Receding euphyllia and low growth in other coral

[kelper]

Hi, I've been having some issues with my euphyllia receding in their bodies and my other corals (montipora, acan, and candy cane coral) not growing at all.

Here are my current water parameters:

PH: 8.4

Temperature: 78 deg F

Salinity: 1.023

Alk: 7.7 dkH

Ca: 350 ppm

Mg: 1100 ppm

Nitrate: < 5 ppm

Phosphate: no phosphate test kit :(

 

As far as troubleshooting, here is what I've diagnosed and how I've tried to addressed the issues:

1. Element levels. My calcium, alkalinity, magnesium levels are on the low end of the spectrum. A few days ago, they were even lower. I started to dose Kalkwasser 3 days ago. I am going to dose more when I top my water off again. I'm looking to get these elements to a healthy range.

2. Nutrients. My nitrates were almost near 0 at all times. I only have two small clownfish in my tank. I would only feed them one flake each morning (as much as they could eat within 5 minutes). I don't think any food made it to the corals at all. Within the last week, I have fed 3 flakes to my fish each morning (hoping some flakes would reach the corals), and I have target fed reef roids to the corals. I'm not sure how helpful this will be since these corals can technically get all of their food from the light. One result of this is that my rocks have started to grow purple/green algae, as you can see in the full tank shot I've posted below.

3. Water. I have been doing water changes with my own mix of Reef Crystals in RODI water. The salt in my Reef Crystals bag has been clumping. I read online that clumping can throw off some elements/parameters. I haven't specifically addressed this issue, but I will get premixed saltwater from the LFS and use that instead for my next water change.

4. Lighting. I am confused about the lighting. I have kept my lighting fairly consistent, but the corals have gone from brown (usually an indicator of low light) to bleached (usually an indicator of high light). I'm not sure what to make of this.

5. Coral dip. I never dipped my corals when introducing them into my tank. Could I have introduced some sort of bacteria?

 

Besides getting my trace elements to the correct range, is there anything else that might be an issue? If anyone could give me other suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it!

 

 

I've taken some pictures to show the dire state of my corals:

 

Here's what my hammer corals and torch corals looked like when I first got them (2 weeks ago):

 

Here is what the torch coral looks like today:

 

Here is what the hammer coral looks like today:

 

Here's a full tank shot taken today:

[Tamberav]

3 hours ago, kelper said:

 

 

Sorry double post

[Tamberav]

3 hours ago, kelper said:

Hi, I've been having some issues with my euphyllia receding in their bodies and my other corals (montipora, acan, and candy cane coral) not growing at all.

Here are my current water parameters:

PH: 8.4

Temperature: 78 deg F

Salinity: 1.023

Alk: 7.7 dkH

Ca: 350 ppm

Mg: 1100 ppm

Nitrate: < 5 ppm

Phosphate: no phosphate test kit 😞

 

As far as troubleshooting, here is what I've diagnosed and how I've tried to addressed the issues:

1. Element levels. My calcium, alkalinity, magnesium levels are on the low end of the spectrum. A few days ago, they were even lower. I started to dose Kalkwasser 3 days ago. I am going to dose more when I top my water off again. I'm looking to get these elements to a healthy range.

2. Nutrients. My nitrates were almost near 0 at all times. I only have two small clownfish in my tank. I would only feed them one flake each morning (as much as they could eat within 5 minutes). I don't think any food made it to the corals at all. Within the last week, I have fed 3 flakes to my fish each morning (hoping some flakes would reach the corals), and I have target fed reef roids to the corals. I'm not sure how helpful this will be since these corals can technically get all of their food from the light. One result of this is that my rocks have started to grow purple/green algae, as you can see in the full tank shot I've posted below.

3. Water. I have been doing water changes with my own mix of Reef Crystals in RODI water. The salt in my Reef Crystals bag has been clumping. I read online that clumping can throw off some elements/parameters. I haven't specifically addressed this issue, but I will get premixed saltwater from the LFS and use that instead for my next water change.

4. Lighting. I am confused about the lighting. I have kept my lighting fairly consistent, but the corals have gone from brown (usually an indicator of low light) to bleached (usually an indicator of high light). I'm not sure what to make of this.

5. Coral dip. I never dipped my corals when introducing them into my tank. Could I have introduced some sort of bacteria?

 

Besides getting my trace elements to the correct range, is there anything else that might be an issue? If anyone could give me other suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it!

 

 

I've taken some pictures to show the dire state of my corals:

 

Here's what my hammer corals and torch corals looked like when I first got them (2 weeks ago):

 

Here is what the torch coral looks like today:

 

Here is what the hammer coral looks like today:

 

Here's a full tank shot taken today:

 

Your salinity is too low. It should be 1.026. When your salinity is low....your other elements will be on the lower end as well. Raise it slowly.

 

Flake is a convenience food but overall not the best option for the health of your corals or fish. Buy some quality frozen food like LRS nano. Forget the flake.

 

Reef roids is potent and can cause some serious algae issues in young tanks. Use very sparingly...maybe once a week if at all. A better option is target feeding once or twice a week.....your corals that have mouths frozen food like the LRS nano I recommend.

 

What lighting are you using? Bleaching can be both too low lighting as well as too high or too low of nutrients

[kelper]

I'm using the Hipargero Aqua Knight light (it's a "budget" light), but there are Youtube videos out there that show the light sustaining LPS corals. I'll cut back on the reef roids and only use them once each week. I'll up the salinity by adding some to my top off water to slowly get it back to that point. I've been erring on the side of less salinity because when the water evaporates when I have 1.026, and I'm not good at topping off, it can start reaching higher salinity levels. Besides keeping a stable salinity, is there anything else that I can do?

[Tamberav]

2 hours ago, kelper said:

I'm using the Hipargero Aqua Knight light (it's a "budget" light), but there are Youtube videos out there that show the light sustaining LPS corals. I'll cut back on the reef roids and only use them once each week. I'll up the salinity by adding some to my top off water to slowly get it back to that point. I've been erring on the side of less salinity because when the water evaporates when I have 1.026, and I'm not good at topping off, it can start reaching higher salinity levels. Besides keeping a stable salinity, is there anything else that I can do?

I would start with a proper salinity since that should bring your mg and Ca higher. That may be the culprit here.

 

Too low of salinity seems more damaging than too high. I let mine get pretty high sometimes when I don't refill my ATO which isn't a problem but if my filter clogs and my ato overfills I can tell just by looking at my pissy corals. 

 

A successful acro vender called battle corals runs his salinity 1.028-1.029

 

A phosphate test kit can't hurt either. Be sure to keep that sand bed clean.

 

I bought a used tank with corals and many were bleached hammer corals.

 

I never ran any tests but tossed the sand bed out because it looked like it hadnt been cleaned In a year....and many water changes later...everything made a full recovery. I kept the same lighting it came with so lighting certainly wasn't causing the bleaching problem...water quality was.

[Clown79]

Raise your salinity to 1.025 or 1.026(either number is good for reefs)  and once it's at that level, test the parameters.

 

Your target numbers to keep the system stable is what the salt mixes at, so when you mix new water at the correct salinity,  test ca, alk, and mag to find the target numbers. 

 

RC for me had a tendency to be inconsistent with very low mag which can cause an imbalance in ca and alk. 

It clumps quickly too.

 

It's very important to top up regularly, salinity swings can be an issue.

 

Also monitoring alk with stony corals is important because eventually, dosing will be needed. Dosing blindly often leads to problems, you want to dose to replenish what is lost daily. This requires testing for a week to see the daily drop.(once salinity is back to normal and things have started improving, I would do this)

 

Reef roids, in the beginning in a new tank, feed this lightly. I prefer to spot feed it with water movement off so as not to have most of it end up in filtration.

 

Nutrients is important to corals, 0 nitrate and 0 phos isn't beneficial. Lack of coral growth, colouring are just 2 issues. There are worse things that can come with no nutrients.

 

Having a good phos kit is really important. I love the hanna checker, no guessing. After that the salifert kit is liked by many.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kelper]

I checked the parameters this morning:

Ph: 8.4

Salinity: 1.027

Alkalinity: 4.18 dkH??? I'm not sure why it's so low.

Ca: 375 ppm

Mg: 1400 ppm

Nitrate: < 5 ppm

 

I have been topping off the tank every morning rather than every other day to keep the salinity more stable. I do still notice small fluctuations even though I top the tank water off every day. In the morning, the salinity rises to 1.029. I top off enough water to bring the salinity back down to 1.026. And then I'll repeat the next day. This is a more compact range than before where the salinity used to fluctuate between 1.020 and 1.030 when I topped off every other day and over compensated for evaporation by topping off too much water.

 

There are two parameters that I wasn't expecting during this test:

1. The alkalinity is very low.

2. Even though I have increased feeding and fed reef roids last week, the nitrate is still < 5 ppm? I would have expected it to reach >= 5 ppm since I increased feeding.

 

Unfortunately, the corals are still not looking great. The hammer has even few "hammers" left, and the other corals are still retracted. How long of stable parameters does it take until the corals start to get on the incline?

[GetPsyched2124]

I would re-test that alkalinity to be sure. doesn't make sense for it to be that low when the salinity is higher.

 

Test for phosphates.

 

get some frozen foods. i do frozen mysis cubes. i only have a bangaii and firefish at the moment so i chop up the cubes into thirds which are enough. the more diverse foods that are fed the better, as long as it's not too much you end up feeding.

 

while this probably isn't the main culprit, it would be beneficial to stability if you get a clear sheet up acrylic and cut it to size to fit your tank as a lid. this will slow evaporation and retain more stable salinity and levels.

 

that algae on the rocks/sand seems to me that this is probably a relatively new tank. when doing water changes, try to siphon as much of that out as possible.

 

 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

I used to have the same problem. Phosphates definitely played a huge role. My phosphates were too high at the time. Also, if you slack on water changes, I learned that affects them too

[kelper]

45 minutes ago, GetPsyched2124 said:

I would re-test that alkalinity to be sure. doesn't make sense for it to be that low when the salinity is higher.

 

Test for phosphates.

 

get some frozen foods. i do frozen mysis cubes. i only have a bangaii and firefish at the moment so i chop up the cubes into thirds which are enough. the more diverse foods that are fed the better, as long as it's not too much you end up feeding.

 

while this probably isn't the main culprit, it would be beneficial to stability if you get a clear sheet up acrylic and cut it to size to fit your tank as a lid. this will slow evaporation and retain more stable salinity and levels.

 

that algae on the rocks/sand seems to me that this is probably a relatively new tank. when doing water changes, try to siphon as much of that out as possible.

 

 

 

I'll order a phosphate test kit from Amazon. Unfortunately, it looks like it won't arrive until next week. How often do you feed frozen foods? And, do you only feed frozen foods?

Do you know where I could get a custom acrylic sheet cut that would fit a IM 10 tank?

You'd be right on the tank being new. The tank finished cycling at the beginning of September.

32 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I used to have the same problem. Phosphates definitely played a huge role. My phosphates were too high at the time. Also, if you slack on water changes, I learned that affects them too

I didn't realize that phosphate could play such a huge role. It's the only test kit I don't have yet. I'm going to do a water change and test the water coming into the tank. I haven't been doing this before.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

8 minutes ago, kelper said:

 

I'll order a phosphate test kit from Amazon. Unfortunately, it looks like it won't arrive until next week. How often do you feed frozen foods? And, do you only feed frozen foods?

Do you know where I could get a custom acrylic sheet cut that would fit a IM 10 tank?

You'd be right on the tank being new. The tank finished cycling at the beginning of September.

I didn't realize that phosphate could play such a huge role. It's the only test kit I don't have yet. I'm going to do a water change and test the water coming into the tank. I haven't been doing this before.

What kinda water do you use? Rodi?

[kelper]

7 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

What kinda water do you use? Rodi?

Yup, I use RODI water that I get from the fish store. When I do a water change, I fill up a bucket with ~2 gallons of RODI water and slowly pour Reef Crystals in until I reach a salinity of 1.026.

 

How often were you doing water changes? And, did lowering your phosphates lead to a noticeable change in the health of your corals? If it did, how long did it take before you could tell they were actually getting better?

[GetPsyched2124]

18 minutes ago, kelper said:

 

I'll order a phosphate test kit from Amazon. Unfortunately, it looks like it won't arrive until next week. How often do you feed frozen foods? And, do you only feed frozen foods?

Do you know where I could get a custom acrylic sheet cut that would fit a IM 10 tank?

You'd be right on the tank being new. The tank finished cycling at the beginning of September.

I didn't realize that phosphate could play such a huge role. It's the only test kit I don't have yet. I'm going to do a water change and test the water coming into the tank. I haven't been doing this before.

You can actually just go to home depot/lowes/menards and buy a large acryllic sheet and a cutting tool all for around $25-$30.

 

I feed frozen and pellets almost every day. My bangaii will only eat frozen food and copepods that get thrown up into the water column. once, maybe twice a week i target feed reef roids.

I only feed enough frozen for my Bangaii to eat roughly half of what i put in. for the firefish, he gets about 5-7 pellets. the bangaii won't eat the pellets. but the firefish will pick off some of the rest of the frozen mysis.

 

with all that crap growing on the sand and rocks, mine looked similar to that about 3 or 4 months after setting up my tank. I had an acan that was not happy at all.

[Clown79]

I've had phosphate as high as 0.30 and had no negative effects.

 

I have more algae now with phos being lower and nitrates being 5.

 

Phos plays a huge part in the ecosystem. The lack of it not only leads to corals not growing but is the leading cause of dino's.

 

 

Salinity does slightly go up with evap. Mine goes from 1.026 to 1.027 but its stable. I top up twice a day.

 

You have to top up to the exact same area every day or it will change.

 

You can do a diy ato with a hamster bottle. I've gotten 2 days out of 1 on my 10g.

 

 

What kit are you testing your alk with? 

I definitely agree to retest with the tank at proper salinity 

[Tamberav]

4 hours ago, kelper said:

I checked the parameters this morning:

Ph: 8.4

Salinity: 1.027

Alkalinity: 4.18 dkH??? I'm not sure why it's so low.

Ca: 375 ppm

Mg: 1400 ppm

Nitrate: < 5 ppm

 

I have been topping off the tank every morning rather than every other day to keep the salinity more stable. I do still notice small fluctuations even though I top the tank water off every day. In the morning, the salinity rises to 1.029. I top off enough water to bring the salinity back down to 1.026. And then I'll repeat the next day. This is a more compact range than before where the salinity used to fluctuate between 1.020 and 1.030 when I topped off every other day and over compensated for evaporation by topping off too much water.

 

There are two parameters that I wasn't expecting during this test:

1. The alkalinity is very low.

2. Even though I have increased feeding and fed reef roids last week, the nitrate is still < 5 ppm? I would have expected it to reach >= 5 ppm since I increased feeding.

 

Unfortunately, the corals are still not looking great. The hammer has even few "hammers" left, and the other corals are still retracted. How long of stable parameters does it take until the corals start to get on the incline?

 

If cost is a concern for an ATO you can just buy a hamster bottle and make a gravity fed ATO for a few dollars. 

 

 

 

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