johnnyb
Non-member
Been a while since I have posted but really just kind of getting back active in the hobby. My son just headed off to college last month so I was looking for a hobby instead of chasing him around to sports every night and decided to get back in to the hobby I already have. Well my wife want my tank to look like the display tanks we see and go wow. So I started off with my system having a lot of hair algae. I began to clean that up pulling most out by hand and adding some sea hares that took care of it. My system consists of a 180 gallon and a 54 gallon corner display tank. My 180 has 3 devils hands 2 large carpet anemones 7 rose bubble anemones. It has 5 clown fish a purple tang 4 blue cromis 2 cardinals. My 54 which is tied in to the same filtration has dwarf puffers 2 spotted and 1 Im not sure of the name. It has a black angel and a clown trigger (dont bother telling me about the size of the fish in the 54 they are all below 3 inches and I have my 180 to transfer them to along with my son in law has a 180 and a 260 tank that we transfer large fish to as they out grown the tanks). I recently added to my 180 a torch, and a green hammer ,Duncan,along with a couple small frags of monti cap, war coral, My miami, some differnet color zoas, Strawberry shortcake, red planet, bonsai, favia, Hollywood stunner, and a couple small frags I forget the name of. So here is where the problem comes in.
A couple days after adding the caps they turned white and have died. The other sps over a few weeks have lost the flesh and have died also. The only ones that seem to be doing ok is the hollywoods. The soft stuff looks and are doing great. I went looking for a thread on the internet to find how people fix this issue. Of course I found about 100000 threads with every possible cause known to man but not one thread had a conclusion to success. I decided to post my upcoming battle to have a thread that hopefully will have a happy conclusion.
So here is my system my display tanks drain down to my basement I have a 100 gallon rubbermaid tote with about 100 lbs of rock that my 180 drains to. I use a sock filter to filter solids and prevent micro bubbles from the long fall. My 54 flows back to a 55 gallon sump with a protein skimmer that skims about a cup per day of dry foam. my sump then pumps up to a 55 gallon refuge filled with cheato that drains through a media and then has pump that pumps out to a dual tube reactor with 1 side filled with carbon the other side filled with phosban. My refuge also has a tube that goes to a pump on an rx1 calcium reactor. the rx1 has a ph probe that measures ph and uses carbon dioxide to dissolve calcium media and drips back to the lower 55 gallon sump. Then all sumps flow back to the 100 gallon tote and is pumped back up stairs. all drains are positioned so pods and treated water runs back to the sump and treated water is returned back to the displays with out going thru skimming or refuge. I have a temp probe to control temp. I have a 55 gallon tank that is connected to a rodi system that auto tops off. I have a 30 gallon barrel that has another rodi for water changes that I transfer to another barrel for salt mixing and temp control before doing water changes. I have a ground probe in my tanks to prevent stray current. I have a hammerhead gold return pump.
In my 180 I have a deep sand bed with approximatley 200 lbs of live rock my 54 has a shallow sand bed with around 75 lbs of rock. My 54 has an additional hang on the back skimmer that skims about 1 cup every week. I have a jeabo wr 25 pump in the 54 along with a koralia 450 gph. My 180 has 2 jeabo wr 25 and a koralia 450 gph.I have a maxi jet power head to bring more water up from the back of the tank to the top. my tanks returns 30 gallons per minute to my sumps.
I have 2 Ai hydra 26 and 1 hydra 52 over my 180 and a sol blue over my 54. My lights are currently 10 inches over the water. My 180 is a bow front so My sand bed is about 37 inches from my light. The top of my rock is about 6 inches from the top of the water. So I can adjust coral heights to almost any depth. My lights come on with just blues at 11 am they ramp up for 1 hr to 12 percent at 1 pm my lights ramp up to full spectrum of 60 percent at 5 pm my lights begin to go down for 2 hrs to 12 percent then the blue moon lights stay on till 10 pm. my pumps are set to random motion and are wified together to alter current
I do water changes weekly though during the winter this year i performed no maintenance on the system for 7 months and had no change in water quality. My System after neglecting it for those months showed a rise in only phosphate. water changes and phospban were used to correct that situation. I only fed fish during thst time period no dosing no water changes no media changes in reactors... I didnt even change my rodi filtration.
My chemistry is as follows all tests done with red sea and red sea pro kits
Ph 8.3 ph probe calibrated to match
alk 10.2
phos 0
nitrate -.025
nitrite 0
ammonia -.025
mag 1250
calcium 450
temp 80 degress
salinity 1.24
I purchased new kits as well as having water tested at local fish stores. All numbers have been rock steady for over 1 month and were set prior to adding corals. I haven't had to does any chemicals this month other than using 8.3 reef buffer and soda ash prior to adding corals to bring my ph up from 7.7 and my alk to 10.2. After initial dosing and adjustment to calcium reactor I haven't had to does.
I feed my tanks mysis, krill, and clams, I use reef gumbo and fuel along with another amino acid I forget the name of at the moment. I feed the coral food twice a week and feed the solid foods every other day. spot feeding at least 2 times per week.
I am stumped The corals are not dying slowly this is rapid death. I have never seen any fish or pests bothering the coral. nor are any corals close enough to sting each other. I have hired a fish company (one of the brs sponsors) to come out and help me find what is going wrong. All corals i have added were fully healed and dipped prior to adding. All came from led lit systems and showed signs of encrusting prior to purchase. I will up date this as we try things and hopefully find a conclusion. If you can think of any other info i should add to this let me know. I am including pictures of the system though these are older and dont reflect the new pump and addition of the rubbermaid tote.My lights in the picture have been upgraded from the sols and lowered.
A couple days after adding the caps they turned white and have died. The other sps over a few weeks have lost the flesh and have died also. The only ones that seem to be doing ok is the hollywoods. The soft stuff looks and are doing great. I went looking for a thread on the internet to find how people fix this issue. Of course I found about 100000 threads with every possible cause known to man but not one thread had a conclusion to success. I decided to post my upcoming battle to have a thread that hopefully will have a happy conclusion.
So here is my system my display tanks drain down to my basement I have a 100 gallon rubbermaid tote with about 100 lbs of rock that my 180 drains to. I use a sock filter to filter solids and prevent micro bubbles from the long fall. My 54 flows back to a 55 gallon sump with a protein skimmer that skims about a cup per day of dry foam. my sump then pumps up to a 55 gallon refuge filled with cheato that drains through a media and then has pump that pumps out to a dual tube reactor with 1 side filled with carbon the other side filled with phosban. My refuge also has a tube that goes to a pump on an rx1 calcium reactor. the rx1 has a ph probe that measures ph and uses carbon dioxide to dissolve calcium media and drips back to the lower 55 gallon sump. Then all sumps flow back to the 100 gallon tote and is pumped back up stairs. all drains are positioned so pods and treated water runs back to the sump and treated water is returned back to the displays with out going thru skimming or refuge. I have a temp probe to control temp. I have a 55 gallon tank that is connected to a rodi system that auto tops off. I have a 30 gallon barrel that has another rodi for water changes that I transfer to another barrel for salt mixing and temp control before doing water changes. I have a ground probe in my tanks to prevent stray current. I have a hammerhead gold return pump.
In my 180 I have a deep sand bed with approximatley 200 lbs of live rock my 54 has a shallow sand bed with around 75 lbs of rock. My 54 has an additional hang on the back skimmer that skims about 1 cup every week. I have a jeabo wr 25 pump in the 54 along with a koralia 450 gph. My 180 has 2 jeabo wr 25 and a koralia 450 gph.I have a maxi jet power head to bring more water up from the back of the tank to the top. my tanks returns 30 gallons per minute to my sumps.
I have 2 Ai hydra 26 and 1 hydra 52 over my 180 and a sol blue over my 54. My lights are currently 10 inches over the water. My 180 is a bow front so My sand bed is about 37 inches from my light. The top of my rock is about 6 inches from the top of the water. So I can adjust coral heights to almost any depth. My lights come on with just blues at 11 am they ramp up for 1 hr to 12 percent at 1 pm my lights ramp up to full spectrum of 60 percent at 5 pm my lights begin to go down for 2 hrs to 12 percent then the blue moon lights stay on till 10 pm. my pumps are set to random motion and are wified together to alter current
I do water changes weekly though during the winter this year i performed no maintenance on the system for 7 months and had no change in water quality. My System after neglecting it for those months showed a rise in only phosphate. water changes and phospban were used to correct that situation. I only fed fish during thst time period no dosing no water changes no media changes in reactors... I didnt even change my rodi filtration.
My chemistry is as follows all tests done with red sea and red sea pro kits
Ph 8.3 ph probe calibrated to match
alk 10.2
phos 0
nitrate -.025
nitrite 0
ammonia -.025
mag 1250
calcium 450
temp 80 degress
salinity 1.24
I purchased new kits as well as having water tested at local fish stores. All numbers have been rock steady for over 1 month and were set prior to adding corals. I haven't had to does any chemicals this month other than using 8.3 reef buffer and soda ash prior to adding corals to bring my ph up from 7.7 and my alk to 10.2. After initial dosing and adjustment to calcium reactor I haven't had to does.
I feed my tanks mysis, krill, and clams, I use reef gumbo and fuel along with another amino acid I forget the name of at the moment. I feed the coral food twice a week and feed the solid foods every other day. spot feeding at least 2 times per week.
I am stumped The corals are not dying slowly this is rapid death. I have never seen any fish or pests bothering the coral. nor are any corals close enough to sting each other. I have hired a fish company (one of the brs sponsors) to come out and help me find what is going wrong. All corals i have added were fully healed and dipped prior to adding. All came from led lit systems and showed signs of encrusting prior to purchase. I will up date this as we try things and hopefully find a conclusion. If you can think of any other info i should add to this let me know. I am including pictures of the system though these are older and dont reflect the new pump and addition of the rubbermaid tote.My lights in the picture have been upgraded from the sols and lowered.
