Coral not growing

[fishtk75]

I asked on other forums and they had no answer why things not growing.I hope here that someone may put some light on it why not growing as it did.
Something eating them at night?
Water as salt mix changed?
Is there a other water test to do that may help?

I started 5 years ago the 75 gallon and every thing was growing wild first 2 years filling up all the rocks nice and tank was fill of life. So good I had to cut back some of the coral. With all zoos and mushrooms, button, star polps, xenias softies and one or two hard candy cane corals.

Then 3 year after I see one or two slow then stop and dye back.
I do not know what I changed or doing wrong.

Lighting 4-65watt CF corallife 10-12 hours.
now this year I replaced it with a Nova 4 - 54watt T5 10-12 hours
PH 8.1
SAL 1.025
Cal 420
Alk 3.0 meq
Nitrites 0
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 10
temp 79
Mag 1300
phos .03 meg/l
Feed Kent coral accel, marine snow and coral vital.
Salt - first year Tropic marin, then Red sea, then Coral life,
Last 2 years IO
DSB 4-5 inches
water change 2 times 20% month

Fish- six line wrasse, power blue tang, 3 clown fish, blue damsel.
Cleaning crew - snails, red blue legs crabs

[dendro982]

Sorry, I'm not an expert, but if I may - it could be accumulation of something untestable in the sand, clogging the LR pores, unprocessed parts of Coral Accelerator and Coral Vital, dieoff or proliferation of the some living things, including bacteria, in DSB on on LR.
But this is no more than educatied guess. Reminds the Old Tank Syndrome, only tank is not so old...

From what I had read, a good cleanup and partial replacement of the old LR by new, with more biodiversity, may help. If DSB causes this, than this is a big problem...

White xenia could have die-off with restoring itself in half of year. Mushrooms, IMHE, grow well in low-medium alkalinity and well fed tanks, zoas the same...

[chimmike]

too much light. Cut that photoperiod back to 8-10 hrs, IMO.

Alk seems kinda low.

You have any nassarius snails for the sand bed?

[fishtk75]

This is how it looked in 2002 using 4-65 watt CF.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/7146175_gal_2002_2.jpg


This is how it looks today.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/7146175gal_2009_2.jpg

[fishtk75]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14791740#post14791740 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chimmike
too much light. Cut that photoperiod back to 8-10 hrs, IMO.

Alk seems kinda low.

You have any nassarius snails for the sand bed?

No nassarius they were bad for me killing my other snails.

I will cut back the light.

[adriennedevos]

what are you measuring your salinity with? MAke sure its calibrated correctly. I have seen similar things happen to people due to simple issues with hydrometers and refractometers being off. Many people are in hyposalinity for menths before they figure it out.

[fishtk75]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14797163#post14797163 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by adriennedevos
what are you measuring your salinity with? MAke sure its calibrated correctly. I have seen similar things happen to people due to simple issues with hydrometers and refractometers being off. Many people are in hyposalinity for menths before they figure it out.

Ok I checked my refactometers and they are calibrated.
Was off zero line a hair line.

[rick rottet]

do you have kids? maybe could have dropped something in the tank/sump...

wife? been cleaning around the tank...

using any of those glade air freshener thingys anywhere around the tank?

tested for copper?

[fishtk75]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14797753#post14797753 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rick rottet
do you have kids? maybe could have dropped something in the tank/sump...

wife? been cleaning around the tank...

using any of those glade air freshener thingys anywhere around the tank?

tested for copper?

No the kids and wife

I need to check for copper. What will copper do?

[rick rottet]

copper is toxic to invertebrates like corals and snails, so as long as snails are doing ok, you can rule that out... maybe, depending if the snails are more or less hardy to copper than the corals (?).

i was just thinking about things like a guy from our local club had a pump that had some brass parts in the wet end. apparently, brass has just enough copper in it to slowly affect a tank as the pump ages and wears. i cant remember if he had trouble with his snails or not.
i have heard a lot of people blame those glade air fresheners too, but i havent had any trouble with them myself. and kids.... the stories i have heard about things going in tanks lol.

[fishtk75]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14800564#post14800564 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rick rottet
copper is toxic to invertebrates like corals and snails, so as long as snails are doing ok, you can rule that out... maybe, depending if the snails are more or less hardy to copper than the corals (?).

i was just thinking about things like a guy from our local club had a pump that had some brass parts in the wet end. apparently, brass has just enough copper in it to slowly affect a tank as the pump ages and wears. i cant remember if he had trouble with his snails or not.
i have heard a lot of people blame those glade air fresheners too, but i havent had any trouble with them myself. and kids.... the stories i have heard about things going in tanks lol.

I got a copper test and reads zero for the tank.


I changed my carbon and is there shelf life for carbon and other media?

[rick rottet]

i would look on the package to see if there is any expiration dates. it is usually a good practice to keep media in a cool dry place and in some kind of sealed container.

i have heard a lot of people experience problems like you have that they attributed to a "bad" sandbed or an old sandbed (like someone above mentioned, or "old tank syndrome"), and some of them were measurably successful in replacing the bed (or just getting rid of it all together). it sure seems to be mostly tank-wide problem not confined to a coral or two, and i sure wish i had more to guess at. like he said, i have nothing more than a hypothesis and i would hate to see someone go through the hassle of replacing a sandbed if it wasnt absolutely necessary and verifiable that was the problem... and i wouldnt know how to verify if it was the problem, other than to do it and see if it helps.

[adriennedevos]

Perhaps stray voltage? Do you have a ground probe? Those can cause problems.

[fishtk75]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14810930#post14810930 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by adriennedevos
Perhaps stray voltage? Do you have a ground probe? Those can cause problems.

Form day one always had ground probes.

[adriennedevos]

I would remove them. Even though you had them the stray current may have not began until recently. Probes are actually worse for the tank than not having them.

[fishtk75]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14827983#post14827983 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by adriennedevos
I would remove them. Even though you had them the stray current may have not began until recently. Probes are actually worse for the tank than not having them.

Ok will do and see what happens.