair algae issues and nitrates that my chart couldn't even read and then I decided to ditch the wet/dry and now, I haven't seen any nitrates in many months

 

[mcvicker]

I would recommend setting up your sump with a grow light and some Cheato to help export some of the nitrates. That is in addition to increased water changes.

 

[tike]

I would think if you going to keep all the livestock to need to get a better skimmer. Skimmerwhisper has some for sell in the equip section.

 

[angelfish]

try to run some PO4 remover in your sump :|

 

[LakeEd]

Sounds like you've received some very good advice here already!

If you do decide to remove your filter material in your Wet/Dry... remove about 1/4 of it a week, so you don't put your system in shock. Continue the water changes along with removing that media.

I started out with a 75gal tank... with Wet/Dry... and my Nitrates were up around 30ish, for about the entire year. Just removing 1/4 of my bio-balls every week... and regular water changes, my Nitrates dropped down below 10, within 6 weeks of starting that removal.

I feel you'll see a huge improvement, worth the effort!

 

[dmo]

I do have to drip in reef biocarbonate to get the KH to 8. without this setup the KH from the RO is only 3.

This may seem a silly question, but is your test kit reading alk in dKH or is it reading in meq/L?

 

[dnjan]

This may also be a silly question, but just how sensitive are soft corals to alkalinity???

 

[DonW]

I wouldnt worry about the alk being 8. I'd be more concerned abouthe ca being so far out of balance. Water changes with a fairly balanced salt should take care of both.

Don

 

[robo100]

Thanks for the replys and help. I have removed 1/4 of the bio balls and did a 30% water change. Since I was adding additives to the tank for the alk I measured the replacement water and found that the KH was only 3. I added additives to the replacement water so it was closer to what my tank originally had. My replacement water was about 1.025 salt and a KH of 8. I thought I would take a look at the nitrates this evening to see where everything is at. I did however make a calcium measurment after the inital water change and it was at 480.

I also have to add that this site is much more helpful than other sites I have been on. A lot of the other sites only get 1 or two replys to questions regarding reef/marine setups.

 

[DonW]

Thanks for the replys and help. I have removed 1/4 of the bio balls and did a 30% water change. Since I was adding additives to the tank for the alk I measured the replacement water and found that the KH was only 3. I added additives to the replacement water so it was closer to what my tank originally had. My replacement water was about 1.025 salt and a KH of 8. I thought I would take a look at the nitrates this evening to see where everything is at. I did however make a calcium measurment after the inital water change and it was at 480.

I also have to add that this site is much more helpful than other sites I have been on. A lot of the other sites only get 1 or two replys to questions regarding reef/marine setups.

Youve got something wrong. Fresh salt mix should be much higher than 3 and most of the time 8. What salt are you using? What brand of test kit? Dont add any more buffer till we get this figured out.

Don

 

[dmo]

I'm wondering what kind of salt mix ends up with 3 dKH. It seems like it is extremely low for new saltwater.

If however the test kit was reading in meq/l, 3 meq/l would be around 8 dkh, buffering that up to 8 meq/l would be over 20 dkh, which, in my limited experience, seems obscene.

Either way, like DonW said, using a balanced salt would help with that part at least.

 

[robo100]

I am using DI water with Instant Ocean salt. Maybe my test kit is bad? The instructions say that it is measured in Dkh. According to this test kit my salt water has always been pretty low. In my main tank I always measured 4~5 dkh and my calcium was way out of line at 700. Thats when I received advice to get my alk closer to 8 or 9 so I started adding Reef Carbonate (Seachem product). After adding this (over the last two months) the dkh was closer to 8 and my calcium was at 480 so I thought I was on the right track. I also keep freshwater tanks and the tap water was around 3 so I thought this is just the way it is. Is instant ocean a good salt mix? I thought it was regarded pretty high. I will purchase a new KH test kit and see what happens.

Maybe what I should do is buy all new test kits for everything and retest...

 

[dmo]

Instant Ocean isn't a bad salt.. It normally comes to around 8dkh and 380 calcium when using DI water.. Im not sure if you have a problem with test kits or perhaps you have gotten a bad batch of salt. What brand of test kit are you using? Sometimes kits come with an expiration date on them somewhere.