HI all, looking for any feedback or advice on what seems to be a healthy system, yet struggling with some "easier" corals. Awhile back I had posted about healthy corals all of a sudden dying or struggling, I never really ended up determining what happened, I did 4 water changes in a two week period and started running some ROX carbon for 2 weeks. I also sent in water for an ICP test. The corals that weren't struggling seemed to hold on and I removed the ones that dyed, then sort of held tight on things and didn't add anything new for a few weeks. Once I tried some new corals some ended up okay, and some didn't.
The ICP test revealed nothing off, just a little low on Iodine and Strontium, not terrible, just on the end of the low scale. Below are my current parameters as of today:
Alkalinity: 8.2
Calcium: 400
Magnesium: 1380
Nitrate: 1.7
Phosphate: .03
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 77.8
Corals that dyed all together:
- 3 Acropora
- 2 Cyphastrea
Corals that are currently struggling:
- 2 Acropora
- 2 Montipora caps
- 1 Neon green birdsnest
- 1 Stylocoeniella Burning Bananna
- 1 Montipora setosa
- Green Hulk Lepto
Corals that are currently healthy:
- Red Acans
- Alveopora
- Frilly Mushroom
- Metallic green button polyp
- Zoanthids
- Hammer
- Cabbage leather
- Montipora Spongodes
The corals that are struggling do so after a couple of weeks of adding them. My parameters don't swing much, the Alk dosing is automated and I have tested at 3 different times of the day and the swing is never more than .5 in a 24 hour period (like 8.2 to 8.7 from morning to late night) hopefully that is stable enough. All other parameters get tested every 3 days and adjusted as needed. I have 2 Red Sea Reef LED 90's for lighting over a Red Sea Max 400. They are set to 100% Blue and 50% White and run 11 hours total including a small ramp up and ramp down period. I have two Reef Wave 25's (one on each end) the two powerheads built into the back wall and the return pump, so flow seems adequate?
I have coraline algae starting to grow nicely (the system is 7 months old) and what seems like a good pod population. No real aglae issues other than a thin brownish green coat on the back wall ( I don't scrape it) and I have to clean the other 3 sides of glass about every 3 days or so. I dose ammino acid every other day according to directions and perform a 20 gallon water change every two weeks like clockwork.
The fish in the system are all quite healthy and consist of:
- 2 clown fish
- Tailspot blenny
- Royal gramma
- Randalls goby
- Gold neon goby
- Geometric pygmy hawk
WIth all this being said, I think I will hold off on adding any more corals for awhile and keep doing what I'm doing and see if it "matures" and the struggling corals are perhaps recovered. I posted to see if anyone has had a similar situation and if so what if anything different was done to help. I would love to get it to a point where I can confidently add various corals and keep them all healthy. Apologies of the long post, thanks in advance for any feedback.
The ICP test revealed nothing off, just a little low on Iodine and Strontium, not terrible, just on the end of the low scale. Below are my current parameters as of today:
Alkalinity: 8.2
Calcium: 400
Magnesium: 1380
Nitrate: 1.7
Phosphate: .03
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 77.8
Corals that dyed all together:
- 3 Acropora
- 2 Cyphastrea
Corals that are currently struggling:
- 2 Acropora
- 2 Montipora caps
- 1 Neon green birdsnest
- 1 Stylocoeniella Burning Bananna
- 1 Montipora setosa
- Green Hulk Lepto
Corals that are currently healthy:
- Red Acans
- Alveopora
- Frilly Mushroom
- Metallic green button polyp
- Zoanthids
- Hammer
- Cabbage leather
- Montipora Spongodes
The corals that are struggling do so after a couple of weeks of adding them. My parameters don't swing much, the Alk dosing is automated and I have tested at 3 different times of the day and the swing is never more than .5 in a 24 hour period (like 8.2 to 8.7 from morning to late night) hopefully that is stable enough. All other parameters get tested every 3 days and adjusted as needed. I have 2 Red Sea Reef LED 90's for lighting over a Red Sea Max 400. They are set to 100% Blue and 50% White and run 11 hours total including a small ramp up and ramp down period. I have two Reef Wave 25's (one on each end) the two powerheads built into the back wall and the return pump, so flow seems adequate?
I have coraline algae starting to grow nicely (the system is 7 months old) and what seems like a good pod population. No real aglae issues other than a thin brownish green coat on the back wall ( I don't scrape it) and I have to clean the other 3 sides of glass about every 3 days or so. I dose ammino acid every other day according to directions and perform a 20 gallon water change every two weeks like clockwork.
The fish in the system are all quite healthy and consist of:
- 2 clown fish
- Tailspot blenny
- Royal gramma
- Randalls goby
- Gold neon goby
- Geometric pygmy hawk
WIth all this being said, I think I will hold off on adding any more corals for awhile and keep doing what I'm doing and see if it "matures" and the struggling corals are perhaps recovered. I posted to see if anyone has had a similar situation and if so what if anything different was done to help. I would love to get it to a point where I can confidently add various corals and keep them all healthy. Apologies of the long post, thanks in advance for any feedback.