Hello there,
I'm hoping to get some help to turn around my tank, which at this point, I'm about ready to give up on.
The tank was setup February of 2018, so we're coming up on almost 2 years now, and I have not been able to keep practically any corals in the tank to save my life. The ones that I have been able to "keep", have practically no growth to them at all. I didn't even have any noticeable coraline growth until a couple of months ago.
The only type of coral I can keep alive are soft coral currently, and even then, I can't keep some of these without having issues. Twice I've tried to keep ricordea, at the LFS each one I've purchased was super big and very colorful, and both times once added to my tank, they veryyyyyy slowly shrunk to the size of maybe a pencil eraser, lost its color (turning white) then eventually detached from the rock never to be seen again. As far as I know, typically the bleaching would be from too much light, but each time I've tried them, they were under an overhang, at the corner of the tank, so they were not under direct light. On the other hand, a Rhodactis that I have has been doing fairly well.
The only other corals I currently have in the tank are two different zoanthids and a toadstool. The zoanthids go through phases of being open and looking good, then they will be closed for several days at a time. One of them has grown decently, probably adding 5-6 new polyps in the past 6 months since I've had it, while the other has had two polyps since I added it to the tank around the same time. The toadstool was one of the first corals that I had added, and I would say that it's no bigger than when it was added originally.
All of the LPS I've tried so far haven't fared any better. With probably half of them dying within a week of adding them, to lasting several months and then slowly declining. The Acans and Blastos I have tried always looked good at first, even adding additional polyps over the course of a couple months, then they slowly start to recede from the skeletons and then the remaining polyps bail-out. The euphilia I have tried haven't lasted longer than 2 weeks, lose color (becoming translucent) and then start to recede from the skeleton and bail-out any surviving polyps.
I always start them on the sand once they're added, then slowly move them over to the rock, but most don't even make it off the sand due to the tissue loss.
I've had a few bouts with different types of algae as well (dinos, hair, turf algae) which I've mostly been able to keep in check, but I haven't been able to get rid of much of it completely. As far as from what I've seen a lot of these can be cause by low nutrients but I haven't really been able to raise them too much either. So I'm just at a standstill with everything and have no idea what is causing so many issues... I had attempted to set up a fuge to help with the algae issues, but the chaeto met the same fate as the corals (turned white, kinda broke apart and melted) and I haven't tried to set one up afterwards
I do about 20% waterchange once a week -- up until recently, I was obtaining my saltwater and RO pre-made from an LFS, but thought maybe I was having issues so I purchased a 6 stage BRS RO/DI unit. Which reads at 0 TDS coming from the unit and I have been using the RedSea blue bucket to mix to 1.026 since.
Testing as of right now are below -- I have a triton test that I haven't filled/sent quite yet but plan on doing so in the next day or two.
Salinity - 1.026
ALK - 9 (Hanna checker)
CA - 400
PO4 - .10 (Hanna checker)
NO3 - 2-5??? Hard to tell with my kit
I have a 6 bulb ATI T5 over the tank, probably about 9 inches from the surface, with two bulbs on from 10 AM - 12 PM, all 6 bulbs on from 12 PM - 6 PM and then again just the two bulbs from 6 PM - 9 PM.
I've tried to include as much information that I can think to.
PLEASE HELP
I'm hoping to get some help to turn around my tank, which at this point, I'm about ready to give up on.
The tank was setup February of 2018, so we're coming up on almost 2 years now, and I have not been able to keep practically any corals in the tank to save my life. The ones that I have been able to "keep", have practically no growth to them at all. I didn't even have any noticeable coraline growth until a couple of months ago.
The only type of coral I can keep alive are soft coral currently, and even then, I can't keep some of these without having issues. Twice I've tried to keep ricordea, at the LFS each one I've purchased was super big and very colorful, and both times once added to my tank, they veryyyyyy slowly shrunk to the size of maybe a pencil eraser, lost its color (turning white) then eventually detached from the rock never to be seen again. As far as I know, typically the bleaching would be from too much light, but each time I've tried them, they were under an overhang, at the corner of the tank, so they were not under direct light. On the other hand, a Rhodactis that I have has been doing fairly well.
The only other corals I currently have in the tank are two different zoanthids and a toadstool. The zoanthids go through phases of being open and looking good, then they will be closed for several days at a time. One of them has grown decently, probably adding 5-6 new polyps in the past 6 months since I've had it, while the other has had two polyps since I added it to the tank around the same time. The toadstool was one of the first corals that I had added, and I would say that it's no bigger than when it was added originally.
All of the LPS I've tried so far haven't fared any better. With probably half of them dying within a week of adding them, to lasting several months and then slowly declining. The Acans and Blastos I have tried always looked good at first, even adding additional polyps over the course of a couple months, then they slowly start to recede from the skeletons and then the remaining polyps bail-out. The euphilia I have tried haven't lasted longer than 2 weeks, lose color (becoming translucent) and then start to recede from the skeleton and bail-out any surviving polyps.
I always start them on the sand once they're added, then slowly move them over to the rock, but most don't even make it off the sand due to the tissue loss.
I've had a few bouts with different types of algae as well (dinos, hair, turf algae) which I've mostly been able to keep in check, but I haven't been able to get rid of much of it completely. As far as from what I've seen a lot of these can be cause by low nutrients but I haven't really been able to raise them too much either. So I'm just at a standstill with everything and have no idea what is causing so many issues... I had attempted to set up a fuge to help with the algae issues, but the chaeto met the same fate as the corals (turned white, kinda broke apart and melted) and I haven't tried to set one up afterwards
I do about 20% waterchange once a week -- up until recently, I was obtaining my saltwater and RO pre-made from an LFS, but thought maybe I was having issues so I purchased a 6 stage BRS RO/DI unit. Which reads at 0 TDS coming from the unit and I have been using the RedSea blue bucket to mix to 1.026 since.
Testing as of right now are below -- I have a triton test that I haven't filled/sent quite yet but plan on doing so in the next day or two.
Salinity - 1.026
ALK - 9 (Hanna checker)
CA - 400
PO4 - .10 (Hanna checker)
NO3 - 2-5??? Hard to tell with my kit
I have a 6 bulb ATI T5 over the tank, probably about 9 inches from the surface, with two bulbs on from 10 AM - 12 PM, all 6 bulbs on from 12 PM - 6 PM and then again just the two bulbs from 6 PM - 9 PM.
I've tried to include as much information that I can think to.
PLEASE HELP