SPS problems

[tropical hawaii]

I have a 125 gallon mixed reef, and I cannot seem to keep my sps alive. I have all the right light and my water perameters are perfect, and I have more than enough flow. The only thing is I have 3 or 4 different leathers in the tank. My ? is can leathers really kill the sps?

[The Floodinator]

Where do you buy your livestock? Does Evanston have a LFS?

[tropical hawaii]

I go to Salt Lake City to the Aquarium. They are a huge store in the valley.

[The Floodinator]

I'm a shade north of SLC, just thought I'd ask.
Alot of folks here like numbers, Ca., Mg., Alk., pH, etc.. It helps to identify a maybe overlooked problem. What are your #'s?
What kind of lighting do you use?
What, and how many, fish do you have?
Tap water or RO/DI?
The more info the better.

[tropical hawaii]

Are you in Evanston?
PH-8.2
Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-0
Calcium-480
Alk-3.6 milli
Salinity-1.024
I have 2-250 watt mh's and 8-96watt anctics. And 4- koralin powerheads on a wave maker. I use RO water and none of the fish I have will harm the corals.

[Roy G. Biv]

I think all of that is spot on. 3.6 meq/l = 10.08 dKH = 180 ppm
Mixed reefs are hard because you need tremendous flow that softies don't like.

[tropical hawaii]

I am really leaning towards just sps if I can get them doing better. But like I said I have tons of flow. I think the alk is ok right?

[The Floodinator]

No, Utah.
Sounds like your set up is good.
I've never kept softies, but I hear they don't always mix well with SPS.
I just did the math on your lights and you have 1268 watts on a 56 gal. tank. WOW! That's more than my bro had on a 210 with SPS. Maybe too much light? How close are your lights to the surface of the water?

[tropical hawaii]

My personal profile hasnt been updated in a while my tank is a 125.

[Craig Lambert]

Softies can release toxins that inhibit sps growth, so the two don't go together very well. If you keep both you should run carbon 24/7.

Are you purchasing wild colonies or aquacultured? Wild colonies are far more difficult to acclimate and keep than aquacultured sps.

[LobsterOfJustice]

How are you supplementing Ca/Alk?

[kynan]

You did not list your mag levels. I got lax in testing mine for awhile; checked it and where I usually ran in the high 1400's, I found I was down to around 1000. My large green monti cap was just vanishing... as soon as I bumped it up, instant growth, better PE, and the cap came back with a near instantaneous firm edge.

Try testing your mag and post results.

[wrott]

What kind of Koralia PHs do you have? Total g/h?
Are you skimming and doing water changes? Do you have a refugium, could phosphate be high?

[WarrenG]

I think that's too much actinic light (intensity). For that high amount of light you need at least 12cm/s of flow across each SPS for good respiration. I'd cut back to 3 or 4 of those 96w actinics.

To get the best flow you need the water movement to last more than 15-20 seconds. It should be minutes. In the wild at the depths most of our corals come from the flows normally last for hours at a time-it's currents, not surge.

Check the articles here on light and flow...
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/articles/feature

And like others said, check the Mg.