No Luck with LPS corals.

[Sacohen]

I can't seems to keep LPS coral.
My Frogspawn, Bubble, and Flower Pot/Goniporia all did great and were beautiful for about 6 months and then each one of them slowly retracted and died.
This did not happen all at once. I lost the bubble about 3 months ago, the frogspawn and goniporia started going about a month ago.

On the frogspawn I lost one complete head, cut it off and the other 2 seemed to be fine for a bit, but then started retracting.

My sofites (finger and toadstool leather) are doing fabulous.
My zoanthid is doing great.
My mushrooms have multiplied.
My branching and encrusting star polyps are doing excellent and spreading.
My branching Candy Cane Coral has been doing really well.
I just added a Montiporia Cup last week and it seems to be doing fine.


Tank info and thread (http://www.*********.com/forums/member-tanks/102714-sacohen-55-gallon-tank-thread.html)

It's a 55 Gallon tank with a Pro Clear Pro 75 Wet/Dry filter.
Coralife Lunar Aquatic compact Fluorescent lights
A NatureReef Denitrification chamber, a Quite One 3000 return pump and a JBJ Oceanstream Circulation Pump/Powerhead + Duo Wavemaker Kit 1600 gph

Fish include 2 false Clownfish, a bicolor psudochromis, Flame angle and a YellowTang.

1 Pencil Urchin and a Coral Banded Shrimp.

Several Tubro Snails and Mexican Turbo's along with Nassarius snails, Red Led Crabs and Blue Knuckle Crabs.

Corals include a Goniporia (Flower Pot) Toadstool Leather, Finger Leather, Duncan, encursting star polyps and several other that I can't remember the names of.
I'm adding 7.5 ml of Kent Marine Essential Elements, Liquid calcium, Iodine, and Stronium and Molybdenum weekly.

The lighting is a Coral Life Lunar Aquatic with 2 Coralife 65W 10K and 2 Coralife 65W Actinic.

The actinics come on at noon and stay on until 10pm (10 Hrs) the 10K's come on at 2pm and go off at 8pm (6).

Can anyone help and tell me why I'm having some much trouble keeping these.

[floridascape]

Several potential variables... One livestock; I see you have a dwarf angel( its always a gamble as to weather they will nip coral or not) urchins are the same and both love fleshy lps... Ime red leg hermits are synonymous with bulldozers. 2 we need your water parameters. 3 the frogspawn should be your indicator coral that something was going wrong in your water column... I've found my mushrooms stand still when most of my LPs and sps thrive, and vice versa it comes down to water quality most of the time.

[Sacohen]

Yeah. I thought that was going to be asked for.
I'll get them tonight.

[Reef Bass]

Leathers pump out toxins (terpenoids) which make lps and sps unhappy. Are you running carbon?

[Sacohen]

I'm going to hook up my carbon/GFO reactor this weekend, but I have been putting carbon in a bag in the sump right in front of the pump intake.

[Sacohen]

Ok I got my levels and they are as follows...

Salinity 1.026
Ammonia 0 ppm
pH 8.0
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 10 ppm
Phosphate 0.25
Calcium 580 mg/L (ppm)
Carbonate Hardness 161.1 ppm KM

[Sacohen]

Ok I got my levels and they are as follows...

Salinity 1.026
Ammonia 0 ppm
pH 8.0
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 10 ppm
Phosphate 0.25
Calcium 580 mg/L (ppm)
Carbonate Hardness 161.1 ppm KM

[Reef Bass]

Ca is high. 425 is preferred.

Alk (carbonate hardness) is good. 161ppm converts to 9dkh.

Other numbers look lps friendly.

I'd check your magnesium also.

[Sacohen]

I'd check your magnesium also.

I'm going to take a water sample to my reef shop and have them check the magnesium today or tomorrow.

I'm not really happy with my API Reef Master test kit for Phosphate, Calcium and Alkalinity. What would you guys recommend.

Money is a concern though.

Thanks

[Reeftanker]

I would also ditch the compact flourescents and go with a good T-5 fixture with ATI bulbs.Ive been using a FNI fixture with 3 Blue Plus And 1 Coral plus and have no complaints.

[Sacohen]

I would also ditch the compact flourescents and go with a good T-5 fixture with ATI bulbs.Ive been using a FNI fixture with 3 Blue Plus And 1 Coral plus and have no complaints.

I'm planning on going to LED at some point. Don't want to spend the money on T5's and then spend it again on LED.
The Power Compact came with the tank when I bought it used.

Got the Magnesium tested and it is way low.
With a Salifert Magnesium test kit it took the whole 1 ML of reagent, I'm not sure what that equaled, but I know it was really low.

Some one earlier I believed asked how far the lights are from the corals and they are about 12 - 15" away from the coral, depending on where they are placed in the tank.

[luvzz2play]

From what I see, your phosphates are way high at over twice the level of what many recommend.

[Sacohen]

From what I see, your phosphates are way high at over twice the level of what many recommend.

Well I installed my carbon/GFO reactor this weekend, so that should help with the Phosphate levels.

[mudhauler]

My 2 cents the flow rate might be too high?

[Sacohen]

My 2 cents the flow rate might be too high?

Possible, but I don't think so.
The return pump is rated at 600GPH with no head and there is a 2.5 foot rise up to the tank.

In the tank there is a JBJ Oceanstream Circulation Pump/Powerhead + Duo Wavemaker Kit 1600 gph, but I had all of the corals that need low or medium flow out of the path of the power heads.

I moved them around until they were minimally effected by the wave maker power heads

[Sacohen]

I can't seems to keep LPS coral.
My Frogspawn, Bubble, and Flower Pot/Goniporia all did great and were beautiful for about 6 months and then each one of them slowly retracted and died.
This did not happen all at once. I lost the bubble about 3 months ago, the frogspawn and goniporia started going about a month ago.

On the frogspawn I lost one complete head, cut it off and the other 2 seemed to be fine for a bit, but then started retracting.

My sofites (finger and toadstool leather) are doing fabulous.
My zoanthid is doing great.
My mushrooms have multiplied.
My branching and encrusting star polyps are doing excellent and spreading.
My branching Candy Cane Coral has been doing really well.
I just added a Montiporia Cup last week and it seems to be doing fine.


Tank info and thread http://www.*********.com/forums/member-tanks/102714-sacohen-55-gallon-tank-thread.html

It's a 55 Gallon tank with a Pro Clear Pro 75 Wet/Dry filter.
Coralife Lunar Aquatic compact Fluorescent lights
A NatureReef Denitrification chamber, a Quite One 3000 return pump and a JBJ Oceanstream Circulation Pump/Powerhead + Duo Wavemaker Kit 1600 gph

Fish include 2 false Clownfish, a bicolor psudochromis, Flame angle and a YellowTang.

1 Pencil Urchin and a Coral Banded Shrimp.

Several Tubro Snails and Mexican Turbo's along with Nassarius snails, Red Led Crabs and Blue Knuckle Crabs.

Corals include a Goniporia (Flower Pot) Toadstool Leather, Finger Leather, Duncan, encursting star polyps and several other that I can't remember the names of.
I'm adding 7.5 ml of Kent Marine Essential Elements, Liquid calcium, Iodine, and Stronium and Molybdenum weekly.

The lighting is a Coral Life Lunar Aquatic with 2 Coralife 65W 10K and 2 Coralife 65W Actinic.

The actinics come on at noon and stay on until 10pm (10 Hrs) the 10K's come on at 2pm and go off at 8pm (6).

Can anyone help and tell me why I'm having some much trouble keeping these.

Still having hard times with my LPS corals.
I have stopped dosing Kent Marine Essential Elements, Liquid calcium, Iodine, and Stronium and Molybdenum, because my levels seem to be pretty consistent from week to week, almost like nothing is taking in the elements.

My Gonipora and Torch coral have stop receding, but are not coming back yet.
My Duncan has just started to recede.

My current levels are...

Levels as of Saturday 3/9/13

Salinity 1.026 via Deep Six Hydrometer
Amonia 0 ppm via API Master Test Kit
Ph 7.8 via API Master Test Kit
Nitrites 0 ppm via API Master Test Kit
Nitrates 0 ppm via API Master Test Kit
Phosphates 0.03 ppm via Hannah Checker
Calcium 450 ppm via Red Sea Reef Foundation Pro Multi Test Kit (Ca,Alk,Mg)
Alkalinity 9.0 dKH via Red Sea Reef Foundation Pro Multi Test Kit (Ca,Alk,Mg)
Magnesium 1360 ppm via Red Sea Reef Foundation Pro Multi Test Kit (Ca,Alk,Mg)

[Reef Bass]

Your alk, ca and mag are good, as are your other measurements except ph. Your ph is low. Personally, I'm down with not dosing things that don't appear to being depleted. Alk and ca are critical and yours seem to be within bounds assuming they are consistent at the levels you report.

Stony corals require time to recover. That they have stopped receding is terrific. Keep providing a good environment and growth will resume.

With the majority of your water parameters in bounds, I'm thinking carbon and water changes might be helpful.

[etannert]

My vote is Mag. My LPS are like magnesium sinks and when mag dips, everything suffers. Get your mag up above 1400 and keep it there, keep Alk at least where it is now, and then be patient, and you may see a turnaround.

Also, be cautious about stripping phosphate out too quickly (via your GFO). Doing so can shock your corals.

Finally, when LPS are recovering, feeding the coral regularly really helps. You can spot feed them a couple or so times a week with pellets, mysis, etc. If you check out the Rescue Corals thread, there's plenty of documentation on ways to keep recovering corals happy. Just know it will take time, feeding and stable parameters.

[Sk8r]

I have hammer and frog and caulestra that are really growing: hammer is entering the 'pest' category. My parameters are in my sig line.
What I avoid: soft corals entirely, because their defense is 'spitting' and the stonies don't like that. Carbon does help.
I don't say it can't be done, but I see three differences in what I'm doing, and one is in the params, which is an easy fix, and the second in that you have a filter, which is taking some of the nutrient and giving you that nitrate reading. I don't have any filter. If you do decide to go 'no-filter,' don't do it suddenly: you have to remove that sort of media about a couple of bioballs a day. I feed ground up jumbo krill, I drip kalk, and I don't have any softies in my tank. Hope that at least gives you some directions to try. If you could get the tank onto kalk and phase out the wet-dry very slowly you might note an improvement; having to do without either stonies or softies is a harder choice, and it's my hope that carbon can solve that problem for you.

[Sacohen]

Your alk, ca and mag are good, as are your other measurements except ph. Your ph is low. Personally, I'm down with not dosing things that don't appear to being depleted. Alk and ca are critical and yours seem to be within bounds assuming they are consistent at the levels you report.

Stony corals require time to recover. That they have stopped receding is terrific. Keep providing a good environment and growth will resume.

With the majority of your water parameters in bounds, I'm thinking carbon and water changes might be helpful.

Reef Bass my levels are pretty consistent now.
Here are my levels since January when I started this thread and got the Red Sea Reef Foundation Pro Multi Test Kit and Hannah Phosphate checker.
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk250/sac9665/TankLevels_zpscf4b541a.png

I do run carbon and GFO in a BRS reactor and do about a 10% water change monthly.

[Reef Bass]

I'm hoping you left out a digit on your last salinty test results. If by 1.02 you mean 1.020, then that's a big drop.

If that is a typo, then yes, your numbers are dialing in. Good job with your testing and tracking of your results.

The interesting thing I see in the last set of numbers of your nitrates dropping to zero and your phosphates to .03. There seems to be a signficant shift there. 5 nitrates is not bad and maybe even ok. Getting your phosphates down from .25 to .03 on Hannah is very good.

Your most out of line value I see in your reported results is now your pH (assuming your salinity was misreported). 8.1-8.3 is preferred. I've not had to deal with low pH, as mine was always over 8 as a result of using Randy's 2 part dosing recipe, and in fact I've switched over to his other recipe that doesn't buffer the pH slightly upwards. I think kalkwasser is an easy way to bump it up some, though you might want to research.

Sk8r's advice about not mixing softies and stonies might be the next thing to try if things don't improve in the next month or so.

[Sacohen]

Yes that last salinity is a typo. I left a # out in the spreadsheet.
It should be Salinity 1.026.

Yeah I thought the pH was low. I have some SeaChem ReefBuffer, but when I used it in February, my #'s on 2/23 came up to 8.0, but my Mag was very high so I stopped using it.
Directions were to add it daily until it came to 8.0 and then use once a month if I remember correctly and I can't remember the exact amount right now I think it was 1 ml per 10 gal. I figure my 55 with sump only has about 50 gallons of water due to rock displacement.